She’d left out that I was a drunk as well, which was a relief.
“Not a pervert, just stating the facts. Anyway”—I stood, took a step back, and waved my arms around—“all of you agnostics want proof, so I’ll give it to you.”
I was tired of hiding, lying, sneaking. I wanted her to know. I wanted to push the envelope and see if Mona would swoop in and banish me. The truth was that I couldn’t watch Evey anymore, not when she was dating, falling in love, hanging out with moronic apes. Mona refused to reassign me—she wouldn’t even let me plead my case, so I was done. I had been pushed too far, driven to alcoholism.
Come on, an alcoholic angel? I was a cliché. I hated myself. “I’m not gonna sit here and spew facts about every stage of your colorless, insipid, shallow life that I had to so painfully watch. I’m just not, okay? They always do that in movies, and I think, ‘Why not disappear and reappear? What’s the deal? We’re angels.’ I could turn into a fire-breathing dragon right now if I wanted to.” She suddenly looked terrified, so I held out my hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to scare you.”
“JUST GONNA POP out…”
He seemed to believe what he was saying. I wondered if he was an actor. And then, like an absolute dream—nope… nightmare—he clapped once and disappeared into thin fucking air.
I gasped. “Oh my God! Oh my God!” I fell to the floor and held my hand over my chest. I was having a heart attack. I was sure of it.
And then he reappeared. “And… pop back in,” he said, stumbling to the side. “Shit, I need to work on my reentry.”
“Oh God! Oh Lord,” I kept chanting.
“No, it’s Lucian. Why is everyone so obsessed with that guy?” He looked at me steadily, and then I think he saw the terror in my eyes, finally. “Shit.”
Lucian turned into Mrs. Obernickle, my preschool teacher. “Now, dear, don’t be scared.”
“This is not happening, this is not real. I’ve been drugged. I’m dreaming. Did you drug me so you could kill me?” I said to Mrs. Obernickle as I stood on shaky legs.
“Oh no, of course not, dear.”
As horrifying as the situation was, I found her voice and smell comforting. Still, my heart was beating out of my chest. I looked into her crystal-blue eyes, and I saw him. I whispered, “Lucian?”
He turned back into himself. “You rang?”
I just continued to blink at him until tears flooded my eyes. His expression softened; he braced my shoulders. I was scared at first, and then warmth rushed through my body. My knees buckled, and he swooped me off my feet as if I were as light as a feather. The warm feeling was familiar. He had done that to me before; I just hadn’t known it at the time.
I remembered once, when my mother forgot to pick me up at school, I had waited in the dark. I was terrified and cold. I started to cry, then that now-familiar warmth filled me. I remembered it because it was strange. When my mom had finally arrived, I told her I thought I had a fever. Lucian holding me in my apartment was a fever dream—it had to be—but I was starting to believe he had been there with me whenever I felt scared or alone.
I felt warm and safe as he carried me effortlessly over to the couch. Without words, he set me down, walked to the kitchen, and returned a moment later with chamomile tea.
“I put honey in it… the way you like it.” He smiled, seeming unsure as he handed it over. Then he stood back, took a deep breath, and ran his hand through his longish dark hair.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’m really sorry about that. I just felt so free after telling you, I didn’t think about how it would make you feel.”
He lifted my legs, sat down and then pulled them up on his lap. He rested his head on the back of the couch and rubbed my shins in soft strokes. Warmth coursed through me the moment he and I made contact. I felt like I was in a bathtub. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
After twenty minutes of silence, I felt completely relaxed.
“More tea?” he asked.
I sat up. “Actually I think I want another drink.”
“It’s late.” Something had changed in him. He seemed resigned, but I felt absolutely at ease, even though my brain was still processing the impossible events that had occurred in front of my eyes moments earlier.
“Do you want a little red wine?” he asked.
“Mmhmm, but I don’t think I have any.”
He took his glass of water and handed it to me. The moment it was in my hand, the water became wine.
“I bet you have a lot more questions?” he said.
“Well, it’s not every day…”
“Fire away.”
“So you’ve been watching over me my entire life?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
My eyes shot open. “So you’ve seen me…”
“Oh no, I don’t spy on you. I’ve never seen you naked. Except that one time.” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Were you Mrs. Obernickle?”
“Not all the time. Only when you cried at school… to comfort you. For a preschool teacher, she was kind of a cold bitch. God her perfume made me nauseous… still does.” He made a weird gagging sound and shook his head. I smiled, and he smiled back. “I liked it better when you were making fun of me and didn’t believe a word I said. I’m sorry I scared you, Evey.”
“Who else have you been in my life?”
“Um, the old guy you played chess with in the park.”
“Charlie? You were Charlie?”
“Only once you started getting good. He wasn’t challenging you anymore.”
“Ha! So where did you come from? Do you float around? Do you live somewhere?”
“I basically just follow you around. Sometimes when I know you’re all right, I take off and do my own thing.” His demeanor was sweet, almost shy now. “I followed you home earlier and saw you looking out the window. I thought you were going to bed, but then you showed up at the bar again.”
“So why didn’t I see you outside?”
He seemed to be pondering what he should tell me. “Did you see the woman walking a little white dog?”
“That was you?”
“Yeah. I’m whoever, whenever I need to be. I got lazy at the bar when you were with that guy. Honestly, Evelyn, that guy?” He scowled. “You were all swept up in him, so I didn’t go to great lengths to disguise myself. Not that it would have mattered.” His tone was strangely bitter. “We’re not supposed to reveal what we really look like to our souls.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re just not. It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
“Do you know what transference is? Like with patients and doctors?”
“I think I do. So you think that I’d fall in love with you or something because your job is to protect me?” It wouldn’t be hard. He smelled delicious, looked incredibly sexy, and his touch was spellbinding.
“I’m created to make you feel comfortable. You must sense that?”
I nodded. “But if you didn’t feel the same way…”
“We don’t.” He went rigid. “We’re not made to fall in love.”