Jennifer Murgia: Angel Star

I slowly looked up at him and asked what I knew was slightly irrational. “Are you for real?”

“Do you think I’m real?” He flashed a sly smile. Deep down I doubted he was joking.

“I’m not sure I can answer that,” I whispered as we hopped off the swings and headed back to his car. I was beginning to feel that everything he had asked me was from a previous conversation, but a conversation I had held recently in my own thoughts.

Then a horrible, sinking feeling hit me. I wasn’t ready to have him drive me home and say good-bye just yet.

Our afternoon together was entirely too short. I felt teased by it, selfishly wanting more time with him, feeling like I needed to figure him out. To figure me out.

I wasn’t ready to end the dream.

Still, I tried to make the best of the short ride home to my house, trying not to appear childishly disappointed.

Garreth squeezed my hand gently. He had held it practically all afternoon. I was sure my fingers would go into some sort of shock in his absence.

We turned onto Claymont Street shortly after I gave him directions to my house. My mother would be heading home soon and it was my turn to start dinner. I was trying desperately to push aside the thought of how long it would take for the weekend to pass. Monday felt like an eternity away.

The Jeep came to a quiet stop and slowly idled at the curb.

“Well, thanks for the coffee,” I said quietly. I didn’t want to say good-bye.

“I’m sorry if I bewildered you with my questions.”

“Was that your intention?”

“No. Just curious.” He lowered his head and looked up through the fringe that delicately concealed his eyes. “I suppose I’m not too good at this, at getting to know someone. I just don’t want to scare you off.”

“It’s all right. Angels and heaven don’t scare me.”

I leaned the slightest bit in his direction that I could possibly manage without appearing too eager. His eyes were unreadable to me right now. They appeared almost distant with longing, and wise, as though they belonged to a soul much older than the teenage boy sitting next to me, yet ageless somehow. His hand smoothed a lock of my hair that had loosened during the ride home, triggering something in my subconscious that lingered there.

“I suppose you need to call your friend. Claire, is it?” I was surprised by his attentiveness but completely distracted by how close he was to my lips.

“Yes,” was all I could manage. I stared at his mouth wondering, hoping, it would touch mine. My first kiss.

“You never answered my question.” His fingers reached out, cupping my face gently.

“Would you mind repeating that question one more time?” I was drowning again, completely lost, submerged in an aqua pool. I didn’t want to resurface.

“It was really your question, actually. You were wondering if I was a figment of your imagination.”

“I still…don’t…know.”

I was spiraling deeper and deeper into a warm pool of intense and ageless blue. I didn’t care if he was my imagination or not, I wasn’t going to let this slip away from me. Claire was absolutely right. It was time I had a boyfriend.

“Let’s say, hypothetically of course, that you are not real, could you visit me in my dreams so I don’t have to wait until Monday to see you again?” Was I being bold? I felt our time together coming to a close and was reluctant to get out of his car, reluctant to release myself from the grip I so willingly allowed him have on me.

“Of course. If I’m not real I can do anything,” he smiled, playing along.

“Then it’s a date.”

Garreth stepped out of the Jeep and walked around to my side, opening the door for me like a perfect gentleman. He leaned very close this time, brushing his lips along mine, and then hesitated. I found myself unsteady, and leaning in closer to him, wanting to press my lips against his more fully but he pulled away slowly. I knew it was time to say good-bye.

It took genuine effort to climb up the five steps to the porch and I was grateful for the railing’s support. I twisted my key in the lock then stepped inside. I had roughly thirty minutes to call Claire before I needed to start dinner. But, as much as I wanted to be a good friend for her right now, I couldn’t tear myself away from my place in the doorway. I stood watching the gray Jeep getting smaller and smaller as it drove farther away from me.

I shut the door and walked in a dazed state down the hall into the kitchen. I honestly couldn’t function properly, still feeling his finger trace my lower lip and his warm hand on my face. I still smelled the incense that had saturated his shirt, his hair, his skin, and I felt the pulsing blood beneath my lips from the airlike brushing his lips had given mine, full of newness and hesitation, a kiss that wasn’t quite a kiss.

It took all I could to force myself to think of anything else. Then it dawned on me why I was so comfortable with him. He made me feel safe. I felt an undeniably protective bubble around me whenever I was with him.

I looked at the phone and knew I had to call Claire. I wondered if she had noticed I left school with Garreth, but when I checked the answering machine the little red message light wasn’t blinking. It glowed steadily, which surprised me.

Then I remembered the argument I had witnessed through the window of Garreth’s Jeep. I felt bad for Claire. True, she could stand on her own two feet during uncomfortable situations much better than I ever could. Look at how she had handled Brynn yesterday.

But this was different. Her relationship with Ryan was still fresh, still new, and arguments weren’t supposed to happen yet. At least, I didn’t think so.

I picked up the phone and dialed Claire’s number. It rang several times before I heard her voice on the other end.

“Hey!” I said excitedly. “You’ll never guess what I did today. Go ahead and take a guess, Madame Woo.”

“Do you have any idea how long I waited for you?” Her voice was a monotone.

“Um, yes. Sorry. I got a ride home with Garreth.”

“I know that already, Teagan. Everybody knows that.”

“Well, aren’t you happy for me? Don’t you want to know all the juicy details?”

“Yeah, I’m happy, Tea. But, if I know you, the details aren’t that juicy yet.”

Okay, that was a stab but for one reason or another it wasn’t affecting me. I was still flying high, even though the “Well, what happened” was seriously missing from this conversation. Then I reluctantly shifted to the parking lot confrontation.

“Claire, is everything all right with you and Ryan?”

I heard her sigh into the receiver.

“You can tell me”

“No. I can’t.”

I twisted the phone cord around my arm. It had become stretched out from years of talking to Claire.

“It’s Friday. Why don’t you spend the night? You’ll feel better. We’ll eat chocolate and plan horrible, ingenious ways to get back at Brynn for years of misery. Then Madame Woo can read my future and give me a seaweed wrap.”

A giggle surfaced and at last the ice was breaking. “I can’t.”

At least it was half-hearted. I would definitely take that, although I was hoping for a different answer.

“I’m going out with Ryan tonight.”

“Oh. So things are okay between you two?”

“Yeah, they will be.”

I said good-bye, still wondering what was going on with Claire. Still feeling a little slighted that she didn’t ask about my afternoon with Garreth, the one I’d just had and the one I would continue in my dreams.

With task one completed, I set about taking care of task number two. I set a large pot of water to boil on the stove while I raced around the kitchen, pulling a box of pasta and some basil from the pantry. I emptied tomato sauce and paste into another pot, then added water and a bay leaf. As the sauce began to simmer, I busied myself slicing the bread, hesitating for a moment to glance at the wall clock and scolding myself for staying at the park with Garreth for so long.