Heather Terrell - Eternity (v5)

The second that Miss Taunton laid off me, my best friend, Ruth, texted me. “Wait for me in the hal after class.” Normal y, I’d welcome a quick chat with my oldest and best friend in the world, especial y if it involved commiseration over Miss Taunton’s unfair, but not unusual, treatment of me. But I didn’t know if I could handle a one-on-one conversation with Ruth just yet. I had no idea what she remembered. The last time we were together—just before I boarded the train to Boston—she had confessed to seeing me fly. Had my parents tried to erase Ruth’s memory, too, with more success?

If so, could I pul off the act of regular El ie? I pled il ness and intermittently coughed throughout class to support my ruse.

At the ringing of the bel , I raced out of class. My head was spinning. I needed a moment to catch my breath, to reassemble myself.

Instead, I ran smack into Piper. My next-door neighbor and one of the most popular girls in school had been ignoring me for weeks since I decided to take the blame for that wicked Facebook prank. Unbelievably, she had decided that this was the moment to break the silence.

“I know what you did, El ie. I just don’t get why you did it. Why would you take the blame for something you didn’t do? Why would you sit through weeks of detention and walk down the hal ways knowing that al the kids in school hate you? Without ever pointing the finger at me or Missy. I bet you think you’re some kind of a saint,” she said with a flip of her perfect blond hair.

I didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to tel her the truth. That her snide little guess wasn’t total y off the mark. I was a half-angel, and I simply couldn’t have sat by and let others suffer at her hand. That she better rethink her future actions and ask forgiveness for those past, because there wasn’t much time left for malevolent games.

The conversation nearly delivered me to the edge. Who was I meant to be? How was I supposed to behave, knowing what I knew?

Before I said anything I’d regret, Michael appeared at my side.

He had been waiting for me after class, farther down the hal . When he saw Piper accost me and witnessed my obvious discomfort at the exchange, he raced to my rescue.

“Are you al right, El ie? You look real y pale,” he asked, once we were alone. I must have looked real y bad, because alarm registered on his face.

“I’m not sure if I can do this, Michael. I know we need to pretend, but I’m having a hard time already. Knowing what we know,” I whispered.

Michael put his arm around my shoulder and walked me down the hal way. He brought us into a darkened alcove. More than anything, I wanted to stay in that warm, shadowy recess, wrapped in his arms. It was the only place I felt safe. It was the only place that made sense.

Michael placed his finger under my chin, and tipped my face to his. “El ie, I know you can.” He slipped a letter into my hands. He nodded that I should read it immediately, so I smoothed out the paper and started.

My Ellie —

Do you remember the first time we went flying over our field? You were so nervous of everything. You were afraid to fall from such heights; you didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of me; you were fearful of doing something so clearly otherworldly. But you were determined and strong. And I watched in awe as you furrowed your beautiful brow, willed your fears away, and took to the air.

You were breathtaking up there. The wind at your back, your black hair whipping all around you—you owned the skies. From the very beginning.

And the very next day, you walked down the hallways of Tillinghast High School like nothing had happened. Like you were just a regular girl—prettier and smarter than all the rest, of course, but still just a regular, human girl.

You can do that again, Ellie. You can walk the tightrope between the two worlds with courage and determination. You’ve done it before.

I love you,

Michael

I smiled as I read the letter. Somehow he had anticipated my feelings, and understood—perfectly—how to restore my confidence. How to bring me back to myself. Michael truly was my soul mate.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Just remember who you are. Remember that you walked this walk before, and you can do it again.”

I nodded and closed my eyes for a second. Conjuring those days from earlier in the fal , my self-assurance returned. Slowly and shakily. I real y had no other option. I had to successful y playact at being a regular high school junior, concerned about homework and her new boyfriend. Michael had to convincingly make-believe that he was an average senior guy, focused on footbal and col ege prospects and me. Too much depended on our role-playing.

Feeling fairly confident, off to calculus I went. As I listened to Mr. Modic rattle off theorems, I stopped fixating on the surreal nature of my situation and started to map out next steps. By the time class ended, and I joined Michael in the hal way, I wasn’t surprised that his next letter had the same focus. I had already drafted a similar note in my head.

My Ellie—

Now that your resolve has returned, did you spend all of calculus thinking about what we should do next? I know you well. I bet you didn’t take a single note, but instead stared out the window, dreaming up a strategy.

I did the same thing.

What should we do next? The trip to Boston definitely gave us a better sense of our natures as Nephilim, and the encounter with Ezekiel linked our births to the emergence of some kind of apocalypse. Crazy as that sounds. But we need much more information in order to act next. We need to know exactly what the Nephilim are and were—creation, history, powers, even mortality— and we need to know how the Nephilim fit into this whole end-of-the-world scenario that Ezekiel revealed to us.

But how are we going to get that knowledge—about ourselves and the end days—while playing dumb and suppressing our powers?

Wouldn’t any research we undertook—either in a library or on the ground—serve as a red flag to our parents or anyone else who might be seeking us? We need to act, but what do we do?

My brilliant, brilliant Ellie. Did you drum up any amazing ideas in calculus? We need a plan. Now.

I love you,

Michael

Between the last few periods of the day, we exchanged a flurry of letters. We each had our theories on how best to get the information we required, and they weren’t the same.

Final y, by the end of the school day, we concocted a plan we could both agree upon. It was risky. But real y, it was our only choice.

* * *

When the last bel rang, I walked Michael over to the footbal field for his practice, just as I would any other day. We had decided to keep as close as possible to our usual activities and schedule. Just in case.

Before he headed into the locker room, I leaned in to kiss him, as I always did. But today, instead of the usual “see you later,” I heard him whisper,

“good luck.”

I needed it.

I walked over to the parking lot to meet Ruth for an after-school coffee, having texted her that my cough had subsided and I felt up to our regular meeting. It sickened me to lie to her; we’d always told each other everything.

Amid al the cars and al the kids preparing to bolt from school, I didn’t spot her at first. But then I caught a glint of her red hair against the backdrop of the gray day. I hustled over to her used, green VW Bug, not sure what reaction I’d get. Did she remember seeing me fly or didn’t she?