When Angels Speak: Chapter Seven
Title: When Angels Speak, Chapter Seven
Pairing/Character: Ensemble
Rating: R, for strong language and violence
Word Count: 6,019
Summary: Veronica is burned alive that fateful night, but never truly leaves those she loves as she watches from Heaven as they try to let go while falling apart.
Spoilers/Warnings: anything from Season 1 may or may not be mentioned.
A/N: This fic is very loosely based The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Posted at veronicamarsfic.
A/N:I'm so, so sorry it took this long to update - it'll never take this long again, I swear! As a treat, this is the longest chapter yet.
A/N: Tell me who you'd like to see more of, what you'd like to see more of. Please. I listen. :)
Previous chapters: one_two_three_four_five_six


Chapter Seven

An odd sensation swept over me as Wallace uttered my name, walked towards me, looked at me. I could say nothing, do nothing, for several moments; I only watched as Wallace continued to move towards me, then stop, just inches away.

Again, he said my name softly, disbelievingly.

“Veronica?”

Please let this be real.

Slowly, I lifted my hand, steadier than I ever could have if I had been alive, and gently placed my fingers onto Wallace’s face. I felt nothing, and yet I continued to stroke his skin, motioning my fingers so as to wipe his tears. Still, I felt nothing; and yet his tears began to slowly fade. I wasn’t sure how. At the moment, I didn’t care. Wallace brought his hand to his face, touched his own skin. He shivered.

“Have I gone crazy?” Wallace muttered to himself – to me – as he closed his eyes and wiped his tears fervently. He kept his eyelids tightly closed for a moment, then opened them once more. The tears fell more brutally from his weathered eyes as they widened, just slightly.

Is this real?

“My God,” he breathed. “Veronica.”

For some reason, I couldn’t say a word. I figured my soul had risen into my mouth by the way it was madly racing, by the way I couldn’t reason or feel. I said nothing. A tear stained my skin.

Smile, Veronica. Say something. Even if this isn’t real, pretend it is.

“You-” I paused, breathed in deeply, tried to strengthen my voice. “You can see me?”

I saw Wallace’s expression change – from dazed to staggered – as I spoke to him for the first time in weeks.

“You’re real?” He tried desperately to rid his eyes of tears, but, if at all possible, each move he made to clear his eyes brought on more.

“Last I checked, it was impolite to answer a question with a question.”

My voice had grown stronger, less skeptical, yet doubt still resided in my mind. I wasn’t at all sure what I was saying, but I was sure that I didn’t want the moment to be taken from me. So my voice was light. I smiled.

“Last I checked, you were dead,” Wallace breathed, his voice trembling with his body. Still, I knew, by the way he spoke, that he shared a thought similar to my own.

“I still am.”

Wallace breathed in deeply.

“Then how the hell are we talking to each other?” Wallace asked quietly, his voice an odd mixture of lighthearted and distraught. He stared at me, and I saw, in his eyes and through his tears, adoration and a thirst.

He misses me.

And I missed him, too, now more than ever.

Again I moved to touch him, and, again, my hand went through his skin.

“I didn’t know angels could cry.”

I looked at him, took my hands from the air surrounding him, and touched my own skin. I was surprised when my fingers met with a sleek moisture, and I rested my hand on my skin as tears continued to cascade down my face, touch the tips of my fingers, and make their way past them. I hadn’t even realized I was crying.

I put my hand down.

“If we can perform miracles, we can cry.”

“Are you my very own guardian angel?” Wallace asked. I could see, through the tears which buried his face (despite my touch), a small smile which escaped his lips. I knew he was giving in to the idea that this was real, just like I was.

“I didn’t sign up for the job, but the title sounds fitting.” I nodded shortly, smiling - my smile ever so small - with him.

Without replying, Wallace slowly brought up his hand which trembled, brought it to my face. His skin went through mine, but I felt a slight chill as his hand moved through me. His hands dropped back to his sides.

When he spoke again, his voice was a bit more broken. “I was kind of hoping I could hug you. Or at least… touch you.” He brought his hands up to my face again, and held them in midair. I supposed he was pretending his hand rested on my cheek. “My God, V. Tell me this is real.”

“Well, I’m real,” I said quietly, pointing to myself briefly. “I’m not too sure about you, though.”

I saw another small smile under his tears, as he nodded slightly. “So am I.”

“Then I guess this is real, too,” I whispered.

Wallace brought his hand down from my face and shut his eyes tightly. I watched as his head dropped, and tears squeezed from his eyes. He was still for a moment, as the tears fell silently. Suddenly, he fell to his knees, his eyes still closed. His body began to shake, though his tears were silent; I listened as he inhaled the moisture which fell from his eyes, then let out a quivery breath. I knelt to the floor so that our heights were even, and watched as he silently shook, his eyes still closed firmly, tears finding their way onto his skin.

“I-” he paused, breathed with difficulty, kept his eyes closed. “My God, V. I miss you.”

My tears began to fall with a fervor which matched Wallace’s. I moved to hug him, until I realized my mistake; instead, I wiped my own tears slowly, as they continued to come down with an intensity that I had never felt before.

“Miss you, too.” My voice was coated with tears, and even I had trouble understanding myself. Still, Wallace knew what I said, as his eyelids closed tighter, and his body shook more violently.

“So much,” he added painfully, his voice a whisper, as he finally opened his eyes. His eyes were now considerably more blood-shot and broken; I was sure my own were the same.

I was surprised that, with what I was feeling at the time, I was able to even think coherently. I wasn’t even sure – nor am I now – how I came to the realization that I had to tell Wallace something, had to tell him everything. I wouldn’t do to him, to my father, to Logan, what Lilly did to me.

“Listen, Wallace.” I paused as I fought to calm my rattling sobs, put my hands to my face to dry my tears. Wallace waited patiently as he watched his angel – which I knew I’ve come to be – calm her throbbing soul. When I finally managed to, I inched closer to Wallace, both of us still on our knees. “Wallace, I was murdered.”

I saw him swallow, then nod. “I figured.”

“I was burned alive.”

I watched as Wallace involuntarily flinched, looked away for a moment, then looked back. “Why? Why would anyone want to kill you?”

His voice was so soft, so tortured, I wanted, at that moment, nothing more than to ease his torment. I couldn’t. So I simply continued.

“I found out who killed Lilly.” My voice grew just a bit louder, faster, as if the moment would be taken from me. I was sure it would be - few things weren’t.

Wallace stared at me for a moment as he wiped a few tears. It was becoming routine, wiping moisture from bloodshot eyes. It shouldn’t have been.

“Is her killer – is it the same person who killed you?” he asked slowly, delicately.

I didn’t know why I paused, but, for a moment, my rush was halted as I watched Wallace watch me. Time was petrified, it seemed, until I was able to nod my head and continue.

“Yes. Wallace, it was Aaron Echolls,” I sputtered out, my voice jarring compared to the previous silence. “Aaron killed Lilly. And me. He-”

“Veronica?”

I stopped, looked at him. He didn’t say a word, so I continued, “Wallace, Aaron-”

“Veronica?”

Again, I looked at him, and noticed that his eyes no longer rested on me. “Wallace – Wallace, what’s wrong?”

“Who was it, who killed you? Who did this to you? To us? Veronica!”

Wallace stood from his knees and began looking around the room, just as he did minutes before. I stood with him, stood in front of him. He looked through me, around me.

I was gone.

“Please don’t leave. Veronica, please. Come back. I still have so much I want to tell you!” Wallace cried, circling the room dumbly, still searching for me as I stood before him.

The moment was taken from me. From him. I knew it would be.

“I’m right here, Wallace,” I muttered, watching as he began to cry harder, barely noticing as I did the same. He kneeled down again, and I kneeled with him, as he began to slightly rock back and forth, just as he did during my funeral. He continued to speak to me, and I continued to listen.

“Come back. Come back, come back, come back,” he chanted under his breath as his body swayed with his tears. He closed his eyes. “There’s so much…” He paused to breathe and wipe his tears, only to allow more to fall. “There’s so much I didn’t tell you when you were alive. When you were here.” Another breath. “Like how much I love you. I love you, V, so much.” Another pause, another breath. Deep breaths. “V, the best time of my life was with you. I never had a best friend, not one I loved as much as you. Not one who understood me like you did, laughed with me the way you did.” Not a breath, but a sigh; a tragic sigh. “God, Veronica, come back down. Please, come back down.”

The kitchen lights suddenly turned on, and I watched, startled, as Mrs. Fennel walked into the room. She stopped abruptly when she noticed her son sobbing in the middle of the kitchen floor, rocking back and forth, now chanting my name quietly to himself.

“Wallace?” she called out quietly, soothingly.

Wallace didn’t hear her. Or chose not to hear her.

“Wallace, baby, what are you doing?” she continued, now walking towards her son, who continued to sway with his sobs.

He didn’t look up, or stop chanting my name. As Mrs. Fennel neared him, his voice only grew louder. When she reached him, she knelt down next to him, and me, and put her hand around her son, rubbing his back gently.

“Sweetheart, you should be sleeping,” she said softly. Still, Wallace ignored her.

“Veronica. Veronica. Veronica. Veronica. Veronica.”

His chant was becoming desperate.

I could almost hear Mrs. Fennel’s heart begin to sink as she realized what her son was saying. As she blinked back tears, Wallace finally looked up at her, his face drowned in his own tears.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she whispered. “Why are you up?”

He stopped chanting my name, and the room was filled with a silence that was more eerie than awkward. Wallace stared into his mother’s eyes, she into his, for awhile before the silence was broken.

“Veronica,” he muttered once again, just once. Tears began to fall from Mrs. Fennel’s eyes.

“Baby, you have to try and let go,” she said slowly. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to mourn for her for the rest of your life.”

Wallace looked around the room, most likely searching for me again, trying to find me, as if I would suddenly reappear before him. I wasn’t sure he heard – or listened to – his mother’s words. I hoped he did, because she was right. I’d never want that.

“Come back,” he muttered to me one final time, his head now bowed down so that he was looking at the floor. Mrs. Fennel watched Wallace cry, her hand now over his shoulder, until he looked back into her eyes.

“Honey-”

“She was here,” Wallace interjected, speaking to her for the first time since she entered the room. Mrs. Fennel flinched – perhaps from the sudden sound of his voice, perhaps from the way his voice shattered as it traveled the space around them.

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

He shook his head.

“She was here,” he said again.

“Baby, I know.”

Again, he shook his head.

“She was here,” he said for a third time, his voice now more determined than broken (though still broken, as it’d always be). “I-”

His stopped himself, as he brought his hand to his face to wipe his tears. His hand lingered on his cheek, on the tears, as he closed his eyes. I realized that he was waiting for me to dry them. I quickly brought my hand to his face, to his tears, and rested it there. I remembered that I had no idea how I had dried his tears previously; I brought my hand back to my side.

“Dry my tears,” his whispered softly, his eyes still closed. And I tried to for a second time. And couldn’t, for a second time.

“What was that, sweetie?” she asked tenderly. She spoke to him in the same way every sentence she spoke: calmly, soothingly, coated with pet names, sometimes topped with a small smile. I briefly wondered why she bothered.

“I saw her,” Wallace continued from before, paying no attention to her question. He wasn’t looking at his mother anymore; instead, it seemed as though he averted his eyes so as not to look directly at her. He now sat on top of his legs, his knees bent. He was still rocking, just ever so slightly. His tears still had no end.

“You’re not making any sense, honey.” Mrs. Fennel watched her son with eyes that were both questioning and concerned; several tears still fell from her eyes.

I wondered how many more times I’d have to witness a human life falling apart.

“Here. Tonight. I saw her,” Wallace tried to clarify, once again, with his voice now more broken than determined.

“You mean you envisioned her? Saw her-”

“It wasn’t a hallucination.” And now his voice was firm. Still broken. He continued to cry; I imaged he always would.

“Sweetheart, I don’t understand-”

“Veronica was here!” Wallace cut her off for a second time, his voice elevating into a desperate cry. “She came. I saw her, talked to her. She came to me.”

I saw the way Mrs. Fennel’s face dropped, the way she held onto her son with a tighter grip. I saw the way the tears came down with more vigor, the way she paled, the way her frown deepened and her eyes burned.

She stood from the floor, tugged on Wallace’s hand to do the same.

“It’s time to go to sleep.”

Wallace stood, but didn’t move.

“Baby, you need some rest.”

She waited several minutes before he finally obeyed. She held his hand, as if he were a child, as they exited the kitchen, the milk still a puddle in the center of the floor. Wallace glanced over his shoulder before he stepped out of the room.

“Goodnight, V.”

I managed to smile.

“Goodnight, Wallace.”
______________

Logan immediately froze once he ambled through the door of Mars Investigations, his hands falling at his sides, the door just behind him still ajar. His eyes searched the room quickly, landing on the desk near the opposite wall. Upon seeing it empty, he searched the room once more.

“Veronica?”

I noticed the way he flinched at his own words, closing his eyes tightly and swallowing hard.

“She’s not here.”

Logan opened his eyes as my father walked into the room where Logan stood. He didn’t reply as he watched my father walk towards him, then stop several feet away. There was a silence as my father stared at Logan, who stared through my father. In this silence, Logan seemed deep in his own thoughts, still frozen near the door.

“You can come all the way in,” my father said finally, his tone patient.

Logan jumped slightly at the sound, as his eyes refocused onto my father.

“What was that?”

My father smiled. It was hollow.

“You can actually come in now,” my father repeated, still standing in place.

Logan immediately did so, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. Still, he continued to stand in place, as did my father. There was an awkward – at least it seemed to be – silence as neither said anything. My father was the one to break the silence for a second time.

“Is there a reason you came, Logan?” He paused, looked at Logan quizzically. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Logan ignored the question and took one step towards my father. “I’m here to help.”

My father seemed surprised, but, as it was almost impossible to read the face of Keith Mars, I knew only I could tell.

“Care to specify?”

“With Veronica.” Logan didn’t look directly into my father’s eyes as he spoke. I wasn’t sure why he chose this time to be nervous, when he was usually so resolute. He fidgeted. “Veronica’s case, I mean.”

“I’m not sure you should, Logan.” With this, my father turned around and began to walk back into his own office, brushing his fingers over my desk as the passed it.

Logan stood in place for a moment before he shook his head once and followed my father into the office quickly, his steps hasty.

“Mr. Mars, I said I was going to help,” Logan said as he entered the room, his voice almost pleading. He stopped in front of my father’s desk, where he kept his feet firmly in place.

My father didn’t sit down in his chair when he realized Logan had followed him. Instead, he stood behind his desk, on the side opposite Logan.

“I wasn’t aware you meant it,” he replied tiredly, looking at Logan as he spoke.

“I did.”

My father sighed and sat down in his chair, rubbing his temples slowly as he looked down at his desk.

“Mr. Mars, I don’t know what to do with myself. All I can think of is to find whoever killed her,” Logan continued, taking one step closer towards his desk. “I’m going to find the bastard whether you help me or not. I just thought it’d be easier to work together. Pool our resources.”

My father finally looked up at Logan.

“Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?” my father asked, while motioning for Logan to sit down.

Logan nodded as he quickly obeyed, seating himself in a chair set before my father’s desk. “Yes. I do.”

“This is dangerous, Logan. This is a murderer on the loose. I’m sure he won’t be afraid to add another death to his conscience.”

“To be honest, I don’t give a damn,” Logan replied, resting his elbow on the armrest.

My father gave him a tight smile. “Well, that’s what I like to hear.”

Logan smiled back, just as clumsily. “So, what? Shall we pull our resources, or work versus each other to find the same person?”

My father looked at Logan for a moment before he replied, “Together is fine by me.”

I could tell that, upon hearing these words, a small weight was lifted from his heavy, heavy heart.

“Okay, then.”

There was another silence. I watched as Logan shifted in his seat, as my father leaned back into his own. Logan eventually stood from his chair and leaned over my father’s desk, his arm outstretched.

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

“I’d rather not touch that.”

Logan and I laughed lightly together, as my father smiled. Genuinely.

“I have work to be done right now,” my father said as Logan’s laugh subsided. “Come back in an hour. Or tomorrow. Or whenever you’re ready.”

Logan nodded. “An hour it is, then.”

He turned to leave, somewhat dejectedly, as my father stood from his seat.

“Logan.”

Logan stopped, turned around.

“Want to take an over-zealous pitbull for a walk to pass the time by?”

He understood, it seemed, that Logan didn’t have a home, just a house (mansion) to waste away in. And our pitbull was always a painless remedy for loneliness.

Logan smiled; he was glad, I could tell, for the distraction. I silently thanked my father.

“Sure.”

My father tossed keys into the air, which Logan easily caught.

“Just bring him back to the apartment before you come back here.”

Logan nodded, and, before turning to leave, smiled once more. “Thank you.”

My father nodded, smiled, and sat back down.

Logan began to walk out of the office; before he exited the room, however, he turned to face my father for a second time.

“Oh, and one more thing.”

My father looked up from the paperwork which was spread out across his desk.

“Which one of us gets to kill the bastard when we find him?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. Just a moment.

“We’ll ‘rock, paper, scissors’ for the honor.”
______________

My gravestone wasn’t next to Lilly’s, or near hers, but both of ours rested in the same (Neptune’s only) cemetery. Hers was larger, with more engravings – as money always made things more extravagant – but mine was decorated with more flowers. More living flowers. Based on this observation, I assumed that it was possible to move on after time. I was never sure; I wasn’t able to. I could still see the tulips I had placed in front of her grave weeks ago.

“Lilly?” I called suddenly, not exactly sure why. To make sure she was still in Heaven? With me?

She didn’t immediately come, like she usually did when I called her.

“Lilly!” I called again, my eyes still glued to her grave, and my own. “Lil-”

My voice dropped when I noticed a figure stumbling towards my grave. Her stride was drunken, her hands clasped onto an actual glass bottle of vodka rather than the water bottle which she had grown so fond of. I bit my lip.

“’Ronica,” I heard her mumble slowly as she continued to walk towards my grave. “’Ro-ni-ca.”

When she reached my grave, she dropped to her knees and set down a single rose that I hadn’t even noticed was in her hand. She held onto the rose even after she set it on the ground, until her finger slipped and found its way into a thorn. I noticed her flinch and quickly bring her index finger to her mouth as blood trickled from the fresh wound.

“And that’s why I can’t stand roses,” I muttered to myself. “You might have known that if you hadn’t spent half my life intoxicated.”

I knew it was wrong, to quietly chew out my mother as she visited my grave, but there wasn’t a part of me that cared. She didn’t want to make her peace with me at my own funeral, and so she never would.

She finally brought her finger from her lips and put her hand at her side, her other hand still tightly clutching onto the bottle of vodka. She took a sip – more of a swig, actually – of the nauseating liquid and bowed her head to look at my gravestone.

“Miss you-” She paused herself to take another sip (swig), and then, “-‘Ronica.”

“It’s great you miss me now that I’m dead.”

Stop, Veronica.

“Sorry-” Another pause to take another swig, and then, “-‘Ronica.”

“You can’t even be sober for this?”

Stop. Stop. Stop it.

Her bottle was empty soon enough. She tossed it aside, next to a stranger’s grave, and put her hands – now free – onto my gravestone.

“Will you please come back?”

She wasn’t crying, her voice wasn’t tormented, and so a very big part of me wondered if she even cared that her only daughter was dead. And then the other, significantly smaller, part of me wondered why she’d bother to visit my grave if she didn’t care.

She didn’t stay for long. Soon after her vodka was gone, so was she.

My conclusion: alcohol can very easily make a mother visit her daughter’s grave without the mother’s consent.

I tried to laugh – the thought of my mother always helped - but there was nothing to laugh about. Not really. There was nothing funny about having a mother so far gone, she couldn’t even say goodbye. Or want to.
______________

It was Wallace’s turn to see Miss James.

After he was lead into the small office and they both seated themselves, Miss James gazed at Wallace for a long moment, her eyes sympathetic but her small smile stomach-turning. Wallace shifted in his seat, uncomfortable, I knew, from both the silence and her fixed stare.

“I’m really hoping you can talk to me openly today,” Miss James finally began, her voice just as soft as when she spoke to Logan. “I’m here only to help.”

As much as the silence made him uneasy, I knew he wanted to talk to the guidance counselor with even less enthusiasm than sitting in a quiet room. He didn’t reply.

“Wallace, I really need you to speak to me. Let out any bottled emotion,” she continued when Wallace said nothing.

Wallace stared at her for a moment.

“It’s strange,” he finally muttered, looking directly at Miss James.

“What is?” she asked, leaning forward, her tone still sugary (and sickeningly so), seemingly excited at the prospect of Wallace opening up.

“Being here.” And that was the end of what he had to say, as he looked away from Miss James eyes and back down to the floor.

Miss James wanted more out of him.

“Why’s that?”

Wallace sighed, looked back at the woman before him. “Because she was always the one who had to visit you. And here I am, here because of her.”

“And by ‘she’ you mean Veronica?”

I rolled my eyes. Why did guidance counselors – and shrinks, for that matter – need everything to be so precise?

“Yeah, I mean Veronica.” His voice was distant, and I smiled when I realized his thoughts most likely matched my own.

Miss James nodded slowly. “Veronica had a… though life.”

“Tough? Veronica’s life was more than tough.” He scowled as he spoke, becoming instantly defensive. I loved him for it. “Veronica’s life was hell on Earth.”

Again, Miss James nodded. “You’re right.” She paused – something she seemed to do a lot of – before she continued. “It seems you sympathize a great deal with what Veronica had to go through.”

“She’s my best friend, what would you expect?” He closed his eyes tightly, realizing his mistake, then opened them again, his eyes considerably more red. “Was.” He smiled blankly. “I guess I have to start using past tense now.”

Miss James smiled back, despite the fact that I knew she comprehended his smile to be fake. She paused (again); the pause was longer this time. The space between them seemed to grow thicker as, for once, Miss James seemed to be uncomfortable with what she was about to say. She didn’t speak for a moment, but instead seemed to debate with herself whether or not she should say whatever it was that was stirring in her head.

Wallace noticed.

“I know that you’re eventually going to say whatever it is you’re thinking about. So say it,” he said with composure, not a hint of anger or agitation coating his tone – though Wallace, I could tell, was becoming annoyed.

Miss James nodded quickly, taken off guard. “Okay.” Still, she paused, gathered herself. “Your mother tells me that you… think you see her,” she finally, finally said, more than a bit uneasy as she spoke.

“What was my mom doing talking to you?”

“She came to me as a concerned parent.”

She folded her hands onto her desk and looked deeply into Wallace’s eyes, as if looking for something. As if she’d find something. I wanted to tell her to stop wasting her time; he’d been robbed of too much to have any visible remnants of feeling left in his eyes.

When Wallace didn’t reply, only stared back at her (his eyes now a bit infuriated), she spoke again. “It’s not unusual to hallucinate the image of a deceased loved one, especially so soon after the death,” she tried to explain, still searching his eyes for whatever it was she needed to see. “There’s nothing-”

“I didn’t hallucinate the image of my deceased best friend,” Wallace interrupted, his tone now coated with the aggravation that it previously lacked. “I saw the real Veronica.”

Miss James faltered. “You’re suggesting-”

Again, he cut her off. “I’m not suggesting anything.” He was becoming hostile now, his voice abrasive and louder than normal. “Veronica visited me, two nights ago, in my kitchen. She wiped my tears. Told me that she missed me.”

“What makes you think it was real?” she asked delicately, her voice kind despite the way Wallace spoke to her.

“What makes you so sure it couldn’t have been?” He inhaled deeply, fighting for the breath that he lost from recounting my visit.

“There are-”

“She was trying to tell me something,” Wallace muttered, interrupting her for the third time. He furrowed his brow and frowned. “She told me that she found Lilly’s killer, that he’s the same person who killed her, too.” He lifted his head, looked up, and let out a deep, quavering sigh, tears beginning to moisten the edges of his eyes. “She was burned alive.”

I saw Miss James shudder – whether she realized it or not – ever so slightly, the sugary smile which she usually displayed no longer on her lips. “She told you this?”

Wallace looked back down, back at Miss James, with fresh tears now falling from his eyes. “Yes.”

“Have you…” She stopped herself for a second, taking a moment to breathe. “Have you seen her more than once?”

“She’s everywhere,” he mumbled, moving quickly to wipe his tears from the woman before him, hating, I knew, this demonstration of weakness.

“Which is normal, Wallace,” she told him softly.

Wallace shook his head. “I don’t see her everywhere. She’s not a hallucination.” His voice broke with his tears, which were falling to his chin and dripping slowly onto his lap. His body quivered. “She is everywhere.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” she replied, her voice still soft, a bit disbelieving.

“I feel her.”

Nothing was said for a moment, as Miss James tried to understand what Wallace was telling her.

“She’s everywhere.” His gaze was distant, his voice drifting, his tears unbearable. “She won’t leave me alone. I don’t want her to.”

“Do you-” She paused to swallow. “Do you feel her right now?”

He nodded, slowly. He then put his hand to his face, feeling his tears fall from his face. Keeping his hand in place, he looked up at the ceiling. Through the ceiling. At me.

“She’s my guardian angel.”
______________

Logan’s steps towards my father’s apartment were timid, almost remorseful. His steps were short, bringing him to the apartment slowly and unsurely. Once he reached the front door, he placed the key my father had given him into the lock, put his hands at his sides, and stood silent and still. I wasn’t sure how long he would have stood there, alone and utterly motionless, had Backup not begun to howl relentlessly through the other side of the door. Logan started at the sound, quickly bringing his hands to the key and unlocking the door.

Once he slowly opened the door, Backup hastened towards him, his stubby tail wagging persistently back and forth, his snout nuzzling Logan’s free hand. Logan smiled, shut the door behind him, and crouched down to pet him, only to be greeted with a downpour of wet kisses. He laughed.

“I see you remember me,” he said to Backup, holding the dog’s head with his two hands as he continued to be showered with kisses. “This is good.” Logan eventually stood up. “And you collar is where?”

I smiled as Logan spoke to my dog.

Backup wasn’t helpful, as he continued to nuzzle Logan’s hand, desperate for the attention he’d been lacking for the past few weeks. Logan ignored Backup for the moment as he quickly scanned the apartment for a leash and collar, while still standing in place.

I noticed his eyes stop when they landed on the door to my room. He dropped the key from his hand, his breathing instantly becoming shallow. He didn’t hesitate before moving from where he stood towards my room, yet when he actually reached the door to my room, he faltered, slowly putting his hand on the knob and simply resting it there. Backup had followed him, and continued to whine; Logan looked down at him, then back at his trembling hand.

Logan stood in front of my door for another moment before finally turning the knob and entering my room. His steps into my room were more timid than before, as if he felt he didn’t belong. Backup hurried into my room after Logan, hopping onto my bed and laying down on it in his usual spot, his nose burying into my blanket. Logan watched him with sad eyes.

“You miss her too, huh?”

Backup whined, moving his head to bury himself further into my blanket.

Logan tore his eyes from the pitbull as he began to glance over the contents of my room. He stood in place for a while, simply looking from where he stood. He moved when he noticed my dresser, still layered with my photographs. He made his way over to them, looking at them with careful eyes. He picked them up, one by one, looked at them, his eyes glazed, and set them back down. His eyes froze when they landed upon a particular picture of him and me, at homecoming sophomore year. Of a kiss between us, which Lilly had dared us into, and of which she proudly took a picture of without our knowledge. He smiled softly, clutching onto the picture of our first kiss.

“Tell Lilly she’s a bitch for making me fall for you,” Logan said quietly, still gazing at the picture. He soon set it back down, though reluctantly. I could tell he wanted nothing more at that moment than to keep it. I told him he could, but my voice was nothing.

Logan eventually moved from the pictures after thoroughly examining each one. He then began walking around my room in circles, going nowhere in particular, letting the tips of his fingers brush against any surface he passed by. He soon stopped at my closet, steadily opening it. He blindly reached into my closet, gripping a random shirt of mine which he took out, then closed the door. He clutched onto my shirt tightly, his fingers embracing the thread zealously, and continued to circle my room. After traveling around my room in circles for several minutes, Logan finally sat heavily onto my bed, where Backup continued to rest. He laid his head down, curled his knees up to his chest, and buried my shirt in his face. Backup lifted his snout and rested it on top of Logan’s leg, just as he used to do to me. Logan ignored the pitbull. Or couldn’t feel him.

He laid on my bed for seconds, minutes, almost an hour. Breathed in my scent. His breath was shallow, his body quivering. He clutched onto my shirt tightly, so tightly that his knuckles paled. And yet he didn’t cry, not a single tear. He didn’t cry.

He wouldn’t cry; not until the scent from my shirt wore off, not until he had none of me left to breathe. Not until he was left with only the memory of marshmallows and promises.

Then, he sobbed.

And I realized that I was in love.