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  I didn’t answer as I adjusted the bandage on my head - the bandage in which Jensen had applied to my head the night before. He’d told me he’d taken me to the hospital but that was a lie.

  “Avalon, this is ridiculous. Please speak to me.”

  I did nothing but stare at the wall; ignoring my growling stomach and the food in front of me. I didn’t know what to say to him.

  “You haven’t spoken to me since last night.”

  Again, I didn’t say a word.

  “I love you, Avalon.” He got up and effortlessly walked away.

  I just sat there, thinking about everything Jensen had confessed to me. I also questioned my sanity. Were there really such things as angels? Did they truly exist in the universe?

  I came to the conclusion that this was not a joke. I knew Jensen wouldn’t carry it on this long. And next, maybe he was the crazy one. Maybe he thought he was an angel but he really wasn’t. Then again, how in the world would that explain how he saved me from the almost-car crash or how he was by my side on the couch one second, and in another, tapping my shoulder? Everything was messed up around me and nothing made sense anymore.

  I definitely didn’t see this one coming . . . .

  For hours after he told me he loved me he explained little details about being an angel - how he didn’t have to eat, drink or bathe, use the bathroom, didn’t crave sex or even need to stay in shape. His body was perfect, no flaws whatsoever. But unlike him I was human and needed a shower. So I went into the bathroom to take care of the responsibility I had to my body - noticing Jensen was looking out of a window in his bedroom.

  After drying off once I got out of the shower, I rang out my unruly hair. I used my toiletries, taking off the minimal makeup I had on from the night before. Before departing I wrapped a towel around my now shivering-from-the-cold-body and headed out the door. And there he was, perched on my bed with a pair of sweatpants and t-shirt he picked out. He held a steaming cup of herbal tea in his left hand and a plain bagel with cream cheese in the other - my breakfast. He got up to greet me with a smile on his young face. It was as if he and I were restarting the day over. He was persistent, I had to give him that.

  He embraced me in a warm hug - heating my shivering body with his, the tea and bagel surrounding me as well. “How was your shower?” he asked. Whenever I heard his voice pure elation filled my soul, no matter how ridiculous I was beginning to think he was. I didn’t know if I should answer or not. This whole situation was still creeping me out. “Avalon?”

  “Mmm,” I said into his firm chest, “nice.” I guess I finally caved into talking to him. Or maybe I was just hungry and wanted the bagel.

  “Planning to talk to me now?”

  “This is all way too much,” I said. “You can’t be an…angel. You just can’t be.”

  “Although every piece of evidence proves that I am.” He walked across the room to the window where he glanced up at the sunny sky.

  “It seems more like one big magic trick to me,” I whispered.

  “It’s not.”

  “You heard that?” I barely even heard what I’d said.

  “Of course I did. Angel’s have fantastic hearing.” He walked back over to me, almost like he was floating. He was so graceful. “I also heard your stomach growling at the table and from inside the shower. Here, you must be famished.”

  Jensen happily gave me the tea and bagel in his hands. I took a bite, then a sip. The tea burned my tongue.

  “Thank you.” Silence filled the air. “So you expect me to believe that you’re this fantasy-like creature?”

  “Technically, I’m not a part of a fantasy at all. I’m apart of reality, Ava.” His words sunk in.

  “I didn’t know angels existed.”

  “That’s understandable. Many people don’t believe we exist. That includes religious folk.” He smirked.

  “So, because I believe angels exist, you exist?”

  “No,” he chuckled. “We’re here whether humans like it or not. It’s merely a point of believing or not believing is all.”

  “Oh,” I muttered. Noticing I was still in just a towel I quickly grabbed my clothes to change into them. Jensen turned around wordlessly, facing the doorway. I pulled the cotton blend t-shirt over my head. “I don’t know about this, Jensen. It seems a little far-fetched, even though I’ve seen some pretty remarkable things.” I slipped on my warm socks, recalling what I’d witnessed the previous evening.

  “Well that’s just it, Avalon.” I heard his weight shift. “Humans have the choice to believe in something or otherwise. However, the ignorance comes into play when one sees something right in front of them and they still choose not to believe it.”

  Again, I thought about what he said. He made some pretty valid points.

  “I don’t wish to push any of this on you,” he added. “I’m merely explaining to you that it is perfectly okay to not believe in what I’m telling you or what you’ve witnessed yourself. I am certain this has changed your perspective about everything you ever believed to know but…some people just aren’t strong enough to come to terms with something they don’t understand fully.” That caught my attention.

  “You don’t think I’m strong enough,” I told him - hearing the true meaning behind his words, putting on the sweatpants. I peeked over my shoulder to see him running a hand through his dark hair.

  “No, I thoroughly believe you’re stronger than you’d like to believe you are.”

  I sat down on my bed and Jensen turned around. His eyes were soft, glancing at my tangled, damp hair.

  “How do you honestly expect me to believe in something so ludicrous?” I asked.

  “I thought that telling you my secret, at first, would be ludicrous. But I was wrong about that. I know deep in my beating heart that it was the right thing to do. You had a right to know so I told you,” he explained. His breathing was even. He appeared to be extremely calm.

  “It’s one thing to share a secret like this, it’s another to actually convince the other person to believe it’s true.”

  “Avalon, sweetheart...you told me something so horrific about your past. For you to tell me such a thing took a lot of strength and courage. You’d never told a living soul what happened to you. But you chose to tell me. Now that’s a little ludicrous, don’t you think?”

  I glanced at the ground, then back up at his face. His lips were parted, his brow furrowed. He looked relaxed though. I stood up, placing the bagel and tea on a nightstand.

  “If I chose to believe you...then that would mean I’m crazy. I can’t be crazy, Jensen.”

  “How could someone be considered crazy when all the facts are spread out in front of them?” He stood directly in front of me, giving me eye contact. “Avalon,” he whispered, nudging my chin upward with his long index finger, “trust me. Believe in who I am. I know your heart does. Just allow the common sense factor in your brain to do the same.”

  He moved in to kiss me. I was ready for it. Ready for the familiar tingles to begin, the recognizable warmth in the pit of my stomach to ignite into a forest fire, the many butterflies to fly this way and that until I couldn’t breathe on my own. But I couldn’t allow myself to believe in something so obscure. I’d been hurt once before by a man who promised me things, asked me to trust him, and most importantly, told me he loved me. Add a supernatural angel to the equation and you’ve got a whole new, yet equally similar situation as the last relationship I’d gotten myself into.

  “Don’t.” I softly pushed him away from me.

  He sighed, “I make you uncomfortable.”

  That’s an understatement.

  “This is just…new to me.” I was sugarcoating it for his sake. In all honestly, I was freaked out beyond comprehension.

  How in the hell did he really think I was going to take this?

  “I’ll answer any questions you have. Anything at all. I swear I won’t lie to you. I’ll be one hundred percent honest.”

  I took a
few deep breaths and glanced at my watch. The time read: 10:34 AM. It was way too early to have to deal with all this angel gibberish.

  “I should get some exercise in before the weather gets bad,” I told him, changing the topic. I needed some normalcy. “I heard on the news earlier that there’s going to be a thunderstorm.”

  Jensen shifted his weight and sighed lightly. “Will you be running?”

  “Yeah.”

  “May I come with you?” he raised an eyebrow. “I’ll run beside you and not say a word.” I turned away from him and bit my bottom lip. “Or I could run a few paces behind you and still remain silent.”

  “No thank you,” I spoke up. “I’d like to run alone.”

  “Where will you be running?” he asked.

  “Lake Michigan Beach,” I replied quickly, putting on my sneakers and grabbing my iPod.

  “It’s a fifteen minute walk there,” he noted.

  “Great,” I mused. “Then I’ll get a little more exercise than I planned.” With that, I took two more bites of my bagel, a sip of the tea Jensen had brewed for me and one final glance at his side profile before heading out the front door of our apartment.

  * * *

  Every so often I could feel his presence behind me.

  Yet, I refused to turn around; to look at Jensen. I knew he was there. I blasted the music on my iPod, running to the thrumming beat of the song. Since I’d started running with Jensen a few weeks back my legs had gotten stronger again. I’d always loved the way running made me feel - powerful and free. In a strange way, knowing Jensen was behind me this whole time comforted me. After all, I had been running with him and only him since I’d stopped running in high school. Once the song ended I slowed to a stop and took a sip of water from a nearby water fountain.

  I looked up at the sky. It was blue; white puffy clouds scattered about right over my head. A little ways east, however, dark, menacing clouds roamed. Any time now those clouds would soon hover over my head. I took this as a sign to head back home.

  Home. Where was my home? I didn’t feel comfortable enough to stay at home with my worry-prone mother in her house back in New York. I couldn’t force myself to stay with Tory in the beach house - as much as I adored her - to constantly be reminded of the one incident that ruled my very existence. And now I barely felt sane shacking up with a complete, handsome stranger in his darling apartment who expressed he was an angel who just so happened to be in love with me.

  I had nowhere to go; no place to call my home. So I decided to sit on a bench and rest as I mentally calculated my options. I stared out at the blue waves; the water was calm. A few joggers passed, along with a slow-moving couple in their seventies with a cooler and beach towels. It was warm out, but I couldn’t imagine the water to be as well.

  I stared up at the sky once more before laying down on the bench. I shut my eyes and listened to the things around me - the seagulls, the people. For the first time in the last thirty-two hours, I felt okay.

  * * *

  “You can sleep out here if you’d like, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The tide’s coming in,” spoke a deep, soft, beautifully familiar voice. “Plus, it’s beginning to rain.”

  My eyes slowly opened to see Jensen peering down at me. The sky had gotten darker since I shut my eyes. I sat up and stretched, feeling the satisfying ache in my muscles. I had a good run earlier; that made me happy.

  “Have you been here the whole time watching me?” I asked, yawning.

  “Not the whole time,” he confessed. “I went back to the apartment to pick up a sweater and umbrella for you.” He handed them both to me.

  “Thank you,” I muttered, taking them from him without giving him eye contact. A water droplet landed on my forehead, a few landed on my hand, then hundreds more followed everywhere else. It was pouring.

  “We should get back home before it worsens.”

  “No thanks.”

  “I’ll drive you there. I fixed up my car. You won’t have to walk back.”

  I didn’t even want to know how he’d managed to fix his car. That thing was wrecked.

  “Thanks, but still, no thanks.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said, his hair soaked from the rain. “You’d rather stay out here than come home with me?”

  “I guess so.” I glanced at my watch. It was 6:51 PM. I’d been out here for a while. I slipped on the sweater and opened up the umbrella. “I’ll find a place to stay tonight.”

  “Ava, sweetheart, I cannot allow you to stay some place unprotected all night.”

  “Well it looks like you’re going to have to because I’m not going back to the apartment with you.” I stood up and began walking in the opposite direction.

  “The storm’s going to get really bad, Avalon,” he told me. “Please come with me. You’ll have a roof over your head and a place to sleep in dry sheets. You have your own room. Stay there.” He was pleading. “Please. Come with me, Avalon. Don’t do this.”

  I stopped. The thought of sleeping in my own warm bed seemed so appealing. It was beginning to get a little too cold for my liking due to the now-blowing wind. But how could I reside in a house with a crazy person?

  “Avalon, please.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and turned around to look at him through the rain. He was drenched. His t-shirt was sticking to his muscular chest and arms. His hair was disheveled; and even through the darkness and the rain, he managed to look sexy. Although I thought he was insane, I still found him too handsome for words. And he wanted me - me, of all people -to be safe and sound.

  “Fine,” I muttered. “Where are you parked?”

  If I hadn’t been mistaken, I could have sworn, as I passed him, Jensen smirked at me.

  After we got out the newly renovated vehicle, I went to my room without so much as a goodnight to Jensen. I changed into my pajamas, then took a seat on my plush bed. I could hear Jensen clanging a few pots and pans in the kitchen. If I had to guess, I’d say he was making dinner . . . for the two of us.

  I knew in my heart that Jensen wouldn’t give up on trying to get me to believe he was an angel. Even though I desperately wished he’d never told me in the first place. I didn’t need to be thinking about this right now. I was in the middle of trying to heal my own wounded soul after what happened last summer.

  A few moments passed when I heard a knock at my door. “Avalon?” Jensen called.

  “Yes?” I answered back, stiff; startled he’d knocked.

  “May I come in?” I could see his shadow from underneath the door.

  “Um, I’d rather you didn’t. I’m about to go to sleep,” I lied.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “If you’d like to talk or anything, I’ll be in the kitchen preparing dinner.” As soon as he said dinner, my stomach growled wildly. The only thing I’d had to eat all day were three bites of a bagel; and that was hours ago.

  I stared at my stomach, then back at the door. Jensen was still standing there. I sighed heavily and reluctantly got off the bed to open the door. He looked at me with amusement.

  “You hungry?”

  “Oh hush,” I said smugly. I pushed past him to head for the kitchen. A large pot was boiling water on the stove. The oven was on as well.

  “I’m making a dish my mother used to make for my family,” Jensen told me.

  “Oh really? What is it?”

  “You’ll see.” He smiled, then looked away from me. He took a seat at the kitchen table and folded his hands, making a loud clapping noise. I stood there, motionless. “Would you like to sit?” He nodded to the chair across from him.

  I bit my lip and said, “I guess so.” With that, I sat down.

  “How was your run earlier?” he asked.

  “It was enjoyable,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”

  “No problem.”

  Is he really going to make small talk?

  “I asked you not to follow me,” I said blankly.

  “I didn’t,” he confessed.

&nbs
p; “You didn’t?”

  “No.”

  “I could’ve sworn I felt you near me.”

  “Nope,” he said. “I gave you your space, like you asked. It wasn’t until later that I came looking for you in my car.”

  “So…you came looking for me while you were driving your car.”

  “Correct.”

  “And then you came back here to get my sweater and umbrella once you knew it would start raining?”

  “Yes.”

  “In your car?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I blinked there. Much quicker.”

  So he’s bringing up the angel situation again. Great.

  “I see,” I muttered.

  “Avalon, do you not like me anymore?”

  I gasped slightly. His accusation caused me pain. “Of course I still like you.”

  “Then why are you looking at me like I’m insane?”

  I shrugged and took a deep breath. “I’m only trying to understand why you want me to believe all of this.”

  “You know why I want you to,” he exclaimed. “It’s the truth.”

  “It’s not,” I argued.

  “Okay, if it isn't, how do you explain me getting us out of the car before it crashed, and then retrieving it before anyone else on the road could have been hurt? Or last night when I was suddenly by your left side when I had been sitting next to you on the couch on your right just a moment earlier? Or simply showing you my damaged vehicle? Or how I always know to be near you when something goes wrong? Or how the car is now fixed without a dent on it? Those aren’t weird coincidences or fabricated mirages. Those were real things. If you can’t admit to yourself that those things really happened, then you are the insane one.”

  My mouth dropped open. “I’m insane.”

  “Ava, it’s not every day a person finds out something like this, so believe me, I understand completely how ridiculous this sounds. But you’ve seen angel-like occurrences right in front of your very own eyes. To deny it happened would be lying to yourself...and to me.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I know this isn’t the answer you wanted or expected to receive when I told you I needed to share something with you. But did you really think it was normal for a human being to save someone from a car going over a hundred miles per hour?”