The Everafter by Amy Huntley Page A

in hell.” He stepsforward and puts his arms around me. “That’s not it at all. I’m just…in a bad mood. I couldn’t be decent to anyone tonight.” He pulls away as suddenly as he enfolded me.
    Strange again.
    “But why?” I’m pushing it here, and I know it.
    “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll just leave.” I turn to go, hoping he’ll stop me, but instead he opens the door to help me on my way. I’m contemplating how appropriate that saying is about not letting the door hit you on the way out when there’s a crashing sound upstairs. It’s followed by the ceiling shuddering in protest from whatever’s happening on the floor above. Gabe’s dad.
    And suddenly everything makes sense.
    Horrible sense.
    Ohmygod, I recognize the smell that’s been bothering me since I arrived. How could I have been so idiotic? I’m dense.
    Now Mr. Archer is stumbling down the stairs. I want to flee the house, spare Gabe the embarrassment. But I can’t seem to move.
    The smell of alcohol gets stronger as Gabe’s father descends. He appears at the bottom of the stairs, bloodshot eyes trying to focus on me. I nearly choke in the cloud of alcohol surrounding us all now.
    “Is this the new girlfriend, Gabe?” he asks.
    I glance at Gabe, but he won’t even meet my eyes. “Yeah, I am,” I say. He’s never officially called me that, so amid all this other discomfort I start to wonder if I’m being presumptuous. Can this situation get any more nightmarish?
    Uh…yeah. It can.
    “Invite her to stay, Gabe,” he says. He tries to slap Gabe on the back but stumbles into him instead.
    Gabe still won’t meet my eyes. I can tell he wants me as far away from here as possible, and, okay, let’s be honest, I feel like he’s shutting me out.
    It hurts.
    But so does the pain emanating from Gabe, and more than anything, I want to make Gabe’s life easier.
    “Uh, sorry,” I say. “I can’t stay. My mom’s expecting me home.”
    Gabe’s dad grins. At least I think that’s what he’s doing. Hard to tell in his current state.
    “Well, then, I’ll leave you two to say good-bye to each other.” Now he’s trying to give us some kind of I-know-how-you’ll-say-good-bye-to-each-other look. Disgusting. It would be horrific on any parent, but a drunk one? “I just came down to get…” Mr. Archer gets lost in his thoughts.
    Then he suddenly remembers why he made the Great Trek down the stairs. “Crackers. I want some crackers. I’ll get those and go back upstairs.” He toddles his way to the kitchen.
    “Call me tomorrow?” I ask. I’m terrified Gabe will never talk to me again now that I’ve intruded into this grim scene from his life.
    He doesn’t say anything.
    I swallow hard. “Is there anything I can, y’know, do for you?”
    Gabe finally meets my eyes, reaches for my hand, and says, “Yeah.”
    I wait. And wait.
    “What is it?” I finally ask.
    “Stay,” he says.
    “I thought…”
    He puts a finger to my lips to stop me. “I know,” he says. “And you were right. I did want you to leave. But now I want you to stay.”
    He leads me into the living room and we sit on the sofa. He puts his arm around my shoulder, and I lean into him. “Why’d you change your mind?” I ask.
    “You’ve already seen the worst.”
    “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just marched over here. It was just, well, you didn’t sound so hot on the phone, and I thought something was wrong, and, well, it was, but still I should have respected your need for privacy because I should have known you wouldn’t just dump me for the night without some reason, and that you’d tell me if you wanted me to know, and—”
    “Take a breath,” Gabe interrupts.
    “Huh?”
    He squeezes my hand. “Take a breath. Calm down. It’s not the end of the world. I’m fine. We’re fine. And now you know.”
    “But I don’t.”
    He looks at me quizzically.
    “I don’t know at all. What it’s like, I mean. To deal