Defiant Destiny

by Madison Cumbee

  “For one reason, it would be legal then.”

  “What choo talk’n ’bout Willis?”

  Uriel smiled and made a show of rolling his eyes like I should have thought of this before. “You’re jailbait for another year and a half for me.” My puzzled eyes got him to keep going. “I’m more than one hundred times older than eighteen; it’s illegal for me to have sex with someone under the legal age of adulthood.”

  “Oh come on!” I complained incredulously.

  He knew that wasn’t a good reason so he brought up his next one quickly. “Another reason is that if my idea for cheating death works, then eighteen would be the perfect time for you to become immortal. Forever eighteen doesn’t sound so bad, does it? And after the change…” his eyes wondered around beneath my gaze, tentative, “we can be married before we consummate our love.”

  Skipping right over the whole, corny consummate our love bit, I fixated on the first part of his last sentence. “You want to get married? To me?”

  “Yes,” my angel smiled- well, angelically. “Very much so.”

  Total silence fell on us. I have no idea what emotions my face was betraying me with. What emotions show on a person’s face when her mind’s been taken over by a babbling idiot and her thoughts are going a mile a minute?

  “Yay!” pretty much sums them up though, so you don’t have to read the whole monologue. Plus, I’d be embarrassed to have those thoughts in print.

  “You’re serious?” I asked him, struggling to fight off any anticipation just yet.

  “Unconditionally.”

  “The whole white gown, black tuxedo, a priest, several horribly dressed bridesmaids, hackneyed vows, swan ice sculptures melting in the background, flying rice in people’s faces, shoving cake into each other’s mouth, and completely irrelevant in our case till-death-do-us-part shebang?”

  “The whole shebang.” He nodded.

  “To me?”

  “We’ve been over this question before,” he pointed out. “And the shoving cake in each others’ mouth bit, well, we’ve kind of already done that, except with s’mores.” He smiled, remembering the fire pit fun. “You started that yourself.”

  I took a deep breath, deliberately floated further down from my euphoric cloud, and grimaced. “I’m only sixteen and a half.” And after I realized what exactly I’d just said, I grimaced again. Did I really just add on the “and a half” part? Some woman bends down to look at a little girl with pig tails and asks the toddler how old she is, and the child replies, “I’m three and one quarter.” That is what I just sounded like- a small child.

  I’m only sixteen and a half… How could I be so stupid?

  Uriel was being very patient and understanding as I continued to be a buzz kill by pointing out all the reasons why not to so that I couldn’t get my hopes up on the infinitely more reasons why to. And he kept petting me- stroking my arm, smoothing down my hair, touching my lower lip, brushing his fingertips along my cheekbone- which made it very hard to think rationally. “You call this floor your apartment;” -his voice was soft, persuasive in my favorite pure and dulcet tone- “you are left alone- barring Jerry and Maria- quite often; you have money, but you don’t flaunt it- usually; you know of the world but you are not of the world… You talked me out of the biggest mistake of my life when I was about to walk away from you. Keira, you don’t have to be confined by age when you can make decisions for yourself like the one to love another person for all eternity. I believe you’re mature enough to decide if you want to get married or not.”

  “Age is just a number?” I summarized his words into a cliché.

  “Precisely.”

  My hormones weakly wanted to know: Then the whole jailbait thing really shouldn’t have been used against me, right? But the larger portion of my nerves and brain were reverting back to the “Yay!” feeling.

  Uriel was waiting for me to respond, and when I didn’t, he reached to his shoulder to take hold of my left hand, brought it in between us, and incited, “Keira Fairchild, will you marry me?”

  He believes I’m old enough to make this decision, mature enough to give him an answer so why should I let the outside world’s prejudices get in the way of something that I’m convinced would make me the happiest person on the face of the planet?

  And sure, three months and some change isn’t really that long, and if it was anyone else in a normal relationship I’d say hell no, you should not get engaged… But this isn’t anyone else and this most certainly is not a normal relationship. There’s nothing usual about us. I’m in love with a half angel and know in the depths of my core that Uriel is my soul’s mate; there’s nothing normal or conventional about that. So, my answer has to be singular to our supernatural circumstance and that answer is-

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  Uriel broke out in the widest smile I’d ever seen on his gorgeous face. “Yes?”

  “Well, now that you give me the chance to back out of it…”

  “That’s not funny. You’re not funny, Keira.”

  “Of course my answer’s yes!”

  Uriel threw his head back and broke out in that smile again. He still had it on his face when he looked back at me and came closer for a kiss. Our first engaged kiss was chock full of Uriel’s passion. But he couldn’t possibly have been happier than me.

  Innumerable kisses followed. We were even more intertwined than we had been before, and when Uriel slid his hand up under my remaining layer to trace my spine, I couldn’t keep those hormonal thoughts from returning with a vengeance. Ooh, does this mean we can now? It could be like a bonus for saying yes. Am I really going to have another unbelievably fantastic thing happen tonight? My hands wanted to courteously come up with the answers for my hormones so they started searching for that button on his jeans again.

  “You doing that doesn’t help my waiting any,” Uriel said against my neck.

  “Maybe I don’t want to help you wait,” I told him softly.

  He started to sit up again with a sigh, and in spite of my best effort, we were back to being partially vertical. Uriel gave me a disapproving head shake with his lips pursed as he slipped his hand around my knee and tried to gently remove it from his hip.

  I tightened my lower body grip stubbornly.

  He had an involuntary sharp intake of breath. “And you doing things like that,” he laughed unevenly, “and… looking at me like you are now seriously do not help the whole waiting plan.”

  I thought out loud, “You find me tempting just by looking at you like I was- which was probably an expression of unrestrained longing if my face matched my feelings. And I wasn’t even trying to be tempting. Hm… I wonder what would happen if I actually put some effort into making myself undeniable…”

  “Keira,” Uriel warned me, sounding sincerely worried, “respect my code.”

  “What happened to abolishing all your old rules when it comes to me?”

  “I did that- but then I had to make new rules specifically for you.”

  I let loose a sigh.

  “Now you really do have to stop straddling me,” Uriel said and gave me an apologetic glance.

  “Fine,” I said as I rolled over onto the space beside him on my bed.

  We stayed silent for a moment- Uriel, reclined but staying propped up on his elbows and me, lying there watching him curiously. “Well now I feel strange without you on me,” he smiled.

  “That can be fixed easily,” I told him as I faked returning to my former position.

  Uriel apparently didn’t know that I was only joking because he jumped up off the bed and stood with one finger held up at me. I giggled unashamedly at his reaction. “Keira,” he separated my two syllable name noticeably.

  “Cross my heart I won’t try anything else,” I laughed.

  He shook his head of now-unruly curls even though his face relaxed and became tender once more. I waited for him to lie back down, but he walked over toward my door and picked something up off the floor. “It�
�s very late,” he muttered as he began to put his hands in the correct sleeves of his sweater.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “Don’t you think it’d be best if I was dressed when I leave your house in case anyone sees me?”

  “Why do you have to leave?”

  Uriel ceased dressing before the sweater was over his head but had his arms frozen in the air.

  “Please don’t leave.”

  He dropped his arms back down. “I don’t want to leave.”

  I smiled. “Good. Then don’t. Come back to bed.”

  He raised a disbelieving brow.

  I moaned. “I can sleep with you without- well, I was going to say without wanting, but that’s not true- without acting on my wanting to sleep with you. I promise, Uriel.”

  “Alright. I’ll stay over,” he conceded, easily swayed.

  “Yay,” I cheered quietly.

  Smiling, he raised his arms and finished putting on his sweater. He began looking around for his shoes, which I assume were taken off sometime between my pants dropping and him being horizontal on my bed because he hadn’t been wearing shoes when we were rolling not too long ago. “Why are you getting dressed now?”

  He found his sneakers and deftly pulled them on in two fluid motions. “I have to move the Escalade to be across the street so that your parents, Maria, or Jerry won’t see it in the morning. I’m assuming you don’t want them to know.”

  Whew. “Oh, ok,” I said relieved. “Don’t get caught.”

  He smiled wryly. “No one will hear me.”

  I watched him reach for the door knob. “Hurry back,” I whispered. He turned around and winked before he disappeared in the darkness of the hall.

  I counted to five and then went to my window. He was already halfway down the front walk. I couldn’t stop smiling as I unhooked my bra from under my tank top and took it off. Once it was put in the proper drawer of my vast armoire, I wandered over to my closet and was blinded by the light when I flicked it on. I picked a green, cotton thick-strapped tank top to go over my white tank top. I turned off the closet light and blinked at the black spots in my vision that stood out against the moonlight.

  “I love green on you.”

  I jumped a full foot in the air even though I knew it was Uriel’s whisper.

  He chuckled by my ear. “Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. “Is it time to slumber?”

  I waited silently for my heart rate to slow down to a healthy speed. Then I meandered over to my bed, picked the sheet and comforter up off the floor, and sank in contentedly on the right side. “Time for bed.”

  Uriel strolled to the left side and stopped. He pointed a single finger downward and then moved it in a circular motion. “Turn over and don’t peak.” He was still fully clothed.

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope.”

  “Uriel, I don’t bite.”

  He laughed darkly in a way that I didn’t fully understand.

  I wondered, “Are you afraid to let me know the answer to the age-old question of boxers or briefs?”

  “For all you know, I prefer going au naturel.”

  “Don’t tease.”

  He laughed again, quietly- secretly pleased with torturing me, in my opinion. Then he made the turn around motion again. “You’re not getting a strip tease until after we’re married.”

  I smiled, taking this as a promise, and rolled over to face the window instead of my angel.

  There wasn’t a sound in the bedroom- no zipper going down, no sweater fabric rubbing against smooth skin, and no noise to indicate that a single article had fallen to the floor. But soon enough, I felt weight sink the mattress behind me and Uriel’s arm reach over me while the other slipped under my pillow, propping our heads up a little. I started to roll back over but was stopped by Uriel’s chest that slid forward to fit my back. “Now now, Keira. I’m not wearing any pants at the moment and I can’t trust you to be good.”

  My eyes narrowed at the insinuation. I pressed my legs back until they came in contact with Uriel’s. “Just checking,” I informed the taut form behind me. I could feel his warm skin mold against my legs as he loosened up but still kept me securely on my right side.

  “So you’re not a commando kind of guy?”

  “You know me better than that.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “I thought I could be surprisingly wrong.” I started to turn my shoulders toward him again, but again I was detained. “Not even a goodnight kiss for your fiancé?” I tried.

  “I guess that’s feasible,” he succumbed.

  I turned my head as far as I could and Uriel had to make up for the rest. Our kiss was too short, but I justified it with the fact that we’d have many more.

  We lay in silence for some time, and I began to wonder if he’d fallen asleep.

  “I like this better than the mountain,” I breathed, in case he was asleep.

  “Mmm,” Uriel murmured. “I don’t know. I rather like you in nature.”

  I laughed soundlessly. “I prefer this- a comfortable bed and a morning that will be calmly met.”

  I felt Uriel nod in agreement and then we were quiet again.

  “Love you, Keira,” his voice broke into my nearly unconscious thoughts.

  “Love you too,” I mumbled.

  My dreams that night consisted of quick flashes of large, white cakes, little boys and girls in formal clothes running around with rings and flowers, and a hot Jamaican beach somewhere with transparent water under a setting orange sun. All the flashes were generic images, but they were perfectly nice ones nonetheless.

  ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂

  The next morning, Uriel kissed me on the cheek and snuck out seconds after I was awake but before I could tell him either hello or goodbye. I rolled over on my bed with my eyes still closed, smiling, thinking how I had never been happier. When I slid over to the space that had been occupied by my angel and pressed my face into the pillow so I could smell him again, something hard fell against the cheek Uriel had just kissed.

  I reached up to move whatever it was, but when my fingers closed around it, I didn’t recognize the shape. Mildly curious, I rubbed my eyes awake with my empty hand and dragged myself up into a sitting position. My eyes focused on the object. It was the non-corniest and most beautiful wedding cake topper I had ever seen. It was done in pearl tones of white and gray and was of a man and a woman, both long and elegant, in the middle of an intimate and lovely embrace. The woman had her hair up in an understated bun with a ringlet of curls on each side of her face, and she wore a long wedding gown that continued out a half an inch at the bottom and had large but separate gray roses inlaid in the fabric. The man had on an exceptionally fitted, white jacket and silver colored pants that melted into his shoes. Both of their eyes were closed, as if it were a dream.

  I found a note that had been left on the pillow as well. It read:

  Morning, my love-

  Apologies for the abrupt departure- your father was already at work in his office. But don’t worry about detection. I will be intently awaiting your arrival at school.

  But I wanted to get some things settled about a few points you brought up last night. For the record, I’d very much prefer you in a white gown, but a black tux on my part is not mandatory- I could wear white like this fellow I left you with did with his loved one. A priest isn’t our only option; I’m not disinclined to a rabbi or a justice of the peace. As for the horribly dressed bridesmaids you mentioned, if Odeda is to be one of yours, then that is an impossibility. Our vows will be anything other than hackneyed, and I feel no need to include ice in the form of any kind of animal, nor rice, flying or grounded, in the wedding. I will, however, insist on placing at least one small piece of cake between your alluring lips once we are wed. Lastly, I will never allow death nor any other entity to take you from me, so I agree on the irrelevance of the inclusion of till-death-do-us-part.

  Of course, none of these things truly matter
as long as it’s you and me, together everlastingly.

  Awaiting the whole shebang,

  Your anxious groom

  Not to sound like one of your sentimental and depressing movies, but

  P.S. I love you.

  I grabbed up my pillow and girlishly squealed in between taking deep breaths that filled my lungs with Uriel, and then I jumped out of bed and got ready faster than I ever had before. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing every half minute at the perfect keepsake and memorandum that were lying on my bedside table to assure me that last night’s events had really happened. When I grabbed my backpack, I thought about any homework that I had conveniently forgotten and then was immensely thankful that it was the end of the semester and none of my teachers were assigning us any work other than to study the material for our mid-terms. I slung the almost weightless backpack over my shoulder and picked up my much heavier basketball bag which I had rushed through stuffing full of my practice necessities.

  When I got in the Jeep, my foot itched to put more pressure on the gas pedal so I could get to school faster and see my angel sooner, but my conscience told me that Uriel did not approve of speeding so I submitted to his five over rule.

  Rules. So many rules to follow. Why?

  But it was part of Uriel’s code, so I decided to try to abide by his crazy conventions. That’s what a good girlfriend should do, right? And besides, I wasn’t just his girlfriend anymore; I was something more.

  In order to keep my eye on the prize and not floor it, busting the speed limit by thirty miles per hour or more, I switched from the radio to listening to a CD Uriel had lent me of his favorite trumpet player: Dizzy Gillespie.

  After a few songs, I pulled into the school’s parking lot and rolled into my usual space beside the black Cadillac. I couldn’t get into the high school building fast enough and my unusually hasty pace turned a few heads from the normal students/humans who thought of this day as just another Monday to cringe through. I thought it was strange how the building looked as dull as ever and the sky could be overcast when I felt so sunny and bright. I hurried inside without giving the mundane aspects of the typical junior another thought.