Across from Gale, Rachel stared at the window where traffic and pedestrians moved to wherever they were going to. She hadn’t said anything in a while after inviting him for lunch from the hospital.

The restaurant’s name was called ‘Fran’s Restaurant’. It was the first time Gale had ever been to a restaurant. Fancy hanging lighting everywhere, the scent of bacon, eggs, waffles, chicken, and steak all in one area couldn’t take away the unease he felt from why she wasn’t talking.

A waitress passed by, coffee pot in hand. “Refill?”

Gale nodded. Anything to interrupt him from the silence right now was good. The waitress left after pouring more coffee into only his cup. Rachel didn’t even look at the waitress as she kept her head turned watching the street. Somewhere online, he read small talk was part of adult working life to take away awkwardness.

“So,” Gale said in his most casual tone, “how are you?”

“Fine,” Rachel said.

Fine was good. She was fine. Now it was his turn to talk.

“I’m good too. Thank you for asking. The weather’s pretty nice.”

For what felt like a thousand heartbeats, she didn’t reply to what he said. This small talk thing wasn’t working. Why? He could try another angle.

“Soo, the food’s pretty good here. Lots of smells that smell really good,” Gale said.

Rachel’s eyes flicked to his own half-eaten stack of pancakes, then back to watching the crowd pass by and cars roar by, stuck in the traffic of downtown.

He took another bite. The mushy texture no longer made the pancake taste good. A plate shattered somewhere inside the kitchen, causing him to flick his head to where it came from. His hand already reaching down into his left pocket as a spike of adrenaline rushed through his veins. For a blink of an eye, he felt her gaze fall on him, but before he could look back at her, it was already gone.

She changed. Her hair was longer from before. Longer with subtle waviness that went down to her elbows. Red highlights shined when it hit the sun, making it look more like strands of fire that even caught the attention of the children from the booth across from theirs.

Her hands covered the mug on its sides, though she barely drank. It was still full, probably cold by now. Scars on her knuckles were evident. It was his first time noticing them.

“How have you been?” Rachel asked, startling him.

Gale swallowed. “Good. I’ve been good.”

The small talk finally continued. But what to say after? Was there anything else to say after? He never thought he’d get this far, though that was the story of his life.

“And?”

“Um-uh, I-ah, really,” he shook his head, then took a deep breath. “I signed up for classes at this adult learning centre. Chemistry, English, basic stuff. Trying to get my G.E.D, just the normal stuff.”

He stabbed at his pancakes and continued, “It’s weird being the youngest one there. A lot of them got careers and kids and mortgages, and I’m like, ‘Hey guys, anyone know how to file taxes?'”

He attempted to smile. Still no response. All he knew was he needed to keep talking. “Last week, this guy Andrew tried to convince me the building’s haunted. Not that I’m scared or anything like that. I mean, how would you even hit a ghost or kill it to death, you know?”

He laughed weakly, but Rachel’s expression stayed deadpan. Her eyes stared down at him that made Gale shrink, not knowing what else to say. There was nothing else he could think of. That’s how he had been the past couple of weeks or months since he got back.

On her side, she hadn’t even touched her food. The steak and eggs had gotten cold already, fat forming a white film around the edges. The thing they called ‘hash browns’ looked soggy now too.

Gale drank the coffee. Very bitter with no milk and sugar. Good distraction.

Rachel moved her coffee closer to the window, its contents spilling a little. “What happened to you in the Eclipsed after we left?”

The question caught him off guard. He got out. That was all that mattered. Should he tell her about the corruption or about Vianne or about everything that happened where he almost died at the end? But those were all things that hurt to remember.

“I…” he began. I went to the underground, got beaten up by that dark knight multiple times. It hurt so much, and all I could think of was going back to see you again. Each and every fight after I was left behind was either life or death, yet the pain of being alone was more painful than any of that. It’s what he wanted to say, but Rachel looked like she was already in a bad mood.

“After you all left, I just ran away,” he said finally. “I ended up at the stone tower in the forest. It was abandoned, at least that’s what I thought at first.”

Her eyes narrowed. “At first?”

“Yeah, there was this…” Gale shifted in his seat, attempting to smile as much as possible. “There was someone there. The knight who stabbed you. He lived in the basement of the tower.”

Gale’s voice picked up speed, “You should’ve seen this basement. It wasn’t just a room. It was more like a maze. Several and multiple corridors led to a lot of places in it.”

Rachel’s expression didn’t change, but Gale pushed on.

“The knight, he was… well, he wasn’t friendly, but he taught me things. How to fight better. How to use a sword properly.” Gale waved his fork around vaguely to imitate the movements. “That’s why I got better at combat. He was tough, brutal even, but I learned a lot.”

He leaned forward, caught up in his own story now. “Then Elliot showed up at a castle. You remember him, right? And you remember the castle? He was in that castle and then the knight also showed up.”

Gale’s eyes lit up, tone even rising to upbeat levels as well. “I got lucky. The knight and Elliot hated each other. When they both showed up, I managed to play them against each other. Got them fighting, and then bam, I got both of them just like that. Crazy, right?”

A tear rolled down Rachel’s cheek, stopping Gale mid-sentence. Her face contorted, eyes glaring at him. More tears followed, streaming down her face.

“Rachel?” Gale whispered as his smile faltered.

“We were supposed to fight together.” Her voice trembled. “We were a team, Gale. All of us.”

Gale’s heart ached when she said that. His mouth opened, unable to form words on his tongue.

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“Do you know what it was like?” Rachel’s tone rose with her trembling voice, enough so that other tables could hear. “Coming back five years ago, without you? Having to explain to everyone that we just left you there?”

She pressed her palms against the table. “We tried to go back. For months, we tried everything. Ollie kept trying to find tech and artifacts that could go back to the same world as you to get you back.”

Gale looked down at his hands, unable to meet her eyes.

“And here you are,” Rachel continued, “talking about your adventures like it was some vacation. Like it was all an adventure and fun to be trapped in that hell alone.”

“It wasn’t…”

“Five years, Gale. Five years we thought you were dead.” Another tear slid down her face. “Do you know what that did to us? To me?”

Rachel’s breathing grew shaky.

“You threw me away,” she said, wiping the tears off her cheeks. “You made that choice for all of us. I was just burden to be saved, isn’t that right?”

“That’s not it-“

“It is!” Rachel hit the table with a fist, shaking the cutlery. “You always wanted to run away, right?! Did it feel good knowing that we didn’t get in your way anymore?”

A few heads turned from nearby booths. Even the children from the other booth turned their heads their way. Rachel either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“You didn’t tru-trust me enough to fight beside you,” she said. “After everything we went through together, you still saw us as liabilities.”

Gale clenched his fist, daring to look up at her face. “I was trying to protect you.”

“We didn’t need your protection!” Rachel shouted. “We needed your trust. We needed you to believe in us enough to let us stand with you.”

She wiped her tears. “Do you know what’s worse than dying? It’s living with the fact that someone you cared about sacrificed themselves because they thought you weren’t good enough.”

Wasn’t being saved enough? She should’ve been happy that she could live a normal life much faster than him. It was him that got stuck in that hellhole, off to fend for himself for a couple of more months while she got to live a normal life back on Earth. She got to see her family and probably made many friends all the while he was stuck. So why didn’t she smile at him when he just came back?

“That’s not fair,” he said weakly.

“No, what’s not fair is making decisions for other people because you’re…” Rachel wiped more of the tears from her eyes. “Too afraid to trust them.”

She was right, but he thought she was dying. There was nothing else he could’ve done in that situation.

“You don’t understand,” he tried again. “The knight was strong, and he-“

“Stop,” Rachel cut him off. “Just stop with the stories. I don’t care about the knight or Elliot or whatever adventure you had. I care about why you pushed us away.”

She leaned back on to the backrest, tears still streaming. “Why did you do it, Gale? Why didn’t you let us stay and help you?”

Why did he do it? That was also the question he wanted to know, and the knight told him so already.

“We spent months together in that place,” Rachel continued. “We fought together, survived together. We were all prepared to die. I thought we could’ve fought together. Could’ve fought until the next exit came up even if it was ju-“

“I didn’t want to lose you!” Gale suddenly yelled, then his voice softened. “Ok? I didn’t want to lose you so I saved you… and I lost you anyways…”

Understanding how to trust, understanding how to let people in. It was all too hard. I don’t know what to do, and I’m scared. But how does one say that when no one told me how? There was so much Gale wanted to say, but it all died on his tongue.

“I…” Rachel tightened her hands together, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Every person I ever cared about left me,” Gale continued. “My parents disappeared when I was twelve. Everyone at the orphanage either left or turned on me. And then in the Eclipsed, I finally found people who didn’t run away, who didn’t hate me for what I was—and I couldn’t bear the thought of watching you… disappear.”

Taking another breath, he said, “I saw the knight strike you. I saw your blood. And…”

Gale looked down at his hands, imagining her blood still on his palms. “I didn’t think about being a hero. I didn’t think at all. I just knew I couldn’t watch another person I cared about disappear while I did nothing.”

It was one of the first times he ever felt so vulnerable. Facing the dark knight and Elliot. Heck, even facing the ghost was easier. At least their attacks could be dodged. But words couldn’t, especially not from her.

“I wasn’t trying to be a lone hero,” Gale whispered. “I was just afraid. Afraid of watching you die and knowing it was my fault for not being strong enough, fast enough, smart enough to protect you.”

Rachel’s grip tightened on the mug.

“The whole point was fighting together,” she said. Her voice no longer carried anger, faltering even when she looked into Gale’s eyes. Her expression softened. “That was the whole point.”

She pushed her plate away and held the mug with both hands, heating up the coffee to a boil.

“You know what’s crazy?” Rachel said. “When we first met you in that world, this rabid boy who looked like he’d snap at anything sudden-”

She stopped abruptly. A waitress approached their table but backed away after looking at the situation between them.

Rachel’s gaze drifted to the window. “Ollie had so many ideas and plans he wrote down.”

“Plans?” Gale asked.

“To open a rift to that world.” Her voice remained flat, carrying something somber rather than angry. “He tried for months, and I did too, helping him with all I’ve got.”

Rachel’s grip on the mug softened. Gale noticed the scars on her knuckles even more. He knew she used her fists mostly when fighting, but they bore signs of recent conflict. She caught him looking and tucked her hands beneath the table.

“You should have seen the ceremony,” she said suddenly, lips twisting into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “When we came back. Everyone celebrating.”

She played with her coffee mug in small circles, swishing the coffee around. “My grandmother actually cried for once.”

She said nothing more, but he saw her mouth open, but no words came out.

Gale sighed, putting his fork down. “I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t.” Rachel stopped him before he could say anything. She closed her eyes and took a breath. When she opened them again, something had changed. The tears no longer flowed, and her eyes looked into his with firmness.

Her fingers traced the scars on her hands.

“I tried so hard,” she whispered, not completing the thought.

A family in the next booth over suddenly laughed at something. Rachel’s eyes turned towards them, lingering for just a few seconds.

She looked back at Gale. “Five years is a long time.”

He didn’t know what to do or say. He had already told her wholeheartedly why he pushed her away. Yet her eyes wanted more.

“The months I stayed in that rift with you and the others…” Gale finally managed to say something, anything. “It felt like hell. Not because of the fighting or the danger, but because all I wanted was to go back. I thought I would’ve been there alone, forever.”

His voice started to tremble, unable to stabilize it. “And when I realized it had been ten years since I first entered the rift, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to find anyone, and I was alone. Again.“

Gale looked into her eyes. “I was just 17 years old just a couple of months ago. Now, they all think I’m close to 30, and… I don’t know what I’m saying.” He sighed. “I don’t even know how to file my own taxes.”

He reached out to hold her arm slowly, afraid she’d take her hand away, not breaking eye contact. Her arms stayed where they were, allowing him to feel her warmth. “I know ‘sorry’ is not enough. I know that. I don’t even know where to start. I… I need your help.”

She said nothing for a long moment. They stared at each other for a while. The loud honks from the traffic didn’t interrupt her eye contact at all.

“Please,” Gale whispered.

“You can’t undo five years,” she said finally.

“I used to check my phone every night for months, hoping that someone would come out of the Red Hollows,” Rachel said, her fingers trembling on the mug. “It doesn’t hurt to share the weight.”

“I never meant to take it all-” Gale started.

“You want to make it right?” Rachel interrupted. “Be honest with me.”

Her eyes softened while still looking into his. The warmth was back.

“No more secrets,” she said. “And understand that trust…”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to.

“We start there,” Rachel said firmly. “With the truth. All of it.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep