5

Gabe helps her up the stairs, holding on to her so that she doesn't fall and hurt herself, which Abigail finds oddly touching. He has been so very kind to her, which she is confusing the heck out of her. She has never been kidnapped before, but she was pretty sure that this was not how it was suppose to go. He wasn't  treating her like she wa his hostage, was he?

Not that she was complaining.

Things could have been so much worse for her.

“So, Miss Kensington, may I ask you what your name is?” The man asks her, as they reach the top of the stairs. She looks around at the old house, barely hearing his words as he speaks them. She is too caught up in surveying her surroundings. She can tell that the house is well loved and cared for, despite the age of the home and how outdated it is. Abigail finds her surroundings oddly charming. It is a cute house.

This house has personality, unlike that mausoleum that she has been forced to live in for the entirety of her life. That over sized house is a shrine to her father. A way to show off his wealth, in order for him to feel validated. He is a pompous ass who likes to feel superior to others and that shows in the look of his home. This house is the exact opposite. The hous is so warm and inviting.. it truly feels like a home.

“Oh, sorry. Uh, my name is Abigail.”

She tells him belatedly, in answer to his question. He turns to her with a smile and nods, repeating her name softly. “Abigail.” He gives her an appraising look. “You seem more like an Abby. Abigail sounds so stiff and formal. Abby sounds soft and sweet. It suits you more.”

Abby can feel herself blush at the strangers words so she turns her head away, so that he is not able to see her reaction to his words. “My name is Gabriel, by the way, but everyone calls me Gabe.”

“Like the angel.” Abby wasn't aware that she had said the words aloud until she hears his small chuckle.

“Exactly. Mom was raised as a Catholic. Even though her family kicked her out when she got pregnant with me out of wedlock, she still went to mass regularly. She couldn't decide on a name for me, so when I was born on Christmas Eve, she had just left a Christmas play at the church. When she saw me for the first time, she said that I looked so much like an angel that she had to name me Gabriel, since he was the angel on her mind at the moment. You know, the Christmas Story. He was the angel that come to speak to Joseph.”

Abby smiles, loving that story. That is a something that he can tell people anytime they ask about his name; a story that is literally about how much his mother loves him and cherishes him. A small part of Abby is jealous of that. Even though her mom loves her, she has no stories like that. Any time she and her mother seemed to have a moment, her father found some way to ruin it.

Gabe leads her to the bathroom and opens the door for her. “I, um, I don't think that I can let you in there alone. You know, in case you try to escape..” Gabe looks as if he is struggling with this conversation. “With your hands bound in front of you now, you should have a bit of an easier time, uh- taking care of your, um, business.. “

Abby just looks at him, then at the toilet. “I will turn my back to you and face the wall. I will stand here in the doorway. Just, um, do what you need to do. I will pay you no attention.”

Abby is severely uncomfortable with him standing there as she uses the toilet. She is so self-concious and embarrassed of every sound. The rustling of her underwear as she struggles to push them down her thighs. The sound of her skin meeting the lid. The sound of her urine splashing into the water. Each sound is magnified in her own ears, that she cringes with each new noise.

“So, you were born on Christmas Eve? Is that as cool as it sounds or is it a total drag sharing your birthday with the most popular holiday?” Abby asks, to hopefully camoflauge the sounds in the room beneath a conversation.

“A little of both. Mom always managed to keep my birthday and Christmas seperate. We went to Christmas Eve church services, then would have my party in whichever theme I chose, only to go back to Christmas right after. Mom bought me seperate gifts, rather than combining them, because she said that wasn't fair to me to not get birthday presents just because I could be cheated out of them.”

Abby could hear the smile in Gabe's voice as he answers her. “Your mother sounds like an amazing woman.”

“She is the absolute best.” Gabe answers without hesitation and Abby smiles. The fact that he loves his mother so much is kind of endearing to her. His mom does sound like she would be easy to love.

Finally Abby is done, but now comes the hard part. After an awkward and demeaning struggle trying to clean herself and right her underwear, she flushes the toilet and moves over to the sink to wash her hands. Gabe turns to watch her as she tries to spread the bubbles as best she can, without being able to turn her hands.

“Need help?” Gabe asks, but doesn't wait for her to answer.

Moving forward, he presses his hand down on the pump bottle of soap to get a squirt in the palm of his hand. Moving them beneath the water, he lathers up his hands until bubbles cover his skin, before he takes her hands in his, rubbing her skin with his own.

Holy Honolulu.

Abby feels her breath coming quicker as her tummy tilts at his touch. What is happening to her? She has never been affected like this by another person before and she is upset by her reaction to him. What the heck is wrong with her?

“Thank you.” Abby says abruptly, moving her hands away from him. She takes a step back and moves away from him, as he nods in response to her words of thanks. Her hands are dripping soap and water everywhere, but she doesn't care.

“If you are done, we should probably-”

“Go back to the basement. Got it.” Abby says for him. For a moment there it was almost as if the two of them had forgotten that she was the captive and him the captor. They were existing as, well, friends.

But that isn't the case. She is just the girl that he stole off of the street and he is just the man who is making sure that she doesn't run off.

“Oh, yeah.. um, right. The basement.”

Conversation comes to a halt as the two of them walk back through the house to reach the door that leads downstairs. He offers her his arm on the stairs, but considering how she went crazy when she touched him before, she isn't exactly looking for a repeat performance of that moment, so she shakes her head slightly. She keeps her hands down in front of her.

“I think that I can manage on my own.” Abby tells him. Realizing how terse that might sound, she rushes to add politely, “thank you, though.”

But as they start down the stairs, she stumbles forward when her knees give out on her. Luckily he is there to catch her before she could fall down the stairs. “Woah, woah, woah. Careful there.” He gives her a crooked smile. "Want that arm now?"

Gabe helps her the rest of the way down, holding on to her as they walk in case her strength deserts her once more. When they get to the bottom of the stairs without incident, Gabe looks around. There is no place for her to sit down. She has nothing down there in his basement. Phil and the others didn't even try to set the basement up for her stay. 

Feeling even more horrible and guilty for his part in her kidnapping. Gabe resolves that he is going to change some things around here. He will make this place more comfortable for her. She seems like she is a genuinely nice person and she does not deserve to be treated like this. Yet, his hands are tied.

He can not let her go without getting himself and his friends from work into a whole heap of trouble. If he were to go to jail, then what would would happen to his mother? Who would take care of her if he were locked in a jail somewhere? That is why, as much as it pains him to do so, he must keep her here until Phil handles the situation, as he has sworn to do.

But that does not mean that he has to make her stay any more unpleasant than it has to be. The first thing that Gabe is going to do is get a heater down here, to warm the place up. He is going to get her a mattress from one of the guest bedrooms and some magazines for entertainment. He is going to give her a few basic comforts to hopefully make her feel the tiniest bit better about being the victim of a kidnap.

He makes a mental note of everything that he wants to bring down here for her. He might even have to take a trip into town to visit a store. He just wants her to have something to pass the time, rather than having to sit and dwell on the fact that he is keeping her locked up like a caged animal.

“What are some things that you like?” Gabe asks suddenly from right beside of her, startling her.

“Wha- What?” Abby stutters.

“Sorry. That was random and kind of loud. I didn't mean to just blurt it at you like that. What I meant is, what are a few things that you like? Like something you have or had at your home that gives you comfort.” Gabe says in a softer tone. "Books, magazines, puzzles, coloring books. Things like that."

Abby thinks for a long moment, but she doesn't have anything like that to come to mind. She had a doll when she was younger that she 'took care of' by pretending that she was it's mother, but her father threw the doll and her favorite stuffed teddy bear away when she turned nine years old because he said then that she was too old for them.

“I don't really have anything that brings me comfort-” Abby begins before she remembers the one thing that she does have. The one thing that she turns to when she needs an escape from her reality at the moment.

“You must have something.” Gabe prombts her.

“An old, worn out copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë that I keep in between my mattresses so that no one will find it and take it from me. Reading that book always brings me comfort.” And gives her hope. It makes her feel so much better to read it.

That book brings her joy. She feels like Jane, growing up feeling unloved and unwanted in a horrible place, where she is mistreated. She lost her only friend. Her life sucks. But then she grows up and she leaves her painful past behind. She goes to Thornfield Hall and meets Edward Rochester.

They become friends and she finds she is happy there. Even though life constantly interferes and gets in the way of her plans, in the end, she gets her happy ending. But it didn't come easily to her like in fairytales. She had to go through some shit before she got to were she deserved to be. In the end she got the man she loved and she had the babies she wanted, living in a house that only brought happy memories with it. That is all that Abby has ever dreamed of. Her Jane Eyre ending.

“Okay. Perfect. What are some foods and drinks that you like?” Is Gabe's next question, interrupting her musings. It takes her a minute to get her mind off of her book and back on the subject at hand.

“I like donuts. And pop tarts. My friend, who is our housekeeper, her daughter let me try them once and I was hooked. From then on Irla, my friend, would sneak me in boxes of all different flavors. And whole milk.” Abby loves 'junk food' as her father referred to it. He would not let her eat it, because he was afraid that she would gain weight from it.

She remembers specifically an incident when she was about eight or nine years old and her body had puffed up a little with 'baby fat' while her hormones were preparing to plunge her in to puberty. She was not large or 'chunky' by any means, she had just gone up a size in clothing. Her mother had mentioned the need to take her shopping and her father had a fit about it.

He said aloud for all to hear, that it was bad enough that he had the misfortune to have a daughter instead of a son, but that he would be damned before he would have a 'fat' daughter. He was raising a child, not a damn pig.

Richard had gotten a nutritionist and a personal trainer for her after that. Despite the fact that you shouldn't really put children on restrictive diets, her father made them to it to her. For three weeks she was only allowed to eat a small hunk of boiled chicken, five raw carrot sticks and a handful of grapes. Every day. For three weeks.

She was made to get up at six o'clock to go for a run with the trainer, a woman with a rude, demanding personality that Abby had been terrified of. Then would run at a brisk pace for thirty minutes and Abby would have to push herself until she could barely stand upright, because she had not been use to that kind of treatment, after always having been forced to stay in the house.

In the afternoons, she was made to do sit ups, psuh ups and jumping jacks for hours on end. She lost so much weight that she looked unhealthy and sickly. She looked terrible. Irla threatened to call child protective services on them for the depolorable treatment of the girl.

Her mother put her foot down and finally made it all stop. It was the first and only time that Denise had stood up to Richard, but the dietician and exercise drill sergent were gone. Of course, Richard made her mother's life a living Hell for months, all because she had the audacity to try to 'tell him what to do'.

Those words had destroyed every shred of self confidence that Abby had then and it gave her such body issues. She equated eating a french fry to making her father hate the sight of her. For a few years in her youth, she was warped by it. It took her a long time to get to where she could eat normally. It took a very special person to convince her that there was nothing wrong with her. The problem lay with her vile father.

Thankfully that treatment didn't permanantly scar Abby or traumatize her to the point that she had any forms of eating disorders.  She had managed to put it behind her, with the help of a friend. Before then Irla would sneak her a snack and at first Abby used to feel incredibly guilty over it, but through the years, Irla drummed that out of her. 

She told her that it was okay to eat what she wanted and that there was nothing wrong with gaining weight. That the term 'fat' is just a word that people use to tear others down just for being different. She told her that is what labels are. Whether you are called 'gay' or 'slut' or 'Nerd', 'idiot' or 'loser', it is all just a few examples of labels that small minded people use to try to put others in a box.

If a girl dates a few boys and likes to have a good time, she is branded as a 'slut'. That just puts her in the tall, generic box that states she gets with a lot of guys, rather than saying that she is a girl who know what she wants and she is still trying to find it, one guy at a time. But while she is looking, she isn't adverse to having a good time.

If a guy falls in love with another guy, he is 'gay' and labeled a disgusting or unnatural. If a girl would rather read a book during lunch, rather than hang out with classmates, she is a 'nerd' or 'weird'. When you label someone something and you only see that label, you don't ever get the chance to see deep enough to see the person beneath the label.

Once Irla told her that and conveyed the message to Abby on a deep level, Abby took it to heart. She never let her fathers hurtful words bother her again because she remembered Irla's word. “If someone calls you a name, or a derogatory term, and you start to question if it is true, then you have let them box you up like an A****n package. Don't let anyone label you as anything because one they slap a label on you, they put you in the done pile and they quit looking at you. Make them notice you. Because you deserve an audience when you finally shine, baby. You deserve to be seen.”

Abby had almost forgotten where she was and that Gabe was beside her until he speaks, startling her from her musings of the past once more. Her mind has been drifting off a bunch during this conversation. “Anything else that you wish to have?”

“Oh, um, no. But I don't have to have anything-”

“I will be back soon!”

With that, Gabe is gone and Abby is left to sit on the ground and muse about the strange guy who doesn't fit into the box she tried to put him in. The box labeled 'kidnapper'.