Fly Me Away

Chapter 13

The ride home was much less traumatizing. It was so smooth that I almost forgot I’d ever left the house. One minute I was cold and my eyes were closed and the next, I was wide awake, sitting in bed under the covers; the only difference this time was the man now pacing around my room.

For reasons that were beyond me, I felt safer than ever. There wasn’t a trace of fear left, even when I thought back to the figure in my yard. I simply sat there, watching in awe as he glided around my bedroom with his hand in his hair, thinking of a good way to explain everything. He looked more magnificent than I remembered. His shirt was back on and his wings had disappeared, which made him look just like the Jackson I knew, but there was definitely something different about him. He looked a bit more...dishevelled. The other a Jackson was so clean-cut and well dressed.

“Are you relaxed yet?” he asked, not looking up from what he was doing.

His sudden question shocked me a bit. It wasn’t gentle like the other times, he sounded stern and frustrated. The question was meant to be serious, even though it sounded ridiculous.

“Yes,” I replied in a reasonably composed manner, trying to prove it to him.

Jackson stopped and glanced up at me for a brief second, before muttering something and continuing his pacing. I thought I heard him say something about ‘it starting to work’ but I wasn’t entirely sure. I pulled the covers up to my chin as a cold breeze picked up my hair; in his haste to put me down, Jackson had forgotten to close the balcony door behind him.

He rushed to it and it was closed within a second. “Sorry,” he muttered again.

I felt the curiosity building up inside of me as I watched him. He was acting so odd. I couldn’t imagine the Jackson I first met pacing around and talking to himself. This was a completely different side. I lowered my bed sheets and shuffled closer towards the place where he was walking.

“Why is that?” I tilted my head to the side and eyed him warily, “Why do I feel so safe? I know I should be really scared but I’m just...not. Why?”

He turned his back to me and I could see him holding the bridge of his nose through the reflection of my window. His fist was clenching and unclenching very slowly and almost....threateningly. Again, I wasn’t scared though.

“I have that effect on people.”

I folded my arms on the tail board of the bed, “Are you an angel Jackson?”

It came out so casually. He dropped his hands to his side and flexed them, “Yes.”

I was suddenly delighted. My smile stretched from one side of my face to the other. Jackson was an angel. Imagine that! The gorgeous guy that used to paint pictures of me, and compliment me and make me smile was—

“You’re probably wondering why I’ve been hanging around you.”

His low unsympathetic voice drew me from my reverie. I didn’t even need to respond, the answer was obvious. He turned his head back to glance at me for a moment, then double took; he must have seen my absurdly big smile. It was easy to relax it once I’d seen the look on his face.

He was appalled.

“Why on earth are you smiling like that?” he spat.

I withdrew from my place on the tail board back to the comfort of my blankets. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I was frowning now. I didn’t know angels were so mean.

“Because I have an angel in my room, wouldn’t you do the same?” I growled back, making it sound obvious.

“Having an angel in your room isn’t a good thing.” He turned away from me again and folded his arms.

I was getting angry with him; a rare occurrence for someone like me, “Well, tell me about it then instead of pacing around my room and mumbling to yourself like an idiot.”

“You have quite the little mouth, don’t you? Being rude to someone who’s quite clearly your superior.” He laughed harshly.

I shook my head—this wasn’t the Jackson I knew. This was a completely different person and I didn’t like him.

“....who the hell are you anyway? You can’t really be Jackson. He would never say something like that.”

“On the contrary Maggie, the Jackson you met was the impostor.”

I let out a frustrated sigh and dropped my head into my hands. I felt like my bubble had been majorly blown. I have an angel in my room and he’s a total Jackass.

I heard him walking around again, but didn’t have the energy to watch him anymore. After a long silence I felt the weight of the bed shift. I looked up to see him slouching on the end of it, looking like he wanted to say something. I put my chin on my knees and waited.

“I’m just stressed, I apologize. That was very rude of me,” he gave in, resting his elbows on his knees, “I’m not your superior, it’s not like that at all. I’m aware of how cliché this sounds, but I’m more like a guardian to you.”

I had mixed feelings about the presence of a guardian angel. What was it that I needed to be guarded from? The thought of the figure in my yard and the weird moaning sound in the forest sprung immediately to mind. I waited again for him to continue.

“I’ve been protecting you from things you shouldn’t have to see since the day you turned 18...but everything is changing. I’m not sure why there’s so many demons coming after you but—”

What?” I interrupted. The fear was suddenly there again.

His eyes shot up and met my panicky ones, “No no, you don’t have to worry.” He waved his hands.

“You just said there’s....demons coming after me? I think that’s cause for worry!” I whispered harshly, so as not to wake my mother. My eyes shot around the room, foolishly searching for demons.

“I should have thought this through more... I wanted to explain this to you without you getting scared.”

I barely heard him over my panic attack. I shuffled until I was against the headboard and pulled the covers over my shoulders, my eyes still scanning around frantically. Jackson sighed and I felt the weight shift from my bed again.

My frenzied eyes landed on him just has he placed himself in front of me. He leaned his head on his shoulder and looked at me with those glorious green eyes of his. I felt relaxed again, strangely enough; that wasn’t the feeling those eyes used to bring me.

“It’s you doing this isn’t it?” I asked, feeling the need to be quiet because of how close he was.

He smiled that pretty Jackson smile that I remembered and nodded. I smiled back—an involuntary response. He was some kind of super angel drug; the closer he was, the stronger it got. But I’d been around him before and I’d never noticed it.

“Why have I never noticed?” I said more to myself than to him. He answered anyway.

“I can choose when I use it, and it has a gradual effect so it builds up slowly. The main reason is that I never wanted you to notice. You would have been very confused if you were completely calm while I threw that man against a car.”

True.

“So you didn’t want me to figure out what you were, is that it?”

He shook his head, “definitely not. You have to understand that this is a huge thing for me. Angels are never supposed to show themselves to humans unless it is absolutely necessary.”

“Oh,” was all I could muster. It must have been bad then. He placed both his hands firmly on my shoulders.

“You aren’t in any danger Maggie, know that. Nothing out there stands a chance against me....and now that you know I’m here, I won’t have to talk to you through you mind and make you sick all the time.”

My eyebrows furrowed, “that was you making me sick?”

He stood up and started pacing beside my bed again, “It’s a very useful skill, being able to put my voice into your head, but it obviously has a side effect. Your brain thinks there’s something wrong and tries to remove the problem—a lot like car sickness. I didn’t have a choice at the time. It was either show myself then or make you sick.”

“You should have just shown yourself. I hate being sick,” I moaned, resting my head on a pillow and snuggling into the blankets.

I was suddenly aware of how tired I was. I checked the clock.

3.47 AM. No wonder.

I wouldn’t sleep though, I was too interested in everything that Jackson had to say, and I still had so many questions.

“Jackson.” I sounded sleepy. My eyes started to flicker shut.

“You're tired. I’ve kept you awake for long enough, get some rest,” Jackson said from the other side of the room. He closed the curtains in front of the balcony and my room was suddenly consumed by darkness.

“No wait,” I sat up groggily, “Just a couple more questions.”

I strained my eyes to see him, when I felt the bed shift again. He was on the end.

I cleared my throat, “firstly, that thing I saw in the yard, what—”

“A demon. Next question.”

I swallowed hard, “well...what happened to it?”

“I disposed of it. There that’s two questions—”

“But you were holding me?” I interrupted, “How did you dispose of it?”

“A couple is two Maggie. Go to sleep now.”

“No, wait, please. One more, this one’s important.”

He made a low, unhappy noise, but didn’t protest, so I continued.

“The Jackson that I met in the forest... was he...?”

“He wasn’t real. You were unhappy and I was worried that you would do something that you’d regret, so I did my research and I tried to become someone that could make you happy again—a charming, polite man who dressed well and had an expensive car. I found that, that was something that made women happy. I borrowed the car from a friend, if you were wondering.”

I didn’t catch the last part. The moment he said that the Jackson I knew wasn’t real, my heart broke, and the way he said it was like ripping it out and walking on it. He showed no remorse at all. Not a single tiny bit of guilt about the whole thing. He was right though, the perfect man is what generally makes a girl happy, and it even worked on me. I was happy for a little bit.... One thing didn’t add up though.

“Why did you show yourself to me the first time I met you? I was definitely happy then.”

There was a long silence. I squinted my eyes to try and see what he was doing, but they were just too tired to adjust to the darkness. I wasn’t sure whether he’d heard me.

“Jackson?” It came out slow and was followed by a sleepy yawn.

“I just....” he trailed off quietly. Jackson moved off my bed and I heard him walk towards the balcony.

I wanted to prod him about it further, but I was just too tired.

“Go to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said formally, as if we were going to sit down and have a meeting, which was highly likely.

My head felt like a stone as it hit the pillow; I didn’t need to be told twice.

As I drifted away, the thought of my old Jackson dawned on me again. Of course he was too good to be true, but it still hurt. Now he had been replaced with an angel who had multiple personalities. The new Jackson was more realistic, but so serious. I wasn’t sure whether I could handle him.
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