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Well, at this point, I've gotten about 35 visitors from 6 different countries, and I'm thrilled, but I haven't gotten any reviews yet. :( Please review! I respect critism, but no total flames, please. Thanks!
"Maximum Ride, will you marry me?" This was not happening!
Well, yes it was, and, to tell the truth, I was all panicky. It was all so soon! We weren't even dating. We'd just made out a couple of times, that was all. How long had he been waiting for this? I know I hadn't thought about getting married, ever.
Max, be honest with yourself. All you have to do is clear your head and think about what is most important. Grr. The voice and it's dumb fortune cookie stuff. It couldn't just give me a straight-out answer, could it?
Uh, voice, I know you don't like to actually help me, but, do you think, just this once, you could cut the crap, and give me a real answer? I thought to the voice. Silence. Of course it couldn't.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I closed it, and tried to find something to say. Use your words, Max. I tried again, this time succeeding. "Um... Ari, I... I don't think I'm ready for that kind of commitment yet." I looked down, ashamed and a little embarrassed. His eyes looked sad and a little bit furious.
"What do you mean? You just said that you loved me? Is this because of your precious Fang? Well, guess what. Fang isn't here, is he? No! I am. I've always been there, even when Fang wasn't. I will always be here, weather you like it, or not!" He said, going from infuriated, to aggravated, to sad, and so on. I hated to admit it, but I think he was right. It was sort of because Fang, and Fang wasn't here. He was probably glad I was gone, so he could find the red-haired wonder again.
See, Maximum, now your getting there. Think. Clear your mind, and just think.
For once, I did what the voice said. I cleared my head and just thought. About Ari, about Fang, about Marriage. Marriage? Me, the great Maximum Ride, Married? That sounded crazy, even to me. And, also, it sounded weird that my bad-boy wanted to get married. But, mostly, it sounded...good. It really did. I didn't know what to do...
"Max, if your worried that being married to me won't allow you to be Max anymore, your wrong. I will always try to make you as happy as I can. You can still have all the freedom in the world, well, besides dating that horrible Fang." He said Fang's name in disgust, but besides that, he sounded pretty sincere.
"What do you have against Fang?" I asked, realizing that I'd sort of changed the subject. He didn't seem to notice. He got up and sat back down next to me.
"He tried to steal you away from me. He almost succeeded. I was always a little jealous of him. He got to live with you, then be on the run with you, be alone with you... I couldn't stand the fact that it wasn't me." He looked into my eyes, and I blushed and looked away.
"Okay. We can try this whole marriage thing, but if it doesn't work out..." I trailed off, letting him know that I wasn't going to be forced to stay married to him. "And, anyway, we're on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, who's gonna marry us?" It was true, no one was here to do the job.
"Well, if I can have people fly out here every few days to bring us food, I can certainly fly out someone to marry us." He said, proud of how well he'd thought through this. I was actually sort of impressed. Until I realized what he'd said.
"People come here? What if they are under cover people from the school, or the institute, or something? I knew this was too good to be true." I said, thinking that I had already known something would screw this up.
"They aren't. They are people my dad and I have known for a very long time, and would never betray us. Besides, they're scared as hell of me." He said, laughing and smiling his beautiful smile at the end. I really didn't get why people thought he was ugly. He was actually very beautiful, he was just very wolf-like.
"Okay, when and where." I said, not believing what I'd gotten myself into.
"Tomorrow, one o'clock, west side of the beach. There are a bunch of beautiful wedding dresses for you to choose from downstairs, and a bunch of shoes and other wedding-looking things for you to where, if you want." He said. Wow. Wedding dresses. He must've really thought about this. He took my hand and slid the beautiful diamond ring onto my finger. What was I doing?
"Okay, so...what now?" I asked. What was it that people did after a wedding proposal?
He pushed me up against the wall-gently, but in a way that made me know what he was going to do- and put his arms on the wall on either side of me, trapping me there. He leaned in and kissed me, and I tried to pull away, but couldn't. He kissed me for a few minutes, then stopped.
"Come on, Maxie. Kiss me back. You know you want to." Ari said, making me mad. I'd just agreed to marry him-almost against my will- and now he was forcing me to kiss him. Maybe I'd said I loved him, but right now I was just aggravated. What else did he want from me? He kissed me again, and I, unwillingly, kissed him back. Then I got into it, and was kissing him passionately.
...
When I woke up in the morning, I went downstairs to the room where Ari was keeping all the wedding stuff. Wow. There where about 40 dresses, 100 accessories, and 20 pairs of shoes down here! Where did all this stuff come from?
After looking through the gazillion-and-one dresses, I finally found the perfect one. It was an off-white colored dress with seashells on it. The perfect dress for a beach wedding. To go with it, I found a pair of shoes that matched the dress perfectly, and an elegant seashell necklace. Huh. I just said elegant. Anyway...
At one o'clock, I was on the beach, about 20 feet away from Ari, waiting for music to play. It started playing, and I started walking to the pace of the music. I finally reached Ari, and we both turned to face the minister.
He said a bunch of dumb wedding stuff, then finally said, "Do you, Maximum Ride, take Ari Batchelder, to be you husband?"
I looked at Ari, then at the minister, and said, "I do." Ari looked very pleased.
"And do you, Ari Batchelder, take Maximum Ride to be your wife?" Asked the minister. Well, duh. If he didn't, we wouldn't be here.
"I do." He said, looking into my eyes, smiling.
"You may now kiss the bride." He said, and Ari leaned down and kissed me deeply.
"Kiss me back." He demanded, and I kissed him lightly, then turned my head and kissed him for a few seconds longer. We separated, and Ari looked very, very pleased. Too pleased. Then I realized what this meant. I belonged to Ari. I was his, forever, whether I liked it or not. Damn it!
"Come on, Mrs. Batchelder. We're going back to the house to start our honey-moon." Oh, my gosh. Did he just say Mrs. Batchelder? I would have to talk to him about that. Right as I was about to start walking, Ari scooped me up into his arms, and held me close.
"Um... I have legs, you know..." I told him, wanting to walk. He kissed my forehead briefly, and then said, "Well, I thought it would be more romantic if I carried you back to the house.
"Yeah, I guess." I said. A few minutes later, we where at the house, and Ari carried me upstairs, and plopped my down onto the bed.
"What now?" I asked, feeling awkward just sitting here. Ari was loosening his tie and ripping off his shoes.
"Get comfortable." He said, taking off his tux-jacket thing. I nodded once, and started taking off all of the uncomfortable jewelry that I was wearing. After that, I took off my heels, undid my hair, and sat back down next to Ari.
"Okay, what now?" I asked. This honey-moon stuff wasn't much fun.
Instead of answering me, he leaned in close to my face and kissed me. We always did the same thing. He kissed me, I didn't kiss him, he told me to, I tilted my head so we could kiss better, blah, blah, blah. Well, I wanted to mix it up a bit, so I immediately started making out with him. I opened my mouth slightly, and slid my tongue into his mouth.
Noticing my mood, he pulled me onto his lap, and I tangled my fingers into his hair. In return, he put his hands on my waist, and started to bring them up my sides. Then, it all went uphill. Or was it downhill?