The Angels

His phone chimed again, to notify him of an incoming text message. He was tempted to ignore it - after all, it was almost midnight and he felt more tired than he had words to express. Even exhausted wouldn't have even began to describe it. Weary to the bones, maybe, but said bones he felt like a skeleton of incandescent steel - dangerously liquid and painfully hot. But the power of habit was strong - he checked his phone anyway.

Heard about today's snafu. Must have sucked. Let's go wash it off with beer. Pick you up in 15.

It was from Brett, one of the very few people who would dare text him at such a late hour. But he was right, of course. He'd spent an interminable 14 hours at work, trying to untangle the mess that Clara had created - had intentionally created - by modifying all the user passwords on all three hundred company computers. She'd paid for it with her job, of course - not that it had been that big a price to pay. She had resigned the day before, claiming  she'd found a better job somewhere else.

Except he knew that was by no means true. He knew because he also knew the true reason of her resignation. And it was him. Clara, his right-hand for over two years, Clara, an IT specialist more gifted and more passionate about it than many men working in the field, Clara who'd been a friend and, more recently, a lover, Clara had turned on him...

Because you've let her down, you dummy. Because you've hurt her. Because you somehow thought it would be ok to make her your lover for a few weeks and then discard her like some useless rag. Because you were enough of an idiot to think, to genuinely believe, that saying I'm sorry and Let's stay friends, was going to make it all just fine. Because you keep doing the same mistake again and again and again. Grossly underestimating your capacity for hurting people. Women, mostly. Smart women. Beautiful women. Women you most likely don't even deserve. And yet you keep telling yourself you can get into their pants without getting into their hearts too and isn't that the most outrageous lie you've ever told yourself?

At least with Clara he had had the common sense of never inviting her into his crib for anything more than sex and the occasional movie night. No, feeble consolation though that was, at least he hadn't led her to believe he'd wanted her for anything more. Which hadn't stopped her from falling in love, but still, this time he felt like he himself had been beyond reproach.

Unlike that other time with her...

The sound of the door opening interrupted his thoughts. It was Brett, so familiar and so at home in his apartment, he didn't even feel the need to knock. He grinned and put down the bulging shopping bag he was holding in his arms.

"Changed my mind", he said. "We'll still do the beer, but save ourselves a walk to the pub and back. There is enough in there to last us both for the rest of the night".

And saying so he ripped the paper bag to reveal at least two dozen cans of Carlsberg beer and a few bags of chips and peanuts. Opening one for himself, he made himself at home in one of the armchairs near the door.

"So... want to talk about it? Or would you rather drink you first beer in silence?"

"You already know the story. All of it. There's nothing more that I can say".

Brett nodded wisely and helped himself to a bag of chips too. They would talk when his friend felt like talking. But that wasn't now.

His friend, in his turn, opened his own can of beer and stared at Brett with a bitter smile. There he was, his best friend, the one person whom he could always turn to, no matter what, the one person who would never judge him, who would never get mad at him for his moody behaviour, who understood his silences better than anyone else understood his words.

But that's not true, either, is it? whispered a stubborn little voice in his head. Brett is all that and more, but he is not the only one. There was also her...

He didn't want to think of her. He brutally pushed the thought away - he felt like everything he did these days had a touch of brutality and wasn't that ironic? - and focused on Brett.

"I don't feel much like talking, that is true, but I would like to hear about what you've been up to lately. Any new lady-friend that I have yet to hear about?"

"Yeah, well, there is this redhead that I met online and we've made plans to meet next Sunday. I've taken Monday off from work so I can take her to the lake late at night and introduce her to the wonderful experience of skinny-dipping..."

Brett kept talking and his friend kept listening. But it wasn't long before his mind took him down memory lane and played in front of his eyes the moment he and Brett had first met, the moment he had made a friend for life and somehow secured a guardian angel too.

He'd been twelve at the time.  Twelve, lonely and scared.

****************************************************************

Twelve, lonely and scared. Mostly scared. So scared that she thought the mere intensity of that emotion was going to be enough to prevent her from ever forgetting that moment. Each time she thought about it, she remembered the whole ordeal with such agonizing clarity, it broke her heart a little. Each and every time.

She'd been twelve and crying, seated in the waiting room of the small hospital where her mother had been taken. Eyes stubbornly fixated on her feet, she had felt rather than seen Elise when she had first appeared to her. Aunt Elise. Who'd hunkered down in front of her, long hair touching the floor, put her hands on her knees and told her gently.

"She's ok now. Your mom's gonna be fine, sweetheart. Cry all your tears, go ahead, but know that there is nothing to be scared of. She will be fine".

Except her mom was never going to be fine again. She was too young to understand it yet, but her mom hadn't been fine for a long time now. And she saw some of that, she understood some of that, by looking into the eyes of the beautiful woman who had later on turned out to be her mom's sister. Aunt Elise. The brilliant, beautiful, tragic aunt Elise.

Her guardian angel, though she didn't know it at the time. At twelve, her concept of angels was limited to a single person - her dad. Or what little she remembered of him.

Her dad, the man she barely could recall in any detail. The man who had sprouted wings and flown to heaven just as she was about to turn ten. The man who, her adult mind reminded her, hadn't died physically, just metaphorically, by abandoning both her and her mother.

Not that she could blame him. No one would have blamed him. Not even aunt Elise who, for a long time, had been the only straight-minded grown-up in her life, she who understood better than anyone why her father had left, she who, of the generous heart, was always ready to find excuses for anyone. She who had been an inspiration, a guiding light and the most important source of whatever little strength she now had left. Whatever little strength still kept her going, gave her hope.

Thinking about aunt Elise brought tears to her eyes. Again! She blinked, then shook her head violently. Her vision cleared, only to reveal the blank page of the Word document staring back at her in a sort of wordless accusation. She couldn't write. Not today. Problem was, she hadn't been able to write the day before yesterday either. Or the day before that.

She rolled her eyes, half-exasperated at herself. The whole business of being a ghost-writer had been going just fine, until heartache and heartbreak had brought it to a screeching halt. But time was supposed to heal everything and enough time had passed by now. A little over a month. And still she saw no improvement. Hell, it wasn't just her writing that was suffering. She ate little to nothing, barely slept a few hours a night, and absolutely every little thing she had to do was a struggle. She did it anyway, because she didn't have much choice, but still...

She got up from her desk and went to stand in front of the mirror. The image staring back at her didn't look much like a writer, but it did resemble a ghost. Frightfully so.

*************************************************************************************

How lonely it must have been for her, all these years. How lonely, sad and scared she must have felt...

Tracy shook her head with a grim smile and looked at the tall, slender woman in front of her. Though she was turning forty-three in a couple of days, those who didn't know her would have easily placed her to be in her thirties. Early thirties, too.

So now I know who passed me these fabulous genes, she thought to herself, and smiled into her mother's eyes again. A genuine smile, this time. With just a hint of vanity. Followed by more than a shadow of annoyance.

And to think of all that love she wasted on that good for nothing, dirty scoundrel, miserable fool she took for husband. My own father, though I now disown him!

"You're looking particularly gorgeous today, mom", she said, taking a seat at the fine walnut table in her living room. "How has been life treating you lately?"

"Thank you. It's all been good, mostly. Last week we hired a new girl and she's been placed under my supervision. I'm glad to see she's learning quickly and will soon be able to relieve me from some of my more tedious work".

"I'm glad it's working out. I do believe you are working too hard. What with your job and all the projects you've recently gotten involved into, I'm surprised you can still find time to breathe, eat and sleep."

"It's always been this way for me and you know it. I like helping people. And I need to keep myself busy".

That was certainly true and Tracy could most definitely get behind that. She remained quiet for a while, examining the woman who had given her life and who, more than once, had stopped her own husband - her own father, for God's sake - from putting an end to said life by means of a severe beating.

He'd never touched her. Not his daughter. Tracy's mom had always been there to protect her. Every single time. She'd never failed her. Not once. But she had paid the price. The way Tracy saw it, she was still paying the price, even though her father had been dead for six years now. 

"What's new with Zach?" she then inquired. "Has he finally worked up the courage to ask you out?"

"Tracy". Her mother's frown held no hint of amusement. "You know it doesn't work that way. And he knows it too".

"But Mom!"

Theresa smiled her calm, quiet smile. Her martyr smile. Her fool-for-love smile. The one that made Tracy want to groan.

Instead she just rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

"You're wasting your life, mom. Your brilliant brain and your beauty. That lively spirit you can never quite hide completely from your eyes.  You've already wasted more than twenty years on that scumbag. Get over him, already!"

"Tracy, sweetheart. It really isn't all that complicated. I loved him dearly. Love him still. It's not that I don't make myself available for other men. It's just that my heart doesn't want another."

"After all this time? After everything he's done to you? After all the pain he's put you through? The misery? The beatings? Mom, think of the beatings!"

"I couldn't stop thinking about them even if I tried. The beatings or anything else. The good and the bad. Everything he brought into my life. It's all there, firmly lodged in my mind. But the heart wants what it wants. It wanted him, and it still does. And I've no way of knowing what the future holds, but if I find myself at the end of the road without having known any other love but his, I still won't regret anything."

Tracy was left speechless. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to yell at her mother and shake her violently.

The thought made her shudder. No, she would never touch her. It was insanity, this way of thinking, but it was her choice.

And you've made your own choices, haven't you? she asked herself bitterly. Your own freaking ironic choices. For more than twenty years this woman was your guardian angel, protected you from the violence of your own father and now you're willingly putting your life into the hand of yet another abuser...

Except that James wasn't like that. He wasn't anything like her father. He felt the need to impart some discipline sometimes, some very physical discipline, but so what? She thought she kind of maybe liked it, twisted though it might sound.  And she certainly wasn't anything like her mother. All her life, Theresa had loved one man and one man only.

Tracy, for herself, had loved none.