Gods & Monsters(15)

He makes me feel safe and warm. His body is so solid and hard and firm that I know nothing can touch me while I’m touching him.

Though I don’t know when we graduated to sitting like this — maybe it was around Christmas when the air used to be so cold that I needed his soft sweaters and warm chest — but this is how we sit now. I’ve often wondered if friends sit like this. If friends talk in whispers like we do. Other times I think that everything is so natural to us that why should I question it.

Before I can move closer to him though, he fishes something out of his backpack. It’s a cellphone. A tiny flip phone that people used years ago.

“I’m not allowed to have a phone until I go to high school,” I tell him, staring down at it like I’ve never seen a cellphone before. It’s true though. I can’t have any electronic gadgets until I’m fourteen and in high school. I use my dad’s computer to do homework, or go old-style: library.

“I know.” He starts pressing buttons. “See, that’s why I got you a small one so you can hide it easily. Keep it on you all the time, got it? You don’t want people accidentally finding it lying somewhere. And I put in my number already, okay?”

“You want me to bring it with me to my nana’s house?”

Dumb question. I know. But I can’t bring myself to ask the right ones. I’m too anxious, whereas only a few seconds ago, I was too tired to even want to breathe.

“Yeah,” he says cautiously.

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” His voice is sharp and his features even sharper.

I swallow. “I-I don’t…”

His sigh is frustrated. Shaking his head, he throws the phone inside his backpack. “Forget it.”

I put my hand on his shoulder, my fingers tracing the softness of his t-shirt, the firm muscles. For some reason, I want to touch those muscles without the fabric. It jars me, completely throws me off, so I take my hand back and wring it in my lap.

“Abel, don’t be mad. Please?” I whisper apologetically. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I don’t want to fight.”

He scoffs as he zips up his bag, almost tearing it apart in the process. “Look, it was stupid anyway. I thought we could keep in touch while you’re gone. Talk or text or something. I thought it’d make things easier. Bearable. But I guess this is kinda too much.”

I go up to my knees and cup his cheek; I’m dying to anyway. His jaw is pulsing as he looks up at me. “Make what bearable?”

“Don’t you know?”

His Adam’s apple vibrates with his words, just like my heart. “Tell me anyway.”

Abel grips my wrist tightly. I rub my thumb across his cheek, trying to loosen up his expression. It’s so fierce and straining.

“Ever since you told me you were leaving for a fucking month, I haven’t been able to sleep. Because I feel like if I close my eyes, you’ll be gone. I don’t wanna miss a single moment of you being in the next house so like a fucking perv, I keep staring at your dark window, imagining you asleep in your bed, praying to God that…” His thumb grazes the flickering pulse on my wrist. “That somehow my Pixie is dreaming about me.”

My Pixie. He said… my Pixie. I’m his, aren’t I?

My pulse jumps. I bet he can feel it on his thumb, sticking out of my skin, trying to break free with every leap it makes.

As I look down at him and his intense expression, I realize this is the big bang. This is how boys with golden hair and angry expressions crash into your life. This is how stars collide and worlds are made. This is how all love stories start.

Is this ours?

“W-we’re not just friends, are we?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

The entire last year flashes in front of my eyes. The way I wanted to talk to him, be his friend against all the rules. The way I hugged him without a thought, only on instinct, when I saw him here at the treehouse. His playful comments that made me blush. The way he spends hours making sketches of me. The fact that all I ever do is think about him. The way we are drawn to each other.

“Does that mean you’re my… boyfriend?”

Even though his eyes are burning hot, his lips twitch. “You figured that out, huh?”

I frown, suddenly feeling stupid. “Well, you never asked me to be your girlfriend. Boyfriends are supposed to ask their girlfriends that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” I sniff, trying to move away, but he tightens his hold. “Let me go.”

“Never.” He says it like it’s a promise. I shouldn’t feel all melty and tingly but I do. “Will you be my girlfriend, Pixie?”

He’s looking deep into my eyes and it’s doing something to me, apart from making me feel all soft inside. “No,” I whisper, trying to keep my giddy grin from popping out.

Chuckling, he hangs his head. My fingers sink into his hair and I shiver with how soft it is. All golden and soft and smooth. I want to rub it all over my face, my lips, even. That gives me a pause. But my heart isn’t stopping. It’s galloping at the thought of putting my lips anywhere near Abel Adams.

He lifts his eyes and I forget all about his awesome hair. They are just so brown and shiny and his lashes are the most beautiful lashes I’ve ever seen. “You’re gonna make me beg, aren’t you?”