With one last look at the house that stands silent and dark, I take off.
I run and run, carrying a small backpack with only a handful of possessions from my old life, water splashing over my bare calves. Rain stabs me like tiny knives, delivering me small deaths. I won’t be surprised if I find red splotches of blood on my white dress.
But I don’t care. I know nothing can kill me tonight. Abel’s Pixie is immortal and so is our love.
Everything is covered by the dark clouds. No stars or moon. Wind is my only friend. It’s fierce and it carries me forward, like I’ve grown wings.
Finally, I reach the bend in the road, far away from my house, from the corn fields, the woods, from everything that I’ve ever known.
My feet stop when I see him. He’s only a silhouette, a dark figure, but it’s enough to stutter my heart.
In the next second, the sky cracks open and showers him in wet light and I can see him: the hair stuck to his forehead, the silver cross around his neck. He stands beside his truck, back leaning against the door, drenched and alone. When he sees me, he stands up straight and alert. We watch each other for a beat. I don’t know what I’m waiting for until he opens his arms, big and wide, beckoning me.
A tear-tinted laugh escapes me and I fly to him on legs turned wings. He carries me off the ground as soon as I crash into his body and hugs me tight. His scent hits my nose and I feel like I can breathe again.
“God, Pixie. You scared me there for a minute,” he pants into my ear. “For a second I thought you wouldn’t show up. I thought something happened. They did something to you. I thought… that I’d never see you again. That I’d be alone.” His voice shivers, breaks at the end.
My eyes feel hot as the sky cries with me. “You never have to be alone.”
“You were supposed to go to college. I —”
“Fuck college. Fuck everything. Nothing matters to me but you.”
“This is it. We can never come back here again. You sure about this? About…” Swallowing, he says in a small voice, “Me?”
There’s a world of vulnerability in his words. It cuts me deep. Until last night, he was confident, aggressive. He was going to take me from my school because I was attending prom with another guy. But now, he sounds so fragile. I hug him even tighter. “Yeah. You’re the only thing I’m sure about.”
He chuckles. “Let’s do this, then.”
I move away to look at him. From this close, I can see that his face is swollen, pockmarked with bruises and cuts. “What’d they do to you?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” He gives me his signature lopsided smile through his busted lip. It squeezes my heart to see him making jokes.
Why is it so easy for people to hate but not to understand? Why is it so easy to judge and conclude but not to take a second to listen? Probably because they are afraid of realizing how similar they are to the things they hate. How similar they are to the monsters they are so fucking afraid of.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for my mom and my dad. Your camera. I really thought he’d support us. I really thought he’d get it. I –”
“It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. We’re leaving all of this behind, Pixie.”
“Where are we going?”
He smirks, his eyelashes leaking water. “Greatest city in the world.”
“New York?”
“Yeah.”
I swallow, drinking in the summer rain, my heart banging in the chest. “Okay.”
Abel traces my wet cheeks. “Are you scared of the big city?”
“No.”
He kisses my forehead sweetly. “You can’t lie for shit, Pixie. I’m gonna take care of you, you know that, right? I’ll always take care of you. You’re mine now, okay? Mine. My reason. My life. My purpose.”
Purpose.
Yeah, that’s the word. That’s what I feel for him. He’s my purpose. My purpose to live, to love, to cherish. To give.
I nod. “You’re mine too.”
“Besides, a fiancé is supposed to take care of his would-be bride, right?”
“Fiancé?”
He looks up at the sky, and then steps away from me. I watch him, confused, as he drops down on his knees, like he can’t bear to stand anymore. Like, he has to kneel.
“Abel? What?”
He’s squinting against the rain as he looks up at me. “I wanted to do this on your birthday. But I don’t wanna waste any more time. You always tell me that I haven’t asked you nicely.” He spreads his arms. “This is me. Being all nice and fucking polite. Will you finally say yes to marrying me?”
I burst out laughing that changes into a sob. God, he’s crazy. And I’m crazy for him. I watch him on his knees, dirt sticking to his jeans, his face all bruised up, his arms wide open as if he’ll catch the sky if it falls on us and save me.