Accidentally in Love With a God (2012) (4 page)

I picked up my cell from the nightstand. “Bye. I’ll call you later,” I said loudly, feigning to have just ended a call in case my mom had heard me talking. “Come in, Mom.”

The door chugged open as it collided with the heap of rejected clothes on the floor. Who knew packing to face my destiny would be so hard?

Her brown bob popped through the crack.

“Sorry, didn’t hear you. Was talking to Anne.”

“Emma. Just checking, did you change your mind about that ride to the airport?” she asked.

“
Be confident Emma, she cannot sense your deception. The woman has been through enough already.”

Guy was right. My parents had been through a lot. First with my grandmother’s unsettling disappearance last year then with my near death. The last thing I wanted was to traumatize them further. And no, I didn’t like lying to her. But this was important. This was my life. I had to take this chance if I ever wanted to be free of Mr. Voice.

“No thanks, Mom. I knew you’d be working late tonight, so I’ve got a car picking me up,” I said. The flight was leaving at six A.M. so it was a good excuse.

“Well…Okay, if you want to do it that way,” she said.

“Hey, I’m coming back in a week.” I squeezed her hand.

The story I told my parents was simple. I had a little money saved and needed to get away. Me time. I told them I needed a break after everything that had happened, including recently graduating Summa Cum Laude from NYU with a BA in Marketing, minor in
español
—no easy task, but it’s amazing what people can do when they don’t have a real social life. Once I assured them I’d stay at the resort and only go out on guided tours, they’d eased up a bit on the worrying.

Now, if they had any clue I planned to land in the Cancun airport, rent a car, drive five hours toward the border of Belize, and set out to find a dilapidated ruin in the middle of the jungle, they’d handcuff me to my bed. In fact, that wasn’t such a bad idea. After hearing the plan from Guy, captivity sounded like the saner choice. According to him, he’d been following some “very bad people.” Somehow, they’d set a trap, and there he’d been ever since. Cursed.

“You mean, like, magic-cursed? They’re holding you with some voodoo spell?” I’d asked.

His only reply was that some things had to be seen to be believed.

No kidding.

I turned to my mom who had concern written all over her face. “I promise you, Mom, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”

***

“
Finally, I thought she’d never leave”
Guy grumbled after I had one final safe-travel talk with my mother.

I sat down on my bed and covered my face with both hands. Was this real? Was this finally going to happen? In twenty-four hours, I’d meet him and be free forever.

I felt the sharp pang of loss in my stomach. I mentally shooed the pang away.

“
Emma? Why are you groaning? What’s the matter now?”

I didn’t want to talk about my irrational conflict. “What do you mean?”

“
You’re sighing and making funny noises. I know something is wrong. And…
why
do you insist on calling me Guy? What happened to Mantastic? Which you say with blatant disdain and sarcasm. Or, your all-time favorite, A-hole?”

He was trying make me laugh, but I wasn’t in the mood. “You’re the one who keeps saying you’re ‘just a guy,’ so tell me your real name, and I’ll use it.”

“
You can call me Hunk of Burning Love or Cupcake.”

Okay. That was funny.
I laughed. “Those sound like porn stars. And sorry, but I doubt you’re fantasy material. How about I call you selfish bast—”

“
Guy, it is.”

“Fine.”

“
We need to go over everything one last time,”
he said in that special voice he used when he didn’t want any argument from me. It was stern, yet hypnotic and enchanting. My toes began to tingle along with several unmentionable parts of my body. It was cruel to play with me like that. Why did he do it?

“Stop with the voice thing, or we’re done talking.”

“
I have no clue what you mean, but I love the way your heart accelerates when I do it,”
he said in the same penetrating voice.

My nipples hardened.
Jerk
. “Goodnight.”

“
All right,”
he said in his normal tone. My body instantly relaxed.
“Did you memorize the phrase I gave you? You can’t lift the curse and release me without it.”

He warned that reciting the phrase incorrectly could create some kind of bad energy. So hokey. “Yes, and I’m not saying it again.” I clenched my fists, preparing to resist his voice if he used it again.

“
One more time.”

“I’ve got this. Okay? I’m driving straight through to that little village with the stupid name, Bacaloo—”

“Bacalar,” he corrected.

“Whatever.” Like it mattered. “Then I’m following the trail into the jungle.”

Damn. That sounded crazy. Was I really, really doing this? Yes. Yes, I was.

“
And the cardinal rule is no—”

“Deviations,” I cut him off. He’d already given me the two hour lecture about how dangerous that part of Mexico was. Drug dealers were rampant near the border. Which made me wonder, were those the “bad people” who’d trapped him with a spell? If yes, holy crap, the world would be in heaps of trouble. The Mexican Feds would have to trade in their guns for Harry Potter books. “I get it. Can I finish packing, take a shower and get to bed now?”

“
You know, I’m eternally grateful for what you’re about to do.”

I hated when he was nice to me. It just made me more confused about my feelings for him; mean was easy to leave. “Yeah, you keep saying that, but it’s not like you gave me a choice. And I’m not doing this for you—it’s for me.” It was both, actually, but he didn’t need to know. After I learned about him being trapped all these years, I felt sorry for him.

“
Has it occurred to you?”

“What?”

“
That you might miss me once I’m out of your life?”

I can’t stop thinking about it,
I thought.
I’m terrified. No—relieved. No—terrified
. He’d been a part of my life longer than I could remember. Sure he was a major pain, but I’d clearly grown attached. “I’ll miss you like an ingrown toenail.”

He laughed.
“Ouch. Such a nasty bite you have, my little meerkat. But what if I said that our stimulating relationship does not have to end? I know this is what you secretly long for, to be by my side and gaze into my handsome, masculine face,”
he said.

“Don’t. This isn’t a joke. You've ruined a significant portion of my life, and now you’re making me risk it just to get it back.”

“
It wasn’t my intent to hurt you. You know that. You are by far the most important thing in my world. All I’ve ever wanted is to look after you.”

Did he truly see things that way? When I was little, I remember feeling like nothing in the world could harm me as long as he was around. But that feeling quickly ceased when I was six, after the school insisted I get a psychiatric evaluation. My hunch is it had something to do with me inexplicably singing the lines from Madam Butterfly in Italian—Guy’s favorite opera. I also kept insisting my imaginary friend was real. Sort of freaked people out.

Right after that, he said he had to leave for a while, but that he’d stay close in case I ever needed him. I was devastated, and for weeks, I begged him to answer me, but he didn’t.

When I was fifteen, he finally returned. He wouldn’t say why, but I suspected it was because I’d discovered boys. Sadly, they didn’t discover me back until I was much older, and by then, it was too late. I was hooked on the mystery of Guy.

Did he have any clue how hard it was to listen to the sound of his dark, melodic voice every day? Or to share my life with him, not knowing what or who he was?

He was an enigma my mind couldn’t stop trying to solve. And his refusal to give up the answers drove me to the brink of insanity. That’s what made my feelings so…so irrational. How could I pine for someone like that? Part of me loathed him. The other part ached for him.

“
I am sorry, Emma. I sometimes forget that I am not the only one trapped.”

“What about you? Will you?” I picked up a pair of socks from the bed and began folding them into a ball.

“
Will I, what?”

“Miss me.” I wanted him to say “yes.” I wanted to know I meant something more to him. I was a pathetic.

Several moments passed. “
You see, you love being with me. Admit it, just say the words, woman,”
he gloated.

Arrogant toad. “I think my actions speak for themselves, and they’re saying ‘take a hike.’ I’m flying two-thousand miles just to get rid of you.”

“
Or, they’re saying ‘I’d do anything for you.’ After all, Emma, you are taking a huge leap of faith to free me. You have no idea what you’ll find.”

“You’re such a...” I paused, trying to come up with some clever word to hurt him, but it was a waste of time. He was too arrogant to hurt. “I have something to tell you,” I said, changing subjects. I rubbed my palms on my jeans and then continued bundling my clean socks. Could never have too many clean socks or undies when going to meet your fate head on.

“
You’re not backing out, are you?”

“No. It’s something else. Something I’ve wanted to say since the accident.”

“
I know, I know. But you don’t have to thank me for saving you.”

“Actually, I’ve started hearing other voices.”

“
Are you certain?”

Was he going to scream at me for not telling him sooner? “Yes,” I replied quietly. I picked up the pile of neatly bundled socks and put them in my backpack.

“
Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
he said, his voice more concerned than irritated.

“I don’t know. I guess—I thought, maybe, I really was going crazy this time. And honestly, I can’t understand them. But I’ve been able to pick out different pitches, kind of like instruments in an orchestra. They all sound like bees. Busy, buzzing bees. I think there are eleven.”

There was a long silence. Then he said, “
Sometimes after traumatic experiences, the human brain becomes hypersensitive, and yours is already like a giant satellite dish—one of the reasons you hear me—the noise is probably static, perhaps resulting from your head injury.”

I let out a sigh of relief.
Yes, that’s what it has to be.
Besides, the noise hadn't been nearly as bad as during that first week. In fact, most days I didn’t even notice them.

“Guy?”

“
You’re not going to tell me some other secret, such as you now shoot fire from your eyes?”

“No.” I snickered and ran my hand through my tangled curls.

“
That you’re madly in love with me and want to spend eternity listening to the sound of my manly, seductive voice?”

Yes. Definitely, yes,
I thought instantly. Some days, I wanted to bath in it.
Wait! No!
“I want to be alone the rest of the night. I need to think."

“
Yes, you should rest, my sweet. It’s the least I could do for the woman I...”

I waited for him to finish the sentence.

Silence.

“The woman you…what?”

“
Goodnight, my sweet Emma.”

Ugh.
“Night.”

I finished packing in blissful silence and then took a long hot shower, trying to focus my thoughts away from the trembling in the pit in my stomach. Instead, I basked in visions of my life after he’d be gone. Dates, real conversations, going to the bathroom without wearing my iPod so he couldn’t hear anything. God, I could practically taste my new life. I knew the moment I freed him, his hold over my heart—and other body parts—would sever. I’d finally be free. And then maybe, just maybe, I could confront the neglected skeletons in my closet, like getting over losing my grandmother. A thought never far from my mind.

Chapter FIVE

1940. Bacalar, Mexico.