Angel Fever

A clear, starry night. Seb sat on the rough ground, leaning against the building. I stopped in my tracks as I saw that he was smoking: cigarette smoke drifted up to the stars.

I sat down beside him. Seb had his knees up with his wrists resting on them; I could feel his anger at me.

“Where’d you get the cigarettes?” I asked at last.

“Sam brought a few packs in,” he said shortly.

I knew the time he must have meant: a few days before Alex and I had left for Colorado, Sam had gone on a party-scavenging mission and had returned, triumphant, with beer, potato chips, pretzels – all the non-essential things we’d been missing so much.

I cleared my throat. “I thought you’d quit.”

Seb shrugged and blew out a stream of smoke. I hugged my knees; I could feel the chill of the concrete behind me. “So…how long have you been seeing Meghan?”

He tapped a crumbling column of ash off his cigarette. “A month. Maybe a little longer.”

“Why didn’t I sense it?” The words were out before I could stop them. It just felt completely wrong that Seb and I were so detached now.

He gave me a look. “I don’t know. Why didn’t you sense it?”

I stared at him, a horrible thought occurring to me. “God, Seb, you’re not trying to make me jealous, are you?”

He snorted. Lodging the cigarette in his mouth, he started to count off on his fingers: “So, let me see – one, I am using Meghan heartlessly. Two, I’m trying to make you jealous, but have been doing such a good job you haven’t noticed. Three is – what’s three? What else are you thinking about me?”

Three is that you told me you loved me less than a week ago. I didn’t say it; Seb picked up on it anyway. His stubbled jaw tightened as he glared at me. “What do you want from me, Willow?” he asked in a low voice.

It wasn’t the response I’d been expecting. “Seb, I just – I think maybe you should cool it with Meghan, that’s all. She’s going to be hurt when you don’t…” I trailed off.

“When I don’t love her back? Because I already love you?”

I swallowed. “Something like that.”

He shook his head, scowling as he took another puff; when he blew out the smoke, it was as if he were trying to extinguish the stars. “You know, I spent half my life looking for you,” he said.

“I know that,” I said, stricken. “Seb, I’m not—”

“No, listen to me. I don’t want pity for that; it’s just what I did. I fell in love with you before I’d ever even seen you, and—” He threw the cigarette away; it skittered across the sand, its red tip fading. “And when I find you, the girl of my dreams, the only other half-angel I’ve ever met…you’re already in love with someone else. Maybe you’d never have fallen in love with me anyway. Maybe you would have. Whatever. You didn’t want me; you only wanted to be friends.”

“Not just friends,” I whispered. “Seb, you know how much I—”

“Yes, I’m your brother,” he said curtly. “You care for me very much.”

I didn’t know what to say. Seb turned and studied me; his hazel eyes seemed to reach down to my soul.

“That’s a pretty top,” he said. “You look beautiful tonight, querida. But you always do. Every day. Only I can never say it, because I’m just your friend, your brother. And every night, you go into that bedroom with Alex, and you close the door—”

“Seb, you knew all this – I thought you were okay with it!” I burst out.

There was a long pause. “I was at first,” he said, scraping a hand across his jaw. “I told myself, just being in her life is enough. But after so many months…” He shook his head and looked at me again. “Did you know that for more than a year before I met you, I never touched another girl? I couldn’t – it felt like I was betraying you.”

I stared in dismay, remembering a conversation we’d had when we first met – Seb’s hesitation as he said, I don’t know. Always being with the wrong girl…I guess it made me feel lonelier than being by myself after a while. Oh god, how could I have failed to connect the dots and see what he was really saying?

Seb’s voice was low as he went on: “Then I met you, and we came here – and almost another year goes past, and still I never touched anyone else, not once – until Meghan. I’ll be nineteen next month, Willow. You tell me you’re going to love Alex for ever – and so, what? I’m supposed to never touch another girl again, just because I love you? Is it like a life sentence? Or do I get time off for good behaviour?”

His tone was scathing, like having boiling water flung over me. “You can touch whoever you want!” I cried. “I don’t care, okay? It’s just that Meghan really has a thing for you; you’re going to hurt her if—”

“You listen to me,” he interrupted. He took hold of my wrists, leaning close into my face. “I care about Meghan. I care about her very much. She’s the first human girl I’ve been able to really talk to, ever, in my whole life. She knows how I feel about you – I have been totally honest with her. I would not lie to her; I would not hurt her.”

I hesitated, thrown by his unexpected nearness. “But…Seb, don’t you get it? If you’re not in love with Meghan, then you will hurt her, even if you don’t mean to.”

He snorted and dropped my wrists. “Am I wrong to try, then? Or would you rather I spend the rest of my life being as – as stupidly in love with you as I am now?” He raked a hand through his curls. “Madre mia, Willow,” he hissed. “You know, I’ve heard a saying here: you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Well, I’m making up a new saying: you can’t refuse cake and then get upset when someone else takes it.”

My cheeks heated. “That has nothing to do with— That is not why I said anything!”

“Yes, fine. Whatever you say, querida.” He rose with a smooth motion. The moonlight touched his high cheekbones as he jammed his hands in his jeans pockets and stared out at the desert. “You know, the funny thing is…as the months passed, and I saw you weren’t ever going to feel the same…I thought, that’s all right; there’s still meaning. There’s still a reason I found her: it’s so I can help in this fight against the angels. Only now that’s gone too. So there is no meaning anywhere. None.”

Dread gripped me. “No, there is still meaning; there has to be! And we’re going to keep fighting; we—”

“It will do no good now – and you know it,” Seb interrupted coldly. Before I could protest, he pulled a small, wrapped parcel out of his pocket and tossed it onto my lap. “Feliz cumpleanos, Willow,” he said, and disappeared back inside the building.

I sat outside in the cold desert night for a long time.

The wind had picked up; I could hear the dry rustle of sand stirring in the breeze. My cheeks still burning, I gazed down at Meghan’s lucky shoes. She knew Seb was in love with me – yet she’d still smiled her bright smile; she’d still loaned me her favourite shoes.

She was so much nicer than me that it wasn’t funny. Oh god, what had gotten into me, accusing Seb like that? Seb, who I knew so well? Of course he’d never use Meghan; I should have known it instantly.

You can’t refuse cake and then get upset when someone else takes it.

That moment on the dance floor when I’d seen them kissing. For a second a chill touched me, then I shook my head in irritation. It had just been a shock, that was all. Seb had always been so adamant that he could never get involved with a human girl.

Sorry, but your cake analogy is way off, I told him in my head. I still shouldn’t have accused him, though. Now he was furious with me, and I couldn’t blame him.

I’ll apologize tomorrow, I thought wearily. Not that it would make much difference; we hardly spoke as it was.

Suddenly I was exhausted and cold through. A deep longing for Alex pierced me; the only thing in the world I wanted was to be lying in his arms. I got to my feet and Seb’s present slipped off my lap.