Chapter 1

Memories are an odd thing. They are sometimes remembered with total clarity and at other times as just a vague sensation that is just out of grasp and barely remembered. Some memories we wish could last a lifetime and others will haunt us throughout all the years of our lives till the day we die. I have never had a memory from my early childhood I wished I could remember forever, and my mind is full of ones I wish I could forget...

The sensation of his clothes being torn from his body was frightening. Gabriel had awoken to grasping hands holding him down and others tearing the clothes from his struggling body. He struggled to free himself from his unseen attackers and was rewarded with a hard punch in the face and another to the stomach. He folded in on himself trying to protect vital areas but it did no good. When he had at last been stripped, he got a good look at his tormentors.

Gabriel awoke with a strangled cry.

Twisted up in his sheets and covered with sweat, he shook in rage and shame as the poisonous memories rose up, reliving them as he so often had throughout the past five years. After all this time they still made him feel dirty. Though logically he knew that there was nothing he could have done to change the outcome, he still felt he had failed and was shamed.

Gabriel turned on the small light on the table next to his bed and looked at the numbers on his alarm. With a sigh he realized it was still early yet but decided to get up anyway as there would be no more sleep for him. Taking a drink of the water that he kept next to his bed it soothed his parched throat. He set it on the night stand and took a look around the room that had been his prison for the last 18 years and felt no remorse that he would soon be leaving it forever, never to return. He had experienced things in his life that no person should have to live with, most especially a child. Physical and emotional abuse had been his standard fair for as far back as he could remember. It was not constrained to just his home life either. His torment had continued throughout school, with his sisters and their group abusing him every chance they got.

Adapting to a life as a loner had been hard on him, but as he had learned through harsh lessons in life, trust only yourself. He had been betrayed by almost every person he had ever met, with the exception of his best friend Melissa and her mother. In the worst times in his life, they had been the rock that he had turned to and that allowed him to keep moving forward with his life. Without them, he would have successfully ended things many years ago.

He swung out of his bed and grabbed his change of clothes and dashed across the hall and entered the bathroom to take a quick shower. Locking the door to keep everyone out, he quickly showered, the warm water being a rare treat for him, and then dressed. He had long ago learned to take his clothes with him to change into. To fail to do so just gave his sisters one more way to torment him. After today he would never have to deal with his family again. Escape from the hell he had lived with was finally within his grasp and nothing was going to keep him from that. His sole focus for the last five years had been towards this day, and what it meant. As a legal adult, his family could not keep legally keep him here anymore, and he planned on leaving while he still could.

Every aspect of his life had been towards getting free when he turned 18. It had been difficult, but through hard work and good support from Melissa, he had achieved grades that were good enough for a full ride scholarship to the college of his choice. This combined with his car and some money saved up on the side, would be his means to a new life.

Returning to his room, he picked up the bag he packed the night before and threw it in the back of his car. He had worked hard to earn the money for the car. He had worked odd jobs around the neighborhood and when he was old enough he had taken the test to become certified to lifeguard and then worked at a pool. His parents and sisters stole a lot of his money from him but he was able to save a lot of it at his Melissa's house. He had purchased the car and Melissa's mom had cosigned on the title with Gabriel, and he had then purchased insurance and it was going to be his means of escape.

On his way out of town to the freeway, he made a quick stop at Melissa's house to pick up his remaining stash of money and a few other valuables that he dared not risk leaving around his parent's house. She was the only friend he had in this god forsaken town, and so when she offered to let him keep certain valuables at her house he readily took her up on the offer. She was the only person in the world that knew everything about his past. Her mother knew parts of it and probably suspected the rest, but she had never tried to push him to reveal everything. Leaving Melissa and her mother was going to hurt him the most. He knocked on the door and after a few minutes she answered the door in PJ's and a sleepy look on her face.

"Here for your money," she asked him?

"Yeah, I'm out of here. I woke up and threw everything in the car and I'm ready to go," he told her.

She disappeared back inside for a minute and came back out with a duffle bag with his laptop and a few other items and another bag that had his cash in it. There was a surprisingly large amount of money in the pile but had he left it in his parent's house it would have been found and taken from him. He learned early on that nothing of his was sacred and that it was best to leave nothing he truly valued anywhere in the house because it would be found and taken from him or destroyed. His sisters' was particularly vindictive and destroyed anything of his that she could. Even the car he owned was beat to hell. Dented and scratched, they had made the car look like a mirror of their souls. It didn't matter to Gabriel what the car looked like anymore. All that mattered was that it could get him from point A to point B.

Gabriel hid the money on his body in special hidden compartments that he had had Melissa sew into his jacket. When his was done, Melissa hugged him like she was never going to let go. She slipped a piece of paper with all of her contact info into his pocket as she released him.

"Damn you, be careful and keep in touch with me so I know you're okay," she told him.

With a tender kiss from him to her cheek, he walked back to his car, got in and pulled away as the early-morning sun was just cresting the hills. He never saw the flood of tears streaming down Melissa's face and the wracking sobs that shook her small body or Melissa's mother pull her into a comforting embrace as the man Melissa had come to love, and who had become her whole world, drove off into the distance.

The drive to college was going to be long. He figured he could have made it in about five days if he drove it straight through, but he wanted to take the time to see some of the sights as he drove cross country. Having never been out of the county he was born in, he wanted to see some of the sight he had only read or heard about.

Gabriel had chosen a college in California. He wanted to put as much space as possible between him and his family as he could; if he never saw them again it would be too soon. He had taken the time to plan out the route he would take before he left, and while he wasn't stopping to look at everything, he also wasn't going to scrimp too much. He would take his time in his trip across the country, as it might be the last vacation he would ever see. He left himself two weeks for the trip and he hoped it would be long enough.

He found that the solitude of the drive was comforting to him. A loner by nature, Melissa had fought him tooth and nail, to get him to open up to her. After years of her being around him he finally learned to trust her, and be extension her mother and little sister, but he had never allowed anyone to get inside the wall that he had put up. It hurt in so many ways that he couldn't allow people to get close to him. He longed for the close friendships that he saw others have, and he could only hope that one day his old life would truly be left in the past and he could move on into a future full of people and joy.

The drive was the only time in his life that Gabriel had ever felt like he could relax his guard. Even around Melissa's family he never could completely relax his guard. Most of that, he suspected, was due to Melissa's father who was a creepy bastard as far as Gabriel was concerned. Melissa's father was a real piece of work. He had the most wonderful family a man could ask for and treated them like shit. It was one more reason he loved the women of that family. Even in the midst of their problems, they had found time to support and love him too.

He spent many nights camping in campgrounds to cut his costs of the trip down, but by the middle of the trip found he really enjoyed the solitude that camping afforded him. One of his favorite times of the day was when he was just on the edge of falling asleep and he could hear the sounds of the night. The sound of the wind and animals had a strong calming effect, and Gabriel found himself longing for this time of the day more and more.

The southern states were one of his favorite parts of the trip. The feeling of the small towns with their relaxed slow pace fit with his personality. He spent some extra time in a few of the towns picking up some of the other basics that he would need for his dorm.

All too soon his vacation was over and he had arrived at the college.

Gabriel parked his car in the visitor lot and grabbed his main bags out of the back seat but left his camping gear in the car. He followed the bright yellow signs with arrows to check in and found himself in the lobby of his new dorm. There was a table set up and manned by three coeds. Each had a section of the alphabet. Gabriel got in line and eventually made his way to the front.

"I'm here to check in," he told the guy in front of him.

"Name and ID please," the guy asked in a bored tone.

Gabriel handed him his driver's license and was handed his info packet. Looking to see what his room number was, he found he was on the third floor. He headed for the elevator and then changed his mind and headed for the stairs when he saw the mass of people with carts full of things for their dorms waiting to go up. Gabriel shook his head as he looked at all the crap that people had thought they would need for their rooms. Most of the things that they had brought thinking that it would fit in their dorms, would be going home with their parents by the end of the day he thought.

His room was at the far end of the hall on the third floor, next to the stairs, which suited him fine. There would be far less noise from people using the elevator at all hours of the night.

He opened the door to his room and found that his room to be empty, but from the items scattered around one side of the room that his roommate had already moved in. Gabriel quickly unloaded the things that he had brought, which didn't take too long. He set up his laptop, a part of his scholarship package, on the desk, put his few meager clothes in the closet, and quickly made his bed with the soft sheets that he had bought on his way out to school.

Finished with his set up, Gabriel left to go check out the campus and the surrounding area to get a feel for things. He stopped at the student ID office and got his ID card and then picked up a parking pass for his car. He went back and moved his car out of the temporary parking to the student lot and placed his parking pass in the window.

Walking downtown he found the feel of the town nice and peaceful. When he decided on California, he figured he would have to put out with the fast pace that so characterized many of the other cities. While many of the stores he looked at were what he would call yuppie, the town had a slow, sleepy feel that he had associated with many of the southern towns he had gone through, not at all what he expected a college town would be like. Maybe things would change more once school started, but Gabriel felt he would do just fine.

Coming up to a Bank of America, he decided he better open a bank account. He knew that Bank of America was a big bank and he would be able to find branches almost anywhere he went, and he didn't want to be running around with all of his money on him to be lost or stolen. He didn't have a lot of money, however, the money that he had should hold him just fine until he was able to get another job if he didn't go spend crazy and buy everything in sight. He stepped inside and spoke to the lady behind the counter about opening a new account. She directed him to an older gentleman in the corner. When Gabriel told him what he was there for, he was quickly produced the paper work to fill out for a new account. It took about ten minutes to process and then Gabriel deposited most of his money and was soon the proud owner of a set of starter checks and a bank card that would arrive in the mail in about a week.

Grinning about everything he had accomplished that day he made his way back to the dining hall to grab a quick dinner. The dining hall had about a half dozen different places to eat. Grabbing a slice of pizza and water he found a table where he could place his back to the wall and people watch. The many variations of dress that people were wearing was interesting to him. He had never cared much about fashion, knowing that if he brought home anything nice it would soon be destroyed. He made a decision he'd better go out tomorrow and shop for some new clothes. While he didn't particularly care about clothes as long as they covered everything they needed to, he knew that he would be judged for better or worse, largely by appearance and good clothes was the first step to making that good first impression.