Broken Feathers

Where Did The Party Go?

Chapter One: Where Did The Party Go? (Fall Out Boy)

I was ten when my wings popped. One day they weren't there, the next they were. I was sat at the back of my maths class, and the teacher and pressed their face to mine and shouted and then...bam. There were these huge, white feathers sticking out of my back and the class was startled into silence. That was also the first time I'd passed out. By the time I had woken, I was home and safe in the arms of my mother, who gently told me that I had taken after my dad. I was thirteen when the scriptures appeared. My older brother had cheated at a game and I'd lost it; a mixture of puberty and just general anger had made me lash out, and the next thing I knew, my skin was burning so badly I thought I was going to die. And then there were the letters, carved into my skin like black, inky tattoos. Wrath.

After that, it was merely just a case of waiting for the next reminder of my sins to appear, etched on my back. I was fifteen when I realised that I really didn't want to be an Angel. After another fight with the humans at my school, and after some stern words from my father, I thought fuck it and washed my hands of the whole affair. And try as my mother might, there was no way in hell that I was staying good for another second.And that was where our story began; one bright morning in October. The leaves crunched beneath my shoes and the wind whistled around my ears. To my left, Kalem walked with me, wearing a solemn expression. He was no doubt wondering how long it would take me to get thrown out of yet another school, and I silently wondered it too. I was only doing this to please my mother - a kindly woman who cherished the ground her children walked on, I was the living example that it wasn't always the parent's fault.

My parents had always showered me in love; I had never been abused, never been shouted at, never been told I couldn't do something. And for the most part, I had their values. I was never inherently nasty and I would go as far to say that I was a pretty sound guy. I just...wasn't cut out to be an Angel. There was no way that this face was making its way into God's little army, and I was more than okay with that. I just felt sorry for Kalem, whose job was to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Despite my bravado, however, sweat clung to my palms, kissing my skin like a long lost lover, and there was a nervous twitch in my jaw that I couldn't quite shake. It made my lip pull up slightly, as though I was wearing a permanent grimace. Hell, maybe I was. Because when I looked up at the Prep for Supernaturals, it was all I could do not to turn around and walk back to the flat.

There was something to be said about those who remained in education. They always came under two categories; those who rigidly knew what they wanted to do with their lives, and therefore had the motivation to go out there and get it, and those who didn't have a fucking clue and just wanted an easy ride. People were not a fan of change, I had observed. In fact, change had the ability to completely put us off kilter, and render us completely unable to function. Perhaps that was why I seemed to ruin every opportunity I had.

It wasn't that I couldn't be educated; for the most part, I was pretty intelligent. I just knew that numbers and books weren't the way for me. I was comfortable in my own skin when I was painting. Pass me a canvas and a palette of paints and that would be me entertained for the week. But now, I was walking towards the school office, having ditched Kalem for his first class, and wondering silently if anyone knew how much I didn't want to be here. Hell, I'd moaned about it enough, but everyone had seemed to brush it off as jitters. It wasn't. There was no point to my being here, and I was more than happy to let the principal know that. It would just save time and effort when he decided to expel me for doing something wrong. I knocked once on the door; short and brief, hoping that whoever was on the other side wouldn't hear me. However, the scraping of a chair across a tiled floor was clear to the ear and moments later I was face-to-face with a man that wouldn't have been out of place in a tattoo parlour. Indeed, the spattering of grey hair that mixed with the dark curls on the top of his head, and the three-day stubble that grew on his jaw were teacher-like enough, but the swirling inks that coiled themselves over his exposed wrists and forearms were most certainly out of character.