Dominion

by Melody Manful

  “Sarah, I was…” I didn’t know how to makeup a believable lie. I decided to go with a partial truth instead. “I’m fine now, and my phone was off,” I explained, taking Gideon’s hand. I didn’t want him to step away from me. I felt butterflies in my stomach as Gideon pulled me closer to him again.

  “Don’t play innocent with me!” Sarah knew more about me than I gave her credit for. “Gideon comes back to school and you rush home like the school caught on fire.” This made both Gideon and I laugh.

  “My bad,” Gideon said. He smiled and winked at me, which made my heart swoon. He grabbed my waist and pulled me closer into him so that the space between us disappeared. Wow, those green eyes…he was definitely trying to dazzle me, and it was working.

  “I left because…” I was having a difficult time thinking straight. My mind felt fuzzy. For a second I didn’t even remember what I was talking about.

  “What did that hot guy do to you?” Sarah asked before adding, “Is it just me, or has he gotten hotter since the last time we saw him?” Come to think of it, I think he got hotter every second I saw him. “And did you see his eyes?” I felt my cheeks flush when she asked this. “Green has never looked so beautifully and mysteriously hot.”

  “I… I…” I wanted to say I didn’t see his eyes, but I was staring right into them, and Sarah’s description didn’t do those captivating eyes justice.

  Gideon’s hands traced my cheek, sending goose bumps down my body.

  “Speak up, Abigail, I can’t hear you.” Sarah said annoyingly through the phone. “Here I am talking about how hot Gideon is, and you aren’t saying anything to encourage it. Unless you don’t think he’s hot, which would be a total lie because I have chat messages that confirm you do.”

  “He’s…” I paused again because Gideon had taken me completely by surprise when he replaced his hand on my cheek with his lips. I was pretty sure an alien sound of some sort escaped my lips when I felt his breath on my skin. Suddenly, everything around me started spinning slowly.

  “He’s what?” Sarah sounded more annoyed than before. My pulse was climbing higher and higher.

  Gideon’s lips left my cheeks and moved up to my free ear. “Abigail,” he whispered, “Can I… may I… I want to kiss you, can I?” My grip on my phone tightened when he whispered this. Before, my heart had been beating so fast that I felt as if I were running a marathon; now, however, I was pretty sure it was racing at the speed of light.

  “Please say yes,” Gideon whispered again into my ear. My body felt like it was on fire, as Gideon’s mouth on my skin was driving me insane.

  “Abigail, are you even listening to me?” Sarah asked, but her voice seemed far away, “What are you doing?”

  “Yes,” I said. Gideon pulled away to look at me. “Yes,” I said again, and then he took my phone away from me.

  “Sarah, she’ll call you back,” he muttered into the phone before closing it and tossing it aside. The moment the phone left his hand, his lips were on mine.

  My whole body went numb the moment Gideon’s lips touched mine. I kissed him back, and he deepened the kiss, his lips sending heat waves through my body. I was on fire. I couldn’t think straight, the touch of his hands on my cheeks and the feel of his lips on mine were electrifying. I placed my hands on his chest. I could feel the beat of his heart beneath my palm. I wanted the moment to last forever, to be frozen in this breathless moment for all eternity, just me and Gideon and no one else.

  His hands moved from my cheeks and into my hair, and he pulled me closer into him, his lips never straying from mine. My heart pounded in my chest, racing in anticipation. I felt as if my body was an overheated volcano waiting to explode. The feel of Gideon’s lips on mine was mind-blowing. He kissed me with so much passion that I felt like I was about to shatter with happiness. I lifted my hand, brushing it through his soft, dark hair. Gideon’s hands found my waist and wrapped around it, pushing me tighter into him. I saw stars, heaven, and then…

  “Abigail, I made you—” My mother’s words stopped.

  Gideon pulled away, leaving me breathless and speechless. My first kiss. It was so worth the wait. I was still trying to make my heart slow down when my eyes met Gideon’s, and I stopped inhaling altogether.

  It took me a second to remember why Gideon had pulled away, and then I saw my mother. She stood in the doorway looking surprised at us. Oh, boy.

  I knew I was never going to live this one down. I left Gideon’s side. “Mom—”

  “Gideon,” my mother cut me off. “How did you get in here?” she demanded. “What is going on here?”

  I was so dead. “Gideon and I are…he’s no longer a jerk. He’s…my boyfriend.”

  My mother stared surprisingly at me when I said this. “Boyfriend? Since when? And how did he get inside?” My mother’s eyes moved from Gideon and me to the balcony. “You sneaked him up here?”

  “No…yes…we were just—”

  “Gideon, join me in the sitting room,” my mother said, and already she was walking out. Gideon grabbed my hand and pulled me after my mother. “Boyfriend?” my mother said to herself.

  “I am so sorry,” I whispered to Gideon.

  “She’s going to kill me, isn’t she?” Gideon asked as a small smile played on his lips.

  “Pretty much.” I nodded solemnly. I was pretty sure my mother was now blowing the whole thing out of proportion in her head.

  “So, Gideon, how long have you been dating my daughter? And when did you stop being a jerk?” my mother asked without turning around as she walked down the stairs. “Where do you live? Would you mind producing a copy of your birth certificate, along with your social security number?” I knew she wasn’t kidding with her request. We had been taught to learn everything about the people around us because of the life we lived.

  “Do you live with your parents? What work do they do? Do you have any thoughts about college?” By the time my mother was done with her questions, Gideon didn’t know which question he should answer first, and my mother expected immediate answers.

  ALMOST PARADISE

  “We whisper prayers, and shout out curses

  to fight these demons and hope they disappear.

  We hide scars, and tear through pains

  so we can try, and disguises all our fear.”

  Melody Manful

  

  Gideon survived my mother’s interrogation. When she finally allowed me to take him back up to my room, she said she’d be popping in every fifteen minutes, and she stayed true to her word.

  “Your mother scares me,” Gideon had said the second time my mother checked on us.

  “It’s about time someone scared you,” I teased.

  My mother allowed Gideon to stay the afternoon, and she even invited him to join us for dinner. I should have known she’d use dinner as an excuse to ask him more questions. Gideon was a good guest, and he answered each question as much as he could. At every opportunity, I tried to turn the conversation away from Gideon and on to something else.

  Being who she was—fashionable, friendly, and open toward everyone—I was kind of surprised to watch her deliberately torture Gideon, and just because I said he was my boyfriend. She wasn’t all, “I’ve got my eye on you, young man,” when she thought Tristan and I had something going on.

  Gideon did look like he was scared of my mother, because I could visibly see him thinking twice before speaking.

  “See you tomorrow,” I told Gideon as I followed him to the door. Shortly after dinner, my mother decided it was time he went home and prepared for school tomorrow. And since we told her his car was parked outside the gates of our house, he had some distance to walk to it.

  “See you,” Gideon said and then looked up at something behind me. When I turned, my mother was standing there, staring at him.

  “Goodbye, Gideon,” she said.

  I turned back to Gideon. I knew he wasn’t really going away—he would end up in my room seconds after leaving m
y mother’s sight—but I still wanted a goodbye kiss. I knew my mother was standing there to make sure I didn’t get it.

  Gideon kissed my forehead lightly and said, “Tomorrow.” And then he walked away.

  I closed the door behind him and turned to my mother. “Mom, you didn’t have to be so mean to him.”

  “Mean to him would have been asking him to leave when I found him inside your room,” she said, obviously still angry at catching us together. “No boys in your room without me in the house.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him. I was going to.”

  “A boyfriend. I thought you and—” She stopped herself. “He seemed like a nice boy. You tell him that, and I’ll deny it. I need him to be scared of me.”

  “He is scared of you. And I know what you were about to say. Tristan and I are just friends.”

  “You said it, not me.” She took my hand, and we headed toward the sitting room.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To have the talk.”

  I stopped dead when I realized what she meant. “Mom, Gideon and I haven’t even—”

  “As a mother, it’s my job to have this conversation with you, so it’s either you hear it now or later.”

  I knew she wasn’t going to let it go. She was doing this because she had walked in and caught us kissing.

  By the time my mother was done with her speech, though, I was ready to sign a pledge saying I’d never have kids. When she finally released me, I went back to my room and found Gideon, his sister, and Tristan waiting inside. They broke into laughter the moment I closed my door.

  “I told you her mother was scary,” Gideon sounded like he was happy to have been correct.

  Valoel was still laughing when she said, “Now I believe you.”

  Tristan and Valoel left shortly after. Gideon stayed, and we talked more about his world. I made sure not to ask him anything regarding his whole evil nature because I wasn’t sure I could handle him talking about it.

  When Monday morning came, Gideon and I survived my friends, too, who were surprised that we were dating, and questions began to circle concerning Gideon’s absence the week before.

  Sarah didn’t stop asking me why Gideon was the one who ended our phone conversation. Since I didn’t want to tell her about my first kiss just yet, I went with, ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  During lunch, Sarah asked me to accompany her to the girl’s room, and I did. The moment we entered, she searched the stalls to see if there was anyone else in the room. No one was there.

  I asked confusedly, “Sarah, who are you looking for?”

  “What are you doing, Abigail?” Sarah asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought you were crazy about Tristan, but now you’re dating Gideon, who I approve of by the way, but Tristan and you have this kind of intense connection that looks like you’re both trying to fight, which FYI isn’t working because you look at him the same way you look at Gideon.”

  “There’s no tension between Tristan and me, and I’m not crazy about him,” I said defensively, but she didn’t look like she believed me.

  “Just last week, you sent me a ten-page e-mail describing his hair.” Sarah was exaggerating; it was a one-page e-mail.

  “I also sent one talking about Gideon’s laugh. So what’s your point?”

  “So, you’re in trouble. I think you like them both.”

  Suddenly I felt as if the room was spinning, or was it just too small with no room for me to breathe? I became claustrophobic, and my own shadow started hunting me as the voice inside my head kept whispering, “You’re in trouble.”

  “I’m not in love with two guys at the same time!” Tristan was easy to talk to, and I liked spending time with him, but that didn’t mean I was in love with him.

  “I said like, Abigail,” Sarah whispered, and suddenly I understood why she didn’t believe me.

  Sarah’s interrogation made me uneasy for the rest of the day. I tried keeping my distance from her and Tristan with no luck.

  “I’m borrowing your guardian angel for a while,” Valoel said.

  We were all hanging out in my bedroom. Valoel stood beside Tristan, and I was sitting on Gideon’s lap on my bed. “By the way, you and I should hang next week. I’d like to get to know my brother’s girlfriend,” she said.

  I blushed, which made Tristan laugh, and then I started pulling my hair down to hide my face.

  “I don’t really want her around you. You’re a bad influence.” We all stared at Gideon. Valoel was a bad influence, and he wasn’t?

  “I think you’ve got that logic wrong,” she retorted. And with that, both she and Tristan disappeared. Watching them disappear, I knew I would never get over the whole being there one second and gone the next.

  “I have to go,” Gideon said.

  “Go where?” I was about to reach for his hand when my TV turned on. When I looked at the TV, it was on one of the news channels.

  “So you’ll know where I am.”

  When Gideon said this, I knew he was about to do something bad, something that would be in the headlines quickly. Suddenly my breath shortened, and my body shook in fear as the aftermath of an event that hadn’t even happened forced its way into my head.

  “Gideon, you can’t go and hurt an innocent person,” I said, getting up from his lap. I couldn’t believe he was going back to hurting the world.

  I felt like I had let go of one nightmare and stepped into another.

  “I won’t do anything silly,” he got off the bed.

  “Silly? Harming the world and—”

  “The world?” he smiled ruefully. “Abby, the world you are trying to save is a wicked world.” He shook his head. “Your world is full of greed, hatred, and pain.” He paused for a second and then continued, “You think there would be hundreds of millions of your people living on the street if your world was loving and caring?” he asked. “Brothers killing brothers, and innocent people getting murdered, raped, sold, and tortured?”

  “Gideon, please don’t do this,” I begged. “Please, can’t you change…for me?”

  And that was my plan, to change Gideon. Not for me, but for the world. I wanted him to change, to learn to love, and to stop hurting innocent people.

  He laughed harshly. “You can’t change me, Abby. No one can.” His voice was mean and clipped. “If your plan is to change me, then let me go.”

  Let him go?

  “You think you know the humans, our history, better than I do?”

  Gideon almost laughed when he heard this. “Humanity is a book, and the sad truth is that your kind read it too fast. I’m doing you all a favor.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Gideon, don’t you think I know how the world is? Where we are heading?” I shouted. “I’ve heard about the past, the thirst for power, and the innocent blood that’s been shed. And yes, looking at the present, the future doesn’t seem so promising. I know what’s going on, one man turning his country into a graveyard and turning children into soldiers. Children massacring their fellow students. Greediness slowly sinking us into a black hole. I’m not blind, Gideon. I can see it. I know the world is full of unthinkable evil, but that’s not all the world is.

  “There are moments when nations come together to help others in need. One man stands and fights for what he believes in and makes a change. The world may be filled with evil people, but it’s also filled with good people.” My voice shook with each word. “I love you so much, and it’s clouding my judgment. I don’t know why you’re the way you are. But I know I didn’t fall in love with the Gideon people fear. I fell in love with the Gideon you are. The one you cared enough to show me.”

  “Abby, you—”

  I cut him off. “Yes, I love you that much, Gideon. More than my life, and I don’t want you to leave.” I braced myself for the goodbye and looked him firmly in the eyes. “But if you do, we are done.”

  I didn’t want Gideon to leave, but I couldn�
��t stay with him if innocent people were going to keep getting hurt.

  “If you leave, we are done,” I said again, standing my ground. The words scared me more than Gideon’s angry face did. “I know you can’t change in a day, but you’ll have to try.”

  “Abigail, I can’t,” Gideon said. He was frozen where he stood.

  “Yes, you can,” I assured him, hiding my fears and taking one step forward. “I know that it’s hard, but I swear, Gideon, if you leave now, we’re done.” I tried to sound brave.

  “Fine,” Gideon said and took a step toward the door.

  “I mean it, Gideon!” I shouted, and he turned around. “You take one more step, and it will be like you never existed.” I took one more step toward him. “I can help you change, one step at a time,” I promised.

  I waited for Gideon to say something, but he didn’t. He just stood there staring at me. I was scared. What if he left and everything fell apart? Why would he want to leave? Didn’t he love me enough to stay and at least try? I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “If you’re going to leave, please do it now,” I whispered, closing the distance between us. “Just don’t stand there making me wish for the impossible.”

  “You said if I took another step I’d lose you forever.”

  “You’re staying?” I rejoiced, my grief turning into happiness.

  “You are my everything, Abigail.” he pulled me toward him. “If I lose you, I lose everything.”

  “I love you so much.” I said happily and looked up at him. Gideon’s happy face turned a little sad, and I remembered what Valoel said. She had told me that Gideon didn’t think he deserved to be loved, especially not by me.

  “I love you,” I said, looking straight into his eyes. “I know you don’t believe me, but you have to take my word for it.”

  Gideon stroked my hair behind my ear. “I don’t get it, Abigail. How can you love someone like me?” he whispered dejectedly. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve done horrible things to innocent people and—”