Discovering that demons and angels were real was something I still couldn’t wrap my head around. And knowing that I was on friendly terms with the devil had me in a low, simmering panic most of the time.
Knowing that Heaven and Hell were real, that probably meant God was real, too. Not that I didn’t believe in the guy before, but there was always a healthy amount of doubt. Now it was slightly scary knowing that he, for a fact, was somewhere in the universe doing whatever it is that he did
That meant he was probably watching me right now, frowning at this mess of a creation I turned out to be.
Maybe that’s why he let me die before I was even born.
I felt despair wrap around my throat. Swallowing, I walked up the steps to my house and opened the door.
My parents turned to look when they heard me come in. I paused.
“Where have you been?” my mother asked with a hard voice. I was about to respond when she turned to glare at me. “It’s been nearly two weeks since we last saw you, Venus.”
As if that was my fault. They made sure to be out of the way when I got home, only coming out when they knew I was out or in my room. But no, it’s my fault they haven’t seen me. I’m the one being rebellious and sneaking around.
I tsked. “I mean, it’s not like you’ve been approachable either.”
We stared at one another, waiting for someone to cave in so we could try to go back to pretending nothing bad was happening.
“Well?” She snapped. “Did you need something? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
My eyes began to sting and I looked up at the ceiling. Biting the inside of my cheek, I said, “I’m sorry, alright?”
She huffed and left the room.
I glanced at my father. He turned to look at me with a raised eyebrow.
“You look troubled.”
I sighed. “I guess you could say I’ve been having one hell of a month .”
He chuckled awkwardly and scratched his head. I looked down and lightly kicked at the floor.
Emotions inside me were crashing against me in rapid waves. I had to bite down on my tongue to keep everything inside— I wouldn’t burden him, them, with my problems. Not after we’d made sure to avoid each other for the past couple of weeks. Not when they were still mad about our last discussion. Not when I wasn’t sure if they would live past my birthday.
“I-I’m,” I stuttered.
I’m going upstairs, is what I wanted to say.
“I’m not okay,” is what came out instead. My voice cracked and my eyes filled with moisture. I blinked rapidly and looked up at random places around the room.
Well, shit. So much for not saying anything, I thought to myself, trying to keep my tongue between my teeth again. It was like it had a mind of its own.
“I, uh, I don’t know what my life is anymore. I guess I was born dead but apparently the devil, who is real, brought me back because you guys asked him to. And not just that but he’s judging me for not helping ghosts, even though I never even asked to be able to see them.” The word vomit came.
“And right after the whole dog thing, I jumped out the window and broke my foot, which is somehow better now because angels exist and one decided to just fix my foot. Why he would help me, I’m not sure because I feel like my whole being is tainted by Hell. And then some drunk in a white car almost ran me over.”
I gasped for air as I felt like my lungs were shrinking inside me. I couldn’t see my father through the tears constantly streaming down my face.
“And the cherry on top of the whole fucking sundae is that Mrs. Millie died and I have no idea what to do because she’s still here which means she’s probably waiting for Mr. Alan to die. And it’s made me realize that death is so, so easy. We have two weeks left until the payment is due and we’re pretending nothing is wrong. We’re not talking like we have the rest of our lives to makeup but you guys are going to die—” my voice broke into a sob. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. I don’t know if I can live without you guys and I’m just so scared and no one seems to underst—”
I was cut off by a chest meeting my face, followed by arms wrapping around me.
My father’s cologne was like a cool blanket wrapping around me on a rainy day.
“Shh, Venus, it’s okay,” he said, rubbing my head. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around him. “I’m sorry we haven’t been there for you. I’m sorry you had to go through this alone.”
My father pulled back and I looked up at him. He smiled sadly and wiped away my tears with his thumbs.
“All this time we’ve been thinking about how we couldn’t do the thing because of how it would affect us, but we didn’t think about how that would affect you.” He sighed. “If I’m being honest, I think it was always about us. We did things out of selfish reasons and the one suffering the consequences is you.”
I sniffed. “Do you regret bringing me back to life?”
“Never.”
I pulled away and wiped my nose against my sleeve. I gave him a tired smile.
“I’m thankful for the life you guys gave me. I’m sorry if I seemed ungrateful the other day.”
“I’m sorry for our behavior these past days— you’re right, we haven’t made ourselves approachable,” my father said. “But you have to understand where we’re coming from, too. We didn’t mind so much that you stopped going to school, it was that you lied. If you’d talked to us from the beginning we could’ve worked something out. You’re important to us and it hurts to think that we’re not close enough for you to come to us for things like that.”
I nodded. That seemed fair.
“From now on, anything you need, you come straight to us. Alright?”
“Okay,” I sighed. Silence settled into the room, slowly making the conversation feel like it didn’t happen, like it was a dream and reality was something different.
My father took hold of my shoulders and guided me over to the sofa. He sat me down, facing him. He glanced around as if looking for something. Finally, he settled on my face and tilted his head to the side.
“So… Angels, huh?”
I chuckled. “Yeah. Apparently, one of the girls I hung out with was tasked with looking after me. The other one I just met, but I think he’s higher on the angel ranking than she is— if that’s even a thing. It seemed like she was doing things he asked her to do.”
My father nodded, looking a little overwhelmed. I held my breath.
“You must have given them grey hairs,” he finally said, offering me a wide grin.
I laughed. “I mean, they both have blonde hair, so I can’t tell. Maybe.”
My father smiled and reached over to ruffle my hair.
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