Ahava

"Can you fall in love?"

He seems amused by this than anything else. We're on the curb again, catching dewdrops mid-fall. He's nursing a flask in his hand, but I don't know what's in it. Maybe it's just water. I haven't asked. He's strange that way.

"We were created for love. As were you. What a silly question."

He's also an incredible tease. I'm not about to let him get away with it. "You know what I mean. Like, I've read the stories. There's a couple of movies about it. But does it actually happen?"

He takes his time before responding, a hint of memory curving his lip. "I suppose it does. I suppose I can."

When he doesn't elaborate, I prod some more. He never tells me quite everything. Just the things he thinks are important. And he's a master of words, so he can condense them in the littlest phrases.

"Have you?"

"Why must we dwell on myself?" He laughs, and it's like he's not even trying. He could be better at averting the conversation, if he really wanted to. "How about you? Have you no secrets today?"

I shrug. "There's nothing to tell." Several times I thought maybe I was in love, or getting around to it. The first one was particularly convincing. It was crazy, dizzying, an absolute mad rush of hormones and adrenaline. It went by quickly, then it was over, and I cried about it. A lot. I thought I'd be in love forever.

Then there was more of them, and some moments I thought I had it again, but such moments were deceiving. Very recently, it wasn't a boy but a girl, and I came very close. I can't tell anymore, these days. I never let myself get that far anyway.

"No one has ever had your heart?" He asks me, and something about how he says it makes me seem so hopeless. Nineteen years of life on this planet, and never been in love. How lonely. Some people find their soulmates at that age. Some people get married, maybe already had a kid or two. But not me. I'm not sure who I'm waiting for.

"I guess not. You?" We're just tossing the questions back and forth, but it's not as if there's much else to do at this hour anyway.

He doesn't reply, not quickly enough, and I have my answer.

"Slut." I nudged him, grinning. He's the best, really. I doubt you can joke with just any one of them like that, but he's a good sport.

"I beg your pardon?" he says in mock offense, but he can't disguise the smile in his voice.

"Well? Who was it?" I'm intrigued, I admit. Not everyday you hear about this kind of love story.

"Who were they, you mean," he corrects, a bit impishly. He's a little whore, I'm telling you, but I don't interrupt.

"One of them was my lover and my brother, one of them my lover and my friend. One of them loved me and hated me, all at once and at different times. And all of them are my enemies." I'm confused, and I'm sure he wouldn't blame me for that.

"That's a really weird way of describing your exes."

"They are not ex-anything. I still love them so, nothing has changed..."

I raise an eyebrow. "So you're into polygamy?"

He laughs aloud. If there was a douse of imperfection in him, he would have spit out his drink, but there isn't. "I am trying to tell you this in a way you can understand. It is not as simple as replacing my feelings for one with another. Time does not matter to me. Neither does distance. Or any of those human things you must take into consideration."

"So you're like... allowed to love that many people at the same time? I don't get how that's right."

"Ah, but do you not see? We are not people." He smiles a smile that isn't happy or sad. He smiles like he's shaking hands with acceptance. "And we never will be. Perhaps it would be easier, no?"

He looks at me, eyes sympathetic, when I become silent. "It seems I have lost you along the way." He nods, more to himself than me. "Yes, that is it. Sometimes I lose them along the way. Sometimes we grow apart. Sometimes they go where I can no longer follow. But I never stop loving them. I do not know if I could, or if I even would. Not when I could just make room."

It's a bit clearer to me, though I know that's the best I can wrap my mind around right now. We're just not built to think of such things. It's impossible to convince yourself that 2 + 2 = 5, after all. You'd just get a headache, and maybe a failed math grade. I don't know why it had been so easy to believe him when he told me about his wings.

"Okay. There was three of them..."

"And others."

"Others?"

"Ones like you." He takes a swig from the flask, and offers it to me. I sniff at it. It isn't water. Smells like red wine. I decline. There's not much left, and I can tell he likes it. Some alcoholic.

"Oh, so those movies and those books were true!" Who knew, Hollywood? "Like, you guys falling out of heaven to be with someone on earth?"

"Mm. Not quite." His smile is fond, thoughtful. "Perhaps some of them also fell in love with me, but it is... it is like a love for those you cannot have. Perhaps they are too far away, or you simply could not reach them. But that does not make it any less real.

"I never touched those men. They were my dreams; if you touch your dreams, they vanish into the air. Like bubbles." His laugh is like a child's, an immortal one. "And what can be said most about beautiful things is that they do not last. They have to die too."

His eyes, I couldn't bear to meet them sometimes. They've seen too much.

I clear my throat, trying not to cry. I want to hear the rest of it. "And the three who weren't like me?"

"Ah. Yes. They were beautiful too. Even after The Fall." He finishes the last drop of wine, screwing the cap back on the flask. I wish he'd tell me what happened to them, but it seems he's nearing the end of his tale. I don't want to go home yet. All I know is that if there's even the slightest chance he could be with one of his lovers, he wouldn't be wasting time with me. "Beautiful, terrible, is there such a difference?

"I can only hope they still think the same of me."