Angels

“Angels don’t exist,” he used to tell me, “at least not in the way everyone seems to think they do. They’re all just pieces and parts of these people- the ones around us, all the good ones- thrown together into something no one person can fathom because the qualities the angels absorb are the ones we all hate within ourselves.”

I believed him then. I believed everything Kellan told me. Getting to know him was more interesting than getting to know Albert Einstein, Audrey Hepburn, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Brad Pitt... You get the idea; he was interesting. He had an outlook on everything and he loved looking through the looking glass instead of at it. He pushed himself as hard as he could, but he never did anything with it. Kellan liked to contradict himself more often than not.

During our short relationship, he loved to make love and then go out onto the roof and just stare at the stars or the sun and share everything on his mind. We did that almost every night, if not more.

The night he told me this, we were stretched out on the concrete of the roof of his apartment building. Rocks were digging into my calves and my arms, and my eyes darted from star to star in the sky like I was creating my own constellations based on the dulcet tones of his voice.

Immediately after the claim, he apologized. “I’m sorry, Jamie. I don’t know if you believe in Him and his minions or not.”

“I don’t,” I replied, knowing my voice was airy. I didn’t believe in them, and I still don’t. I’d never really believed, even when I was forced to go to church every Sunday morning. “I think you’re correct, though.”

“Angels are those few who try to make people feel better. They’re those few that see the world for what it is and try to do better. The ones who try to work their way into the charities without wanting anything in return aside from the satisfaction of helping. They work for and with others. They’re not the prettiest, but they’ve got the prettiest souls.”

I smiled at his words and closed my eyes. I was still on my post-sex high, so my whole body was tingling and my mind was numb and ready for any words that could be pushed into it.

“I think you’re an Angel, Jamie,” is what he said to me the night he proposed.

Sometimes I wish I’d said no to marrying him. Life would be much simpler now.