Page 27 of Heaven on Earth

This was not the man who’d walked in here. He was still lost and confused, yes, but he was no longer excited or open to what the world had to offer him. He had a mission, whether it was right for him or not, and he was going to see it through.

“And if you do,” I began, “will you say goodbye to me first?”

His hands slipped off the button he’d been working on and he turned to look at me, his face ghostly pale. “Of course I will — if you still want me to, that is.”

“You know I do.” I cleared my throat. “Have fun with your parents while they’re here. Invite them out to dinner. Show them the library. Take them on a long walk through the woods on one of the nicer days. The cherries and dogwoods are just beginning to blossom, and a walk through them now would be heavenly.” I closed my eyes to ease the pain rising in my chest. I could do with the warmth and peace of the Heavens right now.

He swallowed hard. “I’ll do that,” he said quickly. “And, uh, Ciel?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll see you later.”

I shook my head. “I doubt that very much. Best of luck with your job search. If I see you around town in a few months, I’ll know that you got what you wanted.”

He finally looked into my eyes again, his own shining with unshed tears. He rushed over to me, threw his arms around me one last time, and I pressed a single kiss into his forehead, running my hands through his soft, silky hair and willing myself to remember this moment, as painful as it was to experience.

I couldn’t watch him leave, so I got up to stare out the window instead. I had to pull up the blinds, and as I did so, the sun shined down upon me so brightly, my skin would have blinded anyone who bothered to look.

If I had any sense at all, I would have wrapped my robe around me — or a towel, at least, but I didn’t care anymore. Ryan was gone, and that was all I cared about. Once again, I was alone with no one and nothing to look forward to. Even Heaven, with all its rules and regulations, would have been better than this mortal life.

21

RYAN

Ijogged home, willing my tired legs to carry me a few feet longer as I rounded the bend to my apartment complex. Someone was walking their dog along the sidewalk outside, and as I hurried past them, the dog whipped around to bark at me. Its owner shushed it, but I barely heard it. All I paid attention to was the pounding of my heart and the lump rising in my throat, threatening to choke me if I held back my tears any longer.

I got inside and slammed the door behind me, falling to my knees in a heap of tears the moment I was alone and safe from prying eyes and ears. I’d hurt the one person I cared about beyond repair, and there was nothing left for me to turn to. Every good thing that had happened to me in the God-forsaken town was gone, and I was the one to throw it all away.

I only got up when my knees began to ache from the hard floor and the tears had dried up, leaving me with tear-stained cheeks and puffy eyes. It was not a pretty look, and when I shuffled into the bathroom to wash my face, the man who stared back at me in the mirror was unrecognizable.

“Ugh, my parents are going to kill me if I look this bad when they come,” I muttered, splashing cool water all over my face. “They already think I don’t take good enough care of myself.”

When I emerged from the bathroom, I forced myself to find something to eat in the fridge. There was hardly anything inside and I realized that, as much as I dreaded it, I would need to leave and get some groceries sometime before my parents got here.

I remembered Ciel’s insistence that I take them out for dinner one night, and then my thoughts flashed back to our dinner just last night. I would never forget that dinner, or everything that occurred under the secrecy of the table, as long as I lived.

I sniffled, sighed, and grabbed an apple from this fridge. It was hardly enough, but I could barely stand the taste of my own tear right now, let alone some heavier food that I would have to spend time and effort making.

I threw myself back onto the couch and took a bite of the apple. It was crisp and cold, and with my nose stuffed from crying, I couldn’t taste the sweetness or tartness at all. I could have been eating cardboard for all I cared.

As I took another half-hearted bite, something floated down from the windowsill, knocked loose from when I fell back onto the couch a second earlier. I bent over to pick it up, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes again as I spun it around between my fingertips.

“Ciel,” I murmured, stroking the feather softly. “Oh, Ciel, I’m so sorry.”

I lay back on the couch, clutching the feather close to my chest, and stared up at the ceiling. I couldn’t cry again. I didn’t have enough energy left. All I could do was lie still and stare at nothing in particular till sleep came and released me from my torturous existence.

When I got up the next morning, I finally had the fortitude to face all the unread messages on my phone. There was one from my mom asking if it would be all right if they got here in time for lunch, and one from my dad at 5 in the morning saying that they were getting ready to leave and to text or call and let them know that I was okay.

I was far from okay, but I typed a quick note to my mom and told her that I was excited to see them both and I would be ready for them no matter what time they got here. Everything I wrote was a bald-faced lie, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

The only thing that might have mattered to me was a note from Ciel, but there was nothing from him, no matter how many times I checked. Not a single word, the likes of which I would have killed to see pop up. At least if he had said “I hate you,” he still would have been thinking about me. As it stood now, he was nothing more than a sweet memory that would grow only more distant over time.

I forced myself to take a shower and put on a fresh change of clothes. I still had faint bruises on my neck where Ciel had nibbled the day before. No amount of scrubbing could get rid of marks that went past skin deep, so I did my best to ignore them and imagine a life without that dastardly angel.

I just had to convince myself that it wouldn’t bethatbad. I’d gone 30-something years without even knowing that angels walked among us. I could live another 40 or so more without noticing them again.

I dragged myself out of the house dangerously close to the time my parents were supposed to arrive to buy some groceries so we could at least eat while they were here, and when I got back, their car was parked out in the parking lot and they were just getting out and stretching.