This is the final installment in my Gordo series, tho it is not, in fact, the end of the series. This tale fills a gap between Gordo's Girls/Parker's Obsession (which happen some time before) and Overcome (which pretty much directly follows). That would be the proper order to read in, if you wanted to place this in the series. But I think this story will stand well on its own, if that's all you want to read. (For a complete list of all the stories in my Gordo series, if you are interested, visit my FF Profile Page.) I may or may not write further adventures of Gordo in this series, but I am happy for the moment that with this story I am filling the gap.
Oddly, tho this is my Gordo series, I am letting Lizzie tell the story. It just seemed right to get her perspective at this point.
Anyway, for summertime teenage angst, read on…and enjoy!
(Note: I had some trouble getting FF to accept the formatting, it wasn't working like it usually does, so I hope this comes out looking okay!)
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Afterwards, everyone kept telling me that what I saw wasn't actually what I saw. But I'm not a fool.
Well, okay. I am a fool. But still. I know what I saw.
Let me put it to you this way. That very same morning, Gordo and I had been sitting on the front steps of my house, waiting for Rachel to pick us up in her car. For a long time, we sat there, not talking. It had been like that a lot between us lately. There was a… tension between us. I don't know how to describe it. It wasn't like it used to be. Things weren't so good anymore, not like they had been when we first started going out.
But anyway, while we were sitting there, not talking, I got up a few times to check the back of my shorts. We were going to the beach, and I was wearing white shorts, but the steps were dirty, especially dirty since it had rained last night, and I kept standing up to brush off the back of my shorts.
Well, I had to do something, didn't I? I couldn't just sit there with Gordo, neither of us saying anything after what had just happened. I looked at my shorts, because I didn't want to look at him, and he wasn't looking at me either, because he was mad at me. We had just finished having this huge fight, but I'm not going to go into all that here. I'm just saying that we weren't looking at each other, and we weren't talking, and it was extremely awkward.
Well, that can only go on for so long. Rachel was late again, like she always is, and we had to keep sitting there, in the morning sunshine—and it was steaming hot!—listening to the silence that was only broken by the distant chiming of an ice cream truck a block or two away, and eventually, I couldn't help it. I had to look at Gordo again.
So, my point is, I looked at him, and I know what I saw at that moment, sitting on the steps. And I know what I saw later that day, in the ocean, with all our friends all around, pointing and staring and laughing. Yeah, it was the same guy. It was this guy, David Gordon, my former best friend, my current boyfriend…soon to be ex-boyfriend. Every time I looked at Gordo, I knew what I saw.
What did everybody mean, I didn't see what I saw? Why would they say that? Whose side are they on, anyway? Were they all just trying to be nice, trying to smooth things over, trying to make me feel better?
Well, it didn't work. Because I know what I saw. And it made me feel just about as miserable as I've ever felt in my life. Hard as it is to believe, the way I felt at the end of this day was even worse than the way I felt at the beginning of this day, sitting on the front steps with Gordo. Things were about to go from bad to worse.
So this is the situation. School was out. Finally! It was the middle of June, beautifully hot weather, steamy weather, beach weather, and this is supposed to be the summer of our lives. We're done with our Sophomore year, so we are now officially Juniors, yet without all the hassle of actually having to go to school. Best time of your life, right?
Gordo and I had been going out since Valentine's Day, so it was about four months, and during those four months, we were mostly happy, unbearably happy. All I wanted now was to go on being happy, and have the best summer ever. But Gordo, apparently, had a different plan for us.
What's his freakin' problem, anyway? Why does he always have to make life so complicated? You know, sometimes, when I think about it—like then, sitting on the front steps, looking at him staring up into the sky, trying very, very hard not to look at me—it seems to me that Gordo really likes being miserable. He seems to seek out problems and things to worry about. Maybe it's due to his parents both being psychiatrists. Too much exposure to personality disorders, you know? Maybe somehow he thinks that having problems is normal. Or maybe he thinks a complicated life is an interesting life. I really don't know. But, I mean, how else can you explain all the crap he'd been putting me through? All this preoccupation with sex, that pesky ho, Parker McKenzie, and to even think what he's thinking about me and Rachel—
But I'm getting way ahead of myself here, aren't I? I guess all of these problems didn't happen overnight. But that morning in June, looking down the street for the red of Rachel's convertible, after the argument Gordo and I had just had, I would say they were at a peak. So, really, I shouldn't have been surprised at all by what happened later that day on at the beach. I shouldn't have been surprised, and maybe I shouldn't have even been upset, but—
No. No. That's Gordo talking. I had every right to be upset, after everything he'd put me through. Girls don't have to always bury their feelings and be subservient, just because they're girls. They have as much right as a guy to say what they want in a relationship. It's not just all about him, you know. It's a two way street.
Now that's Rachel talking. She was always saying things like that to me. She's made me realize a lot about who I am as a person. She's made me see that it's all right to stand up for myself. And that drove Gordo crazy, didn't it? That's why he wasn't even talking to me that morning on the steps. He knew if he said something—anything!—I'd shoot right back at him.
You know, at the time, I almost wish he would have said something. I was ready for him. What made him think he could say the kind of things he just said to me and get away with it? I wasn't going to take this lying down. I wasn't going to let him get away with being a selfish, egotistical male chauvinist pig. I was so pissed! So I stood up, wiped the butt of my white short shorts one more time, and put my hands on my hips, staring down at Gordo, daring him to look at me. But he didn't, he just kept his eyes fixed on the end of the block.
So I shifted my weight and sighed. "Okay, look—" I began.
"No, you look," he said instantly, but still not looking at me. "I don't want to do this with you anymore, Lizzie—"
I gasped indignantly. "Are you saying you want to break up with me?" My voice sounded kind of shrill, I could hear it.
"No!" he screeched back. Now, at last, he was looking at me. In fact, the look he gave me was kind of…well, very sad, very hurt, and I felt myself softening up a little. "No," he said then, more quietly. "It's not that at all. I love you, Lizzie. You should know that by now. I never want to break up with you. What I mean is, I don't want to fight with you anymore. And especially not today. Today is supposed to be all about having fun, starting the summer off right. So what are we doing? Why are we fighting? This doesn't make sense."
"I didn't start it," I reminded Gordo, hanging on to my last shred of bitterness.
"I didn't say you started it. And anyway, it's not about who started it. It's just about…well, let's just get past all this, can't we? I don't want to fight with you anymore, Lizzie. Can we stop this already? Can we go back to how we were? Before all this stupid stuff began?"
I honestly didn't know. Could we?