Almost Alive (18 page)

“Independents, actually.
  They believe their money, gated communities, and expensive security systems will protect them.”

“Must be nice.”  Julian came back over and grabbed the
rifle that his cousin left sitting on a mound of hay.  I was hoping for a demonstration, but he instead just placed it in my hands.  “Do you have any idea how to hold this?”

“None.”

He rolled his eyes.  “Every American needs to know how to fire a gun.  What happens if we need to defend the home front?”

“
I’m not sure if you know this, but we already beat the British.”  I did what I thought I needed to do.  I pulled my elbow back and gripped the trigger with one hand and held the front of the gun with my other hand to keep it steady.  “Like this?”

“You don’t even know if it’s loaded!”

“Is it?”

“There should be a couple of bullets left—”

“Okay.  Fine.  It’s loaded.  Can I shoot it now?”

“You’re still holding it wrong.”  He physically took my arm and the gun and placed it up against my shoulder.  I thought it was uncomfortable, but I guess he knew what he was doing.  Then he came from behind me and directed my other hand exactly where it needed to be.  “You have to at least hold the gun the right way.  You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

“But…”  I think I was going to complain about holding the gun, but then it dawned on me how he was holding me.  Going shooting at his uncle’s house wasn’t exactly supposed to be a romanti
c date, but I somehow found myself feeling the butterflies in my stomach.  The strangest thing was that he kind of looked tripped up as well.

“You see, it’s important to…”  His entire lecture started to fade into nothing.  I knew there was sound
, and his lips were obviously moving since I was watching them so intently, but there was nothing that was sticking to my brain.

             
“Are you ready?”

             
“Am I…?”  I shook my head.  “Yeah.  I’m ready.”

             
His arms escaped me, and my heart stopped beating insanely and fell down to my feet.  On the way, it took a dump in my stomach, and I just felt awful.  I was not going crazy.  He was pouring chemistry down my throat and drowning me in our moment.  He could have crashed his lips into mine and breathed his life into me instead of leaving me to choke on my loneliness. 

But I was going to impress him if it w
ere the last thing I did!  “I’m about to shoot.”

“Open both of your eyes.”

I hadn’t even noticed, but I obeyed and aimed at a can of beans.  It was dead in the middle, so I figured that I had the best chance of hitting it.  The only thing was that I was terrified of the kickback.  I had seen that movie with the kid who got the gun for Christmas and shot his eye out.  I wasn’t a klutz, but I did have a demon that hated me.  Maybe it was going to make me slip. I couldn’t wear an eye patch for the rest of my life.

“Come on. 
What are you gonna do when we’re fighting soulless humans?  They’re not gonna give you any time to think.  I need you to be ready to shoot.  It’s kill or be killed.”

He sure did know how to kill a perfectly good mood!  “You want me to waste the shot?”

“I want you to not be afraid, Michelle.  What are you afraid of?”

There was the whole poking my eye out
dilemma.  There was the fear of failure.  What if I would just suck at being the warrior he wanted me to be?  I didn’t think I could pull it off.  But what if I could actually do it?  He would actually put me in a battle, and someone would have to die by my hands.  Whether they had a soul or not, whether God thought it was a sin or not, would I be okay with that?

I screamed
at the sound of the gun firing.  My heart was pissed off at me.  I could have died right there and then, but Julian started laughing at me and it so was not funny.  “Don’t laugh at me.  That was crazy!”

“But at least you got it!”

“I did?”  The can of beans that I was aiming for had not been touched at all, but there were only nine cans instead of ten.  He didn’t know that I wasn’t aiming for the very last can on the left, and he absolutely didn’t need to know that either.  “Oh my God!  I can’t believe I did that!” 

I was about to hug him, but Julian took the gun out of my hands before I got close.  “I’m not interested in dying.”

“Sorry.”  I sat the gun down on the bed of hay and then giddily wrapped my arms around Julian, and he actually reciprocated my happiness and hugged me back.  “That was actually fun.”

“You’re a natural.”  His fingers slowly
crept on my arms and began pushing me away until our chests were a few inches apart.

My fingers weren’t exactly firm, but I wasn’t ready to let him go.  I had to ask myself once again what I was afraid of.  Julian wasn’
t a god or a prince or even my dream.  He was just a boy that had caught my attention.  There was no reason why he made me tremble in my designer boots.  My emotions completely baffled me when he looked into my eyes.  He wasn’t particularly special, and I wasn’t particularly special either.  But I wondered if we were capable of creating something more than what we were together.  That was the mystery that I believe captivated my heart.

I refused to believe that he wasn’t curious about what would happen between the two of us.  Sometimes
, when he looked at me…I felt him.  I didn’t know how much of his soul was intact, but he still had a heart and though it might have ached with the choices of his past, I chose to believe that it beat for me.  “Michelle—”

I couldn’t be afraid anymore.  I latched onto his arms and propped myself up on my toes to his lips.  For a moment, it was nothing more than a point of contact.  His unshakable will was at a faceoff with my hope of love and my desperation that tried to make him fit the criteria.  If I couldn’t break through, I was going to be the fool that put myself out there and made our relationship awful.

We were at the point of contact, but I couldn’t intrude.  The next move was his.  Then, his lips parted slightly, and he opened up himself to me.  He was just as impressive as I imagined him to be.  I hadn’t kissed a lot of boys, but the pleasurable sensation on my lips and tongue were unique.  His hand fell on the center of my back and nudged me closer into his body.  I fell deeper into his kiss as a wave of pleasure tickled me.  I didn’t want to give up the taste of him, but I giggled.  “Dark Prince,” I said so affectionately.

Our lips made one final touch
, and then he took a step away from me.  “What did you just call me?”  At first, he was only asking.  But then it was apparent by the look of anger on his face that he had not misheard.

“Uh…”  I tried to think back to what I had just said.  I couldn’t quite remember.  I wasn’t in the habit of creating pet names.  My ex-boyfriend certainly didn’t have one.  “
I think I said—”

“Dark Prince.”  Something was seriously wrong.  His anger washed away into a vast ocean of heartbreak.  I swear I felt his chest ache inside of my own.
Then the pain started clawing away at the rest of my insides as he pulled away from me and started rushing away.

“Julian!”  I had no idea what the repercussions of my
mumbled spout of passion would cause, but I was at least owed an explanation.  “Will you please stop and talk to me?”

He pulled his hand away before I could even get to him.  He tried to push away whatever evident hurts he had in his life and masked it with rage.  “This is stupid.  I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t work, Michelle!
”  He exploded all over me with his veins popping out of his neck as he started to turn pink, but he was reddening.  His voice was beginning to go hoarse from the immediate strain.  “We’re not friends.  We’re not compatible.  You’re barely even tolerable.”

I knew that he was lying.  It was too obvious, and yet he stung me hard enough to force tears out of my eyes. 
“Then why did you kiss me back?”

“You only kissed me because
your demon told you to,” he said disgustedly.  “I can’t fall into that trap, Michelle.  I’m smarter than that.”

Though I was emotionally wounded, I couldn’t exactly not be pissed off! 
“You think liking me is stupid?”

“Yes, it is.  It’s not real.  This isn’
t real!”  He threw his hands up in the air like he was going to reveal us to be living in some kind of fairytale that would have depicted him as a noble knight and heir to some glorious empire and me as a rescued damsel.  Well, nothing changed!  We were still on a ranch in the middle of nowhere; I still had a demon gnawing on my soul and he was still the biggest creep I had ever met in my life!  It was painfully clear that my life was real.

“I don’t believe that
, Julian.”  I hated that I was crying in front of him, but it devastated me that he couldn’t tell the difference between my passion and his cowardice.  “I made my own decision.  When you took care of me that night after I went to the club, I started to realize it, Julian.  I started to see through all of your demented and dark act and…I liked what I saw.”

And as angry and cruddy I felt, I still ended up smiling at that hopeless fool.  “
I think you’re wonderful.  You’re the only person I have in this awful, twisted world, and it’s incredibly scary, but if I had to fight my way through this disease of a life with one person by my side, I’m glad it’s with you.  You inspire me to be stronger, and I need to be strong.  I hate feeling this weak and worthless, Julian.  I hate that I need you, but I do.  I accept it, and if you’ll accept us, I know we can accomplish anything, Julian.  I can beat the evil inside of me as long as you’ll be my light.”

He had thankfully calmed his anger, but not the underlining emotions that made him go off on me in the first place.  I’m not sure if I
was being delusional, but I think I saw his eyes glisten.  “Michelle…”  Why was it so hard for him just to tell me that he liked me?  I didn’t want to get married.  I didn’t say we needed to date or be together.  All I wanted was to feel acknowledged and for someone to care for me for no reason other than the fact that they simply did. 

“Just tell me!”  I t
ook a hold of his hand and stared at them in mine.  My nails were bare because I hated when nail polish chipped, and his were painted black.  We made quite the interesting pair.  It was exciting.  It was a reason to get up in the morning. 

He leaned down and gently pressed his forehead into
mine.  I closed my eyes and anticipated his lips firing off my senses again, but instead, I felt his breath on them and it startled me enough to look into his eyes.  “If I give you my light, I will fall into darkness.” 

My lips began to quiver and the tears returned.  He tried to pull away from me, but my trembling fingers grabbed his face and forced him to look through the windows to my
deteriorating soul.  “You feel absolutely nothing for me?”

I knew he couldn’t lie.  He knew better than to lose his soul over something so trivial.  He had no choice but to answer. 
“We need to go.”

He pulled away from me once again, but I had my answer.  Julian did care about me.  To what extent, I didn’t know.  I just knew that I wasn’t crazy
, and I did have someone that would miss me if I were gone. 

Julian said goodbye to his family, but he didn’t give me any time to do the same.  I hoped his uncle didn’t think I was a flake, but I didn’t want to upset Julian more than I had already.  As a matter of fact, he stayed ve
ry quiet on the way back to school.  Even when he pulled up right next to my car in the near empty lot, he wouldn’t express himself to me.

I hesitantly opened the door and began climbing out.  I didn’
t want to keep pestering him about his emotions.  Eventually, I would wear him down.  That’s what friends do: we weather until we erode every possible doubt a relationship can bring until we have a smooth stone to cast in our river of life.  I was going to be completely patient. 

But when I stepped on the ground, I suddenly remembered that life was too short.  Mine had already ended.  I was nervous and playing with my fingers like a child caught in a lie, but I pressed through. 
“Julian, I know that there are a lot of things that are messed up in my life.  Most of the time, I can’t decipher what’s real and what’s not.  But there is one thing that I know for sure.  I know it’s just emerging, and I’m not saying that it’s a love that can change the world—or even that it is love at all—but what I feel for you is real.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.  I was happy with my confession
, and I thought it would garner at least a grin from him, but he was stoic. 

“You called me ‘Dark Prince’ because
she used to call me that.”

I was so foolish
.  I should have guessed it, and I should have known not to call him that.  But I didn’t even recall hearing the demon’s voice.  How could it control me so masterfully?

“I know you want to find someone to love you, Michelle.  You can’t get what you need from your parents
, and you don’t have any friends.  That doesn’t mean having a boyfriend is the answer.”  In true form, he had absolutely zero tact!  “Find the love you need in Christ.”