I’m trying to remember the last time Abel looked at me while having sex.
I think it was the day before our shoot was scheduled and we were lounging on the mattress, naked, of course. I was draped over his body, as I said, “You’re still hard.”
“I told you. It’s a sickness. I’m a sick man.”
Smiling, I kissed him sweetly. “Are you sure you’re sick for me? Maybe it’s the apples.” All day we’d binged on sex, Toblerones and apples. “I swear you’re like Adam.”
He fisted my snarly hair. “Who’s Adam?”
“Adam. From Adam and Eve. They got cast out of the garden because he was stupid enough to eat the apple.”
Letting go of my hair, he put both his arms behind his head and chuckled, looking like a king. “Yeah, no. I think, it was Eve. She tempted him.”
“Oh please, it was Adam. He ate the apple because it was his favorite fruit, and Eve tried to stop him but he didn’t listen.”
“What a couple of hungry monsters.” He shook his head.
“Or what a couple of hungry lovers. Lust is hungry work, you know. I’m already craving an apple.”
“And you don’t even like fruit.”
“Nope.”
Then he rolled me on my back and made love to me, while staring into my eyes.
Now, I watch him throw back his head and laugh. He’s talking to Nick, Blu’s husband, sipping beer at the bar counter. We’re at their farewell party of sorts, in their loft-style apartment in the village. They’re leaving for LA tomorrow and this is the last time we’ll see them for a long while.
I’m going to miss them. Blu has become such a great friend, a guide, really. Over the past few weeks, we’ve spent so much time together. We’ve gone shopping, to the movies, to dinners. Sometimes all four of us go, when I can convince Abel to be social. Though he likes Nick so it’s not such a hardship. Plus, if I go, he goes too. It makes me feel really mature, hanging out with another married couple.
“Gosh, you two are so cute.” Blu laughs beside me.
“What?” I look away from Abel, whose laughter has died down to a slow chuckle. I wish he was closer so I could listen to it. I wish he was closer so I could look into his brown eyes. Eyes that remind me of sweet maple syrup.
“You can’t take your eyes off him and he can’t take his eyes off you.” She sips her pink drink. “It’s cute.”
It makes my heart dip into my stomach, all heavy and broken.
I feel like I can cry and cry, and still won’t feel better. I lied to Abel and said it was my period, and he knows not to bother me then. He knows to go to the store, buy me as much chocolate as possible, and sit quietly beside me so I can use him as a pillow. So, he did just that. Though I refused the pillow services and told him that I was feeling bitchy and he needed to get out of the room. He loitered in the hallway, that idiot.
God, I love him. He’s my everything. He’s my world. But am I not enough for him anymore?
Normally, I wave off comments like this and grin but today I can’t. I turn pathetic and ask, “You think so?”
“Yeah. That guy’s crazy about you — you know that, right?”
Taking a sip of water, I nod. “Sure. Yeah.”
I’m never drinking again after how hungover I woke up, feeling like death. I still feel like death. It’s just for another reason.
People are mingling, flashing in and out of my vision, but all I care about is the golden-haired man across the room. I want him to turn and look at me, but he hasn’t. Not yet. Oh, he knows where I am but he’s busy chatting with Nick.
Beside me, Blu lowers her drink without taking a sip and studies me. “What’s going on?’
“Nothing.”
Turning to face me completely, Blu gives me one of her famous stares; Nick calls it the therapist look and I agree. “Spill it. I’m not gonna be here much longer so this is your chance to get all the wisdom.”
Sighing, I gulp down more water. “It’s just that I love him so much, you know? I can’t imagine my life without him. But I…” I sigh, blinking my eyes to keep the tears in. “I don’t think he feels the same.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Forget it.”
It sounds impossible, even to my own ears. It is impossible. He’s crazy about me and I’m crazy about him. But still…
“No. No.” She places a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Tell me what’s going on. What… What brought this on?”
I grip the glass tightly and stare at the water. It takes me a couple of minutes to gather my courage but I do it.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I whisper.
“Do what?”
“Make tapes. I-I can’t make tapes anymore.”
There. I said it.
I can’t go to that studio. Because it’s stained with anger and hatred and useless rebellion. It won’t let us move on. It won’t let us be happy, be in the moment.
“So, don’t do it.”
My eyes water again and not even blinking can do the trick. “We… I don’t know, we made this decision together and I feel like I’d be betraying him somehow by backing out. I think he needs it too much. I —”
“No, hon. He doesn’t need that. He needs you,” she says like it’s so obvious. “That man over there is fucking crazy for you.”
“But he’s been hurt so much. Like, I can’t even imagine, and I can’t take away the one thing that gives him relief.”
Blu knows what happened to us and why we ran away. It both surprises me and makes me feel better to hear her solution.
“Listen to me, okay? This is a marriage. There’s a thing called compromise. Communication. If there’s a problem, you talk about it. You find a solution. You don’t suffocate and be unhappy. There’s a sure-fire way of breaking up your marriage.” She glances at her husband. “When Nick and I started going out, it was pretty cray-cray. He’d call me multiple times a day. I’d be like, dude, just chill out. I’m all for love and whatnot but I also like my space. So, we compromised. It’s completely okay to feel this, trust me.”
I scrunch my nose, almost laughing. “Nick called you multiple times a day?” I swing my eyes to the big guy, all tattooed up and fierce. He doesn’t look like someone prone to showing emotions or even saying I love you much.
He is a great guy though. He has witnessed Abel and me at our absolute most vulnerable, so our relationship should be weird. But it’s not. He’s easy to talk to, hang out with, exactly like Blu. Not to mention he’s a photographer, so he and Abel have a lot to talk about.
Although Abel hasn’t drawn or used the camera for anything other than taking snaps at the shoot in weeks. Just like I haven’t written in so long.
He’s usually so particular about poses. He wants control. He’ll ask me to do a pose but usually not like it. So, he’ll study me critically, run his eyes all over my body and rearrange my limbs to his satisfaction. I miss that. I miss being his muse. I miss seeing him in his creative space.
Blu’s laughter brings me back to the moment and I find her watching her husband fondly. “He’s a pretty big softy. But he’s got abandonment issues. From his past. He used to think that the world would explode if he didn’t see me every day. Which is great to have, really. But it sort of also hinders the growth of trust, you know what I mean? So, we took baby steps. We’re still taking them.” Then she turns to me. “Talk to your husband. Tell him what you want. Tell him you don’t want to do it. And if he loves it too much, then find a compromise.”
Her smile is kind as she continues, “Remember I told you that some people come into this business because they’re trying to take back what they lost. They are too angry. Well, then don’t be angry anymore. Forgive those people, let the anger go.”
Don’t be angry.
Forgive and forget.
Yes, I want that. I want to move on. I want him to move on.
Blu is right. We need to talk. Didn’t we promise that we’d talk to each other?
Abel is my best friend. He’s not a mind-reader, though. So I need to tell him, make him understand that we have a choice. We don’t have to feel angry anymore. We can be happy.
I just want him and me. Like before.
I want to write in my journals, do crappy jobs, and I want him to make me his muse again. Yes, I want that. I want to be his inspiration, the thing he gets so fascinated with that he can’t control himself from picking up his pencil or taking photos of.
I want that Abel and Evie. The artist and the muse. A boy and a girl in love. With dreams in their eyes, and the whole universe in their hearts.
I want to tell him that our treehouse is gone but it’s okay. We still have each other. We will always have each other. I don’t want to care about the people who don’t care about us. Not anymore. It’s exhausting and draining. It defeats the whole purpose of our love. Anger soils its purity.
Nobody matters but us.
I can do this. I can so do this.
But first I need a little fresh air. I don’t know why I’m so nervous about this but I am. I excuse myself from Blu and cut a direct path to the small balcony in the back. Thank God, it’s empty. I don’t want company. I’m going to drag in a few breaths, calm my fluttering heart, and then go back in and ask Abel to leave with me. Then I’m going to kiss him and tell him my plan.
It’s going to be okay.
Just then, the door slides open and the very man I was thinking about stands on the threshold.
“Pixie.”
God, his voice. I heard it just a little while ago when we came to the party but it feels like too long.
“Hey.” I smile at him.
I can’t help but smile at him. For the first time in weeks, things are clear. My mind isn’t foggy. I’m not weighed down.
I’m truly free.
He approaches me. “You’re feeling better?”
I put my arms around his shoulders. “Yes.”
“It was the chocolates, right? They calmed you down.”
“Maybe.” I look at him, trace my fingers over his beautiful face. The slant of his jaw, his high cheekbones, his strong nose. “Remember when you told me that if I hadn’t come to New York with you, you never would’ve made it?”
“Yeah.”
“I never got the chance to tell you that…” I take in a deep breath. “That I wouldn’t have made it either. They were planning to send me to some camp the following day and… I already knew that if something happened, if I couldn’t go with you, I’d kill myself.”
Fury lines his expression and before he can say anything, I go up and kiss him. I kiss him with all the love and the pain in my heart. I only told him this so he’ll know how important he is to me. How vital he is for my own survival. He’s too important to me to see him hurting and angry.
We don’t need the camera or anything else to make us feel better. All we need is each other.
I don’t even want to waste a single second before telling him, making him understand, so I break the kiss and come up for air. Abel’s grabbing on to my waist like he usually does, and it makes me smile as I catch my breath.
Then he licks the side of my neck, making me moan. Desire stirs inside me, so much desire. But I want to tell him first. I want to erase this boundary between him and me, and then we have all the time in the world for this.
“Abel…”
He groans, sucking on my neck and bunching up my dress. My core pulses and I’m so close to giving in but I need to be strong. I need us to come together without any unease in my heart.
“Abel, stop. Wait a second…”
“Come on, Pixie. I don’t care that you’re bleeding. I just need inside you.”
Okay, that’s gross. I don’t tell him that I’m not, in fact, bleeding, but we’ll discuss that later. He’s gotten my dress up to my waist now, baring my lower half, and I clutch his wrist. “Abel, stop. Not right now.”
“Trust me, baby, I can feel it tonight.” He rasps, rocking into me, placing soft kisses on the line of my shoulder traveling down to my exposed breastbone.
“Feel what?”
“That tonight’s the night. I’m gonna breed you tonight.” His cock grows super hard, then. It presses into my stomach, as if pressing into my womb through the layers of clothing and muscles and bones. “Imagine what they’ll say then, huh? Your mom’s gonna lose her shit.”
Suddenly, there’s a roaring inside my ears. My blood’s beating through my veins too rapidly.
Imagine what they’ll say then, huh? Your mom’s gonna lose her shit.
I forgot.
I forgot my pills. I haven’t taken them in days.
How did I forget? How did this happen? How long have we been slipping? Falling apart. With no one to save us.
Just falling.
Oh God, I’m going to throw up. I’m going to throw up because I know it in my bones: I’m pregnant. I can feel it. I know it like I know my own name, which is Evie.
It’s not fucking Pixie.
Abel’s breathing loudly, panting in my neck, pulling the zipper of his jeans down with one hand and with the other, he’s holding my dress around my waist.
“This is our ultimate revenge, Pixie. Me getting you knocked up is our ultimate fuck you.”
Somehow, I get the energy even when my head is spinning and I shove him off. I can’t do this.
“Pixie?”
“I have to go.”
I straighten my dress and try to move away from him but he doesn’t let me. Of course, he doesn’t let me. Of course, he doesn’t give me space. He never gives me space. He’s so big and overpowering that there isn’t any space left.
“What the fuck, Pixie? What’s happening?”
“I want you to let me go,” I say, with gritted teeth. I don’t want to fight in front of the whole world.
A frown mars his forehead. There’s lust in his eyes still. But it’s vanishing by the moment, the brown color emerging. The beautiful brown color that makes me forget everything but him. He clenches his jaw and plants his feet wide. A show of defiance and authority.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
It makes me so mad, I’m shaking. My breaths are uneven. Fuck not fighting in front of the whole world. I shove his chest with my free hand. I shove him hard, almost screaming, “Abel. Let me go.”
“Not until you tell me what the fuck is happening.”
“What’s happening is that you think a baby is a joke. You think knocking me up is revenge. What’s happening is that even after telling you no, a thousand times right now, you don’t stop. You’ve lost all control.”
“I’ve lost all control, huh, Pixie?” He scoffs, his grip flexing around my wrist.
“My name is not Pixie. It’s Evie.”
My voice is loud. Super loud, and when his face crumples and loses its harshness, I feel like someone is squeezing my heart and I can’t breathe. Stepping back, he lets go of my hand.
No, no, no. I don’t want him backing down. I don’t like him this way.
He spreads his arms open, as if he’s embracing the whole city and no one at all, at the same time. “Well, you’re right, Pixie,” he emphasizes my name and I’m back to being angry again. “Welcome to my fucking world. A world of no control. I gave it up the moment I saw you on that field. You took it from me. Stole it. I didn’t even know the meaning of it. Didn’t understand why the fuck my heart was beating like someone jacked it up. Why I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I understood nothing except this compulsive need to seek you out. To be near you.”
His arms fall to his sides and his fingers form a fist. “I didn’t care that your mom thought I was a piece of shit. I didn’t care that people wouldn’t look me in the eye, that hardly anyone talked to me. Because the only thing that mattered to me was you. I had no choice but to take the hatred. I had no choice but to die a little every time they took you away from me, grounded you, kept you locked up so I couldn’t see you. I had no control over my feelings. No choice but to burn in your love.
“So, if you wanna talk about control, Pixie? Let’s talk about how you took my control, back when I didn’t even know your name.” He barks out a laugh, and beats his chest with his fist. “If you think I don’t understand the meaning of no, then let’s talk about how all my nos vanished from my vocabulary the second I saw you. How for you, I took everything. I suffered everything. Everything I am went down the drain. Let’s talk about that.”
His voice echoes in the night, louder than any sound of the city downstairs, clearer than any sound I’ve ever heard. It shatters my heart into a million pieces, turns it into dust and ashes. I know I won’t forget the look on his face, the tone of his voice, until the day I die. Tortured, savage and angry. Hateful.
Can you love someone so much that you end up hating them? Such a paradoxical thought, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense right now.
I’m sobbing. My eyes are running streams and streams of tears down my cheeks and my legs are ready to give out. I’m so dizzy. I can’t see straight.
For weeks, I saw him get angry in front of the camera. I thought all of his anger was directed toward my parents, toward the town. I never thought that it could be directed toward me, too.
Abel looks distorted through my tears. He looks like a god with a million monsters trapped inside him. Or maybe he’s always been a monster who looks like a god. Because only monsters love this way: crazily, insanely, madly. Like there’s no tomorrow. Like the world is ending. Like their heart would burst with all the painful love they feel inside that tiny organ.
We’re both monsters, then.
I don’t know what to tell him, and it turns out I don’t have to, because there are people around me. Tons of people. But Abel doesn’t look away from me. Not even for a second.
Soft arms give me the support to stay upright; it’s Blu. And Abel snaps, “Let her go. Don’t touch her. I’ll take care of her.”
I shake my head. “I need to leave. I need some space.”
That gets him mad. That gets his chest heaving. “No, you don’t need space. You’re not leaving. I won’t let you leave.”
He takes a step toward me but someone stops him. It’s Nick. He tells Abel to let me go. But Abel is stubborn. “She can’t leave. She’s my wife, all right? I’ll take her home.”
I know I should say something. I should tell Abel to stop fighting and listen to me. But I let Blu pull me away. That’s easier. Running away is easier than staying and confronting him. She has already ushered me to the balcony door and now Abel is straining against Nick’s hold. “Pixie, stop it. Come back.” To Blu he says, “Don’t take her away from me. Don’t touch her. She’s mine.”
I’m crying silently, hating myself for being weak, hating Abel for looking so powerful and so vulnerable at the same time. This is too similar to prom night. We’re even wearing similar clothes: him a black t-shirt and white pants, and me a black dress. Guess this is another thing I didn’t notice. That night when my mom was dragging me away from him and he was shouting, screaming, I didn’t want to leave and now, I can’t stay.
Blu is silent by my side as she walks me through the crowd of bystanders. I don’t have the strength to look at them and see what they are thinking. My heart’s breaking too much. Abel’s still out on the balcony, but I can hear his outraged words.
“Come back here, Pixie. You’re mine, you hear me? You’re fucking mine and if you think for a single second that you can get away from me, you’re out of your mind. I won’t let you.”
I put a trembling hand on my tummy and Blu notices. Her eyes flare in understanding but I shake my head. “Don’t say anything. Don’t tell him. Please.”
She nods as she squeezes my shoulder and keeps walking. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”
I can’t tell Abel. I can’t tell him that his wish already came true. He has already had his revenge. I can’t do that to my baby — a baby I’m not even sure I’m carrying. But if I am, my child will never bear the sins of his father. I won’t let it happen.
I won’t let Abel’s anger touch him or her.
Just when Blu’s about to turn into the hallway, I pause. I stare at my husband. He’s being held back by two men but he’s basically bulging out of their hold, his determination to come after me is so strong. He’s panting, growling, his eyes are wild, his hair’s messy. He’s both a man and an animal right now. A true god. He makes his own way, his own rules. He loves me with every inch of his savage heart. I do too.
I mouth I’m sorry, like the way I did on prom night three months ago.
We only lasted such a short time in New York. Back in our town, you couldn’t have separated us even if your life depended on it.
When did we go from being two crazy kids in love to this? To whatever this is.
Shaking my head, I turn and walk away.
In my wake, my husband shouts my name over and over. It’s loud, tortured. It’s a howl. It’s the big bang.
And I can’t help but think that maybe this is how hearts die and all love stories come to an end.