Between Heaven and Hell (PA #2)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ari (Sloth)

Nature.

Nurture.

Nature.

Nurture.

Are we the way we are in spite of our environment, or because of it?

If I was born in a different body, in another life, would my mind still race with endless possibilities? Would my heart still beat with incessant desire for a woman who, by all rights, shouldn't know of my existence? Was I born for this, or was I made for this?

I don't know

I don't know.

I don't know.

I wish I had all of the answers. I wish I understood all of the questions, but the Unknown has become an entity in and of itself. A frightening thing to which no level of blissful ignorance can compare.

Willow is not human. Willow was never born, not in the traditional sense. No, Willow was made.

That's what the witches told Romeo when he sought them out over break. The same witches that want my older brother dead for a crime he didn't technically commit.

There are too many possibilities.

Nature or nurture.

Willow's body is not her own, the very DNA of every microscopic cell stolen and woven into a patchwork of blood and bones and flesh that make up the light of my life. She is an abomination, an aberration to everything I should hold dear.

I am a man—in as much as the demonic offspring of two former angels can be—of science. I am a man of magic and fate and supernatural. Willow is a supernatural science experiment of the highest order. She should not exist, but she does.

How can I ever possibly tell her that? How does one go about explaining to their fated love that they are not truly a person at all? She is not a woman. She is not any singular description.

It's hard to put into words.

I don't get the chance to devolve any further into mental wanderings. She's awake now, blinking slowly with dream-crusted eyes. I wonder what sorts of images flick through her subconscious. If she ever dreams of me the way I always dream of her. Except, my dreams are wrapped up in timelines of possibilities and impossibilities. Fact, fiction, past, present, future.

"I can feel how fast your brain is working," she says roughly, her voice deep with sleep.

"Lots to think about, Trouble."

Nature or nurture.

Do I tell her?

"Not this early in the morning, Sloth man." She smiles with the use of the nickname and I am resolute.

I can't tell her. Even if I could, even though I can, I won't. Not yet. Not until I figure out the possibilities.

"Do you feel wiser yet?" I ask her, hoping beyond measure that she can't hear the secrets that wish to slip past my lips.

She purses her own before her face lights with realization. "Oh, right. That's today, isn't it?"

I can't resist giving her a brief kiss. "Happy Birthday, Trouble."

She chases my mouth when I retreat, grumbling when I stay out of her reach. "Thanks, Ari. Now, less talking and more kissing," she orders.

Since she's the birthday girl, I oblige her.

Her lips are a promise of forever, of time that is cyclical rather than linear. Mine are an affirmation made in gracious longing. We are never-ending, bound together despite all of our impossibilities.