Chapter 1

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amor

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Give me a firm place on which to stand,
And I will move the earth.

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“I swear to God, Sophie. It’s dead.”

I grabbed the fly swatter that was conveniently sitting on the desk next to us. Chewing on my bottom lip, I desperately poked at the fish floating at the top of the tank.

“No, it’s not. See!” I poked at the fish until the tail was wiggling without my help, “it’s not dead after all.”

Lauren graced me with a look of disgust. A nervous giggle erupted from my throat, causing Lauren to viciously snatch the fly swatter from my hands. She used it to pick up Larry – the fish – and carry him off. Moments later, I heard the toilet flush.

Lauren returned to the room with a placid expression. Geeze, for a twelve year old, she sure was touchy.

“Good job, Lauren. You just killed Larry.” I shook my head in shame.

“I killed Larry. I killed Larry? You,” she jabbed her finger at my collar bone, “were supposed to feed him! You do this every time I go away for camp.”

“Okay. Fine, Lauren. It’s all my fault,” I said, sarcastically. “I can’t help it that I actually have a life and couldn’t find the time to feed him.”

She barked a laugh. “Life? What life? All you do is sit around all day in your room.” I was about to reply with a witty remark, but she beat me to it. “Plus, I was only away for two weeks. Two weeks, Sophie.”

I stood up and push past her, but turned around when I reached the door. “If you had just fallen for the whole, poking, tail-moving thing, we wouldn’t even be having this talk.”

“Oh please, I haven’t fallen for that one since I was ten,” she said, rolling her eyes.

I raised my eyebrows. “Wasn’t that only, like, two years ago?”

Lauren stopped wiping the water that had fallen on the table next to the tank. “Did you seriously just say that I’m twelve?”

“Actually, I said, ‘wasn’t that two years ago?’. But if you want to get technical about it…”

“I’m FOURTEEN, Sophie,” she spat out viciously. “Eek!” Squeaking, I dodged the fly swatter that came dangerously close to my head. I rushed out of the room and hid in the hallway. Cautiously, I stuck my head out and looked at her.

“I seriously thought you were twelve…”

Lauren’s glare was enough to make me turn and run off.

“YOU’RE DIGGING YOURSELF INTO A HOLE, SOPHIE,” she screamed after me.

x.0.x

He stood before the council. His shoulders were slumped and his head was down. He looked almost pitiful. Michael shook his head in disgust.

“Aiden Barrett, you’ve come to us with a very… unusual request.” Aiden looked up at Michael, the leader and archangel of this council. “You claim to be in love.” There was a chorus of gasps from behind Aiden. He physically flinched from the noise.

“Yes,” Aiden said in a small voice. Another round of gasps.

“And who, may I ask, are you in love with?” Michael said, leaning forward.

”W-with, um… with a… human.” He blurted out the last part out. Now there were whispers to go along with the gasps.

“Never in the history of… of the world has there been an angel that has fallen in love with another angel, let alone with a human,” someone shouted from behind Aiden.

“Aiden, look up at me, “said a new voice. Aiden recognized it as Raphael. He looked up into the waiting eyes of Raphael. Raphael had the demeanor of an aging man, maybe sixty in earth years, but in reality he was no older then thirty. “There is no way you could be in love. God has forbidden love of that kind to come within the gates of heaven. “

Aiden looked into each pair of eyes on the council. Each had the same steely gaze that Michael had. Aiden knew that none of them would listen to him. These six men had forgotten what love, truth love, felt like. But Aiden remembered. He knew what it felt like. He was only nineteen when he had died, but he still knew.

“I know what love feels like. And I can look each of you in the eyes and tell you what I’m feeling is love. I can’t stop thinking about her. She’s everywhere I go, and everything I see. I can’t help this feeling, and it won’t go away. I have to – no, I need to talk to her,” He paused and gulped down air. He was about to start again but was interrupted.

“Let the boy go.” Everyone in the room turned their eyes to the women that had entered, and who was now lazily leaning against the doorframe.

“Gabriel,” Michael growled. Gabriel grinned up at Michael. “Hello, love,” she said cheekily. He narrowed his eyes at her.

“You’re not needed here, Gabriel,” Raphael said, standing up.

Gabriel swiftly walked into the room. With her long white dress drifting behind her, she really did embody what people expected angels to look like.

She came up to stand next to Aiden and placed her long, graceful fingers on his shoulder.

“It seems God has changed His mind about angels falling in love,” she laughed.

Michael sputtered something unrecognizable. Raphael sat down, his face void of any emotion. The crowd that had gathered behind Aiden and Gabriel didn’t dare speak against the archangel that was standing up for Aiden. While Michael was the angel that cast Lucifer out of heaven, Gabriel was the messenger and right hand of God. Because of this fact, people believed what she said.

“Now, Aiden. Who is this girl that you’ve fallen for?” Gabriel asked, leading him out of the Councils Hall.

x.0.x

I eyed the television wearily. “Oh, for God sake, Rose. Just jump in already,” I yelled at it, throwing my half eaten granola bar at the screen. It smacks Rose in the face half-heartedly and falls to the ground with a thump. My brother, Daniel, looked at me from the corner of his eyes. Trying not to look obvious, and failing, he inched away from me.

“Really, Daniel, you shouldn’t be watching this rubbish,” I snatched the remote from him and changed the channel to jeopardy.

“Well, seeing as I’m seventeen,” leaning over, he grabbed the remote from me, “I think it’s high time I made that decision for myself.” He turned it back to Titanic.

Daniel didn’t seem like a ‘Titanic’ kinda guy. Actually, he looked more like a body builder than a romantic type. Of course, hope springs eternal. Maybe there was hope for the male species after all. Maybe Daniel and his friends got together every now and again, and had a good cry while watching ‘The Notebook’.

“Rose is fucking hot,” Daniel said, leaning closer to the TV. And maybe I’m an African Princess.

Sighing, I left Daniel – the pig – and wandered around the house. I was the middle child of divorced parents. Lauren, Daniel, and I shifted lives between our mother and father. A large amount of time was spent with our mother because of the school we went to. Each month, for one weekend since I was ten, was spent at my father’s house. He also got Thanksgivings’ and two weeks of summer with us.

Someone has asked me once what it was like having divorced parents. Did I have to choose which one I liked better? Was it awkward when they were in the same room together? I told her truthfully; I couldn’t possibly pick which one I liked better because I had equally placid feelings for both of them. You might laugh at this. Aren’t you supposed to love your parents? I do. But I don’t really know them. Ever since I was little, it was as if I was standing on one island, and my parents were standing on a completely different island a mile away. I could see them, but I couldn’t reach out for them. Every now and again, a bridge would appear, connecting the two together, but as quick as it materialized, it disappeared.

The separation I felt with my parents grew even more when they split up. They both worked, so I never saw them when we were at their house, except for a possible glimpse at night. And although my mother would ask me how I was, how my day went, she wouldn’t look at me, or even recognize that I’d answered her questions. My father was the same way, except when I answered his questions, he’d look at me, but not really see me. As soon as I started to talk, his eyes would glaze over as if he was thinking of a far off subject. When either of the two did this, I felt that a piece of me was being ripped apart. Eventually, if this happened enough, the only thing left of the part of me that was being torn would be tiny pieces not big enough to glue back together.

“Sopphhhiiieee.” Speak of the Devil…

“Could you come here and help me fold these clothes,” Jocelyn, my mother, said from behind a large pile of clothes that were stacked up on the drier. My wandering feet had led me into the kitchen – and straight into the lions den.

“Sure,” I said, tonelessly. That day, for whatever reason, was one of those rare occasions that my mother didn’t have to go into work. I walked into the small laundry room adjoining the kitchen and grabbed the first thing I saw – a soft, cotton night shirt. I folded it quickly and placed it on an empty space atop the washing machine.

I heard my mother sigh. I glanced at her and she shook her head. “That’s not how you’re supposed to fold those types of shirts, Sophie.” She reached over and plucked it up. Then, for the next five minutes, she instructed me on the proper folding method, making me try folding a few different shirts under her watchful gaze. This was the type of relationship I had with her. I would do something, usually get it wrong, and have her correct me. Even if I’d done the thing a thousand times, she would always find something wrong with it.

“Are you excited about school?” She asked, grabbing the immaculately folded clothes and placing them into a basket. She stood up with the basket and placed it on her hip. With her unoccupied hand, she pushed hair out of her face.

“I guess,” I mumbled. People often said my mother and I look alike. We both had the same color of reddish-brown hair, the same high, elegant cheek bones, and then same small curved nose. We were both of mid-height, she was 5’5 and I was a few inches taller. While she was curvy, I was thin as a stick and only recently started growing something that resembled a chest and hips. The only real difference between us was the fact she had brown eyes and mine were a greenish-grayish color.

“Good.” She swept past me in a hurry to avoid the awkwardness that had started to develop between us.

For the second time that day, I sighed. Rolling my eyes, I went back into the kitchen to find something to drink.

x.0.x

Aiden, who was waiting for Gabriel by the doors leading to the mortal world, was ringing the bottom of his shirt nervously. Everything seemed to be happening so fast. After Gabriel had said her peace about Aiden going, everyone grudgingly agreed to it. Aiden was trying to think of what he was going to say when he finally met her. He would introduce himself with a charming smile. She would be taken aback but would laugh softly and introduce herself also. Not that she needed to. Aiden felt like her already knew her. He would say something witty, making her laugh and crinkle her eyes with happiness. Nothing else would matter ever again to Aiden, because he got her to laugh. She was laughing with him. With him. No one else.

Aiden straightened up when he saw Gabriel stride around a corner towards him. She stopped for a moment, talking to a man that was walking past her. She smiled and touched his forearm lightly. She laughed at something he said and parted ways with him.

She walked up to Aiden and smiled expectedly at him, “Are you ready to meet this girl?”

After hesitating for a moment, Aiden have his answer in two short nods. He could feel the excitement in the pit of his stomach.

She smiled wickedly up at him. “Good.”

So, I know this has taken me, like, what? A month, maybe? To update. I really am sorry about the long wait, but I needed to make this chapter perfect. And while it's not exactly perfect, I think it's as close as it can possibly get. I wrote and rewrote this chapter, and I'm content with what I have here although it could be longer... Please R&R. I'd appreciate it a lot.