Page 287 of Breathe Like Hell

“This place is a disaster,” Micah commented as he walked into my apartment. The last time he’d been here was when he cucked me in my own bed—almost a year ago. He’d actually texted me saying he was coming over and was undeterred by my lack of reply. I just didn’t know what to say to him. There weren’t adequate words for anything I felt towards Micah.

“You died,” I said, my tone completely flat.

He continued walking into my kitchen, surveying the state of it. I’d at least taken out the larger broken pieces like my fridge door and the marble half slab I’d snapped off the counter, putting them in a dumpster out back. But no sweeping had occurred. I hadn’t cared about it until now that Micah was witnessing this physical evidence of my grief. It was almost pathetic, how incapable I’d become of doing anything after losing him for the second time.

He turned, letting out a long exhale through his nose, his lips pressed flat. He didn’t comment on the mess again, though.

“I have something to tell you,” he started.

I leaned my shoulder against the doorframe, crossing my arms, focusing on keeping my breathing steady, my thoughts surface-level. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“I’m the angel who marked Dakota as an infant. The angel to make her one of the Angelakia.”

“What?” I coughed, pushing off the wall to stand straight, my eyes wide, all attempts at stability disappearing in the space of an exhale.

“Yes,” Micah confirmed, making my head spin. “Obviously it was pretty soon after we broke up.”

“How do you know? Are you serious?”

Micah opened his mouth to answer me, but my brain caught up before he got a chance to speak again. Of course. This was how Dakota brought him back to life.

“The tree,” I said.

Micah nodded. “Yes. I should’ve figured that out sooner. I’ve been distracted. It took me seeing a picture of her mother holding Dakota as a baby on Facebook to jog my memory and force the pieces together inside my brain. It makes sense.”

“So, you held her? When?”

“For a few minutes at the post office,” he answered, glancing down briefly at his hands, then back up at me. My chest tightened.

“You snatch babies at the post office?”

“Her mom was overwhelmed and everyone was just staring at her. I offered to help. Dakota was screaming—like, screaming her head off.”

“And you helped her mom by holding her,” I surmised.

“Correct. And used my aspect a little bit.”

“Probably shouldn’t have done that.” I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, glancing away. Sometimes I thought about the very first time Micah used his aspect on me in Heaven, the way his ultraneon dimmed and my panic spiked. But I’d gotten used to that feeling pretty fucking quick. I craved it.

“Probably not,” Micah agreed. He dragged the tip of his pointer finger along the countertop, skimming the edge of it.

“I kinda wish I was there. It sounds cute. Dakota screaming her head off as a tiny baby.”

“There are pictures of her as a baby on her mom’s Facebook.”

“Oh, I know. From when I scrolled through to figure out the birthday cake idea.”

“Anyway, that’s when it happened.”

“And with her ichor, she could bring you back to the place you fell. Even back to Heaven if she wanted to.” I rubbed my forehead.

“Yeah.”

I’d known she had ultraneon from the tree, but it genuinely didn’t cross my mind that it might’ve been because Micah had marked her. Even though the angel at the Syndesmos probably said those exact words, I’d been too caught up in my grief to fully understand. The only thing I could focus on was the fact that she could not bring back the angel who sacrificed his life for her. And that was all I thought Micah was to Dakota: the sacrifice that transformed her.

A lump formed in my throat quicker than I could make sense of why. But the more I thought about it, the clearer this emotion became.

Micah saved my life through Dakota.