Max
Everything Frost revealed swirled around in my head. I hadn’t fully processed the news. Angel. Me. Angel.
I was an angel.
It sounded so surreal and insane. The other guess, dragon, never felt right. Fae dragon never clicked and now I knew why. Because it wasn’tthis.It wasn’t right. But this, anangel,it didn’t feel right either.
"Hey, is this okay?" Lysander was asking me a question. How long had he been standing there?
"What?"
"The restaurant."
Oh. Lysander and I arrived at a cozy Italian restaurant. I said we should go on a regular date and he took over the planning from there. We were on a date together. The point of dating involved talking, flirting, and possibly pressing our mouths together again, so he expected me here on the date with him and not millions of miles away in outer space… or in heaven? Wherever the hell angels lived.
I looked around the restaurant. A warm, inviting dining area held several people, including other couples here having regular dates of their own, what adults do when they like other adults. Exactly what I wanted. The place served pasta and definitely had macaroni, food I’d enjoy. How thoughtful of him.
If I were still Max of a few hours ago, I’d love to explore this strange yet exciting new situation. We’d smile and flirt while twirling pasta around our forks. It’d be sweet and normal and amazing.
But I wasn’t the Max of before. I was Max the Angel.
…What kind of angel name was Max anyway? I sure as hell wasn’t changing it after going through all the trouble of finding it, even if ‘hark, the angel Max’ did not sound remotely divine or impressive.
"Hey Max?"
Okay, now Lysander and the hostess were both staring at me expectantly. I smiled tightly and pulled him aside.
"Not good?" he guessed.
"It’s great!" Sort of. “The people are just louder than expected. I didn’t know they’d be so close, and all of them have knifes.” Too much, there was too much in my head and outside of it.
"We can do something else," he offered immediately.
"What else is date-y?"
"A movie?"
"Right,” I said. “The place that’s even louder and also in the dark for some reason."
“Because the movie is—” he shook his head. “Uh, how about a walk?”
Sure, why not? We didn’t even need to look at each other and it wasn’t like I could appreciate Lysander’s appearance anyway. His dark hair normally fell in soft waves, now he’d slicked it back. He wore jeans and more approachable clothes, including a shirt that looked so soft my fingers itched to touch it…which could also be because of the person wearing it.
We exited the restaurant, stepping out on the street. Wherever we went, whatever we did, I wouldn’t be there, not really. I hadn’t wanted to cancel on him, but I should have because the result was about the same. I wasn’t here.
I hadn’t slept well either. I first connected my strange dreams to lingering fears of the coven at first, fears I wasn’t even sure I had in the waking world. Maybe I hoped for a simple explanation. My life rarely worked like that. What started out as frightening yet indistinct images of flame and chaos had clarified slightly. I wasn't seeing a roaring fire or raging inferno. The flames weren't the source of the problem, only an effect, with the cause being a great explosion. A thunderous boom and debris flying, everything breaking apart with force, an explosion I saw over and over at night.
What if I saw glimpses of my past? The memories that escaped me in the daylight came back during sleep. But I had no idea how to explain any of this to him in a way that made sense. It made no sense to me.
"Can you just walk me home?” I asked. “To rehab, I mean. Walk me back to rehab."
A man passing by us on the street did a double and then triple take towards us, nearly scuffing his pristine white sneakers that shined even in the dark.
“Why did he stare at us?” I asked.
“Rehab can mean different things,” Lysander explained. “Some people go to rehab to recover from addictions to drugs or alcohol.”
“So he thought I’m a drug addict? Sure. I’m the weird rambling druggy on the street? That’s who I’ll always be to him.”
