Nu Alpha Omega

by H. Claire Taylor

  “You can take the helmet off for now, McCloud,” Coach Brown said once she was standing next to him.

  “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”

  “Uh, okay. Whatever you want.”

  “And would you mind not calling me by my last name?”

  That caused him to take a closer look at her through her grill. Then understanding dawned. “Ah, okay. Looking for a reveal. Well, I don’t think it’s necessary, but I get it and I respect you for it, McCl— whoever. Want to earn respect based on your talents rather than your reputation and birthright. I get it.”

  Talents. Sure.

  Coach Brown blew the whistle and called everyone into a huddle, and just as they were running over, He decided to chime in.

  I KNEW YOU WOULD RETURN MY PRODIG—

  What do you want?

  TO GLOAT, OBVIOUSLY.

  Well, don’t get too excited. I’m just trying it out. Trying to find my tribe or whatever.

  I AM PROUD OF YOU, DAUGHTER.

  Wait, really?

  OF COURSE.

  Why?

  BECAUSE YOU HATH GOTTEN UP FROM THINE LAZY BUTTOCKS AND PROGRESSED TOWARD YOUR CALLING.

  Gee. Thanks.

  Jessica noticed Chris to her left and turned her head away so that he wouldn’t recognize her. This was stupid. Did she really think wearing her helmet would draw less suspicion to her? For shit’s sake.

  “Okay,” Coach Brown said. “We got a new recruit for kicking. Gonna give her—him a shot.”

  Jess rolled her eyes. There was no way everyone wasn’t already on to her.

  “So let’s line up for field goals and see what he’s got.”

  Jessica risked a quick glance around. Most of the players seemed confused. When her eyes landed on Chris’s, she found him staring right at her, his lips pressed together, one eyebrow arched. He knew. And he didn’t seem happy about it.

  Okay, fair enough, but wasn’t he the one who had urged her to join the team last year? Sure, things had changed between them since then—or rather, everything had changed between them since then—but he wanted what was best for the team, right? And obviously having her as the kicker was best.

  He sighed then jogged over to the sidelines to watch the special teams line up. She was happy for Chris to be starting quarterback this season for a number of reasons, but at the moment the most important one was that it meant he would not be holding for her, so she could maybe focus on the task at hand, which obviously wasn’t whether or not she’d make the field goal, because that was a given, but whether or not she would make herself look like a complete idiot in her approach. It’d been more than a year since she’d tried this, and she wouldn’t put it past herself or God to have her slip, fall headfirst into the ball, and still send it through the uprights. Good for three? Probably (though she guessed it would be unprecedented). Good for her reputation? Not so much.

  Once they were lined up and the ball was hiked, she took her time, making sure her feet made firm contact on the turf with each step. She focused on form, and when her foot made contact with the ball, it just felt right. The magnetism flowed through her and down her leg, and the football soared between the goal posts, right down the middle. Man, she’d missed this a lot more than she remembered. When performing a miracle wasn’t accompanied by a lot of stress and she was able to savor it, it actually left her mind feeling as light as the few times when she’d laughed until her stomach hurt.

  “Nice work,” growled Coach Brown, sounding unimpressed despite his words. “Let’s see what you got from the thirty.”

  They scooted back the ball and Jess was glad to kick as many times as possible from wherever on the field Coach Brown asked. She could almost feel the astonishment and admiration radiating from the special teams each time they scooted back. And while reminiscent of when she first discovered of this miracle, this time she wasn’t terrified and reluctant or high as a kite. This time she embraced it.

  After she made it from the forty-five, a hand belonging to an unknown source smacked her on the ass and she heard, “Nice work,” grunted from behind her. Shit. Whoever that was was about to feel super awkward whenever she took off her helmet. She wondered if Chris saw it and what he was thinking.

  They lined up on the fifty and when it was good again, she decided enough was enough. Coach Brown was of the same mind and hustled over to her. “That’s about all I need to see. There’s a place on the team for you if you want it. But I need to know you’re committed before we start throwing scholarships at you.”

  “No scholarship,” she said, forgetting that her voice would give her away. The center standing by Coach Brown jerked his head around to see where the voice had come from, both his eyebrows tugging toward the bridge of his nose. Well, it was now or never. She’d done what she could to prove her worth, so it was time to see if that mattered more to the team than the fact that she was a she.

  When Coach Brown called the team in for a quick huddle, Jess pulled off her helmet and avoided the temptation to shake out her hair, not wanting to be a complete cliché. Her great moment of triumph was curbed slightly by the dumbfounded expressions that met her reveal. She gazed around. These boys were a little slow on the uptake.

  Her eyes found Chris’s. He was unimpressed, but then again, why would he have been impressed? He’d seen her do this a thousand times. He gave her a look that was clearly, “you done yet?” and she felt her shoulders grow heavier as the buzz of her miracles dissipated completely.

  “Oh hey, I know you,” said a tall blond man. “You’re Jennifer Christ.”

  “Jessica Chr— Jessica McCloud,” she corrected.

  “I didn’t think you were real, for some reason,” the blond continued, squinting at her like maybe her unrealness was still a possibility.

  “So I know the team has been mostly finalized for the coming season,” Coach Brown began, “but when something like this falls in your lap, hell, who am I to say no. But we’re a team, so I want to leave the decision up to you. Bryant, you’re a damn fine kicker, but you’re a better tight end. This team would be lucky to have you in that spot. Thoughts?”

  The lanky guy who must have been Bryant nodded. “Yeah, that’s cool. Do I still get a scholarship?”

  Coach Brown nodded.

  “Then yeah, sounds good.”

  “Okay, the rest of you. Now’s the time to voice any concerns about, well, let’s just say it, having a female on the team.”

  Jess felt her face heat up, even though she did on a certain level appreciate Coach Brown’s willingness to call it what it was. She just wished he could have done it when she wasn’t standing right there.

  But as she looked around, heads were shaking vaguely. No one had concerns.

  “It seems a little like cheating, doesn’t it?” said a familiar voice. Her eyes darted to Chris, who was staring at the coach, avoiding her daggers.

  Coach Brown sighed. “Well, Riley, we’d just have to leave that up to the WAC, wouldn’t we? But I can’t see how they’re going to prove their case against it.”

  Chris shrugged. “True. But you know they’re going to drug test her constantly. So I guess as long as she knows that and plays by the rules”—now he did look at her, and she wished he hadn’t—“I guess she would be able to keep playing.”

  This was a bad idea. Chris was making that clear. She couldn’t just join the football team, soak up some glory, and have everyone forget about all the scandal she’d caused, could she?

  With Chris’s pseudo-concern addressed, the decision was unanimous: Jessica was on the team if she wanted to be. So she thanked the players and Coach Brown, and said she’d take a day to decide whether she could commit.

  As the team broke for water, she felt a hand grab her upper arm and turned to find Chris attached to said hand.

  “A word?”

  He pulled her away from the others and stood with his back to them, shielding her from their view. “Are you serious with this?” he demanded.
/>   “What? I thought you’d be happy that I started believing in myself again.”

  He grunted. “Yeah, sure. That’s great.”

  “You don’t seem excited about it. Don’t you want me to use my miracle?”

  “Please. You know I do, but now? With us like … What’s this really about?”

  She blinked dumbly, trying to understand what he wanted her to say. “It’s about finding my— finding friends.”

  “So you come and take mine? Listen, Jess, you know I didn’t mind you stealing my glory in high school because it was the right thing to do, but having you do it now, when I’m just getting a chance to be seen and when you probably have a million other miracles you can perform that you just haven’t found yet—it’s kind of bullshit.”

  She opened her mouth to respond but couldn’t. She was worried he had a point.

  “So if you’re absolutely sure this is what you must do, if your Father told you to or whatever, fine, do it. But if there is any shred of a possibility that you don’t need to play on the team, please, for my sake, don’t fucking do it. Let me have this. Go make other friends.” He let go of her arms, letting his fall to his side. “I can’t spend this much time with you if we’re not together. It’s not fair.”

  “Then let’s be together.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  Chris sighed. “You don’t mean that, so I’ll pretend you didn’t say it.”

  How’d he know that when she wasn’t even sure? Clearly, though, this was neither the time nor the place for them to talk about this, so she averted her stare to the ground at his feet. “Thanks.”

  His head jerked back like she’d taken a swing at him, but he recovered quickly. “I’ve never asked much of you, Jess, but I’m asking you now. Please. Not football. Please just let me have this. You have other miracles you can find. I just have football. And it’s not a miracle. It’s a lot of hard work over the years. I have nothing else.” He pressed his lips into a tight line and Jessica couldn’t stand a moment more of his vulnerable plea.

  “Okay,” she said. “Fine. I won’t play football.”

  He nodded subtly.

  “And I’ll find other miracles instead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  And as he turned and jogged away, she felt emptiness in her chest expand like a balloon. She was still without a tribe, but worse, she was definitely without Chris.

  Why wouldn’t Miranda answer her damn phone?! Jess tried one last time, but when it went to voicemail, she threw her phone across the bed, flinching involuntarily when it bounced at an angle and smacked into the wall. It was probably fine.

  She flopped onto her twin bed, still in her athletic clothes from her tryout, and felt like she was getting sick. Or maybe she was dying. Maybe that’s what the pain in her chest and the twisting in her stomach meant. Maybe she wouldn’t even make it to thirty-three. Had she been taking it for granted that she would live that long?

  While one section of her brain knew she was being melodramatic, the majority of her brain was firing off rapid thoughts along the lines of “Chris doesn’t love you anymore,” and “You’re literally dying.”

  It was over, though! It was over.

  She let the tears come, because why not? Miranda wasn’t answering, and Jessica even considered calling Judith, who she’d been meaning to meet up with for lunch anyway. But Judith didn’t seem the type for feelings. So Jessica was alone.

  The door to her dorm room opened, and the obvious answer walked through. Kate. Her angelic roommate. Did all angels have such good timing? Her mind recalled a handful of times Chris and Mrs. Thomas had shown up at just the right time and suspected that it might be part of the deal. Except Chris hadn’t done that today.

  More tears fell.

  “Geez, Jess, are you okay?” Kate dropped her backpack by the door and hurried over to where Jessica lay flopped, clutching her pillow beneath her head.

  “Yeah,” she said, hoping Kate knew better.

  “Bullshit. What’s wrong?”

  When Jess hesitated, Kate persisted. “Come on, you can tell me. Is it Chris?”

  How’d she know? Did angels communicate telepathically? There was so much she should have asked Dr. Bell. “Partly,” she said.

  “I guess the tryouts didn’t go so well?”

  Jess shook her head, grinding her nose into her pillow and appreciating the slight pain of it. “I thought sophomore year would be easier.”

  “Is this your first breakup?” Kate asked gently.

  “No. But it’s the first in a while.”

  “Was the other one as bad?”

  Jess thought back to it. “No. Because I ended up dating Chris. And now …”

  Kate placed a hand on Jessica’s back, gently at first, and then firmer once Jessica didn’t pull away. “I’m sorry, Jessica. It could happen again, though. You could find someone else. The odds of you marrying someone you’ve known since you were, what, in middle school?”

  “Kindergarten.”

  “Oh shit. Okay, well the odds of you marrying someone you’ve known since kindergarten are pretty slim.”

  Jessica turned to face Kate. “What if it’s not odds? What if it was our destiny?”

  Kate grimaced uncomfortably. “Uh, then I guess it’ll happen no matter what. So no need to worry about it.”

  “Good point.” Jessica sat up, sniffled, and wiped her nose off on her sleeve. “Can I tell you something and have you promise not to tell anyone?”

  “Of course.”

  It would be a first if a close female friend actually kept this promise, but Jessica had to tell someone, and Kate won by proximity. “Chris is an angel.” She searched Kate’s face, hoping to find any shred of evidence that Kate was even the slightest bit aware of her own nature. But she didn’t need to, because Kate said, “I know.”

  “You know?”

  Kate chuckled. “Yeah. I’m an angel, too, so I can see it on him.”

  “No shit.”

  “Yeah shit.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t know.”

  Kate arched a brow. “You knew?”

  Jess shrugged casually.

  “And you just wanted to test the waters?”

  Jess shrugged again.

  “Fair enough.”

  “So how did you discover it?”

  Kate grabbed a chair from her desk and pulled it over to sit. “It was sort of a process. I always had what I considered good intuition. I’d get a strong gut feeling to do something, and if I listened to it, things turned out really well. If I didn’t listen to it, someone usually got hurt.”

  “So like ‘thou shalt’s,” Jessica added.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Go on.”

  Kate blinked a few times, then did. “I grew up super fundamentalist Christian, so when I mentioned that to my youth pastor one day, he said that was God talking to me. That made sense enough at the time. I was maybe eight and assumed everyone was experiencing that sort of thing. But then the impulses got stronger in high school, and it seemed like the more I listened to them, the easier it was to hear them. It was all good stuff. Like, once, I was riding in the car with my mom and dad on the way home from Six Flags, and I felt like we needed to exit the highway. I didn’t know why, but the urge was so strong. So I asked my dad to, then eventually had to beg and throw a fit until he pulled off just to stop the car and yell at me, except I didn’t stop yelling until he’d turned onto another road. And then another. My mom eventually took my side and told him just to do it, but she seemed a little scared. We ended up on this back road and when we were driving, my attention was pulled to this one pasture, and I thought, There’s something there I need to help with. I couldn’t explain it, so I told my dad to stop the car and I took off at a sprint. I made a break for the farm house and it wasn’t long before I heard someone calling for help. Some guy had rolled his tractor onto himself and was pinned. It was pretty bad,
but my dad called 911 and the guy was fine. And my intuition stopped pulling on me and we went home.

  “We never talked about it after that, but I knew there was something different about me. And I knew my mom had told people at church, because everyone looked at me differently after that.”

  Never once had Jess guessed she might meet someone else who could relate to her life. But Kate was getting close. “So what did your church do?”

  Kate blew a raspberry. “At first they wouldn’t shut up about it. I had to stand at the front during a sermon, like I was a prop someone brought for show and tell. It was a miracle, they said. Not me, but God. My pastor also insisted that it was a one-off thing. It helped his case that the man I saved was a devout Baptist or Pentecostal or whatever. And when I mentioned that I was seeing auras around certain folks, nobody wanted to hear that, especially the ones whose auras I couldn’t see. Like my pastor. And all of the congregation.”

  “That sucks,” Jessica said, knowing all too well the frustration. “People only believe what suits them, though. So how did you figure out that you were an angel?”

  “Internet,” Kate replied briskly. “Once I left the church I was finally able to stop doubting myself long enough to ask the right questions. Or I guess, to think of the right search terms.”

  “So just now, when you walked in …?”

  Kate understood. “Yeah. I was on my way to a study group and I got the message to come here instead.”

  “Is it an actual voice?” Jessica asked, hoping that maybe she wasn’t the only one who could hear her Father’s lectures.

  “No, not really. Nothing that clear. It took practice to understand it. It’s like if someone spoke to you from the bottom of a three-foot pool. You know they’re saying something, but you can’t make out the words, all you can do is try to see their expression through the distortion and figure out what they’re trying to say.”

  “That sounds frustrating.”

  Kate nodded casually. “Sometimes.”

  Their conversation faded off into silence before Jess cautiously added, “Dr. Bell is an angel, but you knew that, right?”