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She had finished eating and had retreated like a coward back into her room. She was running around like a rabbit in the shadow
of a hawk. She'd spoken to no one. She'd made every attempt at the opposite. Hell, she'd barely said hello to the ladies who
were serving the food out. Then she'd sat in a corner, far away from everyone. It was her responsibility to get to know people
here. She shouldn't wait for someone to come to her. She just wished... somebody had.
She hated feeling so scared. So weak. She had hoped that maybe, miraculously, when she arrived at college... she would just
change. That she would suddenly become more confident, more... well, she hadn't. Not yet.
Not yet, she reminded herself firmly. But she would make it so that she succeeded. Even if she succeeded alone.
Yes, that was right. Even if she fought all on her own, with no one to help. As she had all this time. She remembered, long
ago, when she had asked for assistance from above. She had hoped for a miracle. Had asked for that miracle, one last time.
She had lost that hope after finding herself alone once again. And... she had given up.
And then she had picked up the pieces and moved on.
She had made it this far, she reminded herself once again. And she would continue moving forward. Tomorrow, that meant her
English, Math, and U.S. History classes. One right after the other, starting at nine and ending at noon. She would get great
grades in those classes, then in her Psychology and Chemistry classes. Then... then she would become a famous writer. Somehow.
She felt hopeless at the daunting look of publishing and constantly sending her stories in; she could already feel the bitter
sorrow as she received rejection letter after rejection letter.
How would she get through that, with the small amount of confidence she had in herself? And if she couldn't make it, what
would she do? Where would she go? What kind of life would she live?
She forced the fear away and carried herself forward to the hard cot that acted as her bed. She didn't really care how hard
it was; she had sometimes slept on worse. When she was tired, she just fell asleep wherever she could get horizontal. She
could fall asleep on almost anything. She just needed to be flat on the surface of whatever-it-was and able to sleep on her
stomach.
She pulled back the covers and looked at her bed covers, a bold purple that was a lot darker than anything she'd slept on
at her mother's. It was a small sign of independence, but it was one she coveted. She would change, even if it was slow. One
step at a time was better than standing still.
She'd already gotten through the hard part. She had suffered for years, but she'd managed to get to college. She'd managed
to win her battle for freedom. After working so hard to get away from that woman, she had finally succeeded. Finally. She
was thrilled. She was ecstatic. Overjoyed.
And yet...
Trista stepped under the covers and turned on her alarm clock. With practiced concentration, she slipped into the depths of
sleep.
<*>
Arrian wasn't used to the feeling of sleepiness. It weighed him down when he needed to be concentrating. He had his first
class with Trista tomorrow. What would happen? What could he expect from her? She had been afraid of something at the cafeteria.
He had to find out what. Maybe that fear was what had made her reject his Lord, whatever that truly meant. Had she given up
on religion? Was she...?
He shook his head. If it was hopeless, his Lord wouldn't have sent him here. The Lord never did anything without reason.
This girl had to be important to God. Arrian had seen the worry and concern in his Lord's eyes. She was the key to something,
though Arrian did not know what. She was... special. Somehow.
Not to say that every human wasn't special, but even God couldn't spread his Angels infinitely. And other matters always pressed
on His mind – war, hunger, drought. God had the world to see to. He couldn't take time out to save every individual
from their paths. He could only afford to do so for those He could not afford to lose.
But if that were the case, then why did his Lord send him out? He had never been to Earth before. And though he'd been
taught the basics of this world before coming, he knew he was handicapped in this area and awkward in the environment. He
didn't necessarily know the customs. He was confused by such things as Ti-Vo and I-pods. If this Trista was so important,
why didn't his Lord send someone better suited to this?
But his Lord had His reasons. His was not to question why.
He glanced warily at the bed he had been given. It was small and uncomfortable, not at all what he was used to. He liked it
more back home. There he had rested and lain on pallets soft as clouds. His Lord's dimension was one of luxury and comfort.
He missed the simple joy of being able to relax on his pallets. He had never slept before, but the pallets had been comfortable
enough for him to believe that he could.
Here, he thought with an amount of disgust that he thought was more a human trait, was a place of filth and pain. Earth had
been contaminated by humans. No wonder the elders were in contempt of this race.
He wondered if Trista could sleep on such things as this bed.
Then he wondered if he should think of humans as filthy and sadistic, considering he was supposed to be Saving one. They were
created by God, after all. Should he truly think they are so horrible? Weren't there even angels who had turned filthy and
evil?
No, he shouldn't judge all humans this way. Maybe there was a good reason for making beds like this. Did they believe in suffering
to get closer to their God, like the Buddhists and Hindus? Maybe that was it.
Knowing he would have to sleep eventually, he girded his loins and prepared to toss and turn for hours.
<*>
Her dorm bed was really stiff, like the mattress had been made out of wood. She'd woken up with a bit of a backache.
The morning was kind of gray, as the sky was wont to be up here in the mountains. It wasn't too cold yet, as she'd been told
to expect, but she knew that would eventually change. She'd actually been warned of fluctuating weather, beginning around
the start of October. For now, though, her coat stayed in the closet.
Her first class was English, with a teacher named Simpson, Reginald A. It was in Wright Hall, next to her own hall –
Harris. She got dressed, not noticing her colorful array, and left for class. She passed one girl and merely nodded a polite
greeting. It wasn't returned.
The air was stale, either despite or because of the warm weather. The leaves were already beginning to change. The mountains,
far in the distance, were clear and bright with greenery. The buildings, made of the same brick as the pathways, glinted in
the small amount of sunlight. She saw two bluejays and stopped for a moment to admire them. They were beautiful up close.
When she finally decided to continue moving, she frightened a chipmunk. She apologized to it as it hid beneath a bush.
This small, simple school was for the elite, those with an immense amount of money or some very excellent scholarships. The
scholarships are mostly for academics, and only the very best get scholarships for sports. She had gotten scholarships for
academic excellence, so much that she couldn't believe it. She was only paying for a couple thousand a year, and her high
school graduation had been rewarded with five thousand dollars. She was eternally grateful to her father for the graduation
money, and also to her high school counselor. If not for her counselor, she never would have gotten the funds necessary to
even send in the admissions. She hadn't turned eighteen until the summer, and her joint account hadn't been hers alone. She'd
had no money of her own.
But that was business best left unremembered.
This school, Bladesbury University, was for the best. She had been active in school solely to get out of her house, and had
ended up with a 3.84 GPA. It and her work in her school's newspaper got her to this college.
Still, she was far from being one of the most elite. There were those put into special dorms – one, the most elite,
was the Nightwing dorm. Another was the Thorne, another the Manen. These three housed the elite of the elite, those unsurpassed
academically, athletically... and physically. They seemed to be grouped based on attitude – Nightwing housed punks and
loners, Thorne playboys, and Manen the hot-tempered jocks. All this and more she had found on the school's website and pamphlet.
Studying was her specialty, after all.
She entered Wright Hall and moved to her classroom. It was a bright room, the walls the boring white blocks that accompanied
every high school ever made. She smiled at the thought and sat down behind the second desk in the middle. Then she took out
her notebook and prepared for class. She noted how early she was to the class and looked around. No one else had come in yet.
She was the first. She usually came first to get prepared... to get ready. She was only safe when she was alone. She'd known
that instinctively, ever since she'd been a child. Alone, no one could hurt her. Alone-
But then a boy walked in.
He was fair-looking, she recognized, surprised that she actually cared about what a guy looked like. She usually wasn't interested
in a man's physical appearance. It was strange to feel herself watch him walk with interest.
He was tall, blond and graceful. He stopped as soon as he saw her sitting there. His eyes, a clear robin's egg blue, seemed
to be assessing her. She stared back, a welcoming smile on her lips. It froze as he moved toward her. She couldn't help but
note his muscles, hidden beneath a philosophical t-shirt that read “If I breathe, I am not finished”. She looked
at that shirt and those muscles and that unnatural grace and then sent her eyes up to concentrate on his eyebrows, not looking
at those eyes again. Disturbing how perfect his eyebrows were, while hers were a bit large. Did he wax them? He didn't seem
the type. As if she knew his type.
He looked like an angel.
She mentally shook herself. Men were hardly angels.
“Hello,” the man said. She was shocked at how smooth his voice was, a crisp, light tenor. With those looks, she
wished something was wrong with him. Then maybe she wouldn't feel herself hope.
“Hello,” she replied back, carefully hidden behind her smile. For some reason, she didn't think he was fooled.
But she had to be wishing that – everyone was always fooled.
<*>
He gazed at her thoughtfully. Why would she fake that smile? Was there something wrong with him? Her eyes didn't say that,
nor did her emotions. Two more students came into the classroom then, giggling and exclaiming over each other's purses and
boyfriends. Their emotions were shallow, easy to read. Trista was anything but.
He quickly took the seat to her left, closer to the door, and took out his book and notebook. Trista had already done so,
and she was writing. He glanced at her again. Her bright green eyes were studying each word she wrote. Her straight black
hair was pulled into a french braid. Tendrils slipped out and framed her face, pale and smooth. Her nose, petite, was the
only small thing on her face. Her eyes were large, almost wide, with long eyelashes. Her eyebrows were a bit wide, but only
enhanced the eyes. Her lips were full and dark. She licked them without pausing in her writing.
A hot spiral of what could only be desire spread through him. His eyes widened. Impossible. A human female was making him...
horny? Bloody human body, he thought, as close as he could get to cursing. He looked away from her and studied the
room.
The walls were white, just as the other walls had been everywhere he'd gone. One of the walls had what was called a blackboard
on it, which would be used to assist teaching. There was also a desk where the teacher presumably sat – a desk much
larger and more comfortable than the ones offered to students. Not unexpected. He'd been taught about the world of humans.
Distasteful, that a teacher be thought to be so high above his students. In Heaven, the teacher sat in a circle with the students
as they discussed many things, from high mathematics to philosophy. He enjoyed philosophy more, but he had learned quite a
bit of math. There was plenty of learning to be done, and he'd had centuries to do it.
He looked at Trista again, his gaze pulled to her. He immediately felt the teacher's entrance. His mind was filled with anxiety
and trepidation. “Hello, class,” the teacher called out cheerfully to the class at large and settled into his
seat. He watched as Trista placed the cap on her pen and closed the notebook she'd been writing in with a practiced flourish.
She had apparently recognized the deep voice as the teacher. Her eyes trained on the man, studying him. She was pointedly
ignoring the talking all around her.
His Lord had said that this woman had the ability to break free of her past and shine with glory. Was it true? What made
this girl special?
“Today's going to be pretty easy,” the teacher said. Arrian could feel the man relax into the pattern of long
years. “We're going to go over the syllabus and grading system. I'll answer any questions you have.” The class
immediately started chattering again at this; apparently no one cared. Trista's emotions formed coherently for one sharp moment
– annoyance. She wanted her classmates to quiet down and show the teacher some respect. But Arrian noted that Trista
quickly read over the schedule and then returned to whatever it was she'd been writing.
The teacher assigned the class a reading “to introduce you to the course a bit better” and bid them a good day.
As the class officially ended, he turned back to Trista. She had written all the way to the farewell, and had only then begun
to pack. The students around her had begun at least five minutes early, and had burst into chatter before the teacher had
finished winding down his lecture. She had remained silent, though she'd met the teacher's eyes a couple times when he'd told
some jokes. To suck up? No. But she felt more kinship with the teacher than with her peers. Why?
He needed to speak to her, to become friends with her. To get close to her. “My name is Arrian,” he told her,
standing politely beside her.
She packed up her things with her eyes cast down. He felt her emotions, sad and slightly bitter after hearing him introduce
himself. She slung her purse over her shoulder and picked up her bookbag to do the same.
Then she looked up and froze in surprise. She stood there for a moment, mindlessly balancing the bookbag in her hand, just
looking blankly into his face. He realized with shock that she hadn't realized he was talking to her. It took her a moment
to reply, and when she did her voice cracked. “H-Hello. My name is Trista.”
She was skittish, he noted. Not used to having someone talk to her. An outcast? Her emotions said so. Her nervous stiffness
proved it. She smiled at him, that same fake smile. It wasn't him. He knew it wasn't just for him, because she'd worn it off-and-on
the entire class period, whenever the teacher or a student made a joke. A fake smile for every time a real smile was thought
to be needed or expected.
“Nice to meet you,” she said finally, and started to leave.
He had a small moment of panic. This girl would be difficult to get close to, wouldn't she? Incredibly difficult. He had a
feeling that no one had gotten close to her before. He wondered if anyone had ever tried.
But it was time for his next class, so he had to leave. Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow he'll speak to her
again, and he would gain her trust.
After all, he thought, he was an angel. Angels shouldn't have such a hard time with that.
Should they?
<*>
She thought about him even when she wrote. She thought about his looks, his light blond locks of hair, artfully mussed, and
those robin's-egg eyes that had penetrated her own. That smooth face, only slightly tanned, those muscles that could never
be hidden by that navy t-shirt he'd worn.
Worse, she thought about his kindness. Because to speak to her, he had to be kind.
She closed her eyes and her notebook as her last class began to disperse. She looked around; no one in any other class had
spoken to her. Only him. Arrian. A strange name. But a nice guy. She hadn't expected someone to talk to her.
And wasn't it pathetic that she was so happy to have someone talk to her?
There were three girls grouping together, talking about their plans for the evening. Two guys laughed over some joke one of
them had made. Someone moved past her to get out of the aisle and leave the room.
She picked up her bookbag and left the classroom. She was so pathetic to be happy about him talking to her. Such a small thing.
Everyone around her was already talking to someone. Laughing with someone. Showing true smiles. Touching each other.
She envied them all that. What was it like to touch without fear?
She thought again of Arrian and smiled softly, but the smile held no joy. What did he want? Why had he spoken to her?
Didn't matter. He would end up being another shallow friend, someone who talked to her only in class and forgot about her
once it was time to pack up. Someone who never cared. Someone who never wanted to be there during the bad times. Just like
everyone else. Because he was human.
She hurried back to the safety of her room and refused to let the hopelessness overpower her.
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