As much as I regaled this tale to my parents, they never believed me and I had simply gotten in trouble for wandering too far from my mother's side. As the years began to pass, even I started to believe I had simply dreamed the entire encounter up. Then when I was thirteen, I had gone on a hiking trip with my class in the Niamori Mountains. At our noontime break, we stopped at a large clearing next to a steep cliff. We were all laughing and posing for pictures near the edge, despite our teacher's stern warning not to. A friend accidently bumped me and I stumbled backwards, my foot finding nothing but air.
I figured it was all over for me as my body began to lean backwards in a way that was impossible for me to have even attempted to grasp hold of something to save myself. The moment I had closed my eyes and resigned myself to my gruesome fate, I felt a pair of strong hands on my back, pushing me upwards. I opened my eyes and turned my head to see how I was managing to return to the safety of solid ground and the sight still is burned into my mind. Below me was the most beautiful face I had ever or ever would see, smiling at me as he pushed me back towards the cliff's edge. A porcelain face, framed by the shock of hair as blonde as corn silk and eyes bluer than the early morning sky. But what really stood out to me were the large white feathered wings that beat gently as it supported both his and my weight in the air. The way the sun bounced off of them made them appear to be made of spun silver.
As my feet found the solid earth beneath them, the hands disappeared as did the angel with his beautiful smile. Everyone around was panicking so much that they had never even seen him, had not even noticed how impossibly I had managed to survive what should have been an inescapable death. Once again, people simply thought I had imagined the angel and dismissed the tale I told as simply a miracle I had not fallen. This time, though, I knew I had not dreamed it up and was reminded that I had seen that angel once before. This time, I did not allow myself to dismiss him as nothing more than a dream.
Again and again, I managed to escape near death because of that angel. It got to the point that when I was in college, people began to avoid me, calling me a jinx. I couldn't blame them though. How many near death experiences should one person be able to go through before one of them claims their life? In the seven years since the incident on the school trip, I'd had at least one a year and everytime I saw that same beautiful angel as he protected my life. Some people said I had to have a guardian angel or some sort of strange combination of luck to have survived so many times when I should have gotten seriously hurt or died. Yet, none of those people would believe my story of the angel.
I met the man I finally fell in love with one dark night as I sat on a grassy hill in the park. He had the same beautiful face with porcelain skin as my angel, but his hair was a slightly darker blonde and his eyes didn't seem to be quite as clear. Still, he listened to my tales with a wonderful smile on his face and never uttered a single word of doubt. Even in the blue pools of his eyes I never noticed a ripple of him believing that all I said was merely a dream, a wish of a lonesome young man.
We were together for three years, conversing, living, loving. I had never believed that I could love someone as much as I had the angel of my dreams, but I did love him that much, perhaps even more. Even as I look back now, I wish I had realized it. In those three blissful years, I had not had a single run in with death, not until the night he ended up having to leave me.
It was a rainy night and I'd ended up having to stay late at work to finish something important for the next day's business meeting. I was silently cursing the fates, because tonight was our anniversary and I knew he was waiting at home for me. I couldn't wait to see him and to get out of the cold rain. In my haste, I made a grave mistake. I darted out across the street to get to our apartment building, right out in front a speeding truck.
I was fear struck and unable to move as the headlights of the truck barreled towards me. Silently, I prayed that my angel would save me one more time, so that I could have one more night with the man who was my world. I closed my eyes and prepared myself to feel the pain of impact, and impact that would never come.
I opened my eyes and found myself in the room I shared with my lover, dry and safe. Confused I looked around and found my angel sitting beside me on the bed. He smiled at me but that smile didn't reach his eyes, as they held such a great pain within them. His hand gently grazed my cheek and the gentle touch sent shivers down my spine. My mouth dropped open and my eyes widened as the realization hit me. The man I loved had indeed been my guardian angel all these years.
Tears clouded his clear eyes as he turned his head away and started to get up. Instinctively my hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, not wanting him to go, as in some part of my heart and mind I knew this was the last time I would see him. I pulled him back to me, wrapping my arms around him, not wanting to let this night end. I didn't want to be separated from the man I loved, the angel of my dreams. I kissed him with all the passion I had, not caring that I probably shouldn't have.
I was rewarded my the feel of his arms wrapping around me tightly, his lips returning my kiss with that same passion. For one night, one last night, I wanted to hold him one last time. The night felt endless as we endulged our shared passion, our love. He left me as the sun began to crest the horizon, exhausted and sated, but empty. My heart broke as he gave me the last kiss goodbye, tears streaming from those clear blue eyes.
Some time later I found a journal that he had kept while he had been with me. Inside I read of how he had pleaded to have a chance to live as a mortal and love the boy who had stayed alone with his feeling for him. He was granted the chance, but there had been a condition. The condition being that if he had ever needed to use his powers to save my life again, he would have to return to where he came from by the morning's light. I cried harder than I have ever cried in my life when I finished reading all of the journal, reading all of the feelings he had had for me, the life he had given up to be with me. I sat there, clutching his journal to my body as I cried, wishing that I could have him back with me.
Time passed by, and I was growing old. I had never taken another lover and my family was all gone now. Still, I often went and sat on that grassy hill in the park, letting my mind remember the time I had spent with my guardian angel. I laid back on the grass, knowing just how hard it would be to get back up again. I reached upwards towards the stars that I knew held the only man I had ever loved and sighed deeply. I jumped slightly as fingers smoother than silk interlaced into my own.
"Tell me, love, do you still believe in angels?" a long forgotten voice asked. I tilted my head back and smiled as the tears slipped down my cheeks. As my life slipped from my body in one last breath, I smiled at the one face that had always been the only one I could see. The love of my life had come to take my soul home.