3.1 | six ways to sunday ✓

02

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO
1996

JULIAN MOON DIDN'T ASK FOR MANY THINGS. He could probably keep track of all his wishes on one hand: a halo cleaner (those things are so hard to come by), a new robe (for when he visits the Inner Circle), and an updated smartphone (for games, of course). The definition of unproblematic, Julian attended his duties as a guardian angel with neutral feelings bordering on fond; the task was easy enough, and the years passed by quickly.

But as he stares down at the official document in his hands, Julian feels his wings shudder with disgust. No, he thinks. No, I still have fifty years left of freedom—what the hell? After the grief of witnessing his humans die, he painfully left Ground Zero (Earth, that is) and filed for his well-earned vacation of one-hundred years, in which Julian relaxed in his apartment for half of it while attending lazy sessions of Angel Yoga. After his vacation finished, he had a solid plan to join The International Agency of Angels (or the IAA, as Julian prefers to call it) to settle down for a simple desk job.

It's safe to say he didn't expect this coming.

Shoving his feet into a pair of linen slippers, Julian throws open his balcony doors and lets the weight of his wings lift off of his shoulders as they begin to flap gloriously. The air in Heaven holds a bit of strawberry sweetness and soft, summertime hibiscus, but Julian can't find it in himself to smile as his heartbeat jolts. It's always bright here—but not like the artificial lights that humans use to push the moonlight away. His world maintains the constant glow of the golden sun combined with all of the miniature constellations, and it used to be too bright when he was an AIT (angel-in-training), but as Julian's wings grew bigger with time, it seemed that his eyes did as well.

Buildings are divided into four sectors: housing, business, recreation, and the Inner Court (a place where Julian aspires to at least visit when he's climbed the ranks, but he's still relatively young and only slightly, slightly inexperienced). It's strangely organized—as Heaven should be, in his opinion—and he keeps his gaze set, eyes hardened. He arrives at the Office of Guardians with swift feet; at first, the gold-trimmed, dome-shaped building intimidated the hell out of him, but he's learned to see past the sparkling decorations in exchange for the workers inside.

"Kendall," he announces, swallowing his nerves as his boss looks up at him through blurry spectacles. "Kendall, I think you made a mistake."

She waves a hand in front of her face and pushes back a few of her braids. "I don't make mistakes," she mutters, attention focused back on the paper. "You're back on duty, Moon."

No, no, no—Julian sees red. "I have fifty more years," he justifies. "Fifty more years of—"

"Of what? Sitting on your ass all day and drowning in your river of self-pity?" Kendall rests her chin on her hands, and Julian watches as her expression softens after the hurt hits his chest and spreads like ink. Because yes, he might be weak and yes, he's still mourning, but Julian needs—time. He needs time. It's hard to smile, hard to look at things and not cry. "Kid," Kendall continues, tone almost motherly, "Kid, I know it hurts. I know more than anyone. But you have to keep moving, or else you're never going to heal."

The souls of guardian angels fade away under two conditions: their human doesn't need them anymore, or they themselves become tinged with the presence of sin. At this point, Julian doesn't really mind either.

Salt water lines his eyes, and Julian closes his fists and looks away to the side. His knees feel like sandpaper. "I don't want to heal."

His boss gestures for him to take a seat next to her, and Julian pulls his knees up to his chest under the weight of saddened memories and stress. "Healing doesn't mean forgetting," Kendall tells him earnestly. "Healing doesn't mean throwing away your past."