A Break in the WorldsBy: ChocolateEclar

Chapter 8: Angie’s Father

Angie grimaced as she analyzed her possible attire one summer day. “Most of these aren’t very stylish anymore,”she muttered dryly imitating a particular sassy ‘popular’ girl from her school. She shrugged and picked out a pink tank top and a pair of black capri pants. ‘Simple enough,’ she thought putting them on.

She then brushed her hair and placed it up in a tight ponytail. She grabbed a thick silver bracelet and put it on over the gash on her wrist. ‘Amarend’s the only one who’s going to know about this,’ she thought turning to go downstairs. She knew, until it healed, her mother would ‘flip out’ if she saw the cut.

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She walked into the drab kitchen a few minutes later. The walls were covered in gloomy pink wallpaper with dull red roses featured on it. Angie sat at the high wooden table that was backed against one of the walls, beside her father. Mr. Calvin Hesiant was a heavy-set man with pale blue eyes and a hairless head. He was currently reading the newspaper, the tabloid clasped in his huge hairy hands, and taking a sip of his coffee every once and a while.

“Angela, where are you going today?” he barked, gazing at Angie’s small red head over his papers.

Angie winced inwardly, but she answered, “To Blare’s house, Dad.”

“When will you be back?”

“In time for dinner,” replied Angie biting her lip.

“You’d better. We have guests for dinner tonight,” snapped Mr. Hesiant.

“Who?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Donovan.”

Angie nodded and picked at her breakfast absently. Her mother had joined them now and was cutting her pancakes in neat, fairly equal pieces. When Angie was finished, she placed her plate in the metal sink in another corner and slinked out of the room as calmly as possible.

Her dad frightened her. When she had cried as a baby, he had yelled and eventually he had slapped her tiny wrists rather hard. Mike, who had received similar treatment, had snuck the infant Angie into the backyard quite often until she would stop crying or it was safe to come back in. Angie stopped weeping all together after a short time and remained mostly silent until she learned to talk.

Angie sighed and walked quietly out the front door. She strolled down the sidewalk and soon reached her next-door neighbor’s house. Blare, who was already considered a fair-haired beauty by several of her classmates, was sitting on her porch waiting for her friend and applying lip-gloss to her delicate mouth.

Angie doubted the narcissistic girl would be her friend for much longer. Blare was just too ‘boy-crazy’ and full of herself for Angie these days and it bothered her. Angie herself didn’t think much about boys yet as anything but friends and didn’t care much for looks.

Blare placed her lip-gloss back in her purse, a beaded blue one that she never went anywhere without anymore, and grinned coolly at her pal. “What on Earth is that bracelet for?” she asked in the same voice Angie had imitated just that morning.

Angie hated that voice with a passion but she lied composedly, “I just felt like wearing it.” She definitely wasn’t going to tell her friend about the wound that showed quite clearly on her wrist underneath the wide shiny bangle.

“Whatever, let’s go to the mall. Carl, like, totally wanted to see us there,” said Blare in a horrible ‘Valley Girl’ tone.

Angie sighed and nodded. Soon they had grabbed their bikes and rode to the nearby shopping center. Angie chained her ancient blue bike, which had once been Mike’s, to the bike rack and followed Blare into the mall. Blare practically screeched and ran to a ‘handsome’ thirteen-year-old boy with platinum blonde locks who was sitting at a table near a hotdog stand.

Angie lagged behind, feeling like the proverbial ‘third wheel’ on what was making out to be a date. ‘Why am I even here?’ she wondered dejectedly. She sighed and stopped to gaze into one of the shops. Silver and gold earrings, pendants, and bracelets lined the walls and she grinned. Glancing one last time at Blare and Carl, she slipped into the store and looked over the merchandise. An attractive little gold bracelet with tiny diamond-shaped pendants dangling from its links had caught her eye, and she studied it hopefully. She took it off a hook on the wall and checked the price tag. Her eyes widened.

‘Just my luck!’ she thought. ‘Dad doesn’t even give me an allowance and I could never get him to buy this for me!’ The tag clearly stated the wristlet was twenty dollars, a price Mr. Hesiant would never pay for his ‘pathetic’ daughter.

Angie sighed. ‘Oh well.’ She continued to search for something less expensive but nothing left her with a feeling of absolute need such as the bracelet. Eventually she gave up and stepped outside the shopping mall feeling rather depressed by the day’s events.

That was when her day started to look up. “Hey, Angie!” she heard coming from close by. She turned her head to the owner of the voice and smirked.

Amarend, his new dark head glinting in the sunlight, was leaning against a tree right in front of the mall. “I’ve been looking for you!” he called, coming towards her.

Angie felt happiness well up inside her. “Long time, no see!” she said laughing.

The teenage half-angel replied, “Lib misses you. He wanted me to say ‘hi’ for him.”

“Same goes to him,” Angie said.

“What is this place anyway?”

“Oh. This?” asked Angie pointing to the large building behind them. Amarend nodded so she continued, “This is a mall. I guess you could say it’s kind of like an indoor market.”

Amarend gazed thoughtfully at the shopping center for a few moments before remarking, “Its almost time for the midday meal. Come on!”

“But I don’t exactly have any money!” Angie protested sadly.

“That’s alright. I can fix that.”

Before Angie knew it, they were being as garrulous as always, and eating lunch together. If Angie had thought about it more thoroughly at the time, she would have realized it was somewhat of a date. Instead, she just watched as Amarend mysteriously produced a few dollar bills from his baggy pants pocket. She had questioned him of course, but his only reply had been, “It’s an angel thing.”

Angie had asked no more queries; she was inquisitive in nature, but her father had quelled her curiosity long ago.