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3 - l'identité de l'ange est finalement révélé

3 - l'identité de l'ange est finalement révélé
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Edwin immediately pulled his hand back, his face feeling as if it were on fire. "Socialize a bit until I address the whole class," Reynold instructed before walking away, presumably to give instruction to other groups that had accumulated.

Edwin gazed cautiously at l'ange, almost afraid to look, as if he would blink and the boy would be gone.

Gabriel. Now wasn't that just the most perfect and ironic name for him. Out of millions of others, it just had to be a name fit for a true angel.

And it just had to be the name of someone religious. If there was one thing Edwin knew about people who were named religiously, it was that they did not tend to be all too accepting of gays, let alone be gay themselves. So, as with most endeavors that were not academic, Edwin had barely a sliver of a chance for success at this particular venue, no matter how appealing it seemed and no matter how long he had held on to the angel's arm.

"Sorry again about the hallway," Gabriel muttered after a moment, his blue eyes lifting to meet Edwin's.

"It's fine," Edwin replied, immediately severing his gaze from Gabriel's.

Gabriel tried again. "I like your hair."

Edwin did not. His short brown curls were so thick and unruly that they reminded him of a cloud. No matter how much he tried to style it, nothing ever worked, so he was left with just a big fluffy mess most of the time. Of course, there had been a time when it was manageable, but Edwin strongly preferred not to ever think of that time because of some particularly negative memories attached to it.

"Thanks," Edwin said nonetheless, straightening his glasses and beginning to nervously fiddle with his hands.

"What do you think this activity was for?" Gabriel wondered.

Edwin shrugged. "I don't know, I'm not typically a big theatre person."

Gabriel chuckled lightly, then opened his mouth to speak, but that was when Reynold chose to speak up, causing Gabriel to close his mouth again and cast his attention to the odd teacher.

"You may be wondering why you've all just participated in this activity," he said, removing the clown wig to reveal very short blonde curls. "Blind trust." He set the wig down on a table nearby. "This activity has helped you all to choose your yearlong drama partners."

Edwin's face flushed, and his stomach squirmed when Gabriel shot him a friendly smile.

"You and your partner will start out by writing and performing a two-person play," Reynold said. "This will be due next week."

Edwin bit his lip. He didn't often write, despite being a serial reader. And he didn't particularly think he'd be able to stomach spending an extended amount of time around Gabriel, being the angel that he was.

"So you'd better start working," Reynold smiled cheekily.

Gabriel looked immediately to Edwin across from him on the floor. "Any thoughts?"

There were a lot of thoughts running through Edwin's head, but absolutely none of them pertained in any way to the project. Most of them, in fact, were predominantly focused on the small strand of spring-green hair hanging in Gabriel's face.

"No," Edwin choked out, mentally chiding himself for his constant awkwardness. It wasn't often he spoke in one-word sentence fragments like this one, and Edwin was far from a creature of change. Every little adjustment held the potential to make him extremely uneasy, and he hated it most when the change was his fault. Or, in this case, the fault of his crazed teenage hormones.

Gabriel shrugged. "I don't either."

Gabriel, unlike his incredibly flustered drama partner, was killing the "3+ Words" game. Other than "any thoughts", he'd had a perfect streak ever since they'd met. Edwin's statistics, however, were not so attractive. His words had steadily decreased the more he and Gabriel found themselves in the same place.

Edwin awkwardly cleared his throat, looking everywhere around the room but at Gabriel. Everyone else seemed to be working together just fine. Two particular girls in the corner of the room even seemed to be doing a little more than friendly teamwork, with both girls clearly flirting with the other. Edwin would feel much more happy to be in the company of fellow gays if he weren't so far into the closet that he could see the lamp post and the faun in the snow.

"Well, we've got to come up with something," Gabriel reminded, sounding just a little desperate to drag any words out of his new yearlong partner.

Edwin nodded, unsure how to even respond at this point. It wasn't often that he was devoid of words, but he already hated it. He knew a million words for every meaning, each with their own specific denotation and rhythm and elegance, and yet not a single word in the English language seemed to be good enough for the perfect being that Gabriel clearly was.

"You don't talk a lot, I guess," Gabriel pointed out, a trace of disappointment edging its way into his voice, though Edwin couldn't imagine why.

"Usually I do," Edwin blurted out before his brain could reprimand him on how incredibly stupid that statement was to choose out of the thousands of statements he could've made in that moment.

Gabriel's expression shifted to one that Edwin couldn't quite decipher. "What's that supposed to mean?" He asked, sounding vaguely repulsed.

Just then, the bell rang, and Edwin immediately sprung upward and left the room as quickly as he could.

After he'd half-sprinted a fair distance down the hallway, he pressed his back to a wall and stayed there, breathing heavily and waiting for his heart rate to slow, if even a little amount. He was apparently more shaken by the encounter than he'd thought. He even felt a small bit sick.

He ignored the feeling of being absolutely and completely sick to his stomach and breezed through science class with Mr. D. and technology class with Mrs. Bunch. He felt as if he was in a trance for the entirety of both classes.

He was more than overjoyed to get on the bus and go home to his chihuahua. When he arrived at home, little Beethoven greeted him immediately, jumping to be picked up.

Edwin scooped up the little dog, planted a kiss on her silky brown head, and then carried her to his room. He set her on the bed and then sat down himself, where Beethoven quickly snuggled into his leg, sighing contentedly after she found what she deemed to be a comfortable spot.

He sighed, thinking about the day's events. It felt surreal that he was drama partners with Gabriel, the boy who he'd seen in the hallway nearly five hours earlier and mistaken for an angel.

He patted Beethoven's head and muttered, "We're in deep now, Beeth."