Among the Angels: 1

July 16, 2018

I don't know why I'm writing this. They told me not to. I know I'm not supposed to.

I guess that just sort of happens when you're lonely. You break the rules.

I just can't stop thinking about you - wondering where you are, and what's happening to you.

I have to talk to someone about this, and lately the white walls of my brick enclosure haven't been enough.

I tried to talk to the Beard-Woman that stands outside my door, but she just grunts in reply. I can tell she's not listening, also, because she always scratches the hairs on her chin, whistles, and looks down the hall the other way.

I think she purposefully ignores me.

I don't think I like being ignored.

<<>>

I used to think that dreams represented something that was to happen in the future. Whether a direct memory, a sliver of a future event, or a cloudy chunk of intuition my brain happened to stumble across during my slumber, I always thought they'd be real some day.

As a kid, dreams comforted me.

That fantasy only lasted until my teenage years, however, when my mercurial ninth grade biology teacher began to dabble in oneirology.

Instead of teaching us about animals, and other living things, she taught us about dreams - while crushing mine in the process.

So instead of thinking dreams had to do with the future, I was left with the unsatisfying idea that our dreams - for the most part - represented what we were thinking or feeling.

For the rest of the year I brought earphones to that class, blaring music with my head on a desk in the back of the classroom.

Needless to say, I didn't exactly score high in biology that year.

I often refuse to accept ideas I don't believe in.

My parents say I'm stubborn. I like to think of myself as opinionated.

<<>>

"Hey, Harp, how are the Hatfields?"

I glare at the boy who inquired about the Hatfields - which happens to be the first question on the Annoying-Questions-To-Ask-Harper-McCoy List - the first and the most belligerent. People only ask that question when they want to see my feathers ruffled.

"Shut up, Simon, you know I'm not related to the Hatfields or the McCoy's," I say sharply, sending a few daggers from my eyes. He laughs, showing a perfect row of sparkling white teeth. "And don't call me Harp," I add before darting past him and planting myself firmly into the desk that my brain had subconsciously picked out when I'd walked into the classroom.

I drop my backpack onto the linoleum floor, which happens to be soaked and slippery from the rain dripping off everyone's shoes. Thin puddles accumulated under the desks, and a visible trail of wet footprints could be seen coming in and going out of the door. Outside in the hallway, students were rushing to and from classes, everyone in a slightly dreary mood from the rain and the dark storm clouds outside. It was only second hour and I was already one hundred percent done with the school day - but that was nothing unusual; school was a bore.

Although, the thought of rain sent a small shiver of pleasure up my spine as I sent a quick glance in the direction of the window, watching the raindrops flee down the glass. I'd always been fonder of soggy weather.

Through the murky screen of the window, I can see dark shapes aggregating under the light pole. Most likely some guys getting high before class. I can't make out any features, but they all appear to be wearing black - a tell that they're junkies. The rest of the outside is hard to make out because of the blanket of darkness covering the town, but I can see the sidewalk that travels around the edge of the school, and the slight scattering of bushes along with a couple benches. This side of the school was up against a umbrageous forest that went along for miles until it met up with the edge of the next town over.

Suddenly, the sound of rolling thunder cracks along the sky like a tidal wave, and a dagger of lightning splits the sky into pieces. For a brief moment, the world is alive with light and fire, and I can clearly see who has been standing beneath the light pole. Instead of three figures like I had seen moments before, I could now see only one, his face hard and narrow, shadowed and sharp, as if it had been sculpted with a chisel and a hammer. His hair was as dark as his clothes, swirling up and falling in front of his eyes. His eyes, deep and dark and dangerous, we're just as shadowed as the rest of him. There appeared to be dark masses behind him, two planking him on either side. They rose high and spread wide, and I couldn't tell what they were. They were so obviously not human beings, but then what were they?

I only saw the man for a split second before the lightning faded away, the tense electricity in the air holding the promise of more to come, but it had felt like a lifetime. It seemed as if time itself had stopped, holding me there to catch the man's gaze.

"Hey, Harper, how was Trig?"

I jerk away from the window, startled.

The sound of a familiar voice and the thump of a backpack against the floor informs me that my best friend has just sat down in the seat beside me.

I'm frozen for a moment, still stuck in the trance. Did I imagine it?

But why would I?

I don't respond for a second, trying to collect my thoughts.

Finally I just mumble, "Hey Char," forcing a small smile that I hope covers the previous grimace. Charlotte sends another quick greeting before advancing into a spiel about the inhumane amount of homework she'd been assigned the hour before.

I'm distracted as she speaks, completely ignoring her at one point to stare out the window again. The lightning returns at all the wrong times - mostly when I'm not looking - and I don't get to check to see if the man is still there - if he was ever even there at all.

Ignoring Charlotte is not easy to do thanks to her fiery red hair and piercing green eyes. If she was looking at you from a mile away, you'd probably be able to tell. Her hair is more of a red lion's mane, bouncing around in big curls around her face; the kind of curls that look like you did something with them. I'd been massively jealous of her looks ever since we met in the sixth grade. She always seemed so put together, while I was the messy girl who never learned to dress nicely on account of her lack of parental guidance.

Thunder crackles again, a witches laugh mixing in with the jovial sounds of teenagers laughing, and I snap my head back towards the window.

"Harper?" Charlotte asks.

"Yeah?" I say back absentmindedly. The lightning does not follow the thunder. It is a little kid lost in the darkness, unable to shine without it's partner. I'm disappointed.

"You seem off today," Char continues. "What's up?"

I look back towards her. "Nothing." She doesn't believe me. "Just thought I saw something."

The classroom is nearly full now, the bell had rung minutes before and students were lounging in their desks. The teacher had yet to show up, though, so conversation hadn't yet ceased. A group of boys were in the corner roughhousing, but their laughter implied that it was nothing serious. The desks took up much of the bleak classroom, but there was also a row of bookshelves lining the back wall, and an old school chalkboard at the front.

Charlotte narrows her piercing eyes, but decides to let the conversation drop. Instead, she plays with the strings on her backpack and asks about my previous class.

Noises fill the room, interrupting my thoughts, and I huff, blowing air out of my red-painted lips, then turn in my seat to face the front.

"Hey, you look cute today," Charlotte says, examining my outfit. I play with the big, chunky scarf wrapped around my neck and blush. I don't do well with compliments, mostly because I don't know how to respond. A lock of long, auburn hair slides down to cover my face as I duck my head, eyes locking on my leather boots.

"Thanks," I just say. "You look cute too."

"Like always," she smirks, and we laugh.

From the start, Charlotte had always been the more outgoing one. She'd been popular - still was popular - and all the boys wanted her in ways they would never want me. For some reason, despite my awkward social skills, questionable home life, and devastating period of my father passing away, Char had been attached to me from the beginning. If it weren't for me, she probably would have a completely different life - one filled with parties, boys, abundant friends and minions. One where she didn't have to help her best friend carry her drunken mother up the stairs after she'd passed out from too much booze. One where she could stay the "preppy cheerleader" without worrying about the loner that hung around and needed her protection.

But also one where no one would understand her own home situation - how her dad sometimes beat up her mom because he was stubborn and ornery and angry at life in general. I suppose most of the reason we'd become friends in the first place was because we were able to connect and relate to each other.

I give Charlotte a small smile, a real one this time, and she smiles back.

Just then, the teacher, Mrs. Abernathy, walks into the room.

Mrs. Abernathy is a stout woman, probably less than five feet tall, but she was demanding. Even as she struggled to look up at half her students, it felt as if you were the one who should be looking up to her. Her hair was the color of raven's feathers, black and silky. It was cut short, so it framed her jaw and complimented her dark skin.

She was pretty, in an authoritative way.

"Students!" Mrs. Abernathy bellows from the front of the room. The kids who had been talking were quick to quiet down, and most of them shuffle to their appropriate chairs. "Please, everyone, quiet down," the teacher says clapping her hands loudly together, even though the students had already complied to that command. "Today," she pauses - for effect, no doubt - "we learn about conjunctions!"

A low groan makes it's way around the room.

The man outside is forgotten, for now.

<<>>

"Have you ever seen a cat bark?"

"Why can't leaves be blue?"

"Why is the sun yellow - ow, why do my eyes hurt after looking at the sun?"

And most importantly: "why?" and "why not?"

That explained the Waterson twins.

With their pale yellow hair, and dazzling blue eyes, you'd take them for lovely angels who wiped their mouths with napkins and crossed their legs in church.

Nope. Not even close.

I babysat the Devil's kin. Six-year-olds Chelsea and Rebecca Waterson were closely related to Satin - possibly even direct relatives.

Every day after school I drove myself over to their house - which happened to be exactly 3.76 miles away from mine - so that I could watch them for two hours until their parents got home from work.

I did this every day not because I wanted to, but because of the not-so-generous four dollars an hour, because someone had to provide for my family.

Yes, for eight dollars a day I spent two hours answering a never ending survey and cleaning up cat poop. I didn't know why they asked so many stupid and pointless questions, but if they wanted to know about the color of leaves, goddamn it, I was going to tell them everything I knew.

There was something easy about kids. You never had to worry about saying the wrong thing, or making situations awkward, because if you said something out of the ordinary, chances were they were going to go right along with it.

Today's survey revolved solely on "flying".

"Can you fly, Harper?" Rebecca asks, tilting her head to the side so her blond pig-tails slide over her forehead.

"Yep," I answer bluntly, picking up a hunk of cat waste that looked suspiciously like a tootsie-roll.

"You can?!" She exclaims excitedly.

"You bet your pants, I can," I reply with the same bluntness as before.

"Can you fly really high?" Chelsea asks, tongue hanging out of her mouth as she concentrates on sticking a string through a bead for her bracelet.

"So high I touch the clouds," I answer, shoving the poop in a small baggy I was holding. I lean down to pick up another one. This one is mushy, and I cringe.

"Do they feel like marshmallows?" Rebecca asks. When she talks she over exaggerates her mouth movements, staring down at her lips. Not only did she like to hear herself speak, she also wanted to see it.

"Not really; more like a pile of white feathers in my opinion." I didn't know what I was talking about, but I felt the need to conjure up some sort of answer for the poor girls. I mean, they did have a cat with an uncontrollable-bowel-desiese that caused it to "make" - as their mother said - all over the floor, and they didn't exactly have social lives. I owed it to them to be somewhat exciting.

"Can I fly?" Chelsea wonders, abandoning her bracelet to come sit in the family room where I had previously been scooping up smelly piles of shit.

"I dunno, maybe," I state, tying off the bag. It was hard to believe that a small cat could produce so much crap, but there were at least eight piles every day for me to pick up. Always in the same spots.

Why the cat couldn't just "make" outside, I didn't know.

I walk to the kitchen to toss the bag in the trash. I don't waste time throwing it into the trash can in the garage - the house already smells like dung anyway.

In the few seconds in took for me to step out of the room, Chelsea decided to try and fly, pitching herself right off the end of the couch and making her tiny body slam onto the floor.

I only remember hearing the thump, running back into the living room - poop forgotten - and cradling the small girl in my arms. Her nose was gushing blood and she cradled her arm like a baby doll. Her broken arm connected to a healthy hand connected to healthy fingers.

She ended up having a sprained wrist, and shattered pinky toe.

And she got cat shit on her arm.

Poor thing.

<<>>

"Can you believe it?!"

I snap from my thoughts in time for the ending of Charlotte's soliloquy, paired with the widening of eyes, and jovial hand movements. I get distracted watching her fingers attached to hands attached to arms.

"Huh?" comes burbling from my mouth in between sips of chocolate milk.

Charlotte's eyes roll towards the ceiling like an airplane through the sky, and she sighs exasperatedly. "I said," she pronounces, "can you believe that the Watersons are letting that scary exchange student live with them for a whole month?"

There's a long pause as I sip my chocolate milk. "I didn't hear about this," I just say. Then I look down at Charlotte's plate, which is stacked with french fries smothered in ketchup.

"That's because you spend too much time doing homework," Charlotte explains. "And your not exactly on the Waterson's 'Favorite People' list."

"Yeah, yeah," I respond sarcastically, "I know. And shut it; I won't get into Harvard if I run around with grades like yours."

"Like a solid 3.8 is so bad," she drawls, smiling. "But I suppose I can't compete with your 4.0."

4.25, I correct in my head.

As for the Waterson family, Charlotte - unlike me - completely flipped when I told her about what happened to Chelsea. She was in shock at first, then yelled, and even progressed to crying a little.

But it was mostly yelling at how I couldn't be trusted with anyone smaller than me.

She also mentioned something about my "stone cold heart" because I couldn't managed a few tears on behalf of the child I "brutally abused."

But kids are all the time, and eventually you just have to get used to it.

"Hey, are you gonna finish those?" I ask, pointing to her fries. She shoves the tray towards me in response.

"So... that's it?" Charlotte asks after I've shoved my face full of half the fries on the plate.

"What?" I manage to say.

"You don't have any opinions on this new exchange student?"

"Honestly, I don't really care."

She rolls her eyes again, and I choke on a French fry. I gulp down chocolate milk to clear my airway, until it's gone and my straw is gurgling at the bottom of the cup.

"God, chill, Harp," Charlotte laughs.

"Yeah, cause I didn't almost die or anything," I cough sarcastically. "And don't call me Harp."

She rolls her eyes, even though we've been friends since the dawn of time, no one is allowed to call me Harp.

"I bet the new guy's cute," Char says, completely abandoning the 'scary exchange student' she was talking about before, and moving on to the idea of her next conquest. "He's from France, you know."

I pause. "Guess how much I don't care."

But I never thought his presence would strike up such a storm. I didn't think he would arise panic in my chest at the thought of him without me. I didn't think he'd ruin/complete my life.

I didn't think he'd change me. When he came, I was almost certain he wouldn't change me, or anyone else at James Parker High School.

I'm still not certain of anything regarding him.

All I know is that I received the Journal the moment he arrived.

J