Everything

I stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my hair and another wrapped around my torso. I peered from the corner at Alex who sat on the bed watching the news on the television. He had his arms behind his head and the remote rested on this stomach.  

“Do you have any clean clothes in that duffel bag?” I asked. Alex turned his head to me, blinked and then swallowed.

“Yes I do,” Alex said and quickly got up. He pulled out the duffel bag and opened it, hastily tossing clothes out of it. He stood up a little too quick with the clothes in his hand.

Alex slowly walked toward me, his head a little low while he stared into my eyes innocently. He looked at the clothes and held them out to me. I held my hand out and smiled. He stood up straighter and watched me.

“Okay, Alex,” I said, turning. “Don’t make it obvious.” I could feel his cheeks almost starting to burn and I turned back around and smiled at him as I shut the bathroom door. He peered through the crack until it clicked shut.

“Pervert,” I whispered while smiling at his pitiful, but cute, way of charming his past wife.

“Am not,” Alex stated loudly, his voice moving farther. I heard the bed squeak as he plopped down on it. I almost opened the door to look at him, but continued changing into the pajama bottoms and large shirt.

“Well, you’re not an angel, that’s for sure,” I muttered under my breath, jokingly.

“Says who?” He asked in the same joking manner and I heard the television click off.

“How are you hearing me?” I asked and opened the door a crack to peer at him. Alex was sitting at the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees. He had his eyebrows raised and then he smiled. He lifted his hands up to the sky and looked up still smiling. He slowly looked back down to me and tilted his head as if saying, “it’s a gift”.

I just rolled my eyes and clicked the door shut again.

“I saw some pants in the store the other day,” Alex said.

“Oh really? That must have been a sight,” I said sarcastically, smiling at him.

“Yeah, they can be pretty scarce when you’ve been running around naked and stalking this beautiful woman,” Alex replied. I rolled my eyes again and fixed my hair in the fogged up mirror. “Anyway, I saw these pants and thought about getting them for myself.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah. It had the word, ‘heavenly’, across the butt in big white letters,” Alex stated. I could hear him smiling at himself as I started cracking up.

“Why didn’t you buy them?” I tested.

“I did,” Alex said and I stopped. “They were a little too big for me and were in the women’s section anyway, so I gave them to a recently fallen angel.”

“Oh, no,” I said and put my hand to my face.

“She didn’t think it was funny like the rest of the guys did.” I started laughing and opened the bathroom door. I grabbed my filthy clothes and the gun that was tucked into the pile.

“You’re insane,” I stated and he grinned at me. He had his arms behind his head again and his legs were almost hanging off the edge of the bed. He looked back at the television for a second, still smiling in a pleased way. I walked toward the beds, placing the clothes and gun on top of the dresser, and he looked back to me.

I walked to the bed next to his and sat down on the edge that was closest to him. He rolled over to his side and looked at me. His eyes were soft and pleased.

“Shall we catch up?” I asked and he smiled as he nodded his head.

“What do you want to know?” He asked first, propping his head up on his elbow.

“Well…For starters, why are the angels after us, again?” I asked. I watched Alex think hard for a second before he answered.

“Not everyone up there agrees with the whole angel-human marital relationship,” Alex started. He rolled onto his back and put his arm behind his head. He used the other hand to wipe his face like he was getting rid of some stress. He stared at the ceiling and then looked at me. “They don’t know that nothing is going to happen to you as long as I’m around. And I’m going to be around for the rest of eternity…So I bear them good luck on that…I fucked up once. It’s not happening again.” We were quiet for a second and then I saw Alex’s face change.

“Did they touch you?” Alex asked and I knew what that meant. I looked up at him and shook my head “no”. They thought about it though, I thought to myself. Alex took in a breath that sounded like a hint of relief and released it. We were quiet for a second and then I pondered.

“What happened to us in my past life?” I asked and looked from the floor to him. Alex stared at me for a minute.

“I came, I saw, I married and we had two children...” He said and laid his head back again to look at the ceiling.

“I saw Michael,” I stated in a monotone. Alex jerked his head to me and furrowed his eyebrows.

“What do you mean?” I could have sworn that I saw Alex’s eyes turn a lighter shade of blue against the rooms’ shadows.

“Is Michael and Gabriel buried in those woods that we ran through?” I asked, but it seemed like I already knew the answer. Alex nodded his head slowly and I looked down at the floor.

“How…What happened, Madison?” Alex asked, putting his feet on the floor. He lifted my chin with his fingertips to get a good look at me. I didn’t look at him at first and then I looked him in the eye.

“I saw him, Alex,” I said and Alex only looked more confused. Alex opened his mouth to speak, but I silenced him with my words. “When we were running through the woods, I saw Michael running next to us, smiling.”

“How?” Alex asked and I slowly shrugged my shoulders. Alex backed away and stood up only to go to the miniature fridge. There was nothing in it, of course, but he simply closed it and began pacing the room.

Alex walked back to me and sat down in front of me again.

“Did you see Gabriel?” Alex asked.

“No,” I started and I saw the shine in his eyes fall a little. I continued. “Although, I heard his cry when we pulled onto the road.”

Alex looked at me hard and then ran his fingers through his hair.

“Where did you go tonight, Alex?” I asked and he looked up at me and for a second I saw a small twinkle in his eye. I knew immediately that he would work his way around the question just for s***s and giggles.

“Well, I beat the s**t out of some random guys, drove to get something to eat with a beautiful woman in the seat next to me-” He started, but I put my finger to his lips.

“Where did you go tonight?” I asked again, dropping my finger back into my lap. He huffed.

“There’s a group of fallen angels on Earth. They never really accepted me into their group because I had fallen in love with a human woman and had children,” Alex started. “Needless to say, the group was associated with Samuel and I didn’t know that Samuel hated me more than anyone else because he was the most jealous of our relationship.

“Ever since your passing, I’ve been fighting him and as you saw and learned from the vision, I’ve been meeting with Vincent’s crowd of angels and we’ve been retaliating against Samuel and the rest.”

“Samuel was the one that killed me, right?” I asked and I saw something cross over Alex, but was quickly gone.

“Yeah,” He muttered.

“Am I buried in the back yard?” I asked, feeling awkward about the sentence, but I had a feeling.

“Yeah,” Alex mumbled. I looked down at his hands. He had his fingers intertwined together to try to keep them from shaking.

I took his hands in mine and he looked at me. I looked up at him and suddenly his lips were on mine. He grabbed me from behind the neck and pulled me in harder. I laced my fingers in his hair and we were both kissing, our breath labored against each other’s lips.

Alex pulled back and put his forehead against mine, but kept his eyes closed.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Alex said under his breath and my breath caught. Alex looked into my eyes and I could see the age underneath the pupils. The worry that was intertwined into the blue irises. The pain and hurt that was buried in the crevices of his young wrinkle lines.

“I’ve missed you too, but didn’t know it,” I replied. I leapt on him and he fell back on the bed. After we laughed, we started kissing again. And again.

 

 

The young boy clenched onto my neck with his legs wrapped around my torso.

I click clacked up the stairs as fast as I could, clenching the child to me.

“Mama?” Michael asked, trying to look at my face. I quickly hushed him and ran into Michael’s bedroom. The pale blue room looked darker with the night out and the single candle lit. I quickly opened the double closet doors and set the boy inside. I put my finger to my lips and he nodded with a distressed look on his face. I silently closed the double doors, blew out the candle and then closed the bedroom door. I had every means to come back to him, but just in case.  

I had to get Gabriel.

I quickly took off running for him, taking my shoes off one by one, as he softly cried down the hallway in his room.

 

 

I shot up and tried to slow my breathing.

I need to check on the children, I thought, but rubbed my head as I thought about it again. The lights were off now, making the room black except for the light coming from outside of the window.

Alex stirred next to me and rolled over, putting his arm across my legs. I heard him suck in a waking breath and I looked down at him.

“Are you okay?” He asked, sleep drenching his words. He propped himself up on his elbow and rubbed his eyes while yawning.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I replied. He pulled me down next to him with a strong arm and kissed me on the lips. He was still warm from sleep.  With a groan, he pulled back and laid his head on my bare chest. He flopped his arm across my waist.

“I’ve missed you,” He said and sucked in a breath. I stroked his hair as I stared up at the ceiling.

“I’ve missed you, too,” I replied and smiled a little. As he continued sleeping, I thought about the dream. I rubbed Alex’s back and felt something. I frowned and felt along the rough line.

“My wings were there once,” Alex stated. He turned his head to look at me and I looked down at him.

“You didn’t heal?” I asked and he shook his head. He put his arm underneath his chin and looked off in the distance for a second then looked back at me.

“Angels don’t heal when it comes to wounds like that. Either way, I didn’t receive my powers until I met up with Vincent,” Alex said. I ran my fingers across his forehead and through his hair. He closed his eyes and opened them again.

“What is it? What happened?” Alex asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked, still looking at his details.

“You get a certain look with every life that you’ve been in when you are thinking hard about something.” I looked into his eyes and then looked back at his hair.

“I had a dream a few seconds ago.” Alex continued to stare at me. “It must be my own visions about the last moments of my life and it’s so ironic.” Alex furrowed his eyebrows like he was trying to grasp what I was saying.

“What do you mean?” He asked and I looked at him. I explained the past dreams, even the one where I was standing in a field, and he continued to stare at me. He took in a breath and looked at the other bed for a second.

“I hid in the exact closet when I was hiding from the guys,” I continued.

“I know,” Alex replied.

I felt my eyes start to sting and I pulled Alex’s shoulders. He responded and he came up to my shoulder and rested his head there.

“Why were you gone when Samuel came?” I asked and he continued to look everywhere else but me.

“The group was having an ‘important’ meeting…If I had known that it was a deception, everything would be so different…” Alex said, taking time to think in between each sentence. Alex looked over at me and I could see tears starting to form in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Madison.”

“Alex, it’s not your fault,” I replied and kissed him on the lips, putting my hand on his cheek. He rolled over onto his back, bringing me with him. I laid on his chest as he stared up at the ceiling, not saying a word. I ran my fingers along his smooth skin.

“I’m glad that I found you again…I wish I could say the same for our children,” Alex finally said. He ran his hands across his face while taking in a breath. I looked at him.

“Alex, stop punishing yourself for everything that happened,” I whispered. Alex didn’t look at me.

“I don’t think I ever will,” Alex whispered back. I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I laid my head back down and traced the hard but yet soft muscle structure of his chest. Then I finally found a reply, but acted like I had it all along.

“Well…did you purposefully tell Samuel to come to the house and kill us?” I asked and he pulled me up to look at his face. I widened my eyes as he furrowed his eyebrows. He rolled over to his side and let me lay on my side next to him.

“I would never do anything to hurt you, Madison,” Alex whispered. “I would never.”

“Then stop blaming yourself,” I said and raised an eyebrow a little. He frowned and rolled onto his back, defeated. He didn’t say anything, but pulled me in with his arm. We laid in silence, each of us staring at anything in the room.

Within minutes I was asleep again.

 

 

I swiftly ran down the hallway with my shoes in one hand, my heart pumping hard. My hand was almost on the doorknob…

 

 

Madison turned her head quickly in her dreams and I looked at her sleeping body. I knew she would start dreaming of the past sometime soon and here it was. I smoothed back her hair and placed my hand gently on her forehead. I could feel my pupils narrow a little in the darkness and then the feeling was gone.

Madison breathed in and then relaxed as her dreams faded into something more soothing. I stroked her cheek with two fingers and she rolled closer to me.

“Where have you been for all of these years?” I whispered even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. I pushed a fallen strand out of her face.

Her eyes no longer twitched under her eyelids and I watched her sleep until finally sleep came to me as well.

Reviews

[Alex Thomas]

A very informative chapter. The growing chemistry between the two protagonists is excellent. There is one typo at the beginning where "duffel" was spelled incorrectly. The switching to Alex's point of view was an exceptional way to end the chapter. I await the next one.