Angels

   Tate tasted the delicious pasta Lily cooked for him while at the same time feeling little paws clawing on his leg. Titan was jumping up and down wagging his tail and looking at the food with hungry, glassy marble eyes.

Lily's fragile voice cracked the suffocating silence.

"Haven't seen Cassie in a while, how is she?" Tate almost choked and began to cough, mainly because he needed a second to think of his answer. Clearing his throat, "Good, I guess."

He remembered it has been four days since they'd spoken, and why would they anyway? He sent her off without thinking twice about how she was feeling.

"I guess? Are you... did you have a discussion?"

"No, we just decided to give each other more time." Tate lowered his head, avoiding Lily's eyes he nervously began to play with the fork and the food.

"Why?... you looked so into her." Tate shrugged and exhaled loudly, placing his arms on the table and leaned forward.

"Well, I did something kind of stupid."

"I'm not surprised." The old woman giggled when he looked at Tate's eyes narrowing.

"The thing is... remember we had a shoot for a music video?" Lily nodded. "Well, after that Mac told me that he didn't trust Cassie and he started accusing me of hiding something from him and—and I got pissed off and told Cassie we needed distance following Mac's advice, of course."

"What a jerk!" Lily hit the table so hard with her fork that poor Titan took his eyes off the food to see what was going on.

"Me or Mac?"

"Both!"

"Lily!"

"I never liked that Maclaren. Maybe he's afraid of losing your friendship, since you're thinking more about her than the band."

"That makes sense." After a long sharp silence, Lily spoke again. "Oh, by the way your mother called."

Tate looked up, straightening his back a few inches from the table, and replied with a cold tone, "What did she want?"

"You know... how you were... she misses you Tate."

A million possible replies went through his head at that moment, as well as a million bitter memories. His mother bringing Titan home, his mother cooking, his mother at his first school talent show, his mother arguing with his father, his mother arguing with him. The big fight. The run away. Tate finally spoke up.

"She should have showed some concern five years ago when I ran away from that hell hole." Without any energy to continue the conversation he stood up, took a sip of water, and added, "Now it's too late." With that, he let Titan jump on his chair and eat the rest of the food.

Tate went to his room staring at the ceiling. Trying to erase the memory of his mother's sweet, gentle face he thought of his past lives, all the mothers and fathers he'd had, but he couldn't remember much about most of them. He thought of his first life. Like a piece of paper torn from a book, he remembered only a part of what happened the day of the flight. He wondered if he would have seen stars or angels if he had reached the highest sky... and stars like in the ones he saw the night he pulled Cassie away... so distant yet so close, or angels like the ones he saw in Andrea Pozzo's painting in a church, magnificent and beautiful.

He knew, of course, that he would have died anyway had he tried to fly higher as it's impossible to touch the sun, but he was a fool back then. He let himself fall into bed and like sinking into the waves of the ocean, he felt his dreams arrive and drown his mind in the nether region of nightmares.    

 ➳

Cassie ran her fingers gently through the books' spines, reading each of the lame titles and boring blurbs, none of them caught her attention. 

Everything had happened so fast, Cassie couldn't believe there was now so much distance between her and Tate.

At first it was like an itch on the back of her head. Then her whole head felt heavy and her vision so blurred that instead of letters the words on the book's covers where a combination of circles and curved lines, the hall of books seemed endless. Like a swinging bridge, the floor moved below her feet. Her last thought before falling was not again.

Suddenly her head hit the floor and the pain ended.  She heard steps followed by a distant yet familiar voice. The boy leaned over and held her shaking hand.

 "Are you okay? Should I call an ambulance?" With her vision still blurry she got up from the floor, tripped over him, and fell on his chest. When she looked up he asked, "West Coast?"

Dammit, good job making a fool out of yourself, Cassie.

She recognized his hazel eyes and distinctive voice, apart from that he looked different.  

"Petra?"

"The one and only!" he replied, sporting a sassy smiling.  She observed the white pin with his name attached to his green uniform shirt.  Petra Volkov.

"I didn't know you worked here. Never saw you before."  

"I got the job a few weeks ago."   Petra sounded proud and confident, in marked contrast to his hand gestures which seemed awkward and nervous.

"Anyway, how are you... are you feeling okay?"  

"Yes... I'm okay I guess... sorry."  

"No need to say you're sorry... is there anything I can do for you?"   "No, thank you, I'm good."  

"Well, I can't leave you like this. Let me at least get some food in you, it's my lunch break in two minutes."  

"I don't know..."  

"Come on, please." He tilted his head and opened his eyes, while his lips formed a slight smile.  

"You won't let me go until I say yes, will you?"

  "Nope."

➳

He convinced her to go to a small café two blocks around the book store.

"So what happened to you a few minutes ago? Does that happen much?" he asked politely as they both waited for the waitress to come to their table.

"Well no, not really. I don't know what happened," she said looking anywhere but directly at him. She knew what happened... kind of. The only thing she was sure of, it had something to do with Tate.

"Maybe you haven't eaten?"

"Perhaps." Avoiding the subject, she changed the topic. "So you work at the book shop?"

"You could say I'm a book worm." 

Then, Cassie did something she hadn't done in days—laugh. Though it was terribly awkward given that he didn't even say something funny. "Anyway, it must be fun." She shook her head still smiling. "And how come it's the second time in a week that I just bumped into you?"

"Must be destiny."

"Or just a simple coincidence." Her smile vanished.

"I see you are not into spiritual, philosophical stuff, but what would you think if our destinies are written in the stars... literally. Image that for a second. Wouldn't it be awesome?" Petra knew that it was actually true, but playing a clueless human was somewhere between fun and twisted for him.

"I imagine it's a bit— well I don't have to imagine it, I think that's they way it is."

"So after all you do believe is this kind of stuff."

"Depends on what you'd mean as stuff."

"The idea of resurrection, stars and destinies, fortune..."

"I do." The conversation was interrupted by the waitress who came and took their order.

"You know... you don't seem like the type of guy who would be into that sort of thing."

"I'm at this point in my life where I don't think I fit into a certain... let's say, box. I'm in this transition between being teenager and an adult and I crave to be independent and unpredictable."

"How old are you?" Cassie leaned over with her eyebrows pinched together.

"Nineteen."

"Oh." Her muscles relaxed, she leaned on her chair again grabbing the bottle of water and drinking some.

"I also don't want to be a stereotypical type of guy. As I see the world— and this might sound weird— people are either strong or weak, and the earth is just a big ball in black and white. And... Cassie, I am—"

"The gray the world is missing." 

"Exactly!"

"Whoa... it's as if you know exactly how I feel... I'm so creeped out."

"Do you still think it's a mere coincidence that we're here together... or destiny?"