“You shouldn’t let him get to you, Jackie.”
“I know, but?—”
“No, listen to me. This isyourachievement.Youraccomplishment. He doesn’t get to rain on your parade. Would you put up with me doing that shit? No, you wouldn’t. So snap out of it. You have everyone you need, and we’re very proud of you.”
She cracks a lopsided grin at me, and her voice becomes taunting.
“I’ve rubbed off on you.”
“Maybe.” I shake my head, laughing silently. “You’ve come a long way from the traumatized little girl I met fourteen, fifteen years ago.”
“And you’ve come a long way from the annoying little girl that my mominsistedI hang out with.”
Ha! As if it took much convincing. At the time, Jackie needed me a lot more than I needed her, though she’d never admit to it. Especially after our roles reversed. “You know, now that I think about it, it was pretty smart of our mothers.”
“What, working the same shifts so they could split a babysitter between us? I can’t imagine it savedthatmuch money.”
“Oh, definitely not.” I grin up at the stars. “It did much more for us than it ever did for them.”
She glances at me, scowling, before giving me a playful little shove. “Right. Because who else would have forced you to be social?”
“Is that what we’re doing right now?” Though it’s barely audible from this distance, I can still vaguely hear thethump-thump-thumpof the party music when I listen for it. I don’t particularly care to. I’d much rather focus on the healing trance of the ocean’s musical push and pull.
“Sure. We made an effort by coming here.” She readjusts, situating her palms under her head like a pillow as she stares at the moon. “It’s just not our night.”
Not my year, more like, but I let the thought pass in favor of tranquil silence. The moon looks so beautiful, hanging unapologetically in the sky without a care for the world. Its secret forces conduct the ocean like an orchestra, putting on a performance for us. It could just be the sleep deprivation getting to me again, but I almost want to cry at the magnificence of it all—how small I am, and how vast the world out there is.
If only I could bottle this moment and keep it with me forever.
In the light of day, I find myself sitting on the beach again.
My head is tilted back, my face breathing in the warm sun like a flower growing towards the light. I can’t get enough of that beautiful sound of the waves, crashing and pulling and shifting with melodic intent.
“Isn’t this lovely?” I ask, looking over at Jackie. To my surprise, though, she isn’t there. Nobody is. The entire beach is abandoned, and… I can’t remember how I got here.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I’ve never been successful in waking myself from a nightmare, but it doesn’t stop me from trying. I squeeze my eyes shut again, willing the warmth to fade away, to find myself sleeping in our rental condo’s bed. The beach is my goddamn happy place. Can a girl not have one good, uncorrupted thing to hold onto?
When I open my eyes again, lo and behold, nothing’s changed.Great. What miserable, horrible death awaits me this time?
Almost instantly, the scenery answers me.
An intense light shoots up from the tide, connecting with the sky like lightning crashing in reverse. It’s loud, violent, and brutal. Instinctively, I flinch, but the strange force of nature keeps thundering on with unnatural persistence, as if demanding my attention.
The moment I bring myself to look back at it, the cacophony ceases. In its place, a man appears, rising out of the water’s depths to walk on the still ocean.
No—not a man.
An angel.
I’ve never seen anything more magnificent. His back bears the oversized wings of a white swan, dipped in gold and shimmering with ethereal light. He wears a pristine white robe, so formless and shifting that it looks to be spun from clouds. His skin, the color of warm desert sand, reflects the light like it’s made of diamonds.
The supernatural beauty of him is beyond words. Beyond comprehension. I am both awestruck and terrified.
His glowing gold eyes pierce into me with the fiercest expression,exacerbated by the sharpness chiseled into his features, as he walks toward the shoreline. Somehow, I get the sense that he’s looking at me without really seeing me. It’s as if we’re both peering through a looking glass, crossing time and space to meet each other.
He looks down at a scroll of parchment in his hand, unraveling it, and begins to speak in synchrony with thunder from every direction.
