Gods & Monsters(10)

Oh God.

He shouldn’t have said my name in that awesome voice of his. Now, that’s all I’m hearing. My complete name in his almost-grown-up voice, making me feel like I am a grown-up. Like I could feel things — big things that only older people are supposed to feel.

“Th-then why’d you call me Pixie?”

“Because that’s my name for you.”

“You can’t give me names. We don’t even know each other.”

Throwing me a lopsided smile, he licks his lower lip and leans closer to me. The scent of warm apples tingles my nose and I’m frozen like a statue. “Maybe if you stay a little longer when I’m around instead of running away, we can get to know each other.”

I blink. And then I blink again. I realize I want to say yes to getting to know him so strongly that I can’t say anything at all. I’m speechless. Voiceless, dumbstruck, tongue-tied and mute. On top of that, I feel like the sun is baking me even though I’m sitting inside the bus.

Chuckling, he rubs the back of his neck, sliding back and sitting propped against the window. I move too. I tear open the silver wrapper of my Toblerone and pop an almost soggy and melted piece in my mouth. As I chew, I glance at Abel to find him staring at me.

I gulp the half-chewed chocolate in. “You stare at me a lot.”

He’s silent for a few seconds before whispering, “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” I tell him, truthfully.

He throws me half a smile. “Then I won’t.”

I breathe in through my mouth as my skin breaks out in goosebumps. “I can’t be friends with you.”

He rests his head against the glass window. “I know.”

My eyes feel heavy, sleepy almost, but not really. I lower them and look at his hands in his lap. The sunlight is slashing his long fingers and strong wrists. There are smudges around the pad of his thumb. Black smudges. Did he get them from the pencil he has stuck inside the drawing pad?

“They won’t let me,” I confess.

“I know.”

I look up, feeling all kinds of restless. I need him to understand. I’m not a bad person. I’m not doing this to be mean. “I want to be, though.”

Abel’s watching me in a new way. I’ve never been watched like that. Like if he moved his eyes, I’d disappear and he’d never see me again. His look hits me in the stomach and butterflies explode in my body. I can hear them flapping their wings. I bet he can hear them too.

“But you always follow the rules,” he comments.

I nod, but I have a weird urge to shake my head and say no, I don’t. “Rules are important. They keep the peace.”

The bruise on my waist flares up, making me want to scratch it. But I know that I shouldn’t. It won’t be pretty if I do. It’ll itch more and it might start bleeding like that one time.

“Peace. Gotcha.” His jaw is tight.

I fist my dress. “I’m sorry.”

His smile doesn’t look like a smile should. It’s cold like the winter. It’s all wrong on his face. “Doesn’t matter.”

It does to me.

“Our stop’s here,” he says, looking away and shoving the drawing pad into his backpack.

He’s right. The bus isn’t moving anymore and through the window I see miles and miles of fields and two houses: one white and put together and the other falling apart and weathered.

I go to put the remaining chocolate in the bag when I stop and address him, “I know that you hate chocolate b-but will you take this?” He frowns at me and I explain, “Uh, you don’t… you don’t have to eat it. I mean, you can just put it in your room or in the fridge. You know, to keep it from melting? That way you can…”

He wraps his hand around mine, making me almost gasp at the warmth. I’m sure the chocolate is going to melt and drip down from between our joined hands, his skin is that hot.

“I can what?”

I don’t want to say it but he’s looking at me with such curiosity. “You can think of me when you look at it.”

Oh God. I want to die. Maybe there’s a chance he didn’t hear it because I said it super low and he hasn’t taken the chocolate from my hand. I try to pull my hand back, feeling the sticky chocolate slide between our fingers. I’ll need a tissue to wipe that off before Mom finds out.

He tightens his grip for a second, before letting me go. My offering is still sitting in the middle of my palm.

“I don’t need a chocolate to think about you.”





My face is propped up on my hand as I listen to Father Knight talk about the importance of listening to our parents in Bible Study.

“Obedience is how you show God that you love Him,” he says in his loud, confident voice. “You respect Him. That you recognize He is the creator of all things and that is why…” Father Knight smiles. “He has the authority over all things. Children of God are the obeyers. They are the believers. How can you implement this in your daily life? By obeying your parents. By listening to them. Because parents are the face of God. Got it? Listen to what your mom says. If she says to eat the whole dinner, eat it. She knows best. If your dad says to do your homework before you can play video games, you do exactly what he tells you, okay?”