I opened the door to the car and hopped in, completely aghast from this morning, it's obvious to see on my face, and mom can tell.

"Are you alright Ace?" She asks.

I gulp. "Mom?" I look at her. "Am... am I adopted?"

She looks taken aback. She puts the car in drive and pulls out of the parking lot. "This will be better to talk about at the house."

We drive back home in silence, park the car in silence, then walk inside without having said a word to each other. I put down my backpack and take off my shirt, tank-top, and harness to give my wings a break. I sit down on the couch with my wings relaxed and laying spread out on the couch behind me. Mom sits in a chair across from me.

I look at her expectantly. "Am I adopted."

She sighs, "Yes. You are adopted Ace." She replies.

"Do you know who my parents are?"

"I've tried to figure it out for a while now. The adoption agency wouldn't tell me." She replied.

"How old was I?"

"Three. You had been in a foster home for six months when I adopted you. You had been taken away from your mother by DHS. They said that there was a chance that you'd be a mutant. That's all I know." She explains.

I look down, my shoulders shaking and my feathers quivering right along with them.

"They found you in the sewer system. Your mother had been living in an abandoned Cold War bomb shelter. They told me your mother was estranged, claiming you to be the son of an archangel. I had no idea how right she was until you started growing wings." Mom said.

"The son of an archangel?" I looked up. "Wait, she may have not meant 'archangel' in the literal sense."

"We'll never know. No one knows where she is. She dissapeared, last seen in New York City." Mom sighed. "I'm sorry for not telling you. I just wanted to keep you safe."

I stand up and approach mom. She watches me. I sit in her lap and hug her. "It's ok mom. I love you. Just because I'm adopted, doesn't mean anything has changed."

I feel a warm drop of water hit my neck feathers. "I love you too sweetie. You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that." I move my head back to look at her. She wipes a tear away from her face and composes herself. "So, I did a little bit of digging today to find someplace we can go all summer, and I found this cozy cabin in the mountains. The closest neighbor is seven miles away, and there's a farm nearby with a man that raises geese. He teaches them to fly and everything."

"I think I know where this is going..." I say.

"I contacted him and told him the situation. He agreed to teach you to fly over the summer." Mom grinned.

"Wait- really?" My eyes widened. Mom nods with a smile. "Thank yoooou!" I hug her tightly. She laughs and hugs back.

"You're welcome kiddo. I have the cabin rented for the entire summer, so pack enough clothes to last. It has a washer and dryer so you don't have to worry about that too much. We leave the first day of summer. You start learning on the second. It'll probably take you a week or two to get the hang of it. After that, you have the rest of the summer to practice. Sound good?"

"Definitely." I grin. I can't wait for school to get out so I can start. I got off mom's lap and walked to the back yard to stretch my wings. When I got to the middle of the yard, I stretched my wings as wide as I could open them and sat down in the grass.

I used to not like being outside, but ever since my wingspan measured longer than I was tall, it became hard to relax in my room, bumping into everything with my giant feathery appendages. Instead of getting onto me about not getting outside enough, mom yells at me for sleeping on the back porch.

So I compromised, I'd sleep our there on warm nights only on the weekends. I have a hammock set up under the awning and everything. I fell back on the grass and watched the clouds go by. I see a flock of birds too. Jeez I wanna fly. I hear a caw come from close to my head. I look up and see a giant crow pecking the ground by my head. I looked at him, he looked at me, then flew away.

I sit up and start fixing my feathers, straightening them and putting them back in their right places. I did a bit of researched how birds clean their feathers, and turns out they have an oil gland for keeping their feathers clean. I checked my back for the gland, and there it was. I rubbed my hands in it and started massaging my feathers with it.

Well I'll tell ya one thing, my wings feel a lot better now. I covered my wings with it throughly before running it through the feathers on my neck and sides of my face. I run it through my hair for good measure and stand up to go inside.

"Feel better?" Mom asked.

"Yeah. Turns out I have a preening gland. Does wonders for my feathers."

"Well I guess it makes sense that you'd have one. Glad that it helps." Mom replies. "I'm making fish fillets for dinner, you hungry?"

I grin, "yeah, thanks mom."