How to Be a Guardian Angel -- Chapter 5

Chapter Five

“Whoa, Krista. Chill out – you just left a dent in the wall!” Cash said, putting a hand on my shoulder, and easing my head away from the dent. It was then that I realized that even the way I perceived physical contact was different.

“Cash, what’s wrong with me?” I asked.

Cash looked at me like I’d asked a ridiculous question. “Nothing, Angel. Why would you ask?” He said, placing fingers gently in my hair, his full attention on me again.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked again. “Don’t play coy – what’s going on with my body. I can’t feel pain?” My voice became even more scared as I looked desperately at him, wondering if an Angel was something I could really deal with being.

“No, you can’t. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.” He said. “What about heat? Or the cold?” I asked. “It’s nearly winter, and I couldn’t tell the difference outside.”

Cash sighed, and laid against the arm of the sofa, his feet across my lap. “Welcome to my world, Krista. It’s the life of anybody who’s an Angel. The Fallen are the same way; We don’t feel or experience the same things as humans, and we can never be like them again.”

“Can we die?” I asked.

Cash only shook his head in reply.

“But what if I don’t want to do this?” I asked.

“There is no choice. We don’t get to pick, Krista. Damn it, I thought that point was clear.”

I looked at him, knowing that if I could have had it that way, my eyes would be red from crying – but no tears came, not even the sting of them hiding behind my eyes. Gripping a pillow, and feeling the material beginning to tear under my hold, I tried to calm down. However, I guessed it was just another quirk to be unable to let this fury go.

Cash sat there for a while, as I simply sat and glared out the window, and across the lower buildings in this part of New York. It seemed that he got bored afterward, and began to wander about his apartment. It was large, and had multiple bedrooms –one of which he disappeared into. He didn’t return, and it wasn’t until a few minutes later that I heard the water of the shower, faint from through the two doors that now separated us.

The silence, as I realized that I was no longer in neutral territory, seemed a little awkward as I sat and looked more thoroughly around the area, noticing that there were no pictures, not even paintings. The walls were a barely-there blue that reminded me of icicles, and the floor’s carpets were nearly jet black, and pristine. It seemed that even my shoes, though as miraculously clean as they were, hadn’t left a speck of dust behind. Expensive was the first word that came into my mind, and once again I was forced to wonder how Cash really had come up with all the money.

There was a set of keys on the marble counter near what appeared to be a fully functioning glass stove top, and a rather large refrigerator. Opening the fridge, I noticed it was stockpiled. Taking a fruit soda from the door, I opened it quietly. The view from the place may have once been majestic for me, but now, it almost felt like a cage.

Gritting my teeth as the near painful carbonation touched the back of my throat, I realized that the water from the shower was now off. Cash had always taken lightening fast showers, but I took the silence as a sign that Cash would be back soon.

Sitting down in a different chair that faced the wall I’d dented, I closed my eyes and simply listened as Cash moved quietly about in his room. Then, I thought about my own wardrobe. The clothes that I had died in, which were on me now, were somehow clean and almost looked as new as they had been when I’d bought them – when I’d still been living at home. With the family that had left me to die. Just like I eventually had.

They would never know. They would never care. To them, I never even existed. I didn’t formally exist. The reality of the situation still burned whatever of a heart I had left. Gripping the can until I knew that, any tighter, the soda would be spilling all over the chair and the carpet. Hearing Cash not far away, I knew that damaging more of his property wasn’t going to win me any favors.

“Hey, Krista.” He said, his voice from above me. I opened my eyes and cocked my head back to look for him. He was looking over the top of the lounge chair, his dark eyes the only thing that gave a clue to the fact he knew he’d scared me.

“Yea?” I asked, taking a deep breath and looking at him more with more focus than before. Casually, he brushed a piece of hair from my face.

“So, where do you want to sleep – I mean, you can have my bedroom if you want. I’m fine with the sofa.” He said, and then walked over to it, flopping at his fully length across it, smiling lazily, looking very much like a cat as he eyed me.

“I’m fine with the sofa,” I said. Surely, I wasn’t going to sleep much anyways, so why steal the host’s bed? I sighed, and stood, and walked towards the floor to ceiling windows that looked onto the balcony, and from there, to the great view before it.

“You sure, Angel?” He asked, not moving from where he was. I nodded, and then there was a sighed ‘okay’.

He then grabbed a jacket and some keys – giving the impression that he had necessary errands to run. Leaving me with his now otherwise empty apartment, the TV remote, and the passing phrase ‘help yourself’, I lay stomach-down on the floor to channel surf. Of course, the place I inevitably landed on was one of many music channels. The Eminem Rewind, I figured, wouldn’t be that bad to listen to. Letting my mind focus more on the lyrics than my own problems, I settled into a numb mentality as I listened for other signs of life near myself, and the music.

The wings on my back still made themselves known with a mild weight that eventually made me decide to lay on my side, facing the great windows. The bright sky of the afternoon I'd returned to had faded with dull purple clouds, and I decided that – if I ever really had a chance – I was going to ask the Big Man himself why he’d chosen me of all people to be an Angel. Sure, I hadn’t had much going for me, before, but what was I supposed to do now?

I was a dead 17 year old girl with a family that wouldn’t remember me. I had bright white wings that no normal person could see – but I could see every body else’s wings, the ghost wings of fallen angels, and various tell-tales of demons. Nobody knew me, and it was apparent that it even with the number of people who had puzzled second glances at me before, I was going to be an unnoticed passer-by in a lot of peoples lives. Transient, unnoticed, and immortal. Unchanging.

I would never grow up, never grow old, never get married, never have kids. It was the classic undead-child tragedy, and yet, this was only all the more ironic. God had given this to me, and it couldn’t be revoked just by asking.

Still numb, without even a tear or a clenched fist, I closed my eyes and shut my heart to the thoughts and dull emotions that wanted to rise in my throat like bile. Nothing like tears was going to help me - so why waste them? Draping a wing over my exposed side, I covered myself and dragged my consciousness under and into a dark place that not even my memories would touch.

My safety zone.