by S. L. Naeole
“What does that have to do with it?” I asked.
“Sit down,” he instructed, taking the box from my hands and placing its crumpled mass on the small bed. We sat down, the mattress having little give. Graham sighed once more and then began to speak.
“Ameila…she did that whole morphy-changy thing so that she would look like Lark. She said it would make it easier for me to handle the change. And…you know—I’m a guy. When I see a beautiful girl, especially one that’s now my wife, and all I can think about is…well…being with her, things got…heavy. Ameila said that that was a good thing—and all I felt after that was warm, like I was sitting in a warm bath or something.
“I saw a lot of lights-”
“Lights?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Like, spotlights, you know? Everything got all light and bright and I couldn’t see anything after a while. I heard this humming sound though, and my head started to fill up with pictures of people that I’ve come across in my life. Pictures of my mom, my dad, your parents; hell, even Stacy flashed by a couple of times—and none of them good times—but you were there the most, just like I told you when…you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Anyway, the lights that I saw, they kinda faded, and then everything faded. That’s what it seemed like, anyway. After that, it was like my mind was on rewind or something—no, no, it was fast forwarding, starting from the very beginning. It was like I was living my life all over again, every single second of it, no skipping, no editing, nothing. I even relived my dreams—can you imagine what that’s like? Reliving the nightmares of an eight year-old?
“I saw things I didn’t even realize I had, things I think I blocked out. Every second, it was like a day of my life went by, and the more I saw, the more I realized how awful I was. The things I did, the things I didn’t do—especially when it came to you.
“I didn’t understand when it started why it was happening, why I was seeing all of these things. But by the time it was all over, I knew that I was seeing what the angels had seen—it was like I had to see who I was, and whether or not I actually deserved to be given the chance to live forever. I thought they were going to change their minds because I saw who I was—I was a jerk, Grace.”
My hand rested on his forearm as my head tossed from side to side in a vigorous denial. “You weren’t a jerk, Graham.”
“It felt like it,” he said softly. “It felt like I had done nothing to protect you. I had all this popularity, but I never used it to help you out, never used it to make your life at school easier. I should have, Grace. I should have done what I could for you.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what you would have done. That’s what you did! You stood up for me to Robert, and Lark, and Stacy. That’s what a friend does.” He was so adamant, I felt a rush of warmth fill me, and this transferred through my hand; he looked down at it, and then at me, his eyes soft.
“Remember when we were eight, and Mrs. Mackey got mad at you because those girls tore your dress? Remember she started freaking out all of a sudden?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I remember that.”
“You were the one who stayed with her. You held her hand and you told me to go get help, even after what she did. You always were the generous one, Grace. You were the forgiving one, the understanding one, the patient one. I used to think how the hell could you stand me, how could you possibly deal with me? Of course, now I know what you are-”
“What am I, Graham?” I looked at him, my eyes wide with anticipation of his answer. “What am I?”
His mouth closed, his voice silenced as he realized his faux pas. And I felt guilty. He didn’t understand. How could he? He didn’t see the harm or the difficulty caused by what we’d all learned when my dad and Ameila finally told me the truth. But even the truth didn’t give me the answers that I had been seeking.
“Graham, it’s okay,” I reassured him. “It doesn’t matter what I am; not anymore.”
“I screwed this talk up, didn’t I?” he said with a half-hearted laugh.
“No, no you didn’t. This is just how it is with us.”
He shrugged and a little puff of exhalation whooshed out of him. “Anyway, when my memories finally arrived at the point where I met Lark, it was like everything was different. It felt different. Hell, it even smelled different. I didn’t really understand why, or how—it just did. She changed my life that much.
“And then everything stopped. Everything just stopped and I thought that was it, but it got…really, really dark, like my head was empty or something. I couldn’t think; I couldn’t call up a single thought or memory. I couldn’t even remember what light was supposed to look like, or what it was suppose to do. There was nothing in my head, nothing in my head at all, except for two things.
“You and Lark: my best friend and my wife. I started to panic then, you know. I had a wife—I had a wife! What was I thinking? I’m eighteen, still in high school, and I have a wife? And I was doing all of these things to be with her—getting married, doing this turning thing, and who knows what else—and what were the guarantees that our relationship wouldn’t just turn into crap like it did with my parents?
“Oh God, Grace, that fear started to spread like mildew or something. What was I doing? What was I doing, getting married to someone I barely knew? What was I doing getting married to someone who wasn’t even human?
“And what if I was making a mistake? What if I wasn’t supposed to marry her? What if I was supposed to marry someone else? What if what I was doing was changing me, making me doubt myself, turning me into something or something I wasn’t? What if turning would make me into some kind of monster who didn’t recognize or care about anything?
“And then everything was gone. It was like my doubt had taken the only two things I had left away. I was alone and I suddenly felt really, really cold. And then hot, and it kept going like that, like I was being tossed from a freezer to a fire, back and forth until I thought if I didn’t die from third degree burns, I would freeze to death and that my body would end up on one of those alien abduction papers they sell at your dad’s grocery store.
“I was scared, I was in pain, and I was…well, I was hungry.” He stopped then, and snorted. “That’s how I knew that everything was okay. How could I be hungry if I was dying? How could I be different if I could still find time for food?
“Lark, her voice was in my head and she told me to open my eyes, and for a second I forgot how to. I think I overloaded my brain or something with all of those memories and fears, but after a while I did eventually open my eyes, and Grace, it’s like seeing everything lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Everything is so bright, so…shiny. I’ve never seen it before, you know, that glow that hangs around Lark and Robert—I mean, I kinda knew it was there, maybe they always seemed like they were unreal and…glowy—but when I looked at Ameila and Lark, I could see this awesome light around them. It was incredible! Have you seen it before?”
I nodded. “It’s how I knew what Robert was.”
“Wow. That’s just…it’s….”
“Yes, yes it is,” I agreed.
He looked at me and grinned, this newfound connection between us obviously giving him something that he somehow felt we’d needed. “So yeah, that’s about it. It wasn’t that big of a deal in some ways, but in others it was a total mind game. I checked my fingers for, you know, frostbite and burns, but everything that I felt was in my head. It was terrible for me, but you’re like some kind of Olympics brain gold-medalist or something from what Lark’s told me, so I think you’ll be able to handle this without that big of a deal.”
He seemed so pleased, so self-assured that I was hesitant to ask him my next question, but I feared that if didn’t, I’d never get a chance to, so I simply blurted it out.
“What’s sex with an angel like?”
Watching his reaction to my question was like watching a geyser prepare to blast a million gallons of blistering ho
t water into the sky. His cheeks expanded and emptied rapidly with air, his eyes bulged, blinked, and bulged some more, and his face turned a rather embarrassing shade of red before darkening to an almost purple, strangled sort of shade.
A gurgling sound deep within his chest, followed by a muddled, gargling that made no sense to me at all proceeded to fill up the silence left after my question, and I realized that I wouldn’t get an answer from him that would satisfy me, or ease him of the obvious discomfort he felt, so I left him to compose himself and headed into the bathroom that stood at one end of the room to change.
I closed the door and smiled at my reflection in the mirror as I heard the unmistakable sound of a hand slapping against a sweaty forehead behind me—an act that was so Graham—and felt full with the knowledge that he had succeeded in being the best friend that he feared he had not. He had trusted me with his secrets, his experiences, and had done so without questioning his ability to trust me to keep them to myself. To know that I had someone like him in my corner was a completion of something I didn’t know had been waiting.
Quickly, I undressed and removed the clothes that Lark had made from their crushed box. I pulled on the jeans, the fabric soft and clingy as it slipped over my hips. I tugged on the zipper and slipped the button through its hole and admired the fit. It was like I’d worn these a thousand times before.
“Only a blind angel could do something that impossible,” I said to myself before slipping the blouse over my head. It fell over my skin like water, the hem hanging past my hips, almost like a mini dress. The sleeves ended at my elbows, dropping down in points while just below my chest, a ribbon crisscrossed, ending behind me in a bow.
The neckline was as low as I thought, but it wasn’t as revealing as I thought it would be because a lacy, almost gauzy silver panel sat between the fabric and my skin. White ribbon weaved in and out at my shoulders, and I saw that they actually held the sleeves to the blouse, leaving a small gap that exposed the bare skin between.
I slipped Stacy’s bracelet onto my wrist and grabbed the tube of gloss that I had stuffed into the pocket of my skirt, passing a few swipes of color across my lips before I declared myself done.
And, despite the fact that I had done nothing more than add a bit of deepened shine to my mouth and straightened my hair, I could see that I looked different. Maybe it was the clothes. Maybe it was the fact that I knew that after this moment, everything about who I was would change. I was going to be married.
“Holy hell, I’m going to be a wife,” I breathed. My eyes dropped down to my left hand, where the ring that Robert had given me sat, embracing my ring finger like a lover would. Two small crystals were embedded into the braided, silvery white metal, each one a half that formed a heart, symbolizing how Robert and I completed each other. It was a notion that was more poignant given the fact that one crystal teardrop came from him, while the other my own. It was the one thing I appreciated, the only thing I appreciated from being who I was.
The idea of being married should have frightened me, it should have sent me screaming in terror, but I had faced death more times than anyone should. I had faced death, and now I was about to marry him, and I never felt more sure about anything else in my life.
I could hear Graham’s words in my head, about how everything he saw after turning had looked brighter. I knew I didn’t need to turn to see things that way. My future wasn’t a long one, but it was going to be spent with Robert, and that was enough to give me that same, starry eyed outlook.
THE VOW OF DAWN
“You look incredible,” Graham managed to whisper as we stood at the doorway that would take us outside.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“Are you ready to do this?”
I nodded.
“Good. We’re going to do a bit of walking first—don’t worry about your shoes.”
I looked at him and then my gaze traveled to the floor, smirking when I saw his pale feet planted on the floor beside mine. “Your feet are so white they’re almost clear,” I joked.
“Ha-ha, very funny. Your feet aren’t exactly tan either you know.”
“I know. They aren’t as wild animal hairy either.”
“You could always give yourself away,” he threatened.
“Fine, fine. I’m sorry.” I threw him an apologetic look that was far from sincere, and he snorted. I snorted back, and then we were walking outside again. The table was empty, the lights above swaying with the slight breeze that had begun to blow through. I could smell the scent of something almost briny, and as we headed past the threshold of the lights behind us, my feet touched something cold and gritty.
I didn’t stop to question what it was, and instead trudged forward until I saw the soft glow of amber ahead. As we grew closer, the glow grew brighter, and only when we were mere feet away from it did I realize that it was coming from Robert, who stood beside his sister, the two of them giving off a vibrant light that stretched past them to reveal another person whose face was unrecognizable, though no less beautiful.
Stacy appeared from the shadows to the side of us, a small bundle of freshly picked wildflowers in her hand. “Here’s your something blue,” she said, her mouth curled up in a pleased smile.
The blossoms were closed to the night air, but it wasn’t that difficult to see that a good amount of them were indeed blue. I reached out and hugged her, smiling myself when her arms didn’t hesitate this time, and she held me just as closely.
“I’m happy for you,” she whispered into my ear.
“Thank you for being my friend, and for being here,” I whispered back.
She pulled away and headed towards the three bodies that stood just a few meters away, leaving me to stand alone with Graham, whose grin could not be avoided, even in the semi-darkness.
“Well, Frank,” he said gleefully. “It looks like this is it.”
“I suppose so, Rocky,” replied.
“Last chance to change your mind and run away with me.”
“I’m not going to change my mind. I want to do this. Besides, I think your wife would be quite upset with the both of us if we decided that now would be a good time to finally decide we wanted to be with each other.”
He chuckled. “You’re right—it was a stupid escape plan. Okay then, let’s get this show on the road.” I looped my arm with Graham’s and proceeded to take the steps towards a face that looked as expectant as I was sure mine did.
Robert was holding a flower in his hand, a white lily covered in deep pink spots, the ends of the petals merging into that same deep rose shade as it met the vibrant green of the stem. He was wearing a pair of black slacks and a white shirt, the first three buttons left open, and I could see quite clearly as he swallowed upon seeing my pleased smile.
Beside him, Lark stood, her hands holding onto a single yellow daffodil, its colors bright even in the dim glow. She stepped forward and handed the single flower to me. “For your mother,” was all she said before stepping back, taking her place next to her brother.
“Thank you,” I said, stunned and confused by the implied significance.
Shaking the thoughts that formed in my head, I approached Robert, nervous and joyful all at the same time. Graham unwound his arm from mine and, after a poignant pause, placed my hand into Robert’s waiting one.
“Okay, man. I’m filling in for her dad here, so the only thing I can say is to just take care of her and love her or else I’ll send your sister after you.”
Robert laughed and patted Graham on his shoulder with his free hand, his eyes filled with mirth. “I promise, brother.”
When Graham stepped away, Robert’s hand closed over mine, his other hand slipping the lily that it still held over my ear, the blossom now resting behind it. “So lovely,” he said softly, his eyes glassy as he looked into mine.
Leading me forward a few steps, we turned until we stood in front of man whose face was unfamiliar and yet not, his light, deep set eyes looking down on me with a kin
dness that I could almost feel. He had dark hair, probably not black, but definitely a rich brown that was just long enough to graze the collar of his shirt that, even in the dim light that was cast by the angels beside me, still told of its vibrant crimson shade, while a white sash draped over his shoulders like a snowcap.
His face lit up with pleasure as he looked at the two of us and I couldn’t help the blush that filled my cheeks when the kindness in his eyes shifted into something a bit…more. “What a beautiful couple—so devoted, so filled with promise. We’ll begin in just a moment.”
I looked at him quizzically and turned my gaze to Robert, who only smiled and winked. Knowing that there was no point in asking why we were waiting, I instead focused my eyes downward. My feet were sinking in a strange combination of cool, soft, and gritty that swam between my toes, even as it remained still. Tiny, tiny pieces of history clung to my skin and sparkled like diamonds, rich in their stories of what they had once been. I wiggled my toes and marveled at how they sank further into the ground, swallowed by it as surely as if it were water.
“Sand…we’re standing in sand,” I breathed.
A shot of warmth hit my arm, followed by a burst of light that stole my attention, turning my head towards it and catching the first glimmer of sunlight peeking over the horizon.
“It’s time,” the man announced, and I moved my head to look at him. In his hands he held a book that had not been there earlier. It was open to a page filled with characters that I could not make out. He smiled at me and stepped closer. His hand rose to pull the sash down, and he proceeded to bind Robert’s and my hand together with it, his motions so quick I nearly convinced myself that I had closed my eyes and missed it completely.
“Now then,” he said, “We are gathered here, friends and family, to witness this joining of two halves into the whole of one heart. Though they have not been long on this road together, their trials and the depth of their bond goes beyond any length that time might have afforded them.
