…
The Sacred Rays
Three Small, Big Words: Part Two
February 28th, 2016.
Sunday.
The kitchen is buzzing about with its typical Sunday morning bustle. The bread browns to a perfect golden shade as it bakes in the oven, while the vegetables sizzle and the scrambled eggs fluff. Taylor personally sees to it that each of the tasks are completed to her clear specifications. This morning, not terribly unlike others before, her helpers are less concerned with the food as they are each other.
"It will be okay," Troy says hovering his flour-covered hand by her face to cup it before realizing the dirty state of his hand and veering it away. "Don't cry."
"I'm just so frustrated with her," Gabriella sniffles from her spot sitting atop the counter.
"Who?" Taylor finally asks, her curiosity overtaking her politeness to keep herself from eavesdropping.
"Kelsi," Gabriella sighs. "She never apologized for reaching out to Troy behind my back. We've been silently working around each other for weeks now, neither of us acknowledging it. It's just awful! We're supposed to be friends."
"Maybe she thinks what she did to you doesn't require an apology," Taylor hypothesizes.
"Of course it does!" Gabriella bellows. "Why wouldn't it?"
"Kelsi evidently has different priorities," Taylor continues, removing a perfectly baked loaf of bread from the oven and placing it on the cooling rack behind her. "She'd save the studio before worrying about your feelings. So to her, her actions were justified."
"I can't believe she'd think like that though," Gabriella sulks.
"I have to agree with Taylor," Troy says. "She puts you beneath the studio."
"Well even if she does, she must know that she hurt me nevertheless. Isn't that much worth an apology?"
"I think you might have to spell it out to her," Troy says. "Maybe she thinks you've been quiet for a different reason these past weeks. You can't expect her to know how she's hurt you without talking to her about it. If I were Kelsi, and I hurt you how she did, I'd want you to tell me."
"You're right," Gabriella nods, "The least I could do is talk with her about it. Who knows, maybe she'll apologize and we can remain friends after all of this?"
"Exactly," Troy smiles.
Gabriella jumps off the counter and wraps her arms around Troy's neck as he catches her. They remain in their tight embrace, allowing their sense for the surroundings to fade.
"Now that that's out of the way," Taylor says. "You think you two can handle taking these out to my car while I clean up?"
"You're asking if we can finally help you, right?" Troy smirks, still holding Gabriella in his arms.
"You could certainly interpret it that way," Taylor responds.
"Of course!" Troy breaks away from Gabriella and approaches the empty bags and cooling loaves of bread to package them. When suddenly, there is a knock on the door.
Taylor glances through the kitchen and past the dining room at the front door, staring at it hopefully. "I'll get it," she announces, stripping her apron from her body and laying it across the counter on her way to the door.
Troy and Gabriella exchange a quick, curious look before quietly following and leaning their heads past Taylor to see the door.
Taylor wraps her flour-covered hand around the cool metal knob and twists, slowly pulling the door open.
"Hey," Chad glances behind Taylor to see Troy and Gabriella far off in the kitchen.
Troy and Gabriella quickly reorient themselves to stand straight and exchange a surprised expression. Gabriella grabs his wrist to lead him down the hallway to her room.
After seeing the others disappear, Chad asks, "Can I come in?"
"Yes," Taylor says solemnly. She steps out of the way, her eyes following the back of his head until he takes a seat at the couch. She closes the door and crosses the small room to join him.
"I figured from your reaction that I'd never see you again," Taylor says, her posture erect and rigid.
"That…wasn't the case," Chad stretches his sweaty hands atop his pants. "I was just shocked by everything. I'm sorry if I concerned you."
Taylor silently grabs the pillow next to the armrest and set it over her lap, gently pulling on the bundle strings at its corners.
"How are you doing?" Chad finally asks after moments of awkward silence.
"I feel…scared," Taylor admits.
"Me too. Are you sure you want to keep it?"
"Yes, and I want you to step up to the plate and be there for me and the baby."
"I will."
"Can you promise you won't run off on me again?"
"Yes, I promise." Chad reaches an arm over Taylor and brings her into his chest.
...
They had met at this particular café countless times before, its gaudy art and layout forever burned in her memory. Anyone could peak in and see the two at their regular spots, drinking their regular drinks, and assume it was just another one of their many studio discussions before it. This time, however, is vastly different. The final days at the studio approaching thickens the animosity in the heavy air overhead.
"I just want to get this straight," Kelsi begins, her cold hands wrapping around the body of her large paper cup. "Troy would sponsor us if you let him, correctly?"
Gabriella gently lowers her mug to place it on the table, "I won't let him."
"But if you did, he would?" Kelsi flexed her hands a top the table as though she were physically trying to get a grasp at the situation, as well.
"Yes, Kelsi," Gabriella rolls her eyes, already growing aggravated. "Is that what you want to hear? Do you want me to say that I'm the one at fault? We had nearly fifty other donors. Any of them could have come to our rescue, but you'd rather focus on the one that I was romantically involved with."
"Those other donors weren't a hundredth as willing to donate as Troy," Kelsi spits, her breathing heavy and her eyes narrowing in fury. "All we needed was your little connection with him to push him over the cusp, but you refused to use it."
"Is my relationship with him only a business connection to you?" Gabriella wonders aloud. "Every time I told you about him, were you just thinking of how you could take advantage of it later?"
"Of course not!" Kelsi rolls her eyes, "Stop being so melodramatic. I was obviously as excited for you as I could be. Look, you can't see it as either using someone or not, it's not black and white like that. You can like someone as a person while asking them for money. I don't know what's so hard for you to understand about that."
"Troy didn't know that we existed before I met him," Gabriella explains. "His interest in the studio is a reflection of his interest in me and I refuse to take advantage of that."
"It wouldn't be taking advantage, it'd be using connections. That's how anyone has stayed afloat in the art scene since before the renaissance."
"That's simply not true," Gabriella argues. "We had Rick for so long."
"Oh Gabriella, don't be so naïve. Do you honestly believe Rick got too touchy out of nowhere? It had been building," she drops her voice. "I let him grope me for months before it went too far. The last time he tried ripping my clothes off and I stopped him. Now I'm starting to wish I hadn't."
Gabriella coolly leans back in her chair and crosses her legs. "If you want to justify whoring yourself out for the studio, that's your prerogative."
"Damn it!" Kelsi bangs her fist against the table, "I was making sacrifices to save our dream!"
Gabriella glances around the stuffy café to the other patrons sharing their space. She flashes a reassuring smile in response to their curious and concerned eyes. She grasps her mug to sip, but her shaking hand refuses to comply. She shifts in her seat for a moment before offering one final rebuttal, "My dream is to have my art keep me afloat, not my body, or my boyfriend. I apologize for the misunderstanding." With that final word, Gabriella abandons her half drunken latte on the table and begins walking towards the door.
"You know what, me too!" Kelsi abruptly stands, her chair screeching against the tile floor behind her, "I wish I had known you'd be this weak! It is your fault that our studio is closing! It's your fault!"
Gabriella cups her hand over her quivering lips as tears begin cascading down her face. She keeps her eyes on the concrete sidewalk as she passes by clueless strangers downtown. She sets off in the direction of the one person she knows can console her.
After a lonely five blocks, Gabriella enters the lobby of the luxury apartments and takes an elevator up to the top floor where he awaits. She steps out and into the small, brick encased hall where only his door stands. She rings the doorbell and is quickly confronted with a familiar presence.
"Come here," He holds his tanned arms out for her to crumble into, if need be.
She sniffles and wipes a mascara-laced tear from her cheek before putting her head against his strong chest.
Troy begins stroking her hair with his hand, guiding it out of her face and behind her ears. "It'll be okay," He says, embracing her in the doorway until she's ready to speak.
...
He had been pacing behind his couch in the living room for nearly twenty minutes waiting for his guest to arrive. He finds that moving helps stop him from crying, although the occasional tear still sneaks its way out. Finally, there's a knock. Chad somberly approaches the front door. He takes a moment to rub his puffy face before opening it.
"Hey," Ryan greets him, his face immediately dropping as he realizes something's off. "Are you okay?"
"Come inside," Chad leads the man inside his apartment and over to the couch.
"You did it, didn't you?" Ryan anxiously asks. "You still broke up with her, right?"
"Ryan…" Chad groans.
"What did you do?" Ryan asks.
"I can't leave her."
"Why not?"
"She's pregnant with my child!" Chad yells. "You can try and act like that's insignificant, but you know it's not. That's a big deal."
"A lot of people have accidents. They take care of it."
"Taylor won't do that. She wants to keep it. She wants to have a happy family."
"Did you tell her that you wouldn't stay?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because that'd be an awful thing to do. I'm not going to abandon the woman who's pregnant with my child. And can we talk about how her best friend is dating my best friend? I talked with Troy about it, and I know he'd be so disappointed if I flaked on her. He'd probably side with her since he is practically in love with Gabriella. I have to stay with her. If I left her I wouldn't just be breaking up with her, Troy would never speak to me again."
"Well, what about us?"
"Needless to say, we have to stop seeing each other."
"In every way?" Ryan moped.
"What do you mean?"
"Like, stop being friends, too?"
"Not necessarily. I mean, ideally we could remain friends."
"I don't know," Ryan says.
"Well, that's your choice. Anyways, I got to get going. Taylor and I are meeting to talk about baby things."
"Sure…I'll see myself out." With that, Ryan left the apartment.
...
I fell in love with the way you touched me without using your hands.
"Aww!" Gabriella coos, her finger swiping down her phone and scrolling through the plethora of pretty colored quotes on the Pinterest board.
"Let me guess," Troy speaks from his spot in front of the stove, a smile forming on his lips at the thought of what she could be finding. "Another cute cat video," he theorizes, continuing to stir the vegetables in the pan.
"As a matter of fact, no." Gabriella says, rising from the couch and crawling up into a barstool at the kitchen island, "Not this time, at least. It's just a quote I found about love."
"Let me guess again…" Troy begins, grabbing a plate halfway full with pasta and meatballs. "It's in brush script font with a filtered background photo of a couple holding hands."
"Right about the font, wrong about the photo," Gabriella says, daintily placing napkin in her lap. "They're kissing."
Troy carefully places a scoop of steamed vegetables on the other side of the plate, and then puts it on the island in front of Gabriella. "Close enough."
"Thank you," She smiles gratefully at him, salivating over the dinner in front of her.
"Anything for you," Troy says, then mumbles underneath his breath, "even pasta five damn nights in a row."
"Hey!" She starts to defend herself, quickly chewing the tasty combination of noodles and marinara sauce in her mouth, "It's really your fault you can make the noodles so perfectly aldente."
"If there's one thing I know, it's making good pasta." Troy says, taking his seat next to Gabriella with a plate of his own.
"It is the one thing you know." Gabriella quips back.
"Nice," Troy says, chuckling and nodding his head approvingly at her jab.
"I'm glad you've grown to appreciate my insults."
"I've always appreciated them, babe." Troy admits, rubbing his knuckles up and down Gabriella's spine.
"Mmh," Gabriella moans, curling her back into his hand.
"Did I find a spot?" Troy asks, rubbing harder into her back.
"Oh yeah." Gabriella says, her head leaning back and her eyes closing in relaxation.
"Be nice and I'll give you a massage after dinner." Troy bargains with her, moving his hand to rest on her leg.
"How about you give me a massage after dinner anyways?"
"And why would I do that?"
"Because you want to and I asked nicely," Gabriella says, batting her eyelashes at him.
"C'mon, you know I can't resist when you give me those puppy eyes."
"That's exactly why I'm doing them," Gabriella smiles.
Troy looks at her intently, a warmth blossoming in his chest as he ponders vocalizing the sensation.
"Troy," Gabriella begins, mirroring his fond expression. She leans towards him, dropping her fork onto the plate and raking her fingers into his hair. They kiss each other tenderly before their imposing smiles force them apart.
Troy caresses her face in his hand, admiring her gentle features. "You're so beautiful. I can't imagine a world where I never met you. You have no idea how much light you've brought into my life, Gabriella. I love you."
"Troy," Gabriella cries, the tears lining her dark brown eyes overflowing onto her cheeks. "I love you, too."