My Guardian Angel

Chapter 6

-PRESENT-

Isabella's family leaned towards her, all elbows on the dinner table. Well, it was more like her two little girls on the edge of their seats while her husband was laid back against his chair, much more content than the younger members.

There was a smile plastered on Isabella's face, remembering the moment she had met Jimin. It was not a pleasant memory, but she had surprised herself. She didn't imagine that recalling her first encounter with the angel would entice such a warm feeling in her chest.

"Whaaaat?" Jiah's baby voice filled the long silence.

Isabella had spent the last hour after dinner telling her kids a story. Her story. But she didn't tell them that. She couldn't. Her family had finished eating an hour ago, and the table spread that used to be bountiful with food was now cold with dirty plates and utensils. One thing that stood out to her was that her kids had forgotten to ask for dessert, which she had never seen before in seven years.

They must really like this one.

"But that's so mean!" Jiah crossed her arms, now pouting in her chair. "She hurt the angel's feelings!"

"JiJi, you think everything's mean." Minae rolled her eyes at her younger sister. "I think the angel scared the girl. I mean, he just appeared out of thin air." She shrugged her shoulders. "I would be scared too."

"No no no," Jiah shook her head, then looked to her mother. "I think the angel became sad and went back to heaven. Isn't that right, mommy?"

Isabella laughed softly at her daughters. She looked down, remembering what had happened next. Vividly.

"Actually..." She started.

-10 YEARS AGO-

Isabella laid under her sheets asleep, every part of her body snug under the covers except her nose up to her forehead. Breathing slowly as the sun illuminated her dark room dimly from behind the curtains. She slept like a dead body, without movement and without dreams.

A rusty old clock ticked quietly on the girl's wooden nightstand. Its second hand in the last 10 seconds of the minute. The ticking seemed to intensify as it approached the number 12.

57...58...59...

The clock shuddered as it let out a loud bell alarm. It drifted leftward, the beating of the dual metal bells too harsh for the rest of the clock. Before it could fall off the nightstand, a hand fell on the switch to turn it off. The clock fell forward off the nightstand anyway by the force of the girl's hand. It hit the wooden floor loudly, its metallic bells ringing from the impact.

Isabella retracted her arm and moved it to her forehead, her face now buried under her bedsheets.

"Shut up..." She groaned, as if the clock had said something she didn't like. She shifted drowsily from under the covers, forcing her body, which always felt a hundred pounds heavier in the morning, to sit up. Her hair was stuck up in all places as she rubbed her eyes awake. Her vision was blurry, but she was aware enough that the boy claiming to be her angel was no longer anywhere in sight.

Isabella looked around, staring into her walls. Contemplating whether or not last night was all just a dream. All the sparkles, and the golden, shimmering light, and the random sudden gusts of wind. Most especially, the boy with the golden halo.

There was no doubt it was real.

Fragments of her memory quickly came back to her as she saw the mess of items and desk materials on her bedroom floor. It was as if a tornado had hit the interior of her room and knocked off all her belongings onto the ground. Except it wasn't a tornado. It was a boy dressed in black and white who knelt down with the intention to wipe her tears, and suddenly she turned into a professional football player. A football player of history textbooks and rubber erasers.