Gods & Monsters(89)

“They burnt down your treehouse. Of course, I’m mad at them. I’ve been mad at them for ages. I’ve been mad at your mom for abusing you. I’ve been mad at your dad for never stepping in. I’ve been mad because they made it hard for us. They made every fucking thing so hard for us.”

“But we’re here. We got away, remember? I chose you. You don’t have to be mad at anyone. We don’t have to be mad. Not at my parents, not the town. Not even at your parents. You don’t have to make anything right for me. I don’t need that from you.”

Ah, so she’s getting all my voicemails. I wanna rage at her, but I guess I’ve lost all strength. Maybe another day. Not right now.

“You have to stop being angry. Everything you do is because you’re so angry. You took that job down at the studio because they condemned us for that. We create all these fantasies, we make tapes because we’re trying to prove something. They don’t care, Abel. No one does. And it’s okay because it doesn’t matter. We don’t have to prove our love to anyone. We don’t have to rebel. No one’s keeping us apart anymore. We’re only hurting ourselves. This anger is eating us alive.”

There’s defiance in every atom of my being. How can she forget? How can she forget what they did? What they put us through.

“You have to stop running, honey,” she whispers after a few seconds. “No one’s chasing us anymore. We both have to stop running.”

Honey.

My heart skips a beat at that. My mom was the only one who ever called me honey. When she died, I never thought I’d get to hear it again. The pang in my chest grows, fucking roars for Pixie to be here. She needs to be here. She belongs with me.

“I will, if you come back,” I say. I’ll say anything for her to come back.

She chuckles. It lacks her usual warmth though. “Not for me, Abel. Do it for yourself. Do it because that’s what you want. Not because that’s what I want.”

“I am. I –”

“I’m giving you your control back.”

I remember every single word I spoke that night. It was all true, whatever I said. I have analyzed that shit like, a hundred times. Did I say something that drove her away? Was I too harsh? Was it the way I couldn’t stop yelling? It was only because sometimes my love for her gets too big to keep inside. It booms and rumbles and fucking thunders.

“I don’t want it, you hear me? I don’t want my control. I don’t want my heart. I just want you. I…” My throat is closing up again, blocking all the air, and I swallow. A big, hard gulp. “I’m nothing without you, Pixie.”

“See, that’s the thing. Maybe you should find out who you are without me. And maybe I need to do the same, you know. We need to find out who we are without each other. Because if we don’t know that, then how can we ever love each other?”

There’s a bad feeling in my chest. Real fucking bad. The kind I had when I stepped inside my empty house a little over six years ago.

“Pixie, don’t. Don’t do this. Don’t hurt me like this.”

It’s getting harder and harder to breathe.

“I’m not. You can’t write a story with dying characters. It’ll come to an end before its time. I want our story to live. I’m saving it because I want it to live forever,” she whispers. “Goodbye, Abel. I love you. Don’t look for me. Don’t run. No one’s chasing you.”





I try to wake up but I can’t. The sun’s too bright. My mind’s too fuzzy. I think I drank last night; I can’t be sure. I stink though and I wanna throw up, but I’ve got no energy for it. Every muscle in my body aches, so I swallow the bile.

Ethan comes into our room, opening the door with a big thud. Groaning, I blink my eyes open and see two of him. Two mouths, two noses, four green eyes. He says he wants me to eat something. He says I’ll kill myself like this.

“Good,” I rumble, then kick him out. I don’t need food.

I don’t need anyone.

Though I remember I need to be more appreciative of him so I whisper, “Thank you.”

I think he snorts.





I haven’t slept in two days.

I’ve called Pixie about a million times. She’s probably sick of me but I don’t care. I also don’t care that she told me to stop looking for her. She’s not thinking straight. There’s no way I’ll ever stop looking.

No way.

I’m gonna keep looking for her until I find her, and then throw her over my shoulder and lock her up. I will tie her to the bed and fuck her and fuck her until she forgets everything else but me. Or until I put a baby in her and she can’t run from me again.

I found her journal.

I can’t believe that I haven’t ever read it. I’ve watched her write in her journals for years. She gets an adorable wrinkle on her nose when she’s focusing, and sometimes she’ll even say the words out loud. Nothing that I can make out, but I’ll hear a slight hum.

It used to make me grab her and kiss all the words out of her pretty mouth.

It’s been too long since I touched her, since I’ve been inside her. I see her clothes, neatly folded, barely taking up any space in the room, and I have to stop and smell the fabric. My dick gets hard every time, thinking that she’s close. Her wet heat is within reach. But no. I won’t even give it my fist. I don’t want to. I never want to again. My dick belongs in her pussy and I won’t stop until I get it there.