Dominion (Guardian Angels) - By Melody Manful Page 0,16
trained. I suspected it was due to her aversion to weapons.
The scariest thing about knowing how to use all those weapons was how much I was always tempted to put my knowledge of them to the test. I didn’t share this desire with my mother. What she didn’t know wouldn’t kill her.
INNOCENCE
“We live and learn to share good laughs.
We try and we cry to play sad songs.
We stay and we go to say goodbyes.
And we hate and love to share memories.”
Melody Manful
“Abby, is everything all right up there?”
Crap. “Yes, Mom, I’m almost done!” I jumped off my bed and hurried into my walk-in closet. For some reason, my body wasn’t hurting anymore from training the previous night.
My mother was launching her pre-spring collection, an addition to her fashion line Cells. Although I knew she was still sad that my father left, she wasn’t about to miss the after-party. She asked me to get ready for the party, but instead I took a shower, called my friends, and rushed into bed to read Romeo and Juliet for the millionth time.
I grabbed the first dress I saw upon entering my closet. I was in luck; I had retrieved a red, short Alexander McQueen dress. I tugged it on and then snatched a pair of black Christian Louboutin pumps from a shelf and rushed into my bathroom. I quickly brushed my hair, slipped into the heels, and dashed out of my room as fast as I could.
“I know you don’t like crowds, honey, but please smile for me tonight,” my mother said when I came downstairs. She stood together with one of my bodyguards, Ben, who was a dapper thirty-three-year-old with thinning blonde hair. Ben clutched a camera in his hand.
“Mom, I’m happy for you,” I said, repeating a response I’d said so many times before. I hated being famous and having to smile and pose for the paparazzi, not to mention being an accomplice to their cheesy fake stories. Sometimes I wished I could trade places with a regular person, but then I remembered that I should be grateful for what I had.
“Smile, Abby,” Ben said as he snapped a picture of my mother and me. “You look beautiful,” he added, and my smile disappeared.
The camera’s flash reflected on the chandelier hanging between the double staircase, reminding me of all the cameras that were probably about to invade my space.
“Stop saying that, Ben,” my mother teased. “Abby still thinks she’s ugly.”
“Abby, you know beautiful doesn’t just mean having good looks,” he said. “You’re brilliant and caring. And that makes you beautiful.”
“I have the media talking about everything I do all the time. At school, it’s like I’m parting the Red Sea when I walk down the hall, and kids keep showing me magazines and asking for beauty tips.” I hated being a part of the chaos, but my mother and Ben just laughed.
“They do that because you inspire them,” my mother said, just like she always did when the topic snaked its way into our conversations. Couldn’t someone else inspire them? Why me?
I wasn’t surprised my mother said this, even at the age of forty-two she looked like she was thirty. She had dark, wavy hair that cascaded down her shoulders and golden brown eyes like mine. She’d always been the cool, beautiful mother. She graced the covers of a lot of magazines. I’d lost count long ago of how many times she’d been named the most beautiful or one of the most beautiful women alive. Each year her name was at least mentioned in that category.
“I just want to come home and be Abigail, not a beauty queen…just me.”
“So innocent, so adorable.” My mother posed for one last picture with me.
I wasn’t innocent or adorable. As a matter of fact, I was sometimes the opposite of the loving, caring, role model Abigail that everyone knew. The public loved me because I was charitable. My fans loved me because of my mother—it didn’t hurt that I’d inherited her sense of style and her friendly nature. My family and friends loved me because I was Abigail.
And by my friends’ and family’s definitions, Abigail meant a clumsy, loving, caring, awkward, and selfless young lady who would do anything for those she loves. Yes, that was the Abigail everyone knew. However, there was another Abigail, too—one who liked the rush of danger and playing with guns. I didn’t quite understand her because she was nothing like the Abigail that everyone loved. That other, secret Abigail