Gods & Monsters(99)

I scoff. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s true. That ship sailed the moment I watched myself on screen.”

“Nothing’s permanent, Abel. Don’t you know that by now?”

“Feels permanent,” I mutter.

Pixie covers my hand with hers again, and presses it on her stomach, and I’m so dazed, so humbled that I almost come to my knees. “I told her that Mommy and Daddy are just taking some time apart. But they still love each other and they love her, too. More than anything. And I told her that for her, we’ll take baby steps because I know.”

“Know what?”

“That what happened wasn’t permanent. It took me a while to figure it out but I know that somehow, we’ll find our way back to ourselves and to each other. I have faith.”

Then, I can’t stop myself and I don’t want to. I slide down to my knees, cement hitting my bones, my palm still connected to where my daughter lies, inside my wife. Is there anything godlier than this? Is there anything more peaceful, more terrifying, more humbling than kneeling in front of the mother of your child?

If she wasn’t a goddess before, she is now. She has life inside her.

“I-I don’t know anything. About being a dad or anything like that,” I confess to her, again.

“Me neither.” She chuckles. “But, I hear they have books.”

“For her, I’ll read all the goddamned books there are.”

“I know.” She squeezes my hand. “But just so you know, we’ve been talking like it’s really a girl but we don’t know that yet.”

I look into the eyes of the only woman I’ve really loved, the only woman I will ever love, and tell her, “It’s a girl, and she’s gonna be like you. Bossy and innocent and giving, and brave. So fucking brave, she’ll blow everyone’s mind. Most of all, she’ll make a fool out of me and I’ll love every second of it.”

“Really?”

I nod. “I have faith.”





I’m not afraid of monsters.

I never was and I never will be. I always thought every monster has a story, and turns out, I was right.

The other day I was reading one of the books Abel brought home, and I found something interesting. A French philosopher once said that every man is born a blank slate. No one is either good or bad, not until they come in contact with other people. Only then, a man takes shape and becomes something, a monster or a god. Often times, both.

That’s the beauty of being a human. You can be whatever you want to be. You can be touched by things: anger, hate, envy, love, lust. You can forgive, forget, hold on, let go. You can do anything; there are endless possibilities.

And I figured something out: Abel Adams is not a god. He’s not a monster, either. He’s human. He is what others made him.

Everything that went wrong with us didn’t start when he took that job at the studio or when we became fascinated with the idea of a rebellion. It didn’t even start when he brought home the camera, blurring the lines between our fantasy and reality.

No.

It all started when a fourteen-year-old boy held the door open for our town’s gossip, Mrs. Weatherby, but she refused to even acknowledge him. It started when he was trying to make a friend because he was lonely. But my mom put him down. It started when people were cruel to him, and hardly anyone stepped in.

It started the moment he was conceived and they called him a monster baby.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, doesn’t it? So we reacted. For many people, we might be a couple of punk kids who were angry at the world and acting out. Who didn’t know what real life was.

People die every day. There are wars happening everywhere. What does it matter if our love was rejected? It’s no big deal. What does it matter if we were almost torn apart? We got out, didn’t we? We should have been happy. We should have thanked our lucky stars.

Yes, maybe we should have. Maybe we should have forgotten everything and moved on. But we didn’t. We chose to hold on to the hurt, the anger. We chose to hold on to our wounded love.

And if people die every day and wage war on each other, I’m glad we held on to the one pure thing in this world. I’m glad we held onto our love, gave into our emotions, rebelled.

I’m glad because we’re stronger for it. We lost all control and now we know what it feels like. We understand what it means to be angry. We understand that in the future, if we have to make a choice, we know to choose forgiveness.

We know to choose each other and ourselves, and this baby.

I put a hand on my swollen belly. Seven months along, I’m a whale these days. Nothing fits me. Nothing at all. I’m usually wearing this pink, fluffy bathrobe I found online and a maternity sunflower dress underneath. So damn comfortable.

I moved in with Abel a couple of months ago when I started falling sick a lot. Doctor said I needed my rest and Abel had been going out of his mind, watching me throw up after most of our dates, and not being able to stay the night with me.

Months ago, we talked about taking baby steps. I got this idea from Blu. And that was exactly what we were doing.

We were taking baby steps. We’d see each other every other day. He’d take me out when I was feeling up to it. But when I wasn’t, he’d cook for me. He’d stock my fridge and kitchen cabinets with saltines and crackers. He’d also label them because I lived in a shared apartment.