Tall blond. It rushed everything back to my memory. Craig. I don’t understand how I couldn’t remember him; even after Angel mentioned him I was still confused.
And then all my memories with him rushed in. Our prom, high school graduation, going off to college together. The most popular quarterback dating the most beautiful nerd. Every time I thought of our future together, I always saw us living somewhere in the city with many children.
But now I think about him and I feel nothing. Its like a switch was turned off and my feelings for him are gone. It has nothing to do with Angel. This place has changed me. And it has everything to do with Angel. I am completely obsessed and I am immensely broken.
“Craig,” I finally say, “is my boyfriend.”
Angel looked over at me and laughed. He threw his head back and laughed like if I had told him the funniest joke ever. He looked back at me with tears in his eyes from the laughter.
“Your boyfriend,” he said doubtfully.
“He’s my high school sweetheart. I couldn’t remember him before, but I do now.”
Angel looked over at me. He looked angry. His jaw locked, and he turned away. I couldn’t meet his eyes. I felt ashamed. Even though I couldn’t remember Craig before, I still cheated on him. We were quiet for a long time, and it become more awkward then ever. I began to cry silently.
Angel caught a tear before it dropped from my chin. I looked over at him and held his hand. I looked at his eyes illuminating with the dashboard and my body shivered. I’d never thought that I could feel like this for someone. Craig never made me feel this way. Never in a million years. Angel looked at the deserted road then back at me and smiled. That’s all I needed to forget the reason for my tears, his smile; it faded away any type of sadness.
That was the first time I realized that my feelings for Angel were something much stronger than just lust and affection. At first, I thought that I was feeling this way for him because he was there for me when I felt vulnerable and lonely. He’d found me at the bottom of a pit, dying. He was there for me when I was crying at night. I’d thought that I felt this way for him because of the way my body reacted whenever he touched me, or whenever he even looked at me.
Now I realized that what I felt for him was something much deeper. Something I’d never experienced before. I didn’t think I could explain it. I could feel whenever he was around me. My body calmed down whenever he touched me, even when we were in the middle of a shootout. The love that I had for him was something strong, burning heavily.
Love?
Was that what I was feeling?
What did he think about me? Was he just trying to complete his mission so he could go back home and become a ladies’ man again? Was I just a pastime?
He held my hand tightly, reminding me that he was there and stared out at the road. His touch was cool; his skin sent tiny sparks of electricity all over my body. I leaned into his shoulder gently, trying not to hurt him. I closed my eyes and breathed his scent.
He wrapped his arm tightly around my neck hard enough to stop the airflow in my body. I couldn’t breathe. I began kicking and screaming until I bit down on his arm and he released me. I grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it towards the mountainside as hard as I could. The Hummer didn’t flip, but it stopped abruptly.
I jumped out of the truck and ran away from him as fast as I could. “Samantha!” I heard him say but I just kept running. He caught up to me and tackled me to the floor. I turned around and punched him in the face. He spit blood and smoothly grabbed both of my hands with his good arm.
“God dammit Samantha, relax.” He said.
I looked up at him as tears ran down my cheeks. He didn’t look angry, but he still had a glint of anger in his eyes that he was trying to control. I looked at his lip and he was bleeding from the corner. He licked his lips again and got off me. I just lay there, in the dirt, with tears streaming down my face. I got up and he began to walk towards the truck. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t either. He got into the driver’s side and I got into the back seat and lay down, letting all the tears in the world escape silently.
We drove just like that for a few hours, in silence while I cried my eyes out. I didn’t want to keep hurt him; that was the last thing I wanted to do. One minute, we were cuddly and cute and the next I was biting him and punching him in the face. There was something obviously wrong with me. I’m not schizophrenic; I could tell you that. But it had to be some sort of post-traumatic experience. I wrapped my arms around myself and remembered Hunter and her spirit.
I sat up and look at the dashboard, well past midnight. I looked around us and we were still moving. The scene was a little different. There was sand all over the place.
“Where are we?” I asked with a small voice.
He didn’t look back or answer for a few minutes, so I climbed over to the front seat. He looked at me, and then looked back at the road. “We’re well into Jordan. We’ll be in Egypt soon.”
That gave me a pang of disappointment. I wanted to go home, of course. I wanted this nightmare to be over. But I didn’t want to leave Angel. I didn’t know how to explain that to him. I didn’t know how to tell him that being away from him would hurt me.
“I’m sorry I hit you last night. I don’t know what is wrong with me. This is getting out of control.”
“PTSD.”
I looked at him. “What?”
He looked over at me. “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Of course. “Yeah, it just didn’t register with me before.” I ran my hands over my face. My teachers would be disappointed in me.
“You were just under too much stress to think about the symptoms you are having. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
I looked over at him. I turned on the overhead lights so I could take a look at his lip. He automatically turned his head towards me while his eyes were still on the road. His lip was cracked on the bottom corner and a little swollen. But it looked okay. He turned his blue eyes away and I let go of his face, intimidated.
“I’m sorry,” I said again as I turned the lights off.
“It’s okay. It just proves to me that I shouldn’t get you too mad because you have a pretty mean right hook.” He looked over at me and we both burst out laughing at the same time.
I looked back out the window. More sand. And houses that looked like they were part of the sand. Little windows here and there. But Egypt was certainly something completely different than what I’d seen in the Middle East. This was getting pretty regular now. But it meant that I was that much closer to leaving Angel’s side for good. I looked at the scenery just as Angel stopped the car.
I jumped out of the truck because I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The structure looked like something from another planet. I couldn’t see much of the things that we’d passed on the desert because of the clouds covering the moon. But this structure I saw clearly with all of the lit torches surrounding it. It looked like a huge rock. But when I ran closer to it I realized that it was some sort of large house. I snapped as many pictures as I could before I turned back to Angel.
We drove through the entrance area. I could see why he’d chosen this place. It was in the middle of nowhere. There was no electricity inside, and the tourist population was low at that time because the heat was unbearable without air conditioning. He parked the truck in another secluded gated area and a man wearing long robes approached us. This made me uneasy. But Angel grabbed my hand in assurance. We were in Egypt now, I thought to myself. I shouldn’t treat these men as terrorists.
Angel dug out a small phone from his pocket, dialed a number and pressed send. “We’re here,” was all he said and hung up. He destroyed the phone before I was able to ask him about it. I looked at it on the floor. It was in a million pieces.
I gave him a questioned look and he replied, “Captain reserved this place. The chopper will be here in a few days.”
I just looked at him. So it was all over. This would possibly be the last ti
me I would see him. He kissed my hand and walked forward. I followed him. The man in robes didn’t approach us. Angel pulled the duffle from the trunk and threw it on the corner.
Angel walked towards the man and he said, “We weren’t expecting you this morning,” with a heavy accent.
He gave Angel a piece of linen that matched the sand exactly. Angel shook the man’s hand and said, “We made good time with this vehicle.”
They opened the linen and draped it over the Hummer. Once it was covered, the men placed a few rocks to hold it in place.
“I assure you that the hotel is empty at the time, so you guys have it to yourselves. Most of the people who work here are gone for a few weeks courtesy of your Captain. There isn’t anyone here that will divulge your whereabouts to an unwanted party.” I looked at the man in astonishment. I wondered how much the hotel got paid for this.
We followed the man inside the dark hallways. I couldn’t see anything so I held on to Angel. The hallways were extremely tight, and most of them were roofless so the moon was playing peekaboo with a few clouds. We went up a narrow staircase and walked along the top of the structure. We made it to a door that he unlocked with his keys.
“What is the name of this place anyways?” That was the first time I’d spoken since we arrived. Both men turned to me.
The man with the white robes answered, “This is the Ecolodge Desert. The name of the hotel is Adere Amellal in Siwa.”
I tried to remember all of that. “And what is your name?”
“That I cannot answer, just as I don’t know your names. It is better to keep it this way to prevent problems in the future.”
He pushed the door open and walked away without another word. The room was small with a beautiful king size bed in the middle of it. There was a mosquito net covering the bed, making it look magical. There were multiple white pillows everywhere, on the floors, by the windows, and all over the bed. There were a few candles mounted on the walls, no other source of lighting. I walked into the room and sat on the bed. Angel dropped the duffle bag and closed the door to come and sit next to me.
I looked up at him and began to cry. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to go home if it means that I’m not going to have you by my side.” I poured my tears out to him like a little girl.
He looked down at me with sad eyes. He touched my cheeks lightly with his fingertips. “I’m just confused about all this. I’m confused about everything that’s happened.”
I took a deep breath, but his expression didn’t change. Frustrated, I walked out of the room. I didn’t know where I was going, but I needed to get out of there. I felt like an idiot. What made me think that someone like Angel would even think about me in the way that I thought about him? I mean, he’d kind of explained his feelings at the base, but that might have been the effects of the drugs. Now that I was feeling something deeper than lust, everything changed. I wiped away my tears and walked away from the hotel. I looked out at the desert. It looked so quiet and peaceful, isolated from the war and all of the problems that I’d been through.
Something caught my eyes as I scanned the view. By the corner of the hotel where the desert began, there was a deep red square carpet with white pillows lining the edges. Near the pillows, there were a few small wooden tables with candles on top of them.
I wiped the remaining tears away and walked towards the carpet on the floor. Once I reached it, I took my shoes off and stepped on the plush carpet. I sat on one of the pillows and stared out at the mountains of sand. The stars were remarkable. I lay down on the pillows and looked up.
I was beginning to concentrate on the view of stars that I had until Angel’s head blocked my view. Annoyed, I got up and sat facing the desert. The sand was flying with the small wind we had tonight, or this morning. The mountains looked like something out of a movie.
I felt Angel sit next to me so I looked at him. His expression still hadn’t changed so I just looked back out to the desert. “I don’t want you to tell me that you love me because I really think it will freak me out. I do care about you Samantha. I want us both to come out of this alive and in one piece. I feel like you are rushing this; not the relationship, but I’ve been concentrating on getting home, not on us. I’m sorry if I made you feel used or unimportant.”
I didn’t say anything back. He was right. I was trying to make this into a love story where a girl falls in love with her knight in shining armor. Her guardian angel who came from Heaven. That’s not the way it happens in real life. People don’t come home canoodling after a traumatic event like this. People come home a little crazy. I needed to live in today and get out of here alive. I needed to go to therapy when I got home. Then I needed to see if my feelings were still the same for Angel, though I thought that all the therapy in the world wouldn’t change my feelings for him.
Angel got up. I looked at him as he looked out at the desert. He still had on his black army pants, though all of his ammunition was gone. But his body from behind was just an eyeful. “Have you ever thought of becoming a male model?”
I saw his cheeks rise before he turned to me. He was smiling. “I didn’t want females to stalk my personal life every time I came out of my house.”
“Oh. So you do know that you’re extremely hot.”
He didn’t say anything to me, which showed me that he was more conceited than I’d thought. “Ew.” He began to blow out all the candles on the tables as he ignored my remark. “So are you still a player, or a man whore or whatever?”
He finished his task and sat on the pillow next to mine, facing me. “I’ve been with a lot of women.” Gross, I already knew that one. Thanks for reminding me. But that’s all he said about the topic. “Come.” He lay down on the pillows and pulled me on top of him facing the illuminating sky.
“Do you know anything about stars?” That was something I’d always wanted to get into, but never made time for. Maybe when I got home, I’d start with buying a telescope and googling lots of stuff until I learned something.
“I only know certain things, like that,” he said, pointing at the brightest star, “is the North Star, or Polaris. And to the right of that,” he said, grabbing my finger and making me trace a series of stars, “is the Big Dipper.” I laughed at that. Whenever Hunter got a small breakout on her cheek, she always compared it to the Big Dipper. He caressed my finger lightly and continued his tutorial. “Um, I think that right there is Aquarius, but that’s all I know about stars.”
As soon as he was finished with his tutorial, we saw a shooting star to our left and I smiled. “I think you killed that one by pointing at it.” I turned around to face him. I was on top of him with my hands on his iron chest and made a wish. He looked confused. “You’re not supposed to point at stars, it’s a myth.”
His facial expression changed, but his eyes closed. “The sun will be coming up soon.” He opened his eyes again and looked into mine.
“How do you know?”
He shrugged his good shoulder. “I don’t know. I can just feel it. Well, it’s probably like 5 a.m. or something. Because the moon is gone, but the sun is not out yet. See?”
I looked over my shoulder and stared out at the sky. He was right. The sky was completely dark. “Do you want to see Venus?”
I looked back at him and he smiled at me. He patted his chest and I rested my head on it. His hand began to stroke my hair and I closed my eyes. His breathing was incredibly slow; his heartbeat was slow as well.
I must have fallen asleep because I heard Angel calling my name. “Samantha, look.” With my eyes half open, I sat up. I looked over at the sky in search of the stars. Instead I found just one star. This one was massive and a deep orange. The sky was completely clear and the sun had risen.
There was a small black dot in the corner of the sun. But the sun was rising quickly, leaving the black dot behind. “What’s that?” I looked over at Angel who was leaning on his elbows.
“That’s Venus. Look.”
I looked back at the sun. It was rising, and it had left Venus behind already. The sun was getting brighter, brighter orange, and then yellow. Venus was visible for a few minutes, but it quickly faded away in the background. Now it just looked like a bright star before the sun rose completely, and Venus was visible no more.
Angel came up next to me and caressed my cheek. He kissed my lips gently and helped me stand up. “We should really get some sleep. It’s going to get extremely hot out here in the afternoon.” That scared me.
Angel held my hand and led me around the hotel. Everything was extremely quiet. There wasn’t any noise of any kind. We walked up the narrow staircase and into our dark bedroom. I removed my pants and unbraided my hair.
I threw myself on the bed, welcoming sleep. This bed was huge. Angel came next to me. I could feel his bare chest on my back and his arm around my waist. He kissed my hair lightly and I rested peacefully.
Chapter 12
I woke up because the heat was unbearable. I rolled over, but Angel was gone. I got out of bed, looking for a place to wash up, but got caught up with the view from the open window. Excitement flushed my mind. There was a beautiful blue lake right near the corner of the hotel, in the middle of the desert. Excited, I opened the duffle bag and pulled out my sports bra and shorts. I grabbed my towel and toothbrush essentials with the camera in my other hand. I really should be looking for some sort of bathroom but I was just too excited.
My stomach made a huge protest of hunger as I ran down the stairs. It was hot, and I mean really hot. There wasn’t much change of heat between here and Afghanistan, but the sand was burning, radiating more heat up and around the desert. I felt sweat tickle down my forehead. The hotel was even more beautiful in the daytime. The structure was the exact same color of the desert. The walls were rough; it could scratch your skin if you weren’t careful.
I didn’t look at anything else in the hotel, just the exit so I could swim. Finally out, I sprinted towards the water. I dropped my towel, took off my sandals, and walked towards the water in only my underwear. It was cold enough to cool me down from the heat. I walked deeper and deeper into the lake until I began swimming. I went underwater to wet my hair and was surprised at how incredibly clear the water was. I was able to see the bottom of the lake with no problem.
My Sweet Escape: A Touched by an Angel Novel Page 13
