“You go,” I say.
He scratches at the back of his neck. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry I’ve been so testy with you. You were right. I’ve been a jerk.”
“You were surprised. And you’re right. I’m invading your space.”
He nods. “Still, it’s no excuse. You’re not the worst thing that could pop up unexpectedly into my life.”
“Oh great. I’m not the worst thing.”
“Nope.”
We laugh, and it feels good, laughing. It feels like old times. But then I think, Maybe I am the worst thing that could pop up in his life. He’s looking at me with a flicker of longing in his eyes that I recognize all too well, and it sends a dart of fear for him all though me. I can’t let myself get close to him. I’m not good for him. Plus, I might not even make it through this year.
“Your turn,” he says.
“Oh.” I find I can’t tell him what I was thinking. I point my thumb behind me at the open barn door. “I was going to say that I should go.”
“Okay.”
He looks confused when I don’t move. Then amused. “Oh, right. You want me to leave.”
“You can stay. Only, the glory …”
“That’s all right.” He smiles with his dimples, then moseys past me toward the door. “Maybe I’ll see you around, Carrots.”
No, you won’t, I think grimly. I have to stop this. I can’t keep coming here. I have to stay away.
He called me Carrots.
Angela’s still in the same position she was in when I left her, scribbling away on Wan Chen’s bed. She stares at me for a minute after I materialize in the room.
“Wow,” she says. “You were right when you said it was like beaming yourself in Star Trek. That is pretty cool.”
“I’m getting better at it,” I admit.
“How did your date—” she starts to ask, then gets a look at my face. “Oh. It didn’t go well.”
“No, it didn’t go well,” I say, kicking off my shoes and lying on my back on my bed.
She shrugs. “Men.”
“Men.”
“If we can send one man to the moon, why can’t we send them all there?” she says.
I’m tired and can’t help but laugh at her joke.
“That’s why I don’t bother with men,” she says. “I don’t have the patience.”
Right. She doesn’t deal with mere mortals, she means.
“It’s Phen,” she says then.
“The father, you mean?”
She starts like my question surprises her, then hesitates for a split second before she says, quietly, “Yes. But you already knew that.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“But it’s also Phen in my vision,” she goes on to say. “The man in the gray suit. It’s Phen.”
Shock ripples through me. “Are you sure?”
She nods enthusiastically. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him before. All those times I had the vision, but I didn’t think it was about me.”
“Yeah, visions can be tricky that way.”
“I wasted so much time feeling sorry for myself,” she says. “I thought, since this happened”—she nods at her baby bump—“that I’d wrecked everything. But I didn’t. It was supposed to happen this way. It was meant to be.”
I turn over onto my stomach. “So what are you supposed to do?”
“I’m supposed to tell him about our baby,” she says. “The seventh is ours.”
This strikes me as a very bad idea, given all I know about Phen. He’s just not trustworthy, for all his charm. But Angela’s not going to want to hear that right now. She doesn’t listen to reason when it comes to Phen.
“Okay, let’s say that you’re right—” I start slowly.
“Of course I’m right,” she says.
“Of course you’re right,” I agree. “But how does Phen know to come? How will he know to meet you there?”
“That’s easy. I sent him an email.”
I try to get my head around the idea of an angel with a Gmail account. “But Ange—”
“He’ll come, and I’ll tell him,” she says firmly. “Don’t you see what this means, Clara?”