“I could tell them that it’s impossible right now—that I could come later this year. Autumn or winter—” she started but I interrupted her, ignoring the guilt in her voice.
“I think it’s brilliant that they give you this second chance that soon.” I forced my lips to curl upwards. “Go, Sophie. I can take care of myself.”
Sophie smiled at me with an almost motherly expression on her face. “I’ll be here another two weeks before I have to leave. If there is anything I can do for you—”
“Thank you.” It sounded too cold, but it didn’t bother my sister.
“I’m going to have dinner with Ian at a nice restaurant somewhere later tonight to celebrate the exam result. Would you like to join us?”
“Hmm—do you mind if I stay home? I’m...tired and, yeah—I just don’t feel like celebrating right now.” I gave Sophie most of the truth so she wouldn’t insist. A fact I didn’t tell her was that I was grateful that the house would be empty in the evening and Jaden would be able to stay with me for a while without me getting paranoid that my sister might hear us talk.
“Of course you aren’t. I’m sorry, Claire.” Sophie tilted her head, an expression full of pity on her face. “Stay home...I don’t mind.”
“Thanks.” I went over to open the cupboard and took out a glass. Then I filled it with water and looked at the tiny bubbles of oxygen swirling through it, making the usually transparent liquid look more milky. I waited until it had cleared up completely before I took a hesitant sip.
“I’ll be upstairs then,” I said into the silence and started walking, carrying my glass with me.
“Okay,” Sophie said as I passed her by on my way to the stairs.
“Have fun.” I turned and gave her the semblance of a half-smile before I walked back up to my room, closed the door behind me, and sat down on the edge of my bed, my head full of thoughts and my heart full of ache.
In my room, I pulled out my phone. I didn’t know when Jaden would be back and I had no intention of spending the time sitting around, waiting. Instead, I dialed Gregory’s number and held the phone to my ear.
“Hey Greg,” I shot as he answered unexpectedly fast.
“What’s up?” he asked, cheery.
“I could use your help,” I admitted, half-thinking it had been a bad idea to call him. How did I know he wouldn’t get upset if I asked a favor from him after all that had happened? We’d had some differences earlier this year. It was the time when I had needed some distraction after Adam had decided that it was best for us not to be together. The date Greg and I had gone on had been a complete disaster, and I had ended up kidnapped by demons. Gregory had confessed his feelings for me and our friendship had gone through some tough ups and downs since.
I grimaced an ironic laugh. After all that had happened since that date, one could truly believe that Adam had been right to try staying away from me. He might still be alive if he had. I felt a pang of guilt for being so selfish that I hadn’t cared enough about his safety to let him go.
“Hello?” Gregory’s voice tore me from my thoughts. “Is there anyone out there?”
“Uhm...sorry, I was distracted.” I tried to disguise the truth.
“So, what does my favorite depressed girl need?” He didn’t sound upset at all. On the contrary, he was delighted.
“Greg—would you mind helping me with history once more?” I spit it out and felt better the moment the words had left my mouth.
“Look who’s back,” Gregory chanted. “I thought you would stay all passive and inattentive until you ended up repeating another year of school...” His voice was light and joking but I knew that he meant what he was saying.
“I do my best to prevent this from happening,” I joked back in only a vague semblance of his merriness—if anything, it sounded nonchalant at the best.
Gregory’s laugh came from the other end of the line. I had the growing feeling that he wasn’t taking me seriously.
“Come on, Greg, are you going to help me or not?” I asked desperately. I still wasn’t stable. Every tiny wave of emotion could break me down and I felt it coming right now.
“Sure I will,” he answered. He didn’t sound as lighthearted now. It was as if he could finally sense the severity of the situation.
“Thank you, Greg!” Relief spread through my brain.
“When do we start?” he asked, his voice back to delighted.
“Tomorrow after school—that is, if you have time.”
“Sure I have. For you—any time.”
“Great! Thanks again—and—see you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Gregory said. “See you.”
I hung up and put the phone aside.
The week had hardly begun and I was already proud of myself for taking some action. I put all the effort I could in building a stronger facade, in hiding my pain and my loneliness, in fighting against the horror of my angel being gone. If I was to continue bleeding inside—I had already attempted everything to stop the flow of blood from my inner wounds—I had to become a perfect actor. I had to seem perfectly healed and back to life, so nobody would pity me and try to talk with me about Adam. I simply couldn’t stand anyone saying his name. No one had any right to talk about him, to try to comfort me and help me get back on my feet, because no one knew anything about him and how dreadfully his life had been ended.
The doorbell interrupted my brooding. I shuddered and suppressed an audible reaction to the wave of pain which was rolling through me.
Sophie’s footsteps were passing my door on their way downstairs.
“I’m leaving!” she called as she hurried past with her shoes clunking on the wooden steps in rapid intervals.
“Okay! Bye!” I called back, wondering if she heard my weakened voice. Weakened by the wire tearing through me over and over again.
It was less than a minute when I heard Ian’s deep voice cheering for Sophie’s success on her exam. Her girlish laughter rang through my window from outside as they left the house. A car’s engine sprang to life—definitely not Sophie’s—and then after a few seconds the sound became more distant.
I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes, hoping to shut the world out for once...
Adam’s face was close—too close for such a pale, dead thing. Not close enough for something so unbelievably beautiful. He looked fragile with his skin stretching over his bones like a too tight silky layer. His long black lashes framed his motionless lids as they blocked the world’s most meaningful eyes from my vision. His body was cold. Still. Light wind ruffled his hair, making black strands dance over his forehead.
He was lying on the ground, except there was no real ground. It was more like we were floating on a colorless grid in the middle of nowhere. When I looked up, I could see branches of a greening tree from the corner of my eye. I could smell spring in the air. Birds were singing somewhere up in the tree I couldn’t fully make out. I felt soft grass where I was kneeling beside Adam. But as I looked down, no grass was growing. Below, the grid was the only thing that stretched in every direction.
“Adam,” I spoke into the undefinable space. It swallowed my voice. I didn’t even hear the words myself.
A drop of crystal-clear liquid appeared on his cheek. I looked up to see where it had come from, but there was nothing but blue sky above me. As I looked back down, another drop appeared on his cheek. It slowly slid down the side of his cheekbone and vanished into his hair.
It took me a second to understand that the liquid was dripping down from my own cheek. I was crying, I realized, and those were my tears on his perfect face.
“Open your eyes, Adam!” I called helplessly. The words were audible this time, but so muffled that I could hardly understand them.
Adam didn’t move when I gingerly touched his face with my fingers. His skin was cold. There was no response. I used my thumbs to tenderly sweep away the tears, even as they continued to fall from my eyes.
The next moment, his body began drifting away fr
om me, deeper into the grid, while I remained motionless, suspended between the green spring above and the gray nothingness below.
Desperate not to lose this contact, I called his name and reached out to pull him back, but I couldn’t get a hold of him. Every time my fingers tried to close around his arm, his shoulder, his neck, my hands closed around thin air.
He drifted farther and farther as I screamed for him, panicking, to no avail.
“I need you!” I wailed, but it was a desperate plea with no hope in it.
I helplessly watched him float out of sight. All I could do was wait until he would be gone.
Just before he vanished from my view completely, his eyelids suddenly tore open. Their light green bore into mine for a fraction of a second before he vanished into the grid, and I felt my own eyes fly open. My alarm clock said 8pm. I had been asleep for an hour.
I steadied myself with a deep breath. My lungs expanded unwillingly as I forced the air down. I closed my eyes for a second to calm myself and then got to my feet. I headed for the bathroom. A hot shower was what—if anything—could help a little.
As I reached out to open the door of my room, I stopped in my tracks. My hands were wet. I shook my head sharply. This was impossible.
Shaking my head at what sprang to my mind, I ran into the bathroom and thrust my face into the mirror.
No tears. I smelled my hands and gently touched them. No odor, no texture. It seemed completely foolish but I touched my tongue to my hands. Salty, as I had been afraid it would be. Sweat, I told myself, wanting to believe it, and too shaken by the lifelike dream to contemplate anything else.
Salt burned on my tongue like a reminder. I rinsed the taste from my mouth and gave up on the shower in favor of returning to bed and pulling up the quilt.
It wasn’t a minute before Jaden appeared at the end of my bed. He wore an expression of obvious worry.
“What’s wrong?” he asked from across the bed.
I nestled deeper under the quilt like it would protect me from him knowing my emotions. Even though his ability came in handy at times, being transparent wasn’t exactly appeasing.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” he asked.
I didn’t share with him that he had guessed right. Instead, I scooted up so I could lean back against the headboard and closed my eyes.
“Had a weird dream,” I told him without reopening my eyes.
“Tell me all about it,” he encouraged. I felt him slide further up towards me. When I reopened my eyes he was sitting close, leaning his weight on one muscular arm, his gaze curious and worried.
“Don’t want to talk about it right now,” I said unenthusiastically and pulled my knees up a little.
Jaden exhaled in frustration and his lips tightened with disapproval.
“I don’t know why we have to keep talking about this,” I said, looking away from him pointedly. “I’m only going to tell you for the hundredth time how much I miss him, how much it hurts, how I don’t see how I’ll get through this.”
I felt tears threatening to fall. I didn’t give them a chance to even touch my cheeks. Control was the most important thing. That and becoming sociable again.
“You’re hurting so much and I only want to help,” Jaden said softly. He was the comforting guardian angel again, finding the perfect tone, but he didn’t change his position and he was definitely leaning in toward me.
I exhaled, letting go of all the sorrow as much as I could—almost not at all—and forced myself to take charge of the moment.
“You were telling me why you decided to go to school,” I said, reminding both of us of our former conversation.
He backed away an inch, somewhat reluctant.
“Of course.” His tone gave a glimpse of how hesitant he was to share the information.
I directed my eyes at him and remained silent, waiting for him to speak. We sat there for a while looking at each other, I happy that he didn’t force me to tell him more about that dream, and he...I couldn’t really tell what was going on inside him. His face was too much a mask of controlled politeness.
Eventually he clenched his jaw, something I had never seen him do before, and lowered his gaze to the floor before speaking. He seemed to have reached a decision.
“First of all, I am honestly sorry for not telling you that I was going to school.” He kept his eyes on the floor beside my bed, the way an ashamed child would. “I just didn’t want people to know we know each other. I want to blend in like any normal new student would.
“Any connection to you would have endangered my cover. Any connection to anyone would have,” he explained in a voice that sounded more like he was confessing a crime.
I watched him, not knowing what to expect. I basically never did. Jaden was a mystery. An angel, ancient and full of surprises.
“I was very grateful you didn’t give any sign that you knew me today at school. It was like you knew you shouldn’t—” He turned towards me, looking me straight in the eye. “Did you?”
I shrugged. “Uhm—I guessed...since you didn’t talk to me or give any sign of knowing me, I thought it would be best not to react to you at all—more than a normal student would to a new one.”
“Well, you guessed right.” His lips twitched a tiny little bit at the corners. A sign of approval.
“So I got at least one thing right today,” I sighed.
Jaden grinned for a second. “Yes.”
I waited for him to go on talking while my mind took me back to scenes of Jaden talking to Amber. The strange jealous feeling, the uneasiness when I thought about him knowing how I felt even if he wasn’t with me...
“I decided to go back to school because I thought it was time to keep a better eye on you. When you’re at home I can easily pop up beside you when you’re in danger. Nobody would notice. But when you are at school there is no way I can teleport to you unnoticed. There will always be people around you. If the demons decide to get you there, I’d rather be near you in an unremarkable way so nobody would really take any special notice.”
I felt a surge of happiness that somehow felt wrong to me. It was true, then. He was doing this for me, not for Amber or anyone.
I knew he could feel my emotions, so to cover my feelings I rushed the conversation.
“The demons haven’t lifted as much as a toe to come after me so far. They haven’t attacked at school before—” I waited a second for the pain to pass. “—so why would they now?”
Jaden’s forehead creased a little as he listened to me.
“I just think it’s good to be near you...in case something happens.” He looked back down at the floor.
“Is something going to happen, Jaden?” I tilted my head and leaned imperceptibly towards him to emphasize the importance of my question.
“Of course not,” he answered just a bit too quickly. I didn’t believe him and knew he would sense my feelings.
I straightened my back against the headboard of my bed again and looked at the ceiling.
“You have been to school before?” I asked innocently.
“Why would you think that?” he answered my question with a question of his own.
“You said back to school.”
He flinched ever so slightly.
“When?”
I watched his chest rise and fall with deep breaths, counting four of them before he spoke.
“Long ago...”
Silence hung heavy in the air.
“When?” I asked quietly, determined to get him to tell me as much as I could while he was in this strange mood.
“Another time. Another story. Another person.” Jaden’s eyes darkened. He was gazing into the distance and the features of his young face grew ancient with sorrow.
I studied him—golden-haired, golden-eyed, and leaning close— my protector, an ancient angel and a beautiful young man. I wondered what he was seeing.
After a minute, he returned to the present and his eyes refocused on me. He shook his he
ad the tiniest bit and his face returned to being polite and friendly. A mask.
“Just something I had thought I should experience once... It turned out it wasn’t what I had expected.” He added a smile. It didn’t look convincing.
I eyed him, pondering whether or not to press the topic and decided not to, for something in his eyes told me that was all I would get—for now.
“It’s nice you’re looking out for me,” I said lightly to change the topic.
“It’s my job,” he answered, still with the same expression.
“Seems like most of the students are thrilled to have you in class,” I dragged the conversation on. “Especially the girls.” I couldn’t help rolling my eyes.”
“They’re all very friendly, helpful,” he said formally.
“That’s not what I mean,” I said, poking a playful finger into the arm he was using to prop himself upright in my bed. The muscle felt as solid as it looked.
“What?” he grinned, flattered, and suddenly boyish.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed they are lining up just to talk to you.”
“They aren’t,” he objected.
“Yes, they are.” I countered with feminine conviction. “And Amber’s the lucky one you picked from the group.”
“What?” He looked positively confused.
“All the girls would have given anything to sit with you at lunch...or in classes. But you chose Amber,” I explained to him like I was explaining to a child that fire is hot or water is wet.
He laughed out loud.
“You think I’m interested in Amber?” He was still grinning, making me wonder if boy angels had male egos like their human counterparts.
“Yes, I do,” I admitted, a little ashamed that the thought of it was irritating me. “Well, she is obviously interested in you,” I added in a voice that I intended to sound nonchalant.
“Oh—” his grin faded. “That’s not what I wanted. I hope I didn’t make her think I am.”
“You’re not?”
“Not at all.” He shook his head like a dog shaking water from its fur.
“Why spend almost all the time at school with her then?” I asked, not understanding.
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