Barefoot Angels

Jonah Jackson was an entirely different story. He was, essentially, the exact opposite of Ellie, in almost every way possible. He’d never stayed one place for more than a few years, and he was skeptical about everything – impossible to fool and impossible to please. He was cynical, down-to-earth, and annoyingly realistic: the kind of person Ellie normally would have despised.

But somehow, for some strange, unexplainable reason, it didn’t turn out that way. Maybe it was fate-maybe it was luck-or maybe it was just happenstance. Maybe-just maybe-it was just life.
The reason wasn’t what really mattered, after all, though. Not to either of them, anyways. What mattered was that it happened, for better or for worse, and that was really all the explanation that they needed.

The day she met Jonah Ellie was experiencing one of the absolute worst days of her entire life. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was sick in bed, vomiting every ten minutes, with a temperature of 104, combined with the fact that both her parents were miles away, leaving her to fend for herself in said state of sickness, along with what happened that afternoon when she actually did drag herself out of bed.

But, if she hadn’t have gotten out of bed, she never would have met Jonah – the one and only good thing to happen to her that day, although, at the time, she hadn’t thought of him as that; in fact, she’d lumped him in with all of the bad.

She did get up, though; admittedly, at two o’clock in the afternoon, but she got up all the same. Ellie hauled herself out of bed, threw on a tank top, not bothering to change out of her pajama pants, tied her hair in a sloppy ponytail and reluctantly trucked down the stairs to fix herself some ‘breakfast’.

Upon passing a mirror on her way down, Ellie stopped and looked at her reflection for a moment. After a minute of staring at the red, puffy bloodshot eyes, the long, tangled hair, and the disheveled, rumpled clothing, she said, “God, you look awful,” and proceeded to make her way into the kitchen.

“Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast...” she mumbled to herself as she almost drunkenly stumbled to the refrigerator in search of something, anything, to throw in the microwave and shove down her throat. Ellie groaned as she realized the fridge was almost completely empty. “Shit. This means I have to go out.”

Normally, she wouldn’t have minded. Normally she loved the outdoors. But not on a day like this – not on a day where every possible thing that could go wrong, was going wrong. Not when she felt like shit and looked it, too.

But she was hungry...really hungry...

Reluctantly, she slipped on a pair of converse and headed out the door, grabbing the house key on her way out and slipping it into her pocket. The grocery store was within walking distance, anyway, as was most everything in Cedar Beach, North Carolina.

It was an old town, and it was positively microscopic, but Ellie loved it just the same. Though it was the absolute most mundane and unimaginative place on earth, it was friendly and familiar, and more importantly, it was home. It had been home for Ellie for her entire life. She’d been born here and, she was certain, she would die here.

But the thing she loved most about Cedar Beach was, well, the beach. She didn’t surf, but she loved to swim, and the feeling she got when she had wet sand between her toes equaled nothing else. She spent all of her time outside of school on the beach – she ate there, she did homework there, she practically slept there some nights. She maintained a decent tan year round, even during the bitter cold of the winter, and the beach became a second home.

“Ellie! Ellie, wait up!”

When she heard someone calling from behind her, Ellie turned around to see Tim, an old friend of hers, running to catch up with her. She stopped walking and waited, smiling, for him.

“Hey, Tim,” she choked out, her voice hoarse and scratchy. She suddenly became agonizingly conscious of how terrible she looked; and felt a twinge of embarrassment.

After reaching her side the two quickly fell into step with each other as well as into conversation. “You look awful,” Tim told her, and she rolled her eyes. If there was one thing she could count on Tim to be, it was honest. He was normally very sweet; but also brutally, brutally honest.

“Thanks, Tim, for your ever so thoughtful comment. It’s nice to know you care,” Ellie snapped at him. Usually she wouldn’t have minded his good-natured teasing; she might have even played along, but today was just not like that. With the kind of day she was having, Ellie wasn’t up for mockery of any sort.

Tim was obviously shocked by her reaction. “Ellie, are you alright?”

She shrugged, then, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets, begun walking again. “It’s like you said, Timmy. I look terrible and I feel the same. I’m pretty sure that as of now my days are numbered.”

“Oh, Ellie,” Tim laughed, draping his arm around her shoulders. She shrugged him off quickly but he didn’t seem to mind. “Don’t be so dramatic. You are sick. Everyone gets sick. Even superhuman, super-tough, super-untouchable Ellie Pennington.”

She just gave an annoyed noise, halfway realizing he was right.

“And speaking of which, why are you out here when you’re sick, anyways? Where are we going?” Ellie couldn’t help but laugh at this, which made Tim smile. “See. You can still laugh – you’re not dying.”

“I might if I don’t get some food in me,” she told him, and he nodded.

“So we’re going downtown.”

“You could say that.” Nothing was really downtown in Cedar Beach; considering that everything was within a three and a half mile radius, including the beach.

Tim suddenly stopped. “But didn’t you say you were sick?”

“Yeah...” Ellie looked at him curiously and he sighed.

“El, there is no way I am letting you eat anything. I don’t want to have to see it again in two hours! Don’t you know the rules of being sick and disgusting?”

She laughed and shook her head. “There are no rules for being sic-“

“Oh, yes there are,” Tim interrupted, obviously waiting for her to have said something of the sort. He loved being right, which was unfortunate because, well, he wasn’t most of the time. “Rule number 1: You don’t eat anything. Rule number 2: You don’t go anywhere, especially not to eat something! Are you aware of the fact that you are, of this very minute, breaking two of the most vital Sick Rules?”

“Oh, Tim,” Ellie said, smiling at him, and he just smiled back. He’d done it again: whenever she was feeling awful, Tim always found a way, even if it was a silly, sarcastic Tim way, to make her smile. “I’m aware. But I’m also very hungry.”

Tim held up his palms in surrender. “I’m just warning you.”

The pair walked along the sidewalk for a while talking, both of them enjoying the relaxed kind of company. Ellie was just glad to have someone to see, even if she wasn’t so glad to have them see her. And she was especially glad that it was Tim, her friend, and not one of the many other immature, obnoxious guys that always seemed to hang around her. They neared a crosswalk, not paying attention.

“Ellie, watch out!”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, came a deafeningly loud roaring noise, and Ellie was forced to jump to the side of the road as a large, shiny object hurtled past her, coming mere inches close to colliding with her. The force of her leap sent her crashing to the ground on the sidewalk, rolling over a few times before coming to a stop.

For a few seconds, Ellie found herself not being able to breathe. She laid on the ground on her back, in shock, frozen as Tim ran to her side. “Ellie? Ellie, are you okay? You weren’t hit, were you, El?”

She sat up and coughed violently, forcing her breathing back to normal. Tim knelt next to her, concerned. “No, I wasn’t hit,” she told him, coughing a few more times. “I’m just a little-little shaken, that’s all.” It was true; the shock of the near-impact had affected her, and she began to tremble slightly.

“God, Ellie, you’re such a klutz,” Tim teased, but his actions didn’t match his words as he reached
out and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. Ellie couldn’t help but laugh; Tim was never, ever serious: not even in a situation such as this.

“What was that, anyway?” She asked, not having had time to identify what had almost run her down.

“Motorcycle. Some guy speeding. He’s over there.” Tim nodded to where the boy and his motorcycle lay toppled on the ground a few feet away. “After he almost hit you, he swerved and hit the curb.”

Ellie forced herself to her feet and examined the sight that was before her. It was a young boy, around her age, she supposed. He was struggling to crawl out from underneath the offending vehicle, but apparently was having trouble. The next thing she knew, Tim was at his side, pulling the motorcycle off of him and helping the boy to his feet.

“Tim,” Ellie hissed, through her teeth. “What are you doing?”

“Helping him,” he whispered back. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Ellie didn’t respond, only sighed heavily.

When the boy was up and on his feet, he thanked Tim quickly and managed to haul the motorcycle to an upright position. He then turned to Ellie, who was glaring at him angrily.

He wasn’t that much taller than her, maybe three or four inches. When he removed his helmet and shook out his hair, dark brown curls crowned his head and hung in his face, slightly hiding his equally dark brown eyes. He had a certain devilish air about him; the kind of rebellious, troublemaking bad-boy look that was so rare in Cedar Beach. He was the exact opposite of all the blonde-haired, blue-eyed mama’s boys who Ellie was used to seeing and hanging around.

She hated him immediately.

He didn’t say anything – didn’t even have the common courtesy to apologize, something Ellie found appalling. “Well?” She asked him, waiting expectantly for a ‘sorry’. He only raised an eyebrow at her curiously, as if he didn’t know what she was waiting for. “Don’t you have something to say?”

From the corner of her eye, Ellie caught Tim giving her an anxious look, telling her to stop. But Ellie pressed on.

“Like what?” His voice was deep and smooth, and although it was actually terribly attractive, Ellie forced herself to hate it.

“What do you mean, ‘like what’? You almost ran me down, for chrissakes! Are you not going to say anything?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Sorry you’re so stupid’? You were the one who was walking in the road.”

Ellie’s jaw dropped at first, and then her expression turned angry as she narrowed her eyes and set her jaw in the typical angry face that Tim was so familiar with. “Ellie,” Tim began, in a warning tone, “Don’t do it-“

“It’s called a crosswalk,” she snapped, each of her words carefully enunciated; anger laced between every syllable. “Ever heard of it? Or are you painfully unaware of that word, as apparently you are with 'speed limit'?”

The boy laughed. “I don’t think my safety habits are any of your business-“

“They are when the lack thereof almost runs me off the road!”

“Maybe if you weren’t walking in the road-“

“Crosswalk!”

“Sidewalk!”

“Sometimes you need to cross the road!”

“Sometimes, you should stay out of the road and look before you cross the street!”

“I did! Excuse me if I didn’t happen to see the self-righteous jerk going seventy miles per hour in a thirty mile zone!”

“And excuse me if I didn’t see the dumb bitch who expected traffic to stop for her!”

Ellie fell silent, stunned and insulted by his comment. While she was quiet on the outside, she seethed on the inside, wanting to say everything but unable to do anything. “You didn’t-you did not just call me a bitch, did you?”

“Oh, dear god,” Tim mumbled, from the sidewalk, knowing this was not going to end well.”

“Oh, are you deaf, too?” He snapped, and Ellie’s face began to redden with both humiliation and anger. “I called you a dumb bitch.”

Although all that Ellie wanted to do was scream obscenities, she did her best to preserve whatever composure and dignity she had left. “I have a name.”

“Really? That’s good, because I don’t care.”

“I just thought you’d want to know,” she said, through gritted teeth. “I mean since you apparently now know me well enough to call me names, maybe you’d want to get the right one before you do.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine, if it’ll shut you up, you can tell me your name.”

“Ellie. Ellie Pennington.” Ellie held her head high, nose in the air, looking obnoxiously pretentious.

“Hmm. Sounds a lot like dumb bitch to me.”

Ellie’s eyes widened in shock, and just before she could react, the boy mounted his motorcycle and revved the engine, laughing when Ellie cringed at the raucous noise and darted for the sidewalk.

Then the boy smiled at her, and said, “Jonah. Jonah Jackson,” and sped off down the road.

For a few moments Ellie stood on the sidewalk staring after him in disbelief. She couldn’t – no, she wouldn’t- swallow the fact that that- that- thing had invaded her beach. She needed him gone, even if she’d only interacted with him for a few minutes. Just knowing that he was out there, causing trouble and stirring up her normally peaceful, friendly town, made her blood start to boil.

“Tim,” she said, eyes wide, still staring at the space where he’d been moments before, “Let’s go home now.”