An Arrangement was Made

Chapter 6: Adam's Totally Normal House Party

"Lilli! Where are you going?!" The man caught up to his wife who was angrily stomping dangerously near the edge of Eden's gardens.

"Away!"

"You can't go out there!" He got in front of her with his arms out so that she couldn't get past him easily.

"And why not?" She glared hard at him. He didn't like it when her face looked like that.

"Sera told us not to go out there, so we're not going out there. We are staying here!"

"Ugh!" Lilith scoffed. "Sera told us this, Sera told us that, blah blah blah blah blah blah! Who cares?! Sera isn't even here! She'll never know!"

"You don't know that." He glanced into the sky to see if any of those holes in the sky were open for heaven to spy on them. None yet. "Just cause we haven't seen any sky holes in..however long its been, doesn't mean they can't see us."

Lilith gave him an unimpressed look. Adam started to feel as if he had something stupidly paranoid, but he didn't think he was being paranoid. Why does she have to keep looking at him like that?

"Stop looking at me like I'm stupid. I'm not stupid."

"Don't tell me how I'm allowed to look at you. I'll look at you however I damn well please."

Adam sighed and passed her to go back to the garden.

"Come on already, I don't like being this close to the edge."

"I'm not going with you."

"What do you mean?" He looked back at her. Why wasn't she following? Wasn't she supposed to listen to him?

"Come on Adam! Don't you want to see what's out there?" Her eyes sparkled with excitement. She looked so curious and passionate. He wished she felt that way about him like he did with her.

"No. No I don't actually." He looked over her shoulder out at the jungle beyond the garden. It looked dangerous. Lillith's expression dropped into disappointed annoyance.

"Ugh. You're so lame."

"What's so lame about following the rules?!"

"Everything! It's like you don't even want to think for yourself."

"I don't. I'm good. I am happy here. We have all the food we could ever want, there's plenty of water, we've got a beach. Why don't we go to the beach? That sounds way more fun than fighting. We haven't even named all the fish yet." He gestured in the direction of Eden's beach.

"You've seen one fish, you've seen them all. Naming animals is your thing. I want to do my own thing."

"I reeeeaaally don't think you should go out there. Sera said there are animals out there that eat other animals!" Only herbivores were allowed in the garden. It was the only safe haven on a planet overrun with huge and deadly dinosaurs.

"I'm a human Adam, not an animal. They won't eat me." Her tone was extremely condescending.

"Oh yeah. I'm sure if you just ask the T-Rex nicely not to eat you, it'll listen."

"You named one?"

"Yeah, weren't you listening? I told you just the other day that I saw one poking its head above the trees."

She gasped. "What did it look like?" She bounced on the balls of her feet all excited.

"It looked like a lizard but huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge. It was as big as two of me! And it was covered in feathers like a bird."

"Oooooo, I wanna see one!"

"Maybe it'll come back." He tried.

"Or maybe we should just leave the garden and go find it!" And the plan is backfiring. Bad.

"Wha-Lilli, no! Its teeth were sharp! They looked like the pointy rocks inside the cave. It had teeth on hands and feet too. Like our fingernails but way bigger and way sharper! And it can breathe fire!"

Lilith's eyebrows crinkled in thought. She knew that something wasn't quite right about that statement. Once it hit her, it hit like a bag of bricks to an infant's head.

"You made that last one up."

"Okay fine. But the rest of it's true!"

"Sure it is." She turned to step outside the garden.

"Lillith! Come back here!"

"Oh no, I'm stepping foot outside the garden. I'm going to die in such violent, horrible ways." She hovered her foot above the slimy, grassless ground of the jungle.

"Don't do it! No! Bad!"

She blew her tongue at him as she stepped back into the dark trees.

"That's it! I'm not asking you anymore! Now I'm telling!" He pointed in the direction of the place they normally slept. "Go back to the fire now!"

"No. I'm going, and if you're too much of a coward to come with me, fine! Stay here and rot for all I care!" She whipped around and ran off, disappearing quickly into the thick, vine covered trees.

"Wait Lillith!" He stepped to the very edge of the garden. He wanted to run after, to make certain that she was safe, but.. He couldn't. He was too scared. He took a few steps back, then turned to go home. He looked over his shoulder to see if maybe she was coming back, but she didn't. He wondered if maybe he'd done something wrong.

"She'll come back." He said out loud to reassure himself of that. "Yeah, we fight sometimes but Sera said that's normal. She'll come back. She loves me." He sat down next to the little fire pit the two of them had made so long ago. He picked up on the charred halves of a twig and absentmindedly doodled in the dirt while he waited for her.

"We love each other. We'll always love each other."