Gods & Monsters(36)

I blink to get rid of the tears and tighten my limbs around him to fuse us together. “Fuck me, Abel. Please.”

It’s a whisper but he hears it, and then his entire frame crashes down on me. He’s kissing me with his mouth, with his fingers, his palms, his feet… his entire body hugs me like his mouth hugs mine while we’re kissing. Every part of me touches every part of him. Even our hearts touch, through our chests.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

I’ve never heard that sound before. So loud. Two hearts beating as one. But then the sound changes, morphs into something else. Something even louder. Rougher and angry and insistent.

We break apart, our breaths crashing against each other. The door of his apartment vibrates. It’s almost on the verge of breaking down. An explosion. Abel opens it at the last second to save it from getting torn apart.

But my world explodes anyway. Because on the other side are my parents and their wrath-filled eyes.





I thought I was living in the apocalypse for the past two years. I thought my world was already destroyed – nothing could be worse than not seeing Abel, not being able to touch him.

I was wrong.

This is worse. This is the end of my world. The earthquake. The destruction. Only nothing beautiful will come out of this. No new worlds or fresh air will be born after this.

There is no after.

I sit inside my bedroom, under my barred window, and things that happened hours before come to me in pieces.

The screaming, the shouting, the angry eyes. The sting of a slap that my mom threw at me when she saw my naked body wrapped up in a sheet. The crying. Oh God, the crying. Mom’s and mine. Her hiccups, my hiccups. Her calling me a whore, saying how I ruined things for myself and for my family. How I gave up my precious virginity to a worthless boy.

“I always knew it. I always knew he’d ruin you. Do you think I can’t see? Do you think I don’t get it? I’m your mother. Did he force you? Tell me he forced you. It’s better to call it a rape than whatever this is.”

“He didn’t force me,” I sobbed. “He didn’t do anything. Nothing happened.”

But most of all, I remember Abel’s face. His anger. It was probably scarier than anything else inside that room.

“Leave her alone,” he thundered. “Don’t you fucking touch her. Don’t you fucking touch my Pixie. She’s mine.”

His shouts were more of a shock to them than my naked body.

They don’t know, you see. They don’t understand my Abel. They don’t understand that when a boy with enough heat to burn the sun falls in love with a girl, he torches the whole world. They don’t get his intensity, his passion.

He didn’t stop with words, he descended on them, especially on my mom, his eyes ablaze, his body massive and heaving. He would’ve killed her, I know it. He would’ve killed her if not for that sound.

The sound that even now doesn’t let me sleep: the shatter of his camera.

Things ground to a halt when my dad found it. I’d never seen him this mad. I’d never seen my dad’s eyes red and filled with hatred. He threw the camera at the wall, smashing it into a million pieces.

Abel simply stood there, watching his prized possession break like our hearts were breaking. Then my dad turned to me. He looked at me like I was really a whore. A bad seed. A daughter who really ruined everything.

“Did he… Did you let him take your picture like this?” my dad asked, his eyes brimming with angry, accusing tears.

“Dad, it’s not like that. I-I…We love each other. It’s not… bad or anything.” I begged him. “I love him, Dad. Please. Don’t be mad.”

It took Dad a few seconds to adjust to my confession. In those few seconds, I prayed to God. I asked for my dad’s understanding. I prayed for him to look beyond his anger and understand. Abel and I had done nothing wrong.

Amidst my mom’s screams and accusations, my dad approached the love of my life and took a swing at him. My dad, the one person I counted on to listen to me, hear my side of things, tore apart the dreams I’d woven over the years. I knew then, that he’d never get it. He’d never understand. No one will, probably. But then, I shouldn’t have been surprised, right? My dad hardly ever came to my rescue.

Abel didn’t move. He took it. With his eyes on me, he took the beating, never retaliated. I could see him making fists at his sides, veins standing stark and alert, but he didn’t do anything.

I begged my dad to stop.

“I love him, Dad. Please. Let him go. He didn’t do anything. Nothing happened between us.”

I begged and begged, but nothing. A few minutes later, they dragged me out of Abel’s apartment naked, with only a blanket wrapped around my body. Mom muttered something about me being a slut and I deserved to be paraded around like one. This will teach you to whore yourself out in the name of love.

Abel was breathing loudly, a drop of blood almost snaking down to his lashes. “Pixie! Don’t take her away. Leave her alone. I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill everyone. Don’t hurt her.”

His eyes held a manic light when my gaze met his for a brief moment. I was a mess of my former self, the one that arrived, panting and desperate to see him. I’m sorry, I mouthed as he disappeared from my view.

Outside, people flooded the street, talking, watching, some giving me glares, others giving me sympathetic stares.