“Do you think I could do that?” I stand up and summon my wings awkwardly. I can’t help my sudden flash of jealousy. She’s so much stronger than I am. So much smarter about everything. She has twice the angel blood.
“I don’t know,” she muses. “I guess I could have inherited the shape-shifting thing.
But it makes more sense if we all could do it.”
I close my eyes.
“Butterfly,” I whisper.
I open my eyes again. Still feathers.
“You have to free your mind,” says Angela.
“You sound like Yoda.”
“Free your mind, you must,” she says in her best Yoda voice.
She raises her arms over her head and stretches. Her wings disappear.
“That was unbelievably cool,” I tell her.
“I know.”
At that moment another fly drops right down the front of my shirt, and between the shrieking and digging around to get it out, and the hysterical laughing afterward, I’m so grateful that I have a friend like Angela, who always reminds me of how cool it is to be angel-blood when I’m feeling like a freak of nature. Who can make me forget about Christian Prescott, even for a minute.
Christian’s sitting on the front step when I get home. The porch light casts a halo of soft glow around him, like a spotlight on a stage. He has a mug of what I can only guess is my mom’s raspberry tea in his hand, which he instantly puts down on the porch. He jumps to his feet. I fervently wish I could fly away.
“I’m sorry,” he says earnestly. “I was dumb. I was stupid. I was an idiot.”
I have to admit, he does look adorable standing there all moony-eyed telling me how stupid he is. Not fair.
I sigh.
“How long have you been sitting here?” I ask.
“Not long,” he says. “Like three hours.” He points to the mug. “The free refills made it only seem like two.”
I refuse to smile at his joke and push past him into the house, where my mom suddenly jumps up from the couch and heads for her office without a word. For that I’m grateful.
“Come in,” I call to him, as it’s clear he’s not going to go away any time soon.
He follows me into the kitchen.
“Okay,” I say. “Here’s the deal. We will not discuss prom, ever, ever again.”
His eyes flash with relief. I grab his mug and put it next to the sink. I take a moment to steady myself against the counter.
“Let’s start over,” I say, my back to him.
That’d be nice, I think, to start over. No visions, no expectations, no humiliation. Just boy meets girl. Him and me.
“Okay.”
“I’m Clara.” I turn to face him and hold out my hand.
The corner of his mouth lifts in a suppressed smile. “I’m Christian,” he murmurs, taking my hand in his and squeezing it gently.
“Nice to meet you, Christian,” I say like he’s a normal guy. Like when I close my eyes I don’t see him standing in the middle of a forest fire. Like him touching me right now doesn’t send a pang of yearning and recognition rippling through me.
“Totally.”
We go back out to the front porch. I make more tea and get a blanket for him and a blanket for me and we sit on the front step, looking at the diamond-studded sky.
“Stars were never this bright in California,” he says.
I was thinking the same thing.
By the time my mom comes out of her office and politely (and ecstatically, I think) informs us that it’s late and it’s a school night and Christian had better get himself home, I know so much more about him. I know that he lives with his uncle, who owns the Bank of Jackson Hole and a couple of real estate offices in town. Where his parents are, he doesn’t really go into, although I get the distinct impression that they’re dead, and have been for a long time. He’s super attached to their housekeeper, Marta, who’s been around since he was ten years old. He loves Mexican food, and skiing of course, and playing the guitar.
“Enough about me,” he says after a while. “Let’s talk about you. Why did you come here?” he asks.
“Oh, uh—” I search my brain for my rehearsed answer. “My mom. She wanted to get out of California, move somewhere that’s not so crowded, get some fresh air. She thought it’d be good for us.”
“And was it? Good for you, I mean?”
“Sort of. I mean, school hasn’t exactly been easy, trying to make friends and all that.”
