Angel (Temp. Title)

Contego

I live in a house that isn't mine, and I know I have no business being in it.

A few days ago, my parents and I got into a large car crash. I'm talking a large pile-up that was covered for hours on the news. Many injuries, many people in the hospital, so much paperwork...But no one knows how it was started. I don't even know how it was started, although I'm not the most reliable of witnesses considering I was asleep upon the crash beginning. It was dark, around eight PM, and it had been a long day. Tests, work, and then we had gone to assist one of my parents friends to move.

I did a lot of heavy lifting that day, I was strong for a female of my skinny stature. It had taken so much out of me, my energy and now my memory.

I was of no use that night. I had barely woken up when the crash happened, and even when I was found I didn't wake up. One of the nurses had informed me that the paramedics had honestly thought I was dead, but there was no way I should have survived. We had been T-boned, some shrapnel had embedded in my legs, I remember that much.

I shouldn't be able to walk, but I am. I shouldn't be alive, but I am.

I think I know why.

My mom was really into the supernatural, especially angels. Often she would grasp me gently, excitedly chattering away to one of her angels. It wasn't that I didn't believe in it with her, I saw golden flashes and blinding whites that I didn't dare look at for too long. It was just...she wanted me to talk to them sometimes, but they were always so quiet. I didn't want to talk to them. There was something too holy about them that I didn't want to taint them by talking about my impurities.

At one point, mom had given me a necklace. It looked like a rosary with the multitude of beads and loops, but it fit over my head and settled comfortably. on my chest at all times. She told me that it was the necklace that my guardian angel had given me. She didn't tell me his name, although she told me that he told her to give it to me soon, that something big was happening.

I suppose this is what he was talking about.

There was something else about that night.

When I woke up in the hospital, I saw my parents. I honestly did. They were standing there in their gory glory, standing over me, hands resting over my head, my cheeks.

My father had always been a large man, a muscled guy. He seemed so rough and tumble, but he was so sweet to me and mom that I never had any fears around or of him. His hair was usually military-style cropped, a shade of dark beard coloring his olive skinned jaw. Blood was smeared all over his body, although it did nothing to diminish the warm glow of his green eyes, the warm smile on his lips.

My mother was small and seemingly fragile compared to him. Her hair was often in dreadlocks with multitude of beads, her smokey complexion something that I inherited. There was less blood on her than there was on my father, which meant he had gotten the brunt of the force like he would want. Her brown eyes were teary and soft, her lips quivering.

They both leaned down, kissing my face, kissing me back to sleep.

When I woke up again, they were gone, replaced with the nurse who filled me in everything else. The pile up, my parents, how I was so lucky that I was where I was. That I was a little miracle.

And of course, I simply closed my eyes again. What else was there to do in a hospital? I didn't want to be a bother.

The weeks of recovery had passed swiftly, and soon my behind was grounded into a new home, some cousin of a cousin's aunt. The familial bonds were barely there, which was good granted there was nothing that could replace my parents. The new home was located in a town by the beach, in some beach city called Limbo.