White (The Wings Trilogy Book 1)

by Angelina J. Steffort

  A part of me wanted to go and talk to him, but the other part ordered my feet to hurry away to somewhere he couldn’t see me. Before I could consciously decide which part I wanted to win, I was heading towards the door. Running up the first flight of stairs inside, I started panting heavily. I was sure he hadn’t noticed me rushing by.

  The man at the counter gazed at me suspiciously as I stormed past him and aimed for the library windows that pointed toward the campus in front of the building.

  They were still standing there. Adam looked at the woman with an unreadable expression on his face. She spoke and gestured wildly, touching his arms and shoulders every other moment. I knew her, too. She had been at Sophie’s last party. I remembered her leaning against the wall exposing her neck and curling that unnaturally bluish black hair around her fingers. Adam had talked to her then, his eyes caught by her beautiful appearance.

  I had been watching them for a couple of minutes, deep in thought and forgetting where I was, when somebody cleared their throat behind me. I turned around and found myself staring at the man from the counter.

  “Sorry,” he apologized. My mouth fell open. He reminded me of somebody, except I couldn’t place who. He was around sixty, his white hair was riddled with strands of light blond and it was combed back in a perfect manner. I shook my head to say I was okay. “Can I help you, Miss?” he asked politely. I held out the book for him in a knee-jerk reaction.

  “I have to bring this back for my sister.” He took the book from my hands and gestured me to follow him towards the counter. I started walking without thinking too much. My head turned back to the window, but Adam and the girl were gone. My feet carried me to the counter safely even though I wasn’t quite sure how they managed. My brain was sidetracked by the image of the girl touching Adam’s hair, arms, shoulders, face.

  “Is your sister out of town?” the man asked in a low voice. I nodded again.

  “She was supposed to bring the book back earlier, I think, but she forgot with all the preparations she had to take care of and everything…” My voice trailed away. I still tried to figure out where I knew him from.

  “No problem,” the man answered, grinning boyishly. “I know how forgetful she can be.” I looked at him questioningly and he smoothed his expression. “I’ve known her since she started her studies here. She’s here so often I sometimes think she lives at this library.” I laughed knowing what he meant.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said and started walking back to my car.

  Intermezzo

  On the way home, I turned on the radio at full volume. Rock music was streaming through my ears into my brain washing it clear of thoughts for once.

  I made it home in less than ten minutes by driving too fast, but as I cut the engine in the driveway I stayed there and let the radio tootle on for a while. I sat in the growing darkness with closed eyes, cold creeping up my body, and I tried to remember why I had fled from Adam instead of confronting him. I had been wailing around since the beginning of December without any success contacting or forgetting Adam. My stomach slowly clenched and I felt sick. One single chance and I had wasted it.

  * * *

  My heart pounded wildly as I turned the corner and drove down the street to the Gallagers’ place the next day. I had spent half the night lying awake and thinking about my options. It had been a hard struggle until I came to a decision and it wasn’t any easier this morning, making myself follow the plan; to go directly to his place and talk to him about our twisted relationship and his obvious anatomic differences, and how I didn’t care about that. On the contrary, they made him even more fascinating and beautiful to me. But maybe my whole concept of beauty and perfection was out of line since for me it was inevitably correlated to Adam.

  I turned on the CD-Player. Albinoni’s Adagio filled the car with its calming tunes. It made me feel a little better, my heart slowed a little and my breath came more evenly. Still, I couldn’t stop shivering, although I couldn’t tell whether it was from the cold or from the uprising fear. I still wasn’t sure that Adam wouldn’t turn on his heel and run away when he saw me. He hadn’t promised to come back when I had last talked to him, the day he had spread his wings. It still seemed like a dream to me, the way he had glowed, white feathery wings erupting from his shoulders.

  The driveway winding up to his house was framed with tall trees planted in precise intervals, each of them looking lost in the winter bareness. Albinoni couldn’t calm me now. I was so close, it was only seconds until the view of the house would be clear.

  I wasn’t sure what to do if he wasn’t there. Actually, I wasn’t sure what to do if he was there. I could see the front of the building drawing nearer now as I drove up the last winding of the driveway, and I decided it was too late to turn around now. I parked the car to the right of the front door and stepped out into the chilly Saturday morning. The air was cold and windy, and I pulled up the collar of my jacket to protect the bare skin of my neck. The few steps up the stairs to the entrance felt like torture. My hand barely responded as I lifted it to knock.

  I was sure it was too light for anybody to hear the noise of my knuckles touching the massive wood. After a minute, I took a deep breath and slowly turned around, coward that I was. The sole of my right foot touched the marble surface of the first step when the door creaked open and a familiar voice spoke.

  “Good morning, Miss Gabriel.” It was Geoffrey. I turned back to face him, pulling up all the bravery I could find within my mangled heart, and said the words I had practiced half the night, so I wouldn’t stumble on them.

  “I want to talk to Adam.” They sounded dull.

  “I am sorry I have to tell you that Master Adam is indisposed, Ms. Gabriel.” His apologetic gesture made me think that, for some reason, I couldn’t trust his words. Geoffrey was standing in the open door. There was a gap between him and the door frame that might be big enough for me to slip through if I was quick enough. I closed my eyes for a second, reopened them and ran through the gap.

  Surprise was on my side. Geoffrey couldn’t react until I was halfway up the marble stairs to the balcony. I inhaled quickly and called at the top of my voice. “Adam!”

  The well dressed butler stood beside me. “Miss Gabriel, I am not supposed to let you in. I must ask you to go,” he urged. But I just sprinted up another few steps and screamed Adam’s name again.

  “What’s all this noise, Geoffrey?” The voice came from downstairs, somewhere near the entrance to the living room. I turned in the direction it had come from only to be hit by sheer disappointment. It wasn’t Adam, as I had expected. It was Ben, his hostile younger brother.

  “I’m sorry Sir,” Geoffrey bowed to him slightly, “Miss Gabriel entered without my permission. I was just sending her away.”

  Ben nodded. He looked older than he was when his face clearly showed his anger like that.

  “Can’t you just leave my brother alone?” Ben came up the stairs in quick strides. His hand gripped my arm in an iron grasp and he pulled me down towards the front door. Geoffrey bustled out of sight.

  “Ouch,” I protested. Ben didn’t react.

  “I need to talk to him,” I demanded, trying to pull my arm from his hand, but he was too strong. I wondered whether he even realized I was putting up a fight. “Ben,” I screamed, “you are hurting me!”

  He didn’t turn his head, he just pulled me harder.

  “He said he didn’t want to see you again!” Ben hissed the words into my ears with his hard cold voice.

  “I won’t believe it until he tells me to my face,” I screamed in despair. This was far worse than I could have imagined. Tears started streaming down my face; I couldn’t control them. “Ben …please.” It was a mere whisper.

  “Ben!” The voice came from upstairs. It sounded so sweet I almost fell down on my knees. The tears flowed freely now.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I heard him running down the stairs, his movements so fast I couldn’t dis
tinguish single steps. Even if Ben had let go of me I wouldn’t have dared to turn around and face him. I felt Ben’s hand release my arm. It hurt where his fingers had dug into my flesh. I heard him storm away muttering under his breath angrily. My hand moved up to rub my arm but it didn’t get there. It was intercepted by the swift movement of a hand whose touch I had craved for far too long. My knees gave way under my shaking body and I hit the ground.

  A million thoughts raced through my head but I was incapable of speaking, incapable of moving.

  “Claire,” his lips whispered close to my ear—more a sigh—wistful and exasperated at the same time. I shivered even more. I knew I was looking pathetic the way I half sat, half knelt on the ground, my chin resting on my chest. I had pictured it differently last night. I had pictured myself as the strong one who demanded answers instead of hunching there like an image of misery. I couldn’t help it. All the emotions I had tried to lock away for the last weeks were washing over me, intensified and a hundred times by shock and his presence.

  A ray of sun fell through the open front door and tinged the floor in a misty light. I couldn’t stay there forever waiting for him to act and still I was immobilized. I sensed Adam crouching behind me and was tempted to let myself fall back against his chest.

  A second later he stood up and walked over to close the door. It was strange how this small gesture comforted me, interpreted as a sign he wouldn’t throw me out straight away.

  I inhaled deeply, still not daring to look up. He took a step towards me and his sneakers appeared close to my knees. He crouched in front of me. His face had to be be only a foot away now. His hand reached out and tilted up my chin, forcing me to look at him.

  “Claire—” Clearer this time and with a tone that demanded answers.

  I decided—given I had already lost all of my dignity—I could as well talk to him. At least that was what I had planned—though I had pictured it differently.

  “You could have told me you’d never come back,” I blurted out in little more than a whisper, not trusting my voice. “You could have told me you didn’t want me.” Then I wouldn’t have ended up here, sobbing on the floor like a four-year-old. It was embarrassing.

  His green eyes bore into mine, making me lose track of time, making me forget he didn’t want to see me. They showed a hunger I couldn’t understand.

  “Claire—” he began, “it’s not like that.” Frustration shown in his gaze. “I would be around you every minute of my existence if I could.”

  What was he telling me? “Why can’t you?”

  “Stand up,” he stretched and held out his hand for me. “Let’s talk in my room. We can’t be overheard there.”

  I got to my feet without taking it, feeling a little dizzy. I swayed for a moment and his arm caught and steadied me hesitantly. The moment I could stand straight by myself, he pulled it back quickly. He lead the way to his room and I followed.

  The house looked less friendly than it had the first time I had been there. Maybe because my vision was blurred from the tears that were still silently running down my cheeks. I dried my face with the sleeve of my jacket.

  Adam gestured me to take a seat on a beige couch. I sat down without looking at him and waited for him to say something. He sat down on an old wooden chair across from me.

  “You know too much, Claire,” he started. “You know about my abilities and you saw my wings.”

  I looked at him incredulously. “Why can’t we be together when I know who you are, an angel?” I whispered the words too fast to think about them. Adam shied away from them as if they burned him. “I miss you…” I added and looked away again.

  “Claire, knowing what you know makes you the target of many—” He sighed into his hands. “Knowing too much is not safe for you,” he tried again. “The less you’re associated with me, the better—for both of us.” He brooded over his words.

  “Why would I be a target?” I asked into the silence. My suddenly clear voice startled him.

  “There is more than us out there…” His voice trailed off.

  “You mean you’re not the only angel around? I’ve already guessed as much.” “Yes.” He shook his head.

  “I remember you telling me you loved me a few weeks ago. Maybe not all of that is gone.” I spoke a silent hope, heavy with sarcasm. My mind instantly showed me a picture of the girl touching his face yesterday. “Maybe a part of you still has feelings for me…”

  He looked at me with a hurt expression.

  “Every part of me has feelings for you, Claire. Don’t you understand?” His eyes were glowing again.

  “And what about the girl yesterday?”

  “Which girl?”

  “The black haired beauty. I know her from Sophie’s last party …she was flirting with you there…”

  Adam looked to the floor. “Maureen—How did you know?”

  “I returned one of Sophie’s books to the campus library yesterday and walked past you—only a few feet behind your back. Who is she?”

  “My ex-girlfriend. We broke up a year ago.”

  “Oh!” It sounded like an accusation.

  “I broke up with her when I had the first …emotional vision of you, and I realised she didn’t match at all. For some reason she seemed to be entirely wrong for me. I started doubting the sincerity of her feelings for me when I first started perceiving the way people around me felt.

  “I remember the day perfectly well. It was a little more than a year ago and she wanted to take me home after a party. All I could feel was pure lust and I couldn’t understand it. This lust was definitely not coming from me. I was sure it had to be hers. A very strong emotion….” He chuckled again—a little mockingly this time. “I do remember that it was the only thing I felt from her side. No love, devotion, nothing, not even a little.”

  “Didn’t that make you feel like …well, the strong guy? A girl who wants nothing but sex? I always thought that’s what men want. Easy relationships—just sex, no emotional involvement.”

  He shot me a dark look and his brows furrowed. “You’re partly right. Many of us feel that way. But not me. I couldn’t …not without loving someone. We had been together for only two months then. I wasn’t sure what I felt.”

  “What happened?” I tried to keep him talking.

  “I left her there, right where we stood and told her I would talk to her the next day. And that night I had the vision of you…” His voice trailed off, his eyes giving away he was lost in the memory. “I keep thinking about what would have happened if I had chosen differently, if I’d stayed with Maureen that night …Would I have seen—felt—you just the same?”

  “What did she want yesterday?”

  “Just the same old story—Always trying to lure me back into her net.” Now he looked hopeful. “But she can’t—not anymore, after I found you.”

  “But—I thought you didn’t want me anymore?” I hated the words. They tasted bitter on my tongue and left a hurting hole in my heart.

  “The thing between you and me was no affair or fling. I honestly adore you, Claire.” He unclenched his fists and took my hand. “My love is nothing that could ever change.” Now I was shying away from his words. How could he tell me he loved me and tell me he didn’t want to be with me at the same time? It tore my heart in two.

  “Claire, don’t feel that way, please.” he squeezed my hand. “It hurts me, feeling you hurt.”

  I averted my gaze. I had forgotten he did sense everything I felt. He had felt every single thing since the moment he had seen Ben dragging me to the door. I evened my expression and looked back at him. “I’m not hurt.”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, you’re right. You’re in agony.” He told me how I felt—and he was right, yet again.

  “If you say you love me, why can’t you be with me?” I tried to not feel anything but expectation for a satisfying answer.

  “I told you, you would be a target.”

  He let my hands go and stood up to pace
the room slowly. “Nobody knows, that you know. But if somebody finds out—” He stopped, his eyes on the floor. “—I don’t want to think about it.”

  “I don’t know who would have a problem with that. As you said, nobody knows I know. Why would I tell anybody?” I got to my feet and walked over to him. My hand reached out for his shoulder. “You are a son of God and I’m a daughter of men. We’re not the first ones to face that problem.”

  Adam froze under my touch. “How do you…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Know?” I asked, finishing it for him. “You should have remembered it would be me who put your book back on the library shelves on a Thursday afternoon.”

  He chuckled, but his face was grave.

  “You read it?”

  “Not from cover to cover. I haven’t had time yet.”

  “What do you know?” Fear flashed in his eyes as he scrutinized my face.

  “Only the basics. About angels in general. You’re strong, wise and noble. About your abilities. Mostly the things I knew before. And a lot about the opinions of different religions, but the essence stays the same.”

  He relaxed and looked relieved. And then in a quick movement he took my face between his hands, pulled it towards his and kissed me so disarmingly I could merely try to stay in control of my thoughts. I heard him chuckle as his lips left mine for a second, and I knew I hadn’t succeeded.

  “It’s unfair, you know, telling me you love me, kissing me and still telling me we can’t be together.” Frustration was flaring in my insides as I pulled away from him. “I want you. No matter what.”