“What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t know that I know about you. That I know about the angel-bloods and all of that.”
I sigh and shake my head.
“And you’d get in even more trouble if she knew.”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“It does matter.” He starts to pace back and forth. “I’m not going to be the one who messes you up, Clara. I’m not going to stand in the way of you and your destiny.”
“Please. Don’t.”
“It’s going to be okay,” he says, I think more to himself than to me. “Maybe when this is all over, after the fire happens and you save him and all that, everything can go back to the way it was before.”
“Yeah,” I agree weakly. It will only be a few weeks, a month or two at the most until fire season’s over, and then the whole Christian thing will be done and I can go back to Tucker with nothing to stand between us ever again. Only I don’t believe that. I can’t. Something inside of me knows that if I go with Christian in the forest I’ll never be able to find my way back to Tucker. That it will be over, for good.
He’s not meeting my eyes anymore. “We’re young,” he says. “We’ve got lots of time to fall in love.”
I stay in bed for two days, the world without color, food without taste. It seems dumb, I know. Tucker’s only a boy. People get dumped; it’s a fact of life. It should have made me feel better that he hadn’t really wanted to dump me. He was trying to do the right thing. Wasn’t that what Christian said when he dumped Kay? I’m just trying to do the right thing. I can’t be what she needs. But I need Tucker. I miss him.
On the morning of the third day the doorbell rings, which almost never happens, and the first thing that passes through my mind is that it must be Tucker, that he changed his mind, that we’ll make it work after all. Mom’s off getting groceries. I hear Jeffrey jog downstairs to answer the door. I leap out of bed and run to the bathroom to untangle my hair and wash the tear streaks off my face. I throw on some clothes, look at myself in the mirror, and change into a different top, the flannel shirt Tucker loves most on me, the one he says brings out the deep ocean in my eyes. The one I was wearing that day at the Jumping Tree. But even as my hand touches the doorknob to my room, even as I step out into the hallway, I know it won’t be Tucker at the door. Deep down I know that Tucker isn’t the type to change his mind.
It’s Angela. She’s talking to Jeffrey about Italy, smiling. She looks tired, but happy. They both turn as I come down the stairs, one slow step at a time. Considering our last conversation, I can’t decide if I’m happy to see her.
Her smile fades as she looks at me.
“Wow,” she breathes like she’s shocked at how bad a person can look.
“I forgot you were coming home this week,” I say from the bottom step.
“Yeah, well, it’s good to see you, too.” A corner of her mouth quirks up. She crosses over to me and pulls me off the steps. Then she picks up a fistful of my hair and holds it up in the light that’s pouring in through the window.
“Wow,” she says again. She laughs. “This is so much better than orange, C. You’ve changed. Your skin’s all glowy.” She presses her hand to my forehead like I’m a sick kid. “And warm. What happened to you?”
I don’t know how to answer her. I didn’t see what she’s apparently seeing when I looked in the mirror upstairs. All I really saw was my broken heart.
“My purpose is coming, I guess. Mom says I’m getting stronger.”
“Crazy.” I don’t understand the naked envy in her golden eyes. I’m not used to her envying me; it’s usually the other way around. “You’re beautiful,” she says.
“She’s right,” Jeffrey says suddenly. “You do kind of look like an angel.”
But it doesn’t matter that I’m beautiful now. I’m terrible. Tears spill onto my cheeks.
“Oh, C . . .” Angela puts her arms around me and squeezes.
“Just don’t say I told you so, okay?”
“How long has she been like this?” she asks Jeffrey.
“A couple days. Mom made her break up with Tucker.”
Not quite the truth, but I don’t bother to correct him.
“It’s going to be fine,” Angela says to me. “Let’s get you cleaned up—because even with the glowy skin and everything, you’re a little rank, C—and let’s get some food in you, spend some girl time, and it’ll be fine, you’ll see.” She pulls back and gives me her excited-angel-blood-historian face. “I have amazing stuff to tell you.”
I decide I’m glad, after all, that she’s here.
When Mom gets home from town she discovers Angela and me in the living room, Angela painting my toenails a shade of deep rose, me fresh out of the shower. They exchange this look where my mom says, without words, how happy she is that I’m finally out of my room, and Angela says that she’s got everything under control. I do feel better, I’ll admit, not because Angela’s a particularly comforting person, but because I hate to look weak in front of her. She’s always so strong, so sharp, so focused. Whenever we hang out it’s like we’re continually playing a game of truth or dare, and right now we’re on dare, and she has dared me to stop moping around and be a freaking angel-blood for once. My time to be a heartbroken teenager is officially over and done. Time to move on.
“It’s a beautiful day outside,” Mom says. “You girls want to go out for a picnic? I’ll whip you up some sandwiches.”
“Can’t. I’m grounded.”
I’m still mad at Mom. Because of her I lost Tucker, and I still refuse to believe it had to be that way. In fact this whole mess, my purpose, my shipwrecked love life, my current state of misery, not to mention my utter cluelessness about how this is all going to work out, leads back to her. Her telling me about this divine obligation that I was supposed to fulfill. Her idea to move to Wyoming. Her insisting and her reassuring me that there are reasons for things and her stupid rules and her keeping me in the dark. All. Her. Fault. Because if it’s not her fault, it’s God’s, and I’m not ready to be pissed at the Almighty.
Angela frowns at me, then turns to Mom and smiles. “A picnic would be awesome, Mrs. Gardner. We obviously need to get out of the house.”