The A-Word

by Joy Preble

  Here is what else I remember—and although there are many things I’d like to forget about last night—I want this one for always: Ryan Sloboda blinked again, like he was trying to reset his brain. “You should come with me, too, Jenna,” he said. His lips lifted into a smile, brown eyes locked on mine. “This being our first real date and all.” He shook his head, grin turning crooked. “Next time I’ll ask for better weather.”

  Then his brow furrowed like he was remembering all the bad stuff or maybe forgetting it again because Bo had used his angel powers on him. Or maybe both at once. It was hard to tell.

  “Does your brother have wings?” he asked spacily.

  I let Bo clomp him on the shoulder again.

  SOMETIME AFTER THAT, Bo, Amber, and I stood in front of my house, the light from the Gilroys’ graveyard reflecting on us.

  “You can find him, right? Bring him back? Damn Lanie Phelps. Damn storm. And he flew? What’s that about? I thought y’all couldn’t. But he did. And now … I still need guarding. That’s obvious. I—”

  “You need to listen,” Bo said.

  “To what?” Impossibly, Bo’s hair looked greyer. The lines on his face deeper. Not that I gave a shit right then.

  I grabbed his wrist, jabbing a finger to his scars, forcing myself not to flinch at how raised and thick they felt. “Gonna include these in your story?”

  “Jenna!” Amber cried.

  Bo turned to her and gave her a quick headshake. His eyes went dark, darker than usual. Something I couldn’t interpret crossed his face.

  I expected a lie. Instead he said, “Yes.”

  Amber moved closer to me.

  I gulped air, feeling light-headed and lost. Mom’s car was in the driveway. At some point, I would have to go inside and tell her … something.

  “Don’t have all night,” I said, trying to sound tough and brave. It was just me and them now. I shoved that thought down deep where it wouldn’t panic me. It bounced back up.

  Bo rubbed his right thumb across the scars on his left wrist.

  “I need to tell you who I am. Both of you.” He sighed. “Shit. Damn idiot.”

  I hoped he was referring to himself and not my brother.

  Bo gestured toward the Gilroys’ lawn. Their house was dark. So dark that I wondered if they were even home. I realized that I didn’t know what had happened with Mr. Gilroy and his health. I felt bad about that. For all I knew, the Halloween lights were on a timer and they were at the hospital, like Mrs. Gilroy had promised Casey. I should go over there at some point, I thought vaguely. Check on them like Casey would have.

  “Let’s sit,” Bo said. But as soon as we settled ourselves on the damp grass by Sully Anderson’s fake grave, he pushed up and paced. Amber was pale as a ghost. Funny, considering we were sitting in a faux cemetery and she was dead and all. But my clenched stomach told my clenched brain that even though Bo had been her boss for five years, had been there since the beginning for her, she seemed as much in the dark as I was. That wasn’t funny. Not at all. Plus Casey was still gone.

  “There are rules,” Bo began. “I know you thought you knew them.” His gaze trained on Amber, not me. “I know you thought I told you. And I did. Mostly. You use up your earthly flight while in human form, and that’s it. Forfeit using it again. Risk being moved elsewhere—possibly not an elsewhere you might want—which either way hasn’t happened. For any of us.

  “But here’s what you don’t know. You don’t—we can’t—save someone who isn’t ours to save. I know how that sounds, but that’s the way of it. There are patterns and destinies and organizational structures. Help the wrong person and you risk setting forth a domino effect of something that can’t be controlled. You don’t help someone you haven’t been assigned to guard. End of story.”

  “But you saved me!” I shouted.

  He shook his head. “Not like your brother saved that cheerleader.”

  “And you know this how?” Amber’s voice was tight. I knew without her saying that she was hearing this for the first time.

  “Because I saved someone who wasn’t mine to save. That’s how I lost my flight. That’s why I’m here.”

  He looked down again.

  “You didn’t tell her that?” I shot up from the ground. “Are you kidding me? Why? Why?” In my head, I heard my brother’s voice telling me I sounded like an owl again. Which was totally Casey, since I wasn’t even saying who. But I knew I was just imagining that part. “It’s that lady, isn’t it? The one in the painting on your wall. The one by your bed?”

  Amber was shaking her head, brows knitted. Maybe she just hadn’t wanted to make the connection. Maybe she’d been too caught up in her own crap. Of course she was. She’d lost Terry. That was how people were, right?

  “It was a long time ago,” Bo said, voice like gravel.

  My pulse picked up a notch. “Like ancient days?” I asked him, trying to be general about it.

  Bo rubbed his palm over his chin. “Just like that,” he said.

  Amber frowned.

  “How ancient?” I asked, pulse zipping a little faster now.

  Bo closed his eyes. Then opened them. “I was a sculptor,” he said. “King Herod was ruling Rome, if you want to mark it on the damn calendar.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I whispered.

  “About then,” Bo said. “Year or so before.”

  I found myself sitting next to Amber. Collapsing was more like it. We both eyeballed Bo, trying to make sense of it. Was it really possible?

  He told the rest then. I listened carefully. I kept my eyes on his face because I figured if I was being lied to, I needed to watch him while he spoke. Did the best I could to hear the truth in the story. He’d been married, he said. Her name was Hadar. The word meant beautiful. He loved her. “Like a piece of my own soul,” he said, tapping his chest. “Like all of it.” They’d had just one child. A daughter. Shoshana. But she died of a fever and after that it had been just Bo and Hadar.

  “We were sad,” he said. “But that’s how it went then. Babies died. People died. We would have another, I told her. I know she thought I secretly wished for a son to carry on my name. But I didn’t. If a baby made her happy, then I would be happy.” He sucked in a breath. “People back then … they didn’t love each other like Hadar and I did. Couples were different. Love was different. Fathers wanted sons. I didn’t give a shit about a son.”

  In my head, I saw that painting of that dark-haired lady on the wall by his bed, the one he had put in the background of all his paintings, far off, unreachable.

  “King Herod was killing firstborn male children. It was a political thing. Power and riches, like always. I saved a neighbor’s baby boy. The Romans found out. They killed me. I’ll spare you the details.” He ran a finger over his scars. Rubbed his wrists. Then his hands, like he was washing them.

  Amber’s jaw looked tight enough to snap. A muscle ticked near her mouth.

  I realized I was holding my breath. I exhaled. Bo shrugged. “And then Management sent me back.”

  “But that’s good, right?” My voice cracked. “I mean you got to go back to her then. Even if you weren’t the same or maybe couldn’t tell her, right?”

  “Like I said,” Bo said, slowly. “There are rules. Policies. A system.” He paused. “Hadar wasn’t who I was sent back to guard.”

  The significance of this washed over me. My heart skipped again.

  “Then who?” Amber asked.

  Bo looked at her long and hard. “You know it doesn’t matter, right? You know what’s coming in this story. I was such a believer,” he went on, voice drifting, eyes looking somewhere far away. “I loved my Hadar, but when I came back from the dead, I thought I was lucky. I believed that it would be for the best. What a chance. What an opportunity to prove myself to whomever was running the show. But I couldn’t stay in the city where we lived. Hadar had seen me killed. I accepted that. I don’t know how, but I did. This is how I thought back then. You have to understa
nd. I hid myself because I had to prepare to go where Management had sent me.”

  Bo laid back on the grass, staring up at the stars. “I had a boss too. Master, we called it then, although I haven’t seen him since the start … well, you can do the math. He showed me who I had been assigned to protect, a boy in a town north of where I lived. The boy needed me, Master said. He was destined for many things and his descendants were destined for many great and important things, and without me the chain of events might be altered. I was the one for the job.”

  I started shaking my head. “The boy … did you save him?” The words came out of my mouth in a terrible whisper.

  Bo clasped his hands together, lacing his fingers. “You don’t know who you are, not really, until those moments come. Mine came pretty quickly. Hadar had no man to protect her. Things happen as things tend to do. But how could I watch her be hurt? Where was the justice in that? Everything changed in a minute. Less.”

  “Bo,” Amber said. “Enough. Don’t—”

  “I saved her from the brutes who attacked her,” Bo interrupted. “I flew without any thought that I shouldn’t. Of course I did. I loved her. She was my wife. Felt my wings form and spread and lift me. The power—well I don’t have to tell you about that, Amber, do I? Or maybe you didn’t take the time to savor it. I know I’ve never asked you.”

  “You haven’t asked me much of anything,” Amber said, arms folded tight across her chest. I thought of what Casey said when I finally asked him. About his body welcoming the wings. How he felt like this was what he had been made for. Where was my brother now? For the first time in my life, I wondered where exactly—in the physical sense—you went … after. Was he anywhere at all?

  Bo pursed his lips. Then he said, “I saved Hadar, and she saw me and she screamed because how could she understand? I was dead. Now I wasn’t. She cried that it was a miracle. A wonder. And you know what? It felt like that. It felt good and strong and pure. I was powerful. I had taken to the air like an eagle, felt the rush of the world flow through me. I had done well. I had saved the woman I loved. Surely there was no wrong in that.” He laughed bitterly.

  “Management?” I said.

  He nodded. “Management grounded me. No more flight as long as I was on earth. Reminded me in no uncertain terms that I had broken the rules. I had been chosen to protect someone else. I was jeopardizing the entire world through my choices.”

  This time when Bo sighed, he lit golden, like I’d seen Casey do, only dimmer somehow. Tarnished.

  “You know what happened in King Herod’s time if you cried miracle and the authorities didn’t believe you? When you were the widow of someone who had rebelled against them? And here was my choice. Save her again and disobey the absolute rules of guardian angels. Risk every part of this new and powerful being I had become. Or do what I’d been brought back to do and protect the boy.

  “You have to understand who I was back then. I was a coward. Your brother just threw himself to the lions, Jenna. Me? I walked away and did what I was told. Believed I had a bigger purpose. That the invincible power surging through me made me special. I was a guardian angel. I had a different set of rules. It never occurred to me that …”

  Bo’s eyes glittered darkly. He sighed. The Halloween lights blinked out all at once.

  I sat in silence. I could feel Amber beside me, holding her angel breath.

  “Until after, when I saw what the Romans had done to her,” Bo finished.

  “But you’re still here,” I said, feeling bitter. “Casey saved the right person the first time and then he saved Lanie and now he’s gone. You broke the rules and here you are.” I jumped up. Amber jumped up beside me. Somehow we were all standing, a circle of fury. Two of us were glowing. “You saved the wrong person, too, but here you are. Why? And there better be a good explanation. Casey saved me. Like he was supposed to! Casey gave up everything. He should be carried around on people’s shoulders. Not gone.”

  I was crying now, hot tears soaking my cheeks. I didn’t mean to cry. He wasn’t worth crying in front of. But there I was like an idiot anyway.

  “Jenna,” Amber began, placing her hand on my shoulder, but I shook it away.

  “You didn’t save your wife. That’s on you. But you punished my brother for it by not letting him know the rules. And you punished me. All that talk about picking the right side and using your bad habits to give you strength. Bullshit! You pulled me away from that speeding car. Why? To make me think you cared? That you had no choice but to do good? That I might be worth the saving? I hate you, Bo Shivers. Just like you hate this world. I hate you forever.”

  I stomped across the Gilroys’ lawn, kicking the Bubba tombstone. I broke into a run, down the block with no particular destination in mind, just escape. Of course Bo and Amber caught up with me. I didn’t have damn wings. I was blubbering and furious and probably whatever was left of my makeup was running down my cheeks with the stupid tears.

  “There’s a possibility that I don’t know everything, Jenna,” Bo said.

  That stopped me. Or maybe I was just grieving and exhausted. I stood for a few beats, then finally swiveled to look at him.

  Bo took Amber’s hand. Held her gaze. “I should have told you what I knew. But you were angry and self-destructive. You haven’t told little Jenna about those first couple years of yours, have you? I had no idea you would ever leap over that Galleria balcony to save this girl and then catch Renfroe so her brother could get the glory. You spent an entire year … well, that’s not important now. You can tell Jenna that part of the story. And me? I’d been brooding and drunk on-and-off for centuries. Plus honestly? Casey Samuels a selfless do-gooder? Who would have believed that?”

  Here I kicked him. He pretended to wince. I pretended that I didn’t know he was right.

  Bo shoved his wrists in my face. “You wanted to know why I have these? Let me tell you. When I realized what a fool I’d been, I begged for them back. It was the only thing Management ever did that I agreed with. So I could look at myself every single day after that and remember not what the Romans had done to me, but what I had done. Or rather, what I hadn’t.”

  “And the boy?” I asked, because he hadn’t said. Maybe he wouldn’t say, but it felt suddenly wrong not to know. “The boy you were sent back to guard? The one who had all this great stuff in his future? What happened to him?”

  Bo was quiet for a long few beats. “I did my job and protected him,” he said. “He married. He had children. And eventually Management said I had done what I was supposed to do. They would let me know when I was needed again. Periodically, they have.” He looked at me then, long and hard. I didn’t look away. “Your brother is worthy, Jenna. You can believe me on that. And something is still coming. Big. Powerful. A force we need to deal with.”

  “Casey’s gone,” I drew it out long, then longer.

  “Even so.”

  “Could he come back?” My heart didn’t as much beat as flutter.

  A million things I couldn’t name rushed across Bo’s face. “We’re angels,” he said quietly. “We bring miracles. We believe in them. Even me.”

  “Bullshit,” I said, even if I wanted to believe otherwise. “You bring what suits you for the moment.” I looked from

  Bo to Amber. “Right?”

  They didn’t answer. Neither glowed. They just looked like a couple of weird grown-ups I had no business hanging out with in the middle of the night.

  Across the lawn, the Gilroys’ front door opened, and Mrs. Gilroy shuffled out.

  I ran to her. “You okay, Mrs. Gilroy?”

  “MJ’s sick,” she said. Her eyes were watery and pale. She smelled like old lady—perfume and powder and overripe fruit. “Your brother was right. Took him over to that St. Anthony’s Emergency Center but they said he’d have to go to the real hospital. Ambulance took him to Houston Northside. Said it was his heart. He’s having bypass surgery tomorrow morning. I can’t sleep.” She wrung her hands. “You believe in mirac
les, Jenna?”

  My heart was too tired to flounder anymore. “I don’t know,” I said, not sure if I meant it. I patted her on the arm. Her skin was dry and papery. And even though I didn’t want to, I thought again about Lanie Phelps, who possibly should have been dead now—but wasn’t.

  After that, I walked by Bo and Amber, not saying a word, and went inside to lie to my mother.

  Here is what I told Mom: Casey had flaked out about breaking up with Lanie and run off to stay with Dave, who was living with his father up near Centerville. Dave’s dad, I said, had recently taken a job running some rich doctor’s ranch.

  Of course, Mom cried and got hysterical and called Dad. He got less hysterical, but they both called Casey’s cell like a million times. I chewed my lip until it bled and wondered if my brother’s cell worked wherever he was. Or maybe it was in the cupholder of the Merc, back in the school parking lot. I realized I would have to ask someone to drive it back here for me and make up another cock-and-bull story about how Dave had picked up Casey because the Merc’s engine was acting up.

  At least that last part was close to true. The Merc was still a piece of crap.

  I spouted lie after lie and the only thing that kept me from breaking into a thousand pieces was the thought that maybe Bo and Amber really didn’t know shit.

  Okay, I was sure Amber didn’t. Bo was still a self-serving mystery. There was nothing I hated more than someone who made a bad choice and then whined about it while the rest of us slogged forward. I would never forgive Bo for convincing me to believe that my brother was just like him. If Casey was a bitter, mopey, unhappy bastard like Bo, then Casey would be here. Maybe he’d feel like an angel failure. But he’d be here.

  Somewhere around three or so, Mom cried herself to sleep.

  I shuffled to my room and flopped onto my bed. But I tossed and turned and ending up dragging blankets into Casey’s room. I curled up on his comforter. My phone stayed clutched in my hand because I wanted to believe that somehow Casey would call. Which I know is ridiculous, but I figured I was entitled to that particular fantasy.