Gabriella 

by @raymac_eric

I hate Gabi.

And no, it's not because she's a mean narcissist who finds pleasure in the demeaning of inferiors to her beauty and social statuses. It also has nothing to do with the fact that she always had to go and take the boy I fancied in school even if she didn't like him.

No, the real reason I hate Gabi is because she is the complete and utter reflection of what I want to be.

Don't get me wrong through. It's not like I really hate her or anything like that. It's just that I find it weird how she is always there with me no matter where I go. I once told on her to my parents and they looked as if they were about to cry. I didn't bring it up after that. I guess it all started in Elementary when I saw her in the restroom. Even as a child, I could tell she was gorgeous. Nothing about that beautiful tan on her skin, the incredible topaz colored eyes and satin black eyes hinted at lack of self esteem.

In fact, that had been my problem with Gabi. She had way too much self esteem.

I don't know why I was still friends with her after all those times she made me look like a complete fool. Once, she switched Becky Summer's conditioner with glue and the poor girl had to shave her entire head just to get it out. Somehow, I got blamed for the incident even when I was sure I told the girl not to.

It gets hard dealing with an insufferable know-it-all who finds joy in dismantling each and every moment of serenity around her.

But Gabi is the only one who understands me. I live for the moments when she tells me that I am beautiful even when I know that I am not. She understands the broken mess that is Ella Suarez. That's why the only friend I have had for twenty years of my life is the lunatic beauty that is Gabi.

In a sense, I see that the attention accorded to her over the years has morphed from admiration to caution and finally complete fear. Gabi had the worst time imaginable when we went to college. I had expected her to be the bane of coolness in the campus. Be one of the social stars on the scene. But every night she was in the bathroom crying her eyes out at something a boy she was with did. Seeing Gabi like this, it reminded me of my high school years.

I wanted to help my friend. She was more than just a friend now to me. She was my sister in all forms of the word that wasn't by blood.

It wasn't long before she resorted to trying to numb the pain away with depressants. She was wasting away in all that beauty she had once prized as her most beautiful feature. I was the only one who could help her. But it was difficult. Juggling between making sure Gabi is safe and school became impossible. We had to go our separate ways.

She told me I was never anything to her. Insults so deep that I could not hold back the bile I felt for all those years she took the limelight from me. She said she would never come to see me again. To her, I was as good as dead. When she banged that door shut, it was almost similar to the tear I felt in my soul. It took this much separation from Gabi for me to realize how much she meant to me.

But I had to live me life. She was a tie to a failed past and I was not about to let it hinder my chances at a good life.

The turnaround was remarkable. I was finally living my life. I finally found friends in college, graduated and even got married to the man of my dreams. The sensational high was peaked when I bore my daughter. The first time I saw her, she was such a tiny thing, yet she had the most exquisite topaz color in her eyes that I had to remember my lost sister.

I had spoken before to my husband about Gabi. I asked him if there was any way he could track her down. It was the kind of business he did and no one was better skilled than he. But Gabi was impossible to find. She had simple vanished from the face of the earth. I didn't want to believe it, but all the evidence my husband had uncovered was pointing at only one conclusion.

It seemed I had lost the only friend I hated so much.

I was finally at my wit's end when I went to see my parents under the pretense of taking my daughter to see them. They had never had any patience with the friendship they had with Gabi. I knew they didn't approve of her behavior and that was fair. But I figured since they never actually made me not see her, they must at least hold a bit of affection for the girl.

I was wrong.

The moment I had mentioned Gabi's name, my mother gasped and my father dropped the glass that he had been drinking from. It seemed an overreaction to me but I was glad that they were taking this with all the seriousness it deserved. They told me to let her be, seeing as she had not bothered to stay in touch with me to begin with. But they didn't understand. I was the one who had basically kicked her out of my life.

If she was in trouble, it would have been on me.

My husband could see the stress eating through me that he tried persuading me to see my parents' way. I was not convinced. Gabi might have been vindictive and selfish. But she was there for me when no one else was. I needed to know she was alright. The mere comfort that would give me would be enough to let me live in peace.

She kept me sane.

Yet my husband did not yield to my requests to find my lost friend. It was the first time he refused me anything. My mother must have created an ultimatum for him. They all seemed dead set on me not finding my friend.

But fate was nothing but observant to my predicament.

I got the voicemail when I was picking my daughter from school one day. Gabi's sweet voice was a symphony to my damaged soul. She was in trouble and she needed my help. I can still remember the fear that coursed through me as I was racing the car to the location she had given me. My daughter was asking where we were going but I could hardly hear her.

The place was lonely and abandoned. There was a huge building with enormous glass panes that reflected the light of the sunset. There at it's middle stood Gabi.

She seemed just as beautiful as the first time I met her. But the beauty was marred with the tale signs of depression and worry. I was out of the car when I realized in her left hand she held something my husband was only too well versed in using.

Gabi had reached her limit in this life. She was tired of having to wonder around aimlessly trying to find a friend. She was tired of having everyone she knew hate her. She had never asked to be different from the beginning. She had only asked for love. She had only asked for me to love her.

And I had left her. And she was here to make me pay for that mistake.

The firearm was leveled at me, poised to end my life. Normal people would have pleaded with their lives. Asked the assailant to please find it in their being to forgive them. But I knew this was what it took for Gabi to be whole again. I wanted her to be free from the torture in her soul. The pain that I had chosen to let her go rather than stick with her as she had done when we were kids.

I told her that I would always love her. That even if she was going to end my existence, she would forever be my sister. I knew she felt the same way too. Her hand was shaking as the first tear fell from her face. She told me she didn't want to do this. She still loved me too. But she was done with the loneliness.

That was when my daughter shouted in alarm. She must have been scared for me. But she had my husband. She would still be looked after well.

Gabi asked if the child was mine. I knew what she was looking at. The satin black hair... the topaz eyes... She could have passed more as the child's mother than I could.

I could see her resolve waver completely. She told me she had never experienced the love of a mother. No one ever loved her as sincerely as the child loved me. She didn't want to take that away from anyone. She would end her loneliness still, but at her own expense.

It took me a fraction of a second before I realized what she had been implying. Her hand was raised to her temple along with the firearm. I wanted to scream at her to stop. But my entire body was rooted to the ground. Her eyes were completely at ease. I could feel the serenity oozing off her that she truly wanted this. She wanted to be free. And this was the only path she had left.

"I will always love you, Ella."

Those were the last words I heard from her before I saw my life flash in front of my eyes. Everything Gabi and I had ever done. The moments she infuriated me... the moments she protected me... the moments she loved me...

It felt like an eternity to me. They all meshed together to form one beautiful girl holding out her hand for me. I realized this was my haven. My sister had come for me. My hand reached out and the moment it met my sisters, I was complete. I felt every faucet of that truth embedded deep within my brain. I had become one with her. But it felt like we were never separated to begin with.

Like were one and the very same thing from the very beginning.

I heard from a distance my husband calling me back to him. He wanted me back in his life. It was almost as if he knew that my sister and I were one and the same thing too. I like the name he called me. So did my sister.

Gabriella was such a pretty name.