The Necklaces

Chapter 10

I wake up on the boy’s couch, with the console’s controller on the floor. There are chips on the floor and snack wrappers spread around the room. I push myself up a little when I realize that Gabe has clung himself to me. I smile softly and lay back down to face him. I touch our noises together and shake his chest a little so that he’ll wake up. I stare at him and wait for him to open his eyes. His eyes slowly open and he looks into my eyes sleepily and then they get wide with shock. He jumps back a little with a tiny yell. I start to laugh and he just smiles at me. He tightens his grip around my waist, pulling me into his chest and then he kisses my forehead. He rests his head on mine and sighs, “Why did you wake me up?”

“Because I thought it would be rude to leave without you knowing where I went.”

“But I was having a good dream.” He whines a little.

“What was it about?” I ask.

He looks at me with a sweet smile, “I married you.” He blushes a little but keeps his smile.

I stop eye contact and bite my lip and I can see out of the corner of my eye that he was hurt, his smile fell into a frown and he let go of my waist. He sits up and looks at the door, “Why don’t you want to marry me?” He asks in a tone that sounded hurt and offended, “I thought you were starting to like me.”

“I do like you.” I say softly.

He turns to face me with tears in his eyes and an angry expression. I jump back a bit because I’m so used to him being happy and caring and so easy going. This is something completely different and I don’t like it. “Then why don’t you want to marry me?” His voice getting shaky.

I try to stay calm and not freak out like I normally do, “Because I’m not used to this thing yet and I probably will never be.”

“Why aren’t you used to it? What’s the problem? Tell me what it is and I’ll fix it.”

I look at the ground. I remember his mom telling me that Gabe had looked for another girl to choose but couldn’t because his heart only lead him to me. I look at him and he stares at me hurt, “You have to remember that I’m not from here, the customs aren’t what I’ve learned. I’ve learned that when you like a person you ask them out on a date, if you like that person after a date you ask them to be your boyfriend or girlfriend. Then after a couple years of being with each other, someone, usually the male or the “pants” in the relationship, proposes and if the other person feels the same way they get married.” He stares at me and a tear falls down his cheek. I smile at him and wipe the tear off of his cheek, “The problem isn’t you it’s my brain not adapting to this new and weird situation. I mean it’s not every day you wake up under the sea in a beautiful castle and told that an attractive prince has been in love with you for years.” He laughs a little and I take his hand, “It’s sweet that you would try and solve the problem though, come on, let’s go get some breakfast.” He smiles a little and we walk side by side to the kitchen. Once we eat our breakfast we walk around the castle again. It’s so big that there is always something new to see. As we walk past doors in the hall I stare at all the paintings on the wall. Gabe whispers in my ear, “You wanna see something?”

I laugh; he does this kinda thing a lot. I love it because he is so adventurous but doesn’t like to show it around the others so I’m glad he’ll show it to me. I nod and he leads me to the room that fills the room with water so that we can get outside. I hold my breath as water fills up but quickly remember that I can breathe. Gabe guides me into a garden full of sea life. It is filled with many colorful sea plants and tiny fish swim through everything. I smile, “It’s so beautiful.”

He spins me around into his arms and I laugh. He smiles awkwardly and then stares into my eyes. He leans in and kisses my lips. My eyes are wide with shock but they slowly close as we kiss. His kiss is so sweet and unexperienced yet passionate. I wrap my arms around his neck and he tightens his grip around my waist. I focus on the kiss and how meaningful it is, these are his feelings for me, strong and passionate. It’s funny how something so simple can explain something so complicated. He loves me. It feels weird for me to admit it, this entire time I just thought it was something misunderstood like he only in that moment felt that way about me. I thought one day he’d get bored with me and throw me away like everyone else. I’ve never felt this thing. This weird thing while we kiss it is the best thing ever. It felt strange but a good strange. Sure I’ve kissed other boys before but their kisses were more temporary, they didn’t feel sweet. They felt as if the boy was forced to kiss me in order to get what he wanted. Of course I never gave them what they wanted so they eventually got bored and threw me away. But even though I’ve pushed Gabe’s feelings and hopes down he hasn’t left or given up, he just keeps getting closer and closer to me. I pull away from our kiss and he looks at me confused, “Why did you kiss me?” I ask.

He smiles, “Will you be my girlfriend?”

I put my hands on my hips, “I don’t mean to be rude but that didn’t answer my question.”

He laughs, “Isn’t that one of the first things you said to me when we first met?” I look at him a little annoyed and he sighs, “I’ve wanted to kiss you for years and now I have. Now please answer my question.”

I put my hand on my chin and make a thinking face, “Well we just kissed for several minutes and technically I slept with you last night so I guess I have to accept your offer to be your girlfriend.”

He hugs me, “Did you really have to think about it like that?”

I laugh, “Of course not, why did you ask me to be your girlfriend when I’m already going to marry you?”

He walks me to a nice stone bench and makes me sit down. He takes a couple of steps back, “So I could try and make you feel more comfortable.”

“Then why don’t you come over here and sit by me?”

“Well we’ve been dating for a matter of 1 minute and 45 seconds and I am 100% sure that I am in love with you.”

I laugh a little, “What are you doing?”

He gets down on one knee and laughs at the ground before looking back at me, “Jasmine, will you marry me?” He pulls out a pretty silver ring with an orb of water flowing inside of it.

I laugh at the sky, “Are you serious right now?”

“As serious as a 17 year old boy proposing to his stubborn as hell girlfriend.”

I continue to giggle uncontrollably, “That’s not a way to get someone to marry you.”

“It’s not?” He laughs.

“Not at all.”

“Well will you?”

“Hm… well dating for 1 minute and 45 seconds is a long time so sure.”

He laughs as he gets up and puts the ring on me.

“Where did you get the ring, we were together all this morning.”

“Yesterday my mother met with me while you were passed out. She gave me it saying that it was hers and that I should propose to you again because last time it was on accident.”

I look at the ring on my finger and smile, “How nice. And your proposal was a lot cuter than last time.”

“I figured you liked it because you didn’t run off upset like last time.”

He sits next to me and I rest my head on his shoulder when everyone comes out from the bushes. I sit up and freak out a little.

“Well at least it’s really happening now.” The king says as he walks back to the castle with the queen, she just smiles at us happily and links arms with her husband.

“Finally you did something right.” Lucas says and Sam punches his arm, “At least he proposed, I’m standing right here and I’m ready for you to ask.”

“I’m just not ready to ask, I mean they’re going to be king and queen and we have to go back to the surface, what if we just dated like normal teens?” She glares at him, “Okay, I’ll ask you later, I just left the necklace in my room.”

“Yeah, what the hell bro, I wanna be married.” Nina whines at Charles.

“This is not the time for you to be whining about this.” Charles says, obviously tired.

She crosses her arms and glares at him, “Excuse me?”

“I mean, yeah I’ll ask you to marry me, just not right at this moment.” She sighs and takes his hand and they go back into the castle. We go back inside to go feed Steve who was still in the boy’s room.