When Monday pushed the boy playfully, his trained eyes could only understand that her hands, the delicate fingers that should have been claimed by the Louvre as their legal property years ago, touched another man, and the way that made him feel scared him.
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Soundtrack for the chapter
Where You Belong by The Weeknd (Fifty Shades of Grey Soundtrack)
P.S.: I really recommend listening to this one while reading the end of this chapter...
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Dear God,
Last night I laid in bed feeling a tight pain in my chest. It was as if my heart was trying to run away from inside of me, but was trapped inside my ribcages like a jail cell. It used to feel like a safe place, my heart, my ribcage. Now they strangle me in my sleep, yelling in my ear all night long. They think I'm keeping them hostage, and I think they are doing the same to me. How miserable I am.
God, I had a terrible, terrible nightmare last night. He and I were dancing in the kitchen counter. The music was playing loudly, and I hate loud music but this one I didn't. His company is bad for me. When I see him I think of grabbing my things and running away. How far could I go if I left today?
The only thing that terrorizes me more than the thought of him kissing me, is the thought that he won't.
Please help me.
Your Monday.
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The hummingbirds sang the tunes of heaven, but the tunes didn't spell out the answers to her prayers, so she did not care for them at all.
She looked around the park, bathed in pastel tones and well-dressed people. The balloons decorated the space with lightness, indicating celebration.
Sawyer looked at Monday and opened a smile that felt kind of like how the word "lucky" feels when it leaves your lips.
He was wearing a blue suit, suited perfectly to him, and extended his arm to her, welcoming her by situating his palm on the small of her back, where it belonged.
Their smiles where a lie, but not as much as they should have been.
In the distance, Apollo walked up to them. Among the crowd, Monday saw him alone, and sighed at the sight. Last time she saw him was at the hospital.
She opened her eyes slowly, like a newborn resisting the light, and saw Apollo sitting on the chair, sleeping with a bent neck and crossed arms.
Monday sat on the hospital bed and poked him in the face, twice.
He woke up and she giggled.
Apollo stood up promptly and towered over her shrunk figure in the sterilized white-and-green-polka-dots gown.
"You didn't think it would be a good idea to tell me you were feeling sick, little girl?"
"First of all, I'm not a little girl. Second, is that really the first thing you want to say?"
He tilted his head and shoved his hands in his pockets, "You scared the shit out of me, Monday." He raised his eyebrows, "I think I get to say whatever I want."
She smiled, "I'm sorry. I'm fine. It was just a lot to take in. Everything is clearer now."
Suddenly, the crowd scattered into a thin layer, and Peaches Oberlin's figure arose beside him holding his hand.
"Zen. Ezra. Good to see you. Thank you for making it." Apollo said, shaking their hands. "This is Peaches, my friend."
The girl smiled at them very slightly, as if she was feeling pain somewhere, and waved.
"You know I wouldn't miss your birthday, Johnny." Zen replied.
He looked at her, thinking of something, and then closed his mouth. He turned to Peaches, "Peaches, these are Zen and Ezra. Zen is--"
"His ex-fiancé." Zen completed. Apollo and Ezra exchanged looks. That caught Peaches' interest. "And this is my boyfriend, Ezra." She added.
"Yes, we have met." Her glossly lips turned into a smile while she and Ezra looked at each other, thinking they were carrying a secret, "What a small world, huh?"
Monday looked at her from top to bottom slowly, "Yes, very small."
Peaches tilted her head, unfamiliar with the reaction.
A waiter passed and Zen grabbed a tall glass of bubbly without looking at his face or addressing him at all, "So, what do you do, Paris?"
"Peaches," She corrected immediately.
Monday swallowed the drink that was already on her lips quickly, raised her shoulders, and covered her mouth with the tip of her fingers, "Oh, sorry, sweety."
Peaches chuckled, unpleased, "I'm a super-model," Obviously, she implied. One of the highest-paid top models in the world, actually. She wanted to add, but resisted.
Zen looked at someone behind Apollo and waved to them with a smile, mouthing 'Hey, girl!', and then laughing. Apollo looked back to see who she was talking to, but Peaches stared at her, puzzled by her lack of attention. Zen then looked back at them, remembering they were in the middle of something, "Oh! That is so nice. I heard models are very well paid nowadays." She said, and Peaches smiled and looked at Apollo, "Until they turn 25, of course." She teased, with a wrinkled nose and an educated smile. "But I'm sure you'll be the exception to that, sweety." She added tilting her head.
Apollo laughed a very short, uncomfortable laugh, raked his fingers through his hair and ended the motion with an embarrassed scratch on the back of his neck. "Uh, Zen, could I talk to you for a second?" He jerked her head in the direction of an empty space a couple feet away.
She smiled and nodded, "Of course, Johnny." They turned around to leave the other two, and Monday turned her head over her shoulder, "It was nice to meet you, Paris!"
Apollo touched her back and impulsed her to leave, "Alrighty, that's enough." Monday giggled.
Alone, Apollo gesticulated while he spoke, "Ex-Fiancé?!" He asked, whispering loudly. "That's not what was planned!"
Monday shrugged and then looked over his shoulder, "Trust me on this one. I've got Peaches wrapped around my finger."
Apollo recoiled, blinking many times, "Monday, you can't just call the shots like this. I'm leading this operation just as much as you are."
She raised his hands in the air, "Fine, you're right, I'm sorry." She put them down and shrugged, "But what is done is done, right?"
He sighed sharply, "Yes. Look, maybe we should just... avoid each other for a couple hours, yeah?"
Avoid each other??? She looked at him, her firm eyebrows crunching up like a child who heard the word 'No'.
He shook his head, annoyed but unintentionally gentle, "I'll see you later." He breathed, and walked away.
A friendly, almost invisible smile graced his lips as he looked down at the ground, in thought.
He looked up at her and then turned around to leave.
"You didn't have to stay all night."
He turned around and glanced over his shoulder, nodding a little before responding, I know."
She watched him leave.
He embraced Peaches and they waved goodbye to Ezra as they walked away. Ezra walked toward her with his hands shoved in his pockets. "You okay?" He asked, seeing her look at Apollo. Hesitantly, he pried, "Did you guys... fight?"
She looked at him but avoided eye contact, ashamed.
He looked at her, begging for more, but not asking.
Monday's brain tried to understand what her tangled feelings were asking of Apollo. She hated jealousy, but the fact that Apollo so nonchalantly overlooked her presence made her feel the blood inside her veins boil.
She hated being the center of attention most days, but the fact that she wasn't everything Apollo could think about made her feel insecure and small.
Monday March did not need the approval of any man, but the fact that Apollo hadn't complimented her dress made her feel fragile and unpretty.
If she wasn't in public right now, she'd want to slap herself in the forehead many times and shake it until she could expel those immature, irresponsible thoughts of which she did not approve one bit! But she was in public, and her facial expressions gave away the secret that she was distracted, and quite frankly, a little desperate.
They sat down side by side at a small cement wall protecting flowers, bad postures and all.
Maybe it was because Sawyer Grey had grown watching a mother he idolized being beaten by strange men in his own kitchen that he looked at ashamed women differently than most people.
There was softness, patience, and respect in his eyes, and nothing else.
He touched her hand and she quickly looked into his eyes, almost like his touch generated electricity. "No matter what happens, you will be safe." A vow he wished he had had the time to make to his mother, "Nothing else matters."
She smiled and looked away, "I'm pretty sure I am the one qualified to keep you safe." She paused, "But thanks."
He smiled but not because of the reply.
He brought his hands back to himself and looked around the park, observing people. She studied the bridge of his nose, meanwhile. "What's the difference between Ezra and Sawyer?"
This was the first time he heard his name from her lips, and that made his heart glow a different shade of red, "Well," He lightly slapped his spread out palms to his navy blue caquis', decidedly, "Sawyer is less of a dick." She chuckled, "But probably way less charming too." She looked up at him, very entertained by this game. "Both are good liars, unfortunately." He noded, honestly, "But Ezra is proud of that, and Sawyer loses sleep over that fact. He thinks it's his worst trait."
"Poor Sawyer," She said, smiling.
He raised his eyebrows, "Right?"
That made her laugh, and he felt like that must've erased at least 10 of his sins in God's handwritten notebook, "Ezra had it easy but likes to pretend he didn't."
"And Sawyer does the opposite, huh?"
He turned his head to her barely, looking at her with the corner of his eyes, confirming.
They both looked ahead for a second. If vulnerability was a flowing river of transparent waters, it was a summer morning and they were both floating in it.
"If it makes you feel any better, Zen is a much better person too."
His back was bent forward as his elbows served as pillars sustaining his chin from his thighs, "Yeah?"
Her whole face agreed, "Oh, yeah." He chuckled, "For starters, Zen is much calmer, has friends, and is one thousand times more patient than I am."
"Oh come on, you're patient!" She shook her head quickly. "Really?" He asked. She nodded with confidence. "Well, Zen doesn't save lives either, so I'd say you'd still win."
She rested the attempts to be funny and relaxed beside him, as an old friend, a smile glued to her face.
"Oh, by the way, I hate flowers too." She remembered. His mouth opened up slightly as he turned to her. She opened a proud smile and fixed her posture, "I've been wanting to say that since day one."
He scoffed, "Wow!" She laughed, "Okay, yeah, I like Zen better."
She laughed and playfully hit his chest, which made him join her in laughing.
From afar, Apollo followed their conversation attentively by examining their postures and body movements. The more they laughed, the more his muscles felt like they were turning into iron. He felt stiff and vile. His leg twitched like he was waiting for a bomb he knew was about to explode in secret.
When Monday pushed the boy playfully, his trained eyes could only understand that her hands, the delicate fingers that should have been claimed by the Louvre as their legal property years ago, touched another man, and the way that made him feel scared him. He had kept his distance from her the past few days because self-control wasn't a quality he had and the ones he did have seemed to be washed away the instant she stepped into the same room.
The night before this he left his shower dripping still and with a white towel hurridly wrapped around his waist when he wrote her name in the steamy mirror. Looking into it, he practiced lines, all of which were not good enough, and felt so stupid that his final decision was a smack in the forehead and a prayer to God Almighty, asking that He sealed his mouth so he could shut up forever.
As the day went on, Apollo observed the two of them talking from afar, and the ugly parts of him started scratching his skin from the inside, wanting to come out like warms from the earth. The claws of something big and dark pried over his shoulder, pointing at the same direction. The monster whispered in his ear with suggestions and opinions, but Knight stood tall as the gentleman he was, and reminded himself of what kind of man he wanted to be, he chose to be.
On the other side of the room, Zen and Sawyer continued, "I confess, I wasn't the best student in the world." She already chuckled before even hearing the story, knowing a good one was to come, "There was one time when my school's football team was playing against another school--" His shoulders raised as he couldn't contain his laughter, "And we invaded their school at night--" This time he interrupted himself with a roaring laugh, which made her curious and entertained, "And we set out three pigs in their school, with numbers on their sides, '1', '2', and '4'." He looked up, catching his breath from his own hilarity, "They were looking for pig number three for hours!" Both of them howled with joy at the image of a bald principal running after pigs and falling over in his oxford shoes. There was no guilt in their laugh, because guilt comes from judgement, and both were quite comfortable with the fact that occasionally, their moral compass was a little blind.
At this moment, it was night and the park was illuminated by fairy lights everywhere. The birthday cake was already in sight, and the sound of the people talking around them became less loud, almost like they were all having a tender conversation.
Sawyer looked at her delicately, and she allowed herself to be seen that way. Suddenly, she declared, "We are both really good liars."
That caught him off guard, but it was true so he agreed. "I guess that means we haven't been on a real first date yet."
She looked at him. "What?"
He smirked, "I said that means we haven't gone on a real first date yet." She didn't react, instead she looked away in discomfort. He continued, "Look, I know all of this was very unconventional. And I know you're the good cop and I'm the bad guy, but first, that only makes things hotter, and second," She giggled at the joke, "There is nothing I could think of that would make me happier than hearing the sound of you laughing for the rest of my life."
She looked at him, "I'm sorry. Look, I think you're just getting used to this situation. I mean, I understand, you and Zen were a thing, and now you associate her with me..."
"Does it look like I'm still into Zen?" He asked, this time more firmly, almost offended. She looked away again, but he moved his head to catch her sight, "Do you seriously think Sawyer and Zen would be a good match?" She looked at him tilting her head, pursing her lips together. "Tell me, Monday!"
She shook her head feeling overwhelmed, "Look, I think you're confused. It's been a confusing week. We keep playing a couple, it can be difficult to understand where real life ends and the characters begin..." She was saying that to herself, but he didn't know that so he adjusted his posture so he could be in the center of her eyesight, and wet his lips before beggining.
"I'll speak clearly so there are no questions. I, Sawyer Grey, like you, Monday March-- excuse me, special agent Monday March, because you are intelligent, strong, hate flowers, and so happens to be the most beautiful woman in the world-- in that order. If you don't like me back, there is no problem, I will respect your wishes above of my own. But you cannot tell me how I feel or why I feel things, because that is solely up to me. Nod your head if you understand." She nodded.
In the distance, someone yelled: "Hey guys, let's sing happy birthday!"
Sawyer stood up and offered her his hand to stand, "Good. I'm starving"
She took it and they walked over to the birthday cake table.
Apollo stood behind the white, three-layered cake with a Peaches Oberlin hugging his arm and laughing at nothing in particular. The crowd sang Happy Birthday in a beautifully out of tune harmony, but he stood there in a dark presence, humorless, grim, almost.
They finished the song and he blew out the candles. His mind was busy with conspiracies about what could have happened between them while he chose to stay away, punishing himself for what he realized was the wrong decision.
Peaches smiled and bit her lip, "What'd you wish for, baby?"
Apollo's ear captured the sound of Sawyer's laugh and a talk about the cake. "I want to change my wish." He growled.
Peaches pretended she was oblivious to his paying attention to them all evening, but in her heart she found herself quite heartbroken.
In the other side of the open area, Monday persisted on maintaining focus, "When you were with GUST, they didn't even indicate that they'd take you to meet the leader?"
He shook his head, "No. The highest man in charge the members have access to in Malachi. The man in charge of everything, we don't even know his name. Only Malachi knows. And maybe Peaches' husband. They're pretty tight."
She sighed. "How about Edwin Dorsell? We saw him in the factory in Switzerland the day Sasha was killed."
That activated something in him that made his smile wash away in an instant, "Edwin is a pawn. He was the newest member before I came in."
She shook her head, thinking deeply. "If we had the name..."
"I know. I'll do my best to find out but even the members who have been there for years, ever since the beggining, they don't know who's behind everything. Otis and I tried everything and couldn't find a single digital footprint. The man's a ghost."
She looked at Johnny and Peaches, who were talking. "Well, if Peaches knows anything, she'll tell Johnny about it. She's, like, obsessed with him." She chuckled bitterly, still starring.
Sawyer shoved his hands in his pockets and didn't laugh in return, giving no regard to the etiquette of a conversation. "So how long have you been in love with him?"
She turned her head to Sawyer quickly, insulted, "Excuse me?"
"Just tell me. Do I have a chance?"
She became angered, "I swear--" She turned around but he grabbed her arm, which caught Apollo's attention even though he was distant.
Her body turned back to him and they got close, "If you tell me there's nothing between you two, I will believe you." He said, and Monday panted as their chests nearly touched but not quite, "And if there is, I love a good friendly competition." He smirked, looking at her lips hungrily. The tension between them was palpable, and the inches between felt like a bridge leading the way to greed and offense. His eyebrows were firm when his face moved closer to hers slowly, "Tell me to stop..."
At the same moment, across the room, Apollo Knight left Peaches Oberlin talking to herself as he dashed from one side of the room to another in large steps. His mind was a mixture of rage, selfishness, and a hint of something else he didn't admit to.
Sawyer's nose touched Monday's when she quietly whispered, "Stop."
But of course, Apollo's left hand was already in Sawyer's shoulder at that point, and his right one in a fist held back like an arrow aiming to be shot, and two words summarizing the sentiment, "HANDS OFF."
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