Gods & Monsters

“But you always follow the rules,” he comments.

I nod, but I have a weird urge to shake my head and say no, I don’t. “Rules are important. They keep the peace.”

The bruise on my waist flares up, making me want to scratch it. But I know that I shouldn’t. It won’t be pretty if I do. It’ll itch more and it might start bleeding like that one time.

“Peace. Gotcha.” His jaw is tight.

I fist my dress. “I’m sorry.”

His smile doesn’t look like a smile should. It’s cold like the winter. It’s all wrong on his face. “Doesn’t matter.”

It does to me.

“Our stop’s here,” he says, looking away and shoving the drawing pad into his backpack.

He’s right. The bus isn’t moving anymore and through the window I see miles and miles of fields and two houses: one white and put together and the other falling apart and weathered.

I go to put the remaining chocolate in the bag when I stop and address him, “I know that you hate chocolate b-but will you take this?” He frowns at me and I explain, “Uh, you don’t… you don’t have to eat it. I mean, you can just put it in your room or in the fridge. You know, to keep it from melting? That way you can…”

He wraps his hand around mine, making me almost gasp at the warmth. I’m sure the chocolate is going to melt and drip down from between our joined hands, his skin is that hot.

“I can what?”

I don’t want to say it but he’s looking at me with such curiosity. “You can think of me when you look at it.”

Oh God. I want to die. Maybe there’s a chance he didn’t hear it because I said it super low and he hasn’t taken the chocolate from my hand. I try to pull my hand back, feeling the sticky chocolate slide between our fingers. I’ll need a tissue to wipe that off before Mom finds out.

He tightens his grip for a second, before letting me go. My offering is still sitting in the middle of my palm.

“I don’t need a chocolate to think about you.”

My face is propped up on my hand as I listen to Father Knight talk about the importance of listening to our parents in Bible Study.

“Obedience is how you show God that you love Him,” he says in his loud, confident voice. “You respect Him. That you recognize He is the creator of all things and that is why…” Father Knight smiles. “He has the authority over all things. Children of God are the obeyers. They are the believers. How can you implement this in your daily life? By obeying your parents. By listening to them. Because parents are the face of God. Got it? Listen to what your mom says. If she says to eat the whole dinner, eat it. She knows best. If your dad says to do your homework before you can play video games, you do exactly what he tells you, okay?”

He smiles and everyone smiles back.

I’m usually one of the smilers. But tonight my lips feel too heavy to curve. I’m not sure I like this lesson anymore. I’ve heard it countless times. Children of God obey their parents.

I obey my parents. I follow the rules.

But every night, I grip the bars on my window and look at the house with the leafless tree and falling-apart porch. Every night I think about the boy who lives there. The boy who isn’t even my friend. Sometimes I feel so bad that I want to cry, which is stupid; I don’t even know him.

Abel Adams is not my friend, and he never will be.

If I needed a reminder of that, I got it the day after I had that conversation with him on the bus. My mom and her friend Mrs. Weatherby ganged up on him while he was getting out of the store, where I get all my supplies for school. My mom was frowning, even more so than usual, her dark-haired bun making her look severe. Not to mention, Abel was frowning too.

God, I hated standing by our car and watching it happen.

Someone on the bus told their parents and their parents told my mom about the fact that I talked to him. She was furious. Even letting her ride her anger wasn’t effective. She pinched and shook and pulled my hair. She yelled over and over that I was not to associate with him. The bruises that I got that night were some of the worst.

I was pretty sure she was saying something nasty to Abel. I hated, loathed that. He didn’t even do anything; it wasn’t even his fault. I was the one who sat with him. Me. He never even invited me. It was so unfair. When he left and passed me by, I begged and begged in my mind for him to look at me so I could apologize but he never did, though I could see the hard lines of anger on his face.