Holding On To Heaven

by Melyssa Winchester

Chapter Three

  Serenity

  Emma's words stayed with me all week, especially in the times when his voice would come. It was as if in those times when we were alone together, I found myself wondering if there was anything to the crazy idea my best friend brought up.

  He seemed more than a little concerned with my well-being, making a point of asking each and every time we spoke, which sometimes was more than just the times I wanted to sleep. More than that, he seemed interested in my day, who I met and what I thought of the classes and teachers I was interacting with. It’s something no spirit before him had ever done.

  I tried not to let Emma’s randomness play into our time together, but it was hard not to with the way the conversation often went. What started out as me being on guard, believing this voice to be just like the others was quickly turning into the opposite. I found myself enjoying the time we spent together.

  Is it possible Emma is right and I’m falling for the voice inside my head? I've never considered myself to be crazy, even with being institutionalized but if I was developing a crush, then maybe it was something I had to take the time and revisit. 

  What did he want with me? I already figured out he wasn't like the normal spirits. He could do things that it had been proven the others couldn’t. The way he spoke to me on the nights when he wasn't singing made me believe that he was much older than I originally thought. Either that or he had seen and been through horrible experiences that aged him considerably. It wouldn’t be all that surprising given the way life could be.

  With each passing day, with the visits becoming more frequent, the more the amount of questions I had grew. Whenever I asked him anything about himself though, or what he was doing inside my head, when I was pretty sure there were more entertaining people he could be haunting, he always gave me the same response.

  All will be told in its right time.

  Unfortunately for him, that wasn't an answer I could just accept. So after each visit I would piece together random facts he let slip, determined to put them together and figure out just what he was so hesitant to tell me. So far, he hadn't given me much to go on other than the fact that he wanted to silence the voices and make sure I remained safe. That only gave more credit to Emma’s angel theory, something I most definitely couldn’t wrap my mind around.  It even went a step further as he made sure at the end of one of our visits that I knew I could call on him at any time by just focusing on his voice.

  I wanted to tell him that it would be a whole lot easier to call for him if he would just give me his name, but I chickened out. It was strange that he hadn’t wanted to introduce himself though. It’s not often that I didn’t learn a spirits name. It was just another thing that set him apart from the others.

  So this is where I am now. Alone in my room, Emma having gone out for the third night in a row. Sitting on my bed, eagerly awaiting his presence, determined that this time, I wouldn't let him off so easily and I'd get the answers I wanted. Maybe not everything could be explained right now, but didn't I at least deserve to know who I was talking to?

  Truth be told, I didn't have a lot of experience with guys and even less when it was just the voice of a guy reverberating in my mind. It isn't that I’m not interested in them, because well, I am human after all, but given the amount of time I got to enjoy complete silence in my head, taking the time and getting to know someone was the furthest thing from it.

  On one of the rare occasions when my mom attempted to get close to me, she explained that she was disappointed that I hadn't turned out more like her. Apparently I’m the mirror image of my father, well if he’d been female anyway.

  According to her when I was born, I had her hair color, but by the time I turned seven, it changed completely until it was my father’s shade of brown. Add to that my eyes changing from the dark shade of blue they had been at birth to the hazel color that remained every day since and it was no surprise she’s so disappointed.

  My skin was fair, to the point that even through my teens I had very rarely gotten acne. This was just another thing to add to the list of things that annoyed my mother to no end. It seemed that the older I became, the more I turned into the very image of the man that had walked out on us years before. It made any real attempt at building a relationship with my mother practically impossible from that point on.

  So the point of all of this is, I knew I was decent enough looking, even if it is only because of my father.

  Because of the way I look, there had been guys in my life over the last five years that had shown some interest in me. It seemed though that once they got past the shallowness of the physical they faltered before getting to know the parts of me buried underneath. It’s pretty well documented that I’m not exactly all there. People didn't go out of their way to mock me, but when they thought I couldn't hear them, well that’s when their real feelings became known.

  There had been one guy that I had been able to form an attachment with. I hadn't seen him in just over two years, but he made an impact none the less.

  Mom moved us about a year after I was released from the center and he'd been my next door neighbor. He didn't seem to mind that sometimes I seemed to be talking to myself when no one else was around, or that I actually preferred being on my own to being in a large crowd. No, he accepted me as I was. He reminded me of the male version of Emma.

  Graham Hudson is the one guy in the last ten years to treat me like I’m normal. I wasn't sure where he was these days, given that when I'd gone away to college we hadn't kept in touch, but I hope that wherever he is, he’s happy. He deserves that much. If it hadn't been for him during those first couple of years back in the real world, I don't know where I would have ended up.

  I owed him.

  “Serenity...”

  With a quick glance at the clock on my nightstand, I realized that just like the times before, he was right on schedule.

   “No. You don't get to do this. If you're going to keep coming to me every night then we better get some stuff out of the way right now.”

  “I'm unsure of what you mean.”

  “Who are you and don't you dare give me that line that you will reveal it all at the right time. Right now is the right time.”

  “I am Gabriel.”

  Well that wasn't hard at all. I should have taken this approach sooner. Maybe I would know a whole lot more than just his name and that he wanted to protect me by now.

  “Hello Gabe.”

  He laughed at the shortening of his name and I found myself enjoying the sound. He hadn’t really laughed much since he started talking to me, so when he did, I took the time to enjoy it. Though in his defense, if he is a spirit, there wasn’t a whole lot of things to laugh about. I had to figure wandering the world aimlessly would get pretty depressing after a while.

  “Hello Serenity.”

  Since I'd gotten him to open up I figure I might as well go for broke and ask him what he is doing inside my head. Maybe this time I'd get a better response. Who knew getting upset with a spirit could give you such great results?

  “Why do you visit me so often?”

  “It is what I enjoy doing.”

  I wasn't exactly sure what to do with that so I just continued. “Could you be more specific?”

  “I've been watching over you for some time now. You struggle with the magnitude of your gift and I want to do everything in my power to alleviate that pain for you.”

  “Why do that for me?”

  I didn't hear him for a while and I started to think I pushed him too far and he had taken off. Just the thought of him leaving made my stomach queasy. I didn't want him to go. I couldn't explain why, but ever since he’d shown up and started talking with me, I didn't feel like the freak I know deep down I am. In fact for the first time since I’d been cursed with this horrible ability, I was starting to see why people call it a gift.

  Gabriel had a calming effect on me and while I couldn't explain how or why it affected me so much
, I enjoyed it. I wasn't quite ready to be rid of it just yet.

  “You do not see it Serenity, but you are very special. That is why I want to protect you and why I come to you every night. I'm taking a tremendous risk being around you this way, but for some reason I cannot ascertain, I need to be here.”

  For the second time in the conversation he rendered me speechless. As I rack my brain trying to come up with something to say, other than admitting I felt the same, he spoke again and I resigned myself to the fact that if he kept this up, I'd be living the rest of my days mute.

  “I know you have questions for me and I promise that when the time is right I will answer every one of them, but right now is not that time. I have said as much as I can without going against the very reason I am here. I am very sorry.”

  The door opened, light spilling in from the hallway and landing right in my line of vision, causing me to pull the blanket up in front of my eyes to block it. Focusing all of my energy on the guy in my head and blocking out Emma and her uncanny ability to pick the worst possible time to interrupt, I tried to reach out to him before he disappeared.

  Call it daddy issues, call it whatever you want, but I wasn't ready to say goodbye to him.

  “Please don't leave. I have so much I want to say...”

  After a few minutes of radio silence I began to realize that whatever gift I had to speak with spirits obviously wasn’t working both ways. They could contact me whenever they felt like it, but I was powerless when doing the same. It just depressed the hell out of me. I wasn't ready to say goodnight to him, not with everything that had just been said. I wanted more time. I wanted to let him know he wasn't alone.

  Resigning myself to the fact that I wouldn't hear from him anymore tonight, I turned over in the bed, mumbling a goodnight to Emma before curling myself into a ball, finally releasing the sigh that I'd been holding. When I finally finished mentally berating myself for not answering him when I'd had the chance, I closed my eyes tightly, fully prepared to let sleep claim me for another night. It was then I heard it, faint to the point of a whisper, yet somehow very clear.

  “I will never leave you, Serenity. I am always with you.”