“Teacher,” a little girl called. Serenity moved quickly across the room to help the child with her painting.
“How’s your bowl of fruit coming along?” Serenity asked gently, but the girl wrinkled her nose and her entire face into a big, terrible frown.
“I hate fruit,” the girl said, whispering to Serenity. “So I have a quick question, teacher. Can I just make it a bowl of candy?”
Serenity laughed. “It’s your art, Jennice. You can make whatever you like. I promise it’ll be okay.”
She stood, straightening up, and went back to the front of the classroom.
“Remember,” Serenity addressed all of her students. “No two pieces are alike, just as no two students are alike. What works for your painting might not work for your neighbor, and vice versa.”
Clemecia coughed, but raised her hand.
“Can I do two paintings today?”
“Already finished?”
“Yes.”
Serenity brought her another sheet of paper and took Clemecia’s wet painting away. She moved to the front of the classroom where she placed it neatly in the center of her desk. She turned back to the class.
“Any questions?” She wasn’t surprised to see Wrath raise his hand. He was trying to figure her out. She could tell. There was something different – almost otherworldly – about him. He was just a little bit too normal. Everything about Wrath was designed to make him not be noticed. From his haircut to his face, each inch of him was completely normal. There was nothing about Wrath that made him stand out from other people. There was nothing that made him distinct.
He was just…him.
“Yes, Mr. Smith?”
“What is the most important part of painting?”
“What do you mean? What should you do first?”
“No,” he shook his head, leaned back in his chair a little. “What’s the most important part of creating something? You’ve been teaching for awhile now, haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“So you’ve had a lot of students walk through those doors. If you had to name one key element as the most important part of art, what would it be?”
“Hope,” she said simply.
“Hope?”
“Hope,” Serenity repeated. “When you create something, you’re expressing yourself, but you’re also eliciting emotions. You’re creating a world that exists entirely on a page, and if you’re doing it right, you’re creating hope.”
“Hope is for the weak,” Wrath said quietly, and Serenity was disappointed, but not surprised. Typical man. She only shrugged, and then returned to her desk. The rest of the class was quiet. Perhaps they were waiting to see how she reacted or maybe they just wanted to see the teacher fail. She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that right now, she had a lot of papers to look over and a lot of projects to handle in every aspect of her life.
During the day, she was a paid art teacher, and at night, she taught for fun. It was during these evenings when Serenity got to see what enjoyment looked like. Her daytime students were forced to take their classes, either by their parents or the school administration itself. Those students did the bare minimum because they didn’t like art. They didn’t have time for it. They didn’t appreciate it.
The Bradshaw Community Center students, though, they were the ones who really made a difference, in Serenity’s opinion. They were each unique, each different, and they each had a different purpose and goal.
By the time the class finished, it was well past 8:00. They were supposed to leave at 8:00 exactly, but if they ran over, Bob never fussed at them. It was one of the nice things about teaching at a small center. The community center was so happy to have people teaching classes that they rarely gave her a hard time about her teaching methods or her class times.
Clemecia trotted out of the class with a big smile. She held her painting of apples and oranges up high as she moved into the hallway. Gregory, Tanya, Jennice, and Michael followed her. They each had huge grins on their faces when they left. Serenity said goodbye to each of her students, and then Wrath approached the desk.
“Your painting was very interesting, Mr. Smith,” she said. He made her nervous when he was this close to her. He moved into her personal space bubble as if he owned it, like the idea of her becoming nervous didn’t matter to him.
“Thank you. I made it myself.”
“You didn’t paint fruit, like I asked,” she pointed out. Each of her other students had at least attempted to create paintings of fruit. A few of the fruit baskets were questionable, and most of them were a little sloppy, but overall, the emphasis on fresh fruit was obvious.
“I didn’t want to create fruit,” he said, lowering his voice.
“Mr. Smith,” Serenity chastised him. “The point of coming to class is to learn and to push yourself as an artist. Can you really do that if you never try anything new?”
“Look at what I painted, Serenity,” he said, ignoring her tone of voice. “Really look at it.”
Serenity sighed, but accepted the paper from him. She was careful to grip the edges, but watched her finger placement. The last thing she needed was to get a paper cut and bleed on her students’ hard work.
She looked at the painting Wrath had poured over. At first glance, it really was just a rainbow, but then Serenity looked closer, and she saw what he had been talking about. Each color in the rainbow was a color she had placed in the fruit basket: purple for grapes, red for apples, green for kiwi. His rainbow wasn’t a “real” rainbow so much as it was an expression of color she had, indeed, asked for.
“It’s beautiful,” she admitted. The strokes were each different. The red portion of the rainbow was wide and consisted of many small, short strokes. The purple area had long, lazy strokes bringing it to life. “You’ve studied art before.”
“Never,” he said, but in a way that sounded untrue.
“I find that a bit unbelievable,” she told him, not unkindly. She handed him the painting back.
“I speak only the truth,” Wrath told her, and Serenity looked at him. He was watching her closely, making sure to focus on her eyes. Why was he staring at her eyes? He was making a point not to look anywhere else but directly at her face.
“I’ll see you next week,” she said gently, and he nodded. For a second, Serenity thought Wrath was going to ask her on a date. Wouldn’t that be awkward? How would she explain that one away?
She couldn’t exactly say, “I’m sorry, but my last boyfriend died of a brain tumor and I’ve never gotten over it.” She couldn’t tell him, “Sorry, but I can’t go anywhere near a church because magic hunters will find me and kill me.” She couldn’t tell him, “I don’t date because I can’t bear to lose a lover again.”
She couldn’t tell him any of that.
She just watched him smile, nod, and walk out of the room.
Then Serenity was alone once more.
Chapter 7
Perhaps Wrath should have stopped going to class, but he didn’t. There was no one else who could watch over Serenity, who could protect her. There was no one else who knew what she was – who she was – and what she had been once, long ago. There was no one who understood exactly what the risks were that she faced.
He wasn’t even sure if she knew.
That was the problem, then, wasn’t it?
He couldn’t exactly walk up to her and introduce himself as a former-demon-turned-human. That would raise questions of sanity he wasn’t ready to answer. Besides, if he were to admit to her that he wasn’t who he seemed to be, then she would have something to use against him.
Wrath couldn’t have that.
Each day, he went to work and stood in the kitchen at the restaurant. His boss would argue with him over hours and he would argue over the menu and the two of them would bicker until it was time for him to go home.
He would return to his apartment and stare out the window for hours. The city lights would never grow boring to him. Not to Wrath. After sp
ending an eternity below ground, in the darkness, the bright twinkling lights drew him like a moth to a flame. He was fascinated with them, with humans, with the living. He was completely caught off guard by the world he now inhabited.
It was nothing like he had expected it to be.
But he still felt anger.
The painting classes were supposed to help him calm down. They were supposed to give him something to look forward to, something to help him relax. They did, but the effects were short. The problem was that seeing Serenity did calm him. Once she was out of his sight, Wrath worried about her.
And that worry turned to anger quite easily.
It affected him at work until one day, Angelica told him this was his last shot.
“I thought the art classes would help,” she said, holding her hands up in helpless surrender. “I thought they would give you some peace, but all they’ve done is cause more problems.”
“They are helping,” Wrath said, but she just shook her head. His words fell on deaf ears and he knew he had to stop yelling at people, had to stop screaming. He just didn’t know how to.
The world was such a nasty place, a dark place, and he was tired.
So tired.
No matter how far Wrath went, no matter how far he ran, no matter how far he moved, the anger always found him. The past few weeks had been good for him. At least on class nights, he got some rest. He got a little bit of relief from the prison that held him. When he was painting, or drawing, or sculpting, Wrath felt a deep sense of calm wash over him.
He wasn’t sure if it was the art or the instructor that breathed such calmness into his heart.
He couldn’t blame Angelica for threatening to fire him. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she did, though. He wasn’t exactly skilled. He didn’t exactly have a complete resume. He’d only been on Earth for six months and he’d been lucky enough to meet a guy who knew a guy who had a cousin who owned a restaurant.
If he had to start over from scratch, he wasn’t entirely sure what he would do.
He would make it. He always did, but it would be hard.
When he went to class that night, he tried to hide his anger and anxiety. Serenity noticed it immediately, though. What was this, an angel thing?
“Are you okay?” She asked, reaching for him. Her palm grazed his leather jacket before sliding off. Suddenly, she seemed to realize she was touching him, and she shouldn’t be, and she put her hand back at her side. “I’m sorry,” she added quickly. “That was inappropriate.”
“It was a long day. My boss is going to fire me.”
He wasn’t sure why he told her. It didn’t make any sense that he should trust her, but Serenity was the oldest living thing he’d met since coming to Earth, and if anyone could understand the challenge of integrating yourself into a new world, it was her.
Although she was a completely different species from him at the start of her life, they were both human now, and when she looked at him, he didn’t see pity in her eyes.
He saw hope.
“Why?” She asked quietly. This time, when she reached for Wrath, she didn’t pull back.
“I have anger issues.”
“You don’t say.”
“They’re serious.”
“How serious? Like, you’ve had to do court-mandated therapy? That kind of serious?”
“Not yet, but close. Losing my job will be the first step, don’t you think?”
“What can I do to help you?”
Wrath shook his head because he didn’t know, and he certainly didn’t know how to put it into words. How could he express that the only time he felt even the smallest hint of peace was when he was painting? When he drew a picture, he lost himself in that moment. Suddenly, he wasn’t the demon who had messed up. He wasn’t the evil being who had gotten himself kicked out of his home. Suddenly, he wasn’t any of those things.
He was just…him.
He was just a man.
He was just like everyone else in the class.
He was just someone who needed a little help.
“Wrath?”
“Yes, Miss Serenity?”
She hugged him then. She wrapped her delicate, tiny, little human arms around him and she hugged Wrath like he wasn’t a demon. She hugged him like she wasn’t embarrassed of him or ashamed. She hugged him like he was important, like he mattered, and then she let go.
“What was that for?” He asked. He heard a noise behind him and knew the other students would be arriving shortly. Gregory and Michael were always early or on time. It was strange for a free class, Wrath thought. Everyone seemed to take the course very seriously, and he knew it was because if they didn’t, Serenity would simply stop teaching.
“You seemed like you needed something,” she told him.
“I haven’t been hugged in a very long time.”
If only she knew how long it had actually been, she never would have believed him.
“Come over for dinner,” she looked surprised as she spoke the words, as if they weren’t her own, and Wrath laughed.
“Excuse me?”
“I…I can cook,” she said. “And maybe, you know, maybe we could just talk. We could eat some food,” she said again. “And we could talk.”
Michael and Gregory came into the room then, followed by a couple of other students who came to class sporadically.
“I would love that,” he told her honestly. “It would be very nice.”
“All right, then. Tomorrow at eight,” she said, pointing at him. “Don’t be late.”
Chapter 8
She shouldn’t feel so comfortable with the human, Serenity thought, but she was. Oh, she was. There was something so strange, so different about Wrath, and she wanted to know exactly why she felt this way about him.
He showed up at her apartment right at 8:00. He was prompt, and she respected him for that.
“Please come in,” she took his jacket from him and hung it up.
“Still wearing the long sleeves, even inside,” he commented. She glanced down at her sleeves. She never took them off. Never. There were things Wrath didn’t know about where she’d come from, and these sleeves protected her.
“I get cold easily,” she said. A practiced lie.
“Got it. What’s for supper?” He rubbed his hands together. The gesture looked strange, like so much about John Smith. It seemed practiced, like he had trained himself to learn the gestures that normal people used, but he wasn’t quite comfortable using them yet himself.
“Fish,” she told him, and his smile dropped. Serenity laughed. “Don’t be stupid. I made steak and mashed potatoes.”
“Every boy’s favorite,” he said, and followed her over to the tiny kitchen table. She had just finished cooking when he arrived, and the table was already set. They sat down across from each other and then paused. “Do you pray before your meals?” He asked.
“That’s a personal question.”
“Sharing a meal is a personal situation, especially in your home.”
She watched him for a moment, and then nodded. She always prayed. There was never a time when she didn’t. She wasn’t sure what to say in front of Wrath, though. She didn’t know how to explain this situation to him.
“A moment of silence, then,” Wrath said, saving her the trouble of having to figure out how to act normal around him.
She nodded and bowed her head, folded her hands, and closed her eyes. She prayed, and then she just sat there for a moment. This entire situation was too strange for her. She shouldn’t have invited him over. It was inappropriate. She was his teacher, after all, yet it didn’t feel wrong.
Serenity looked at Wrath and he smiled, and then motioned to the food.
“Shall we eat?”
They started eating quietly. She looked up at him and watched how carefully Wrath cut his food. Although he’d said the meal was “every boy’s favorite,” he didn’t look like the kind of man who had grown up eating this food. He looked like he kn
ew what it was, but he’d never tried it himself before.
He made noises of appreciation as he ate, and when he was finished, he set his silverware next to his plate. Everything he did was so…normal. He didn’t have any weird quirks. He didn’t blink too much or sniffle too loudly. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t do anything.
And that’s when it hit her.
“What are you?” Serenity asked before she could stop herself. She cocked her head and looked at him.
“What do you mean?” Suddenly, he looked a little nervous, but only slightly. “You mean, where am I from? That’s easy, I-”
“No,” she shook her head, interrupting him. “I mean, what are you? You aren’t human, are you?” She whispered because she was so shocked he’d gotten past her for so long. Her defenses really were down, weren’t they? How could she have missed this?
He wasn’t human, and that’s why everything about him was so particularly perfect.
He was trying to blend in.
“Serenity, I don’t know where this is going, but I don’t like it.” He said all the right words, but he was lying to her. She knew it. Suddenly, it all became so clear.
“Fuck me,” she muttered, pushing away from the table. She got up and started clearing the dishes from the table. She ignored Wrath as he sputtered different semi-coherent sentences. Was this for real?
“Serenity,” he began again, but she just shook her head.
“You must think I’m a fool,” she said. “It took me weeks to realize there was something strange about you. Weeks,” she repeated, shaking her head. She was so stupid. How could she not have noticed that Wrath was otherworldly? There was no way he had grown up on Earth. There was simply no way he could have dressed in this way, behaved in this way, and been a normal person on Earth.
No, he was from somewhere else, somewhere she’d never been. Maybe he was from somewhere she’d never even heard of.
The Lost Fallen Page 4