Snow's Angel

She raises her scarred hands against the radiance of the sun rising in front of her, smiling as the watery glow turns into a fiery red around her fingers, making the burn marks on her arm almost invisible.

She loved fire. The blaze, the spirit it ignited in her- it was the allegory of all her desires. She would have embraced it a long time ago... had it not frightened her so; the idea of getting burnt, of falling deeper than she could manage to get out of.

Angel's usual routine included getting ready for either school or extra classes and hammering into her head, the most believable but still absurd facts of what made up her studies.

But today wasn't a usual day. Today was the day she'll get free.

The sky shone darkly out of the tinted glass windows of her classroom and somehow, she had refrained herself from jumping out of the window but the increasing pace of her heart was making it impossible to stay still.

"Angel, what is meant by an allusion?" The teacher's sudden question brings her out of the reverie.

"I don't know." She lies, trying not to remove her eyes from the window. For past few years, she had been the one to answer every question correctly but now, it didn't matter anymore. She wanted to think and feel, and not talk.

"A reference; in this particular piece, it is in the 'Prodigal Son' where it's a reference to some scriptural story in the New Testament." The boy answers, bending over her shoulder so he could take a proper look at the rough notebook lying open on her desk.

"I would have elucidated, if not for the un-Angelic handwriting of our dear Angel." He declares after a pause, sinking back in his seat.

She shoots him an annoyed look, turning back to the window but not before she notices the stares of others; stares she'd been trying to avoid all day.

The teacher clears her throat and continues the explanation of Father to Son.

"Hey, my definition is better than yours." The boy -- Snow, says to her in a low tone which he had managed to imperfect with the polish of mockery.

She ignores his whispered jibe. One day's inflated ego won't do much harm, not when she won't be here to handle the brunt the next day.

"Aren't you excited to see it, Angela?" He whispers from behind her, "To feel the words make your blood burn against your will?"

That year old taunt succeeds in getting a rise out of her. Almost everyone had forgotten the stupid speech she had given all those months ago but he seemed to find it extremely funny, reminding how big a disaster it had been. Half the class had thought she wrote porn and the other half didn't even understand a single word. Not to say, she had stumbled after the intro and gone mute, right at the podium. Not one of the brighter moments of her school life.

She feels her feet whip back, against the best of her judgment, rewarding her with a pained hiss from him as it makes contact with his ankle.

"Keep your thoughts to yourself, will you, Snow White?" She whispers back to him, simultaneously fixing her feet under the metallic support structure of the table.

She needed to have a stronger control on herself if she wanted to go through what all she had planned for the future. An infuriating classmate would hardly matter in the larger context.

"Not in a benign mood, are you?" He asks, recovering almost at once.

She ignores him again, not seeming to notice the look of surprise passing his face as she chooses not to argue.