"Like he became emperor just to follow in his family's footsteps, or something?"
"Pretty much, except it was a bit more complicated than that. He wasn't going to be his uncle's heir, but tragic circumstances placed him right in line for the crown. Anyway, another interesting fact is that his younger brother had a neat name given to him at birth—Decimus Claudius. That's where Dess' name comes from—Decima Claudia."
Huh! That was interesting. I never stopped to think that the name Dess could be short for a much longer name. Something about the twins' names made me think I've heard them before. This sensation nagged me at the back of my brain, but I ignored it and said, "That's cute. I like that. And I like the name Tiberius. It seems to fit you somehow."
I turned to lie on my back just in time to see him get up to use the restroom, noticing that his butt was also perfect, just like the rest of him. It was the perfect size—cute, muscle-y, and round. Perfect for pinching, or just looking at with a big fat grin plastered on your face.
I settled on the latter.
"Ree?"
"Yeah?" He turned his whole body around to face me. It is important to mention that I enjoyed this view much, much more.
On the ceiling just outside the bathroom was one of those round light fixtures. He'd just flipped the switch for it because it was getting dark in the apartment, the still-not-turned-off bathroom light notwithstanding. I looked up at him from the bed, a naked, glorious creature, the light fixture appearing to create a halo right on top of Ree's head.
He looked like he was from Paradise, the wonder of Heaven packed in an earthly figure, and an ideal one at that—a living sculpture of what the ideal man should look like. I was taken aback by the unreal splendor displayed in front of me.
How I wished I had talent. I desired more than anything at that point to have the ability to paint the beauty and perfection I saw, to commemorate every line, color, and curve for the rest of my life. I stared at him, silently vowing to memorize the shape his body and the way the light bounced off it.
"Nothing," I said, smiling.
Smiling also, he disappeared in the bathroom for a moment.
When he came out, he said, "I have to tell you something."
He came back to the mattress and settled next to me. I couldn't resist eyeing his smooth, beautiful chest. I started kissing him everywhere. "You're going to tell me that you were a roman emperor in a past life?"
He closed his eyes, perhaps enjoying all the attention he was getting from me. "I changed my mind," he said, smiling. "Go to sleep, and I'll talk to you there."
What? "Ree, why are you being weird?"
"Shh, Morgan. Go to sleep. I'll sleep too." He invited me to join him in a huge bear hug, which I accepted and didn't move from as we both fell asleep.
* * *
I don't know how Ree knew I would have a dream, but alas, it happened.
It was actually a continuation of one of the dreams I'd had at the hospital. I was sitting in the park on a blanket thrown over a manhole cover. A picnic basket yet sat in the corner.
"Okay, so I lied," an old familiar voice said. "This is probably the last time I'm going to be here with you."
"Friend!" I turned to face him and recoiled a bit from the usual bright sunshine in my eyes. I shielded them with my hand and walked toward him. "You were right, you know. Dess—a girl from work—came to visit me at the hospital, and we've been talking about God Generation stuff ever since."
"I know," he said easily. "I used to see your daily activities."
"Oh." Used to see? What did that mean? And what more was there to say if he already knew everything? I played with my hair, distracted. I kept thinking of Ree and how I wanted to be in his arms, loving him.
Friend laughed. I wondered if he could read my mind, and if he could, I wondered if he'd be jealous of Ree. Could imaginary friends that passed themselves off as angels even feel jealousy? "Do you remember what I said about who I was?"
I stopped walking, suddenly frozen and confused. I knew it was just a dream and that because of this, it probably wasn't very important or even really happening, but I could have sworn his voice had changed, and now sounded… familiar.
"Obviously not." I was annoyed at my own confusion, and definitely not in the mood for his half-assed conversations that never went anywhere.
Friend stepped sideways, away from the sun. When he did, my dream-legs stopped working, and I fell to the ground in shock. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
He was Ree.
I awoke from the dream with a slight start, as if from a nightmare. Disoriented, I took a couple of deep breaths. Ree circled his arms around my waist and tried to soothe and calm me down. "It's okay, Baby. Shhh—I'm here."
"What did you do with him, Ree? Where did Friend go?" I leaned back, away from his touch, scooching my butt slowly up against the wall.
"Morgan, relax."
"No." I held a pillow over my naked body, as if it could protect me or do anything much at all. "You killed him. He was my only friend, my only friend…" I loosened my posture and knocked the back of my head against the wall, my shoulders heaving.
I should have known. Reckless as my mother always thought I was, I slept with someone hours after I officially meet him, and now the only good constant, by my side since childhood, had vanished. I put my head down on my pillow, wanting to return to that place in the park with the blanket thrown over the manhole cover, and Friend talking in circles, pissing me off.
This might be one of the last times we communicate this way.
Why had he said that? Why hadn't I questioned him further?
Because I hadn't really believed him, or cared. Because I had been too wrapped up in self-pity to heed his warning.
Ree apologized profusely and oddly enough, his words didn't break my train of thought. I said nothing at first, the emptiness inside almost feeling like I was in mourning. I had pretty much accepted the idea that Friend was totally made up. If that had been the case, no one could really kill him, could they? On the other hand, if I had listened to Friend with half the dedication with which he'd always listened to me, I would have realized what he'd been trying to tell me.
I'm closer than you realize. Every day I get nearer to breathing in the very air that you exhale.
Suddenly, I looked up at the kitchen where Ree had been helping himself to a cup of orange juice. He had left me alone for a while, about 30-40 minutes if I were to guess, probably to give me the space and time needed to get my head together and think about exactly this.
He glanced my way and, seeing me watch him curiously, went back to my fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. He handed it to me and watched me down half of it.
I stared at my water bottle intently and tried to connect the dots in my head. I thought about my feeling that, even though he'd only come into my life recently and I've only been talking to him for less than a day, he'd somehow been a presence in my entire life. I invented Friend when I was a little girl, but I honestly couldn't remember when exactly I made him up or when I saw him for the first time.
Friend was a real person? How could a real person appear in my dreams?
"Morgan, you don't get it, do you?"
My body jumped at the shock of hearing words spoken.
I took a deep breath and shook my head furiously, almost insanely. "No… apparently I do get it; that's why I can't move my legs right now."
He laughed in slight shock, which surprised me in return because I didn't mean it to be funny—it just seemed to be an appropriate thing to say at the time. "You're adorable," he said after a moment, cupping my chin with his hand. I allowed myself a crooked grin, which eased the tension between us.
Ree stood up and leaned against the kitchen counter. He took a breath and looked me square in the eye and said, "Morgan, I have always been Friend. More importantly, I'm your Guardian Angel."
Chapter 11
Ree's thoughts…
My Beloved's eye
s grew rounder and rounder as she regarded me in shock, almost as if it were the first time she had ever seen me.
Perhaps one day I would reveal to her just how greatly her feelings were constantly expressed in her eyes, but I did not want to give that away just yet. I'd hate to see her try to restrain herself from any further expression, and I rather enjoyed watching the emotion play and change on her face minute after minute, hour after hour.
"I don't want you to feel betrayed," I quickly added. "Being with you here and now has been the pinnacle of my entire existence. Will you please let me explain?"
Saying nothing, she only nodded, a slight look of distrust flittering throughout her eyes momentarily, shattering my heart to pieces.
I had to fix this. I had to explain it all to her in a way she would truly understand.
"Okay," I said, taking a breath. I prepared myself mentally, something I'd been doing my entire life, illustrating over and over again the best ideas and words that would most accurately explain the unusual situation of my soul, and our bond.
I put on my dark blue boxers that now had a small rip in its side due to our earlier, uh, enthusiasm. I sat down next to her, keeping a respectful distance for both of our sakes, so we would be able to focus on the matter at hand.
"Morgan," I began, "You have no idea how much I have endured just for the privilege of being in your presence and looking directly in your eyes. I have had to face many obstacles, and I went through my entire life in search of my charge, the woman I've loved for years and years."
"I don't get this," she said. "But you're human, right? Dess is an ex-god. How does that relate to what you are? Does she know?"
I broke it down to a simple summary, explaining that Dess was definitely a Slate, and we had known that for a long time. We'd also known about my own unusual state of being, though I never told my sister any details about who my charge was—that was always a personal thing to me, something I never revealed to anyone, not even my twin.
As soon as I was old enough to know my own name and recognize my mother, father, and siblings, I was also able to remember who I was responsible for watching over.
I had tried explaining all of this to my mother when I was a boy. She had always played along with me and had indulged in the idea a little bit. In fact, she used to call me her little cherub.
In hindsight, it probably did not help that I claimed to be an angel when Dess was always being compared to me. It had probably made us seem that much more opposite from each other. She had gone through so much growing up, what with the struggle to understand her sexuality, our mom trying to 'de-program' her, and Dess' natural distaste for authority figures. At the same time, however, I truly believe my presence in her adolescent years, added to the obstacles she had faced, had all helped her become the self-assured, hard-headed woman she was today.
"In reference to what you inquired about my being human, yes, I was human in the very physical sense," I explained to her. "I could get sick, grow old, have children, and die. I was what one would call a Living Guardian Angel, or LGA. I had been your Guardian Angel and chose to come to you in human form.
"LGAs were normally not very commonplace, although activities from the past forty, fifty years or so have changed this. I was only able to persuade my superiors in letting me come to Earth because many groups of angels were starting to do it, though not for the same reason as me. In human form, we are all called the Worthy. Actually, that term referred to anyone from the Light, not just angels.
"Slates were humans with god past lives and they were, by their very definition, blank moral slates, meaning they can commit noble acts just as easily as they can sin, as easily proven by the archaic Greek gods, for an example," I elaborated, watching her as she absorbed all this information. "They had committed adultery, incest, rape, torture, and murder on a constant basis, as well as inspired, loved, created, and showed mercy. They weren't good or evil in the traditional way that most of us are accustomed to. The Worthy were here to find these Slates, and convert them to our side.
"Our universe, as it currently stands, is based on the good-and-evil system. Although there are numerous religions that believed only in nature, the majority of the living people on Earth still did believe in good and evil and by doing so, they believed in us—angels and demons, God and the devil." I took a breath and stopped talking to give Morgan time to let this new information sink in.
After a few minutes, I continued. "Instead of 'forcing' anyone to believe anything, I always believed that honest communication about Worthiness was a strong, crucial weapon used in our angel and human armies. The general consensus of most of the angels was to find the Slates and help them become Worthy, thereby strengthening our forces and eliminating the threat to our system.
"The demons from Hell have also incarnated as humans, known as the Melted. The logic behind this name that they gave themselves is as follows. Once an individual is a part of Hell, there was no chance of getting out of there. Their personalities all melt together to become one all-encompassing personality, seized by the devil. He likes to believe that all of Hell's creatures are extensions of himself. And maybe they are. I'll never know, and I'm perfectly fine with that, believe me.
"The Melted want to find the Slates, too—so they can kill them, thereby preserving our good-and-evil system.
"Putting an end to the Melted is another mission for the Worthy. Their killing spree on Earth would create more chaos than there already was on this planet.
"That meant the Worthy had two missions—to find and convert the Slates, and to find and destroy the Melted. It was not an easy task, especially considering that we didn't know how many Slates existed. As a result of all of this, more angels volunteered to become LGAs, so that they may continue watching over their charges but in a more direct, personal manner, while still accomplishing the Worthy's primary objectives."
I believe I was the only Worthy who signed up for the LGAs with something else in mind entirely, but I did not mention that to Morgan.
Guardian Angels do not fall in love with the person they are meant to watch over. It simply does not happen. Yet, here I was, at the mercy of a woman whose very breath and blood flow meant more to me than the continuation of the good-and-evil system in the universe.
That was a lot to explain, and a lot more to clarify to my superiors if and when the time came. I didn't tell her that part, however. I didn't think it appropriate to worry her more than necessary. I would have to figure that part out on my own.
"Morgan, please remember that I'm here to love and guide you. You stopped believing in me long ago, but I remained close to you, content to appear in your dreams until such time that we could physically be together. It was the only way I could converse with you at the time. Just like I have revealed to you in your dreams, you did not make me up. You merely assumed you did, and I did not want to correct what you believed wholeheartedly to be true. It did not matter that I was no longer getting the credit for guiding you. I still wanted to be there for you in any way I could, because you are my charge, and besides that, I love you." I stopped, took a breath, and told her again. "I love you, Morgan. I always have. Is it wrong for an angel to fall in love? Perhaps, yet my soul knows how I feel, and I cannot fight it. I love you."
Her eyes darted back and forth, not because she was looking at or watching anything, but most likely because she was trying to piece together what I had told her. "So… so you decided to be born on Earth and be with me this way?" she asked me.
I smiled a little and nodded. "Yes. There's a lot of fine print amidst all this, but yeah, that's basically what happened."
"So, you…" She pointed a finger absentmindedly at me, her mind obviously somewhere else. "How could you live your own life and still watch mine?"
"I didn't think about it all the time because it is a lot to retain, much like having two sets of memories—my own, and yours. But I pull out the memories of your life when I need to, and once in a while I did go into a sort of
awake-dream mode to 'tune-in' to your life. It was not unlike watching the most poignant television channel in the world."
She paused for a moment and said nothing, avoiding my eyes, almost as if she were embarrassed by my enthusiasm. "I remember what you said in my dream… that you saw Dess come up and talk to me. That's so weird, that you can do that. Dess," she said, more to herself than to me. "Hey, what about Dess? Doesn't it conflict supernaturally to have you two be related?"
"LGA births are kept strictly confidential. No one else would know who I was, although I am not exactly sure what the procedures are for Slates. I would like to think they enter human lives uninformed about who their human family members would be. Anyway, you know Dess. I truly do not believe she is all that concerned with coming back to power, although I do understand that she would like to know which god she was."
I took a deep breath and worked up the courage to discuss the previously-mentioned life-watching. It would be getting dangerously close to what I didn't want to tell her, but I needed to make something perfectly clear. "I have been able to watch you. See, there is a very odd rule about LGAs. If any of us meet our charge—the person we're meant to watch over—we stop being their guides." I paused without meaning to, looking in her eyes momentarily.
Understanding slowly made its way across her face. "So you were my LGA… but you're not anymore?"
"Simply because of the fact that we've met in person," I agreed.
She scoffed and shook her head. "That makes no sense."
"I know, I know. The meaning behind the rule is that, if I know you personally, I become unable to guide you the way your soul needs."
"And you can't watch my life anymore," she added, catching on.
I nodded slowly. That was going to be such a handicap, not being able to tap into new memories. "But in return, I get to watch you in person, and I just need to say—there are no words that can appropriately explain how I feel about being this close to you." I lifted her little chin with my hand. "I want you to understand something. It is true that I am attending Earth under false pretenses. As I grew up, I was always conscious of this and began to question my loyalty to the Worthy's primary objectives. But then I met you in the flesh, and that—" I had to pause momentarily because I was getting emotional— "that is worth more than I could ever explain, even if I had an eternity to do it."
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