My Pixie is gone.
She walked away from me, crying, her beautiful face splotched and red, the loose strands of her hair sticking to her wet cheeks.
I’ve had nightmares about this. About waking up one day and finding her gone because I’m not worth it. I’m not worth all the trouble, the years of sneaking around, running away from the only place she’s ever known, being estranged from her parents. I’m not worth all that.
I’ve had nightmares about her finally realizing that whatever her parents have been saying all along, whatever her town has been saying, is true. Abel Adams is a monster and he doesn’t deserve the love of the town’s princess. A goddess.
But fuck that. She’s mine. I took her and she’s going to stay with me. I won’t let her get away.
No matter what Nick says. She doesn’t need space. Not from me, her husband.
“You guys need to calm down, okay, man? It was a huge fight. You both need some time. Blu’s gonna look after her, so let’s get you home so you can relax and get some perspective.” He thumps my back. “Take the night off and when she’s back in the morning, you guys can talk.”
They stay with me all night, Nick and Ethan. They snatch away my phone so I can’t call her, won’t leave me alone for a single second. Those fuckers. I would knock them out, but it wouldn’t matter. Ethan would duck and run away, and it wouldn’t faze Nick. Nothing fazes that guy.
I pace and growl like I did the night they locked me up back in that town. At least then I had the pain to distract me from drowning in thoughts of Pixie. Tonight, I don’t have the luxury. I keep seeing her face when she told me I’d lost all control. Well, fuck yeah, I’ve lost control. I’ve had no control over my actions, over myself ever since I saw her.
I don’t understand how it all came about. One second she was kissing me and the next, she wanted me to go away. It’s not her choice. She’s my wife. She married me and she’s stuck with me for life. Even if she wasn’t married to me, I still wouldn’t let her get away from me.
Sometime during the night, I make the mistake of drifting off. I wake up gasping for breath because I see Pixie leaving me to go back to her parents. I haven’t had that kind of reaction in years now. Like someone’s strangling my throat, pressing on my windpipe, keeping me from drawing a breath.
Abel means breath, my mom used to tell me when I was a kid.
When they died, I couldn’t breathe right for days. Not until I saw Pixie and all my thoughts became hers. My nightmares went away and I dreamed about her pink dress and her flying hair and dirty toes. I wondered if there was a way I could touch her. If I could find out whether she was real or something I made up in my head out of grief and loneliness.
She was real, though. So real and pretty, sitting on the church pew, under the window, talking to her friend. Her voice was sweet. Like sugar or something. I wanted to dip my finger in it and pop it in my mouth for a taste.
Half asleep, I search the apartment for Pixie — not that it’s a huge place — but I come up empty. Where the fuck is she? Nick is gone now to go to the airport because Blu and him are leaving for LA in a little while. Pixie should be back by now. Obviously, she can’t stay at their place.
Ethan has woken up from my loud feet and I throw him a glare. In exchange, he throws me my phone. Good boy. While pacing the living room, I dial Pixie’s number, but it goes straight to voicemail, making me growl.
“Pixie, pick up the phone. Where the fuck are you? Do you have any idea how worried I am? You’re driving me fucking crazy right now.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Just pick up the phone, all right? You can’t shut me out. You can’t leave me hanging like this. I…”
I pause in front of the mirror. The tall one by the door. Pixie blushes every time we pass by it. Every time I kiss her in front of it or make her look at our reflections together, she ducks her head and elbows my chest. Abel, you’re shameless. It doesn’t matter that she loves it as much as me, that it gets her hot in two seconds flat, she pretends to be outraged.
A vice tightens around my heart, my throat, and my breathing stutters. I have to clench my eyes shut and dig a fist to my chest so I can take a proper breath.
The phone’s still pressed to my ear and I continue, “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for whatever I did, for whatever I said, but you need to talk to me. You need to pick up your phone. I gave you your space. You’ve had an entire night. Now you’ve gotta talk to me. Right fucking now, all right? I’m coming to get you. You can’t stay at Blu’s forever. I’m coming, and Pixie?” I blow out a breath. “Stay put. I can’t have you getting lost again.”
I don’t want to cut off the call but I do it. I wanna keep myself connected to her however I can but I need to run now. I need to go get her from Nick and Blu’s house. Enough of this space shit.
But before I can leave, my eyes get stuck on the mirror, on my reflection, again. My eyes are red-rimmed, ragged from lack of sleep. Pixie says my eyes remind her of maple syrup and that every time I look at her she gets hungry for chocolate chip pancakes. I don’t know if it’s a compliment or what that I make her hungry for food, but I’ll take it.
She loves playing with my hair, says it’s the softest thing she’s ever touched. The strands are sticking up right now, like she’s just run her fingers all over them. My shirt’s wrinkled, as well. She hates black but I wear it because I know it gets her all worked up.
Abel, you need color in your life.
I’ve got you for that. All pretty and pink.
The hollow of my throat shows through the neck of the shirt; she loves tucking her nose in there. The veins on my arms stand out thick and taut; she loves tracing her finger along them. She loves comparing our palms, her small ones to my longer ones.
The silver cross she keeps sucking on lies in the middle of my heaving chest. There was a time when this necklace reminded me of my mom, her gentle laughter and sweet voice, but now all I can think about is Pixie’s perfect pink lips caressing the edges of it, her teeth biting on it as I pound into her.
She loves using me as a pillow while sleeping, though she says I heat her up too much and tries to move away. I don’t let her go too far though. I drag her back. In winter when we used to spend time up in her treehouse, she’d cuddle beside me because of my body heat. It’s not winter in New York yet, but she’s gonna need me to warm her up.
Everything I am, every single part of my body, is deliberately, thoughtfully designed for her. Maybe, before dying, that fucking god of hers did one thing right. He created me for her and He molded her for me.
Where the fuck did it all go wrong?
You’ve lost all control.
***
She isn’t at their apartment.
Last night, she went to a coffee shop with Blu and stayed there for a few hours, before coming back to their place and spending the night there. But in the morning, she left. Not for our apartment but to go somewhere else.
“She left? You fucking let her go,” I bellow at Blu, who looks calm, as if everything is fine. As if slowly, bit by bit, I’m not losing my grip on reality.
“I’m not her keeper. She wanted to leave so I let her go. She’s not a child, Abel. She’s allowed to go places.”
I growl, “Are you out of your mind? She gets lost. She doesn’t have any sense of direction. She doesn’t even have any money.”
“I gave her some.” She sighs. “Look, before she left she asked me to tell you that she’ll call you. That you shouldn’t look for her. She’ll come to you when she’s ready. Oh, and she also said that she can take care of herself. You should trust her.”
I push my fingers through my hair. “I should trust her?”
“Yes.”
“That’s great. It’s fantastic. I should trust her.” I nod, all the while wanting to punch something. “She left me. She won’t pick up my calls and I’m talking to fucking strangers to find out where she is. And I should trust her.”
Putting my hands on my hips, I look up at the ceiling of her apartment — the apartment I checked all nooks and crannies of under Nick’s glower — as I bark out a laugh. It strains the tendons of my throat, making me feel like I can’t breathe. Again.
Blu watches me with kind eyes. “It’s not my place to say anything but she loves you. She loves you a lot. More than you can even imagine, maybe. She left everything for you and she doesn’t even care because you are her everything. And all she’s asking you in return is to give her some time, okay? All she wants from you is a little bit of trust, and maybe a little bit of patience too.”
“What’d she say to you?”
“I just told you.”
I want to break something. I think maybe I’ll break the sliding door leading to that fucking balcony. The balcony where everything went wrong, where she left me like I didn’t matter to her at all. Like all the shit we went through didn’t matter. She ignored my screams, my shouts while I was being held like a rabid animal.
“She loves me, huh?” Blu nods. “Then why isn’t she here talking to me? Why’d she leave me?”
“Maybe you should ask that of yourself.”