When Angels Cry: Chapter 1

one of four books - 1 When Angels Cry, 2 Finding Wings, 3 Kissed by an Angel, 4 Heaven at Last)

When Angels Cry: Chapter 1

I slowly stepped off the bus... it was raining. Oh, how I loved the rain... It seemed as though it hadn't rained in ages, though. Every time it rained, I asked Daddy where rain came from.

'Not today...' I thought. No longer was I greeted warmly by my Daddy...

It had only been about 4 months, but life had gone downhill when Daddy went to heaven... when he became an angel. I had been determined not to make him cry, but today, angels were already crying, so I just silently joined them in their sorrow. 'Hey, maybe no one can see me crying... maybe the rain will hide them...' I had thought.... But I knew better than that. The angels, at least, would know.

And so, I let my tears mingle silently with the rain, taking each step like it was a burden to carry, getting heavier with every shuffle of my feet.

It was... about 5 years ago, when I was seven years old, from the time I walked home that day that I had asked that question on a rainy cold day just like this one.

I shivered as I made my way along the sidewalk, the tears ceasing out of pure pride and the honor of Daddy's memory.

Tomorrow would be my birthday. Unlike other girls turning twelve, I was unhappy about my birthday. 'No offense, Daddy,' I was thinking, 'but you know Mommy won't celebrate, and it doesn't sound too fun having a party with a... a dead guy.'

I scolded myself for those thoughts even though I knew they were true.

Sighing, I stopped at the end of our driveway. I just stood there, letting the rain be my only happiness at the moment. Then I pictured Daddy waiting for me. I almost ran toward his open arms, even if imaginary, but I was interrupted by the mixed stench of smoke and spring rain. I sensed the cause immediately... it was instinct.

Sure enough, when I looked up to the front of our house, which was on a hill and required steps to the front door, there stood my mother, "The Mother" as I had often referred to her as for quite some time. She blew out some smoke, a cigarette dangling from her lips and a bottle of Budlight in her other hand. She said in a staggered voice - and I knew she was drunk - "Hey, Bo, HONEY," she stuttered, mockingly saying 'honey' and even more mockingly, "Watcha standing there, for, ANGEL?" She giggled at the pained look on my face. Angel was Daddy's name for me... not Mother's, and for that I was both infuriated and sadly upset.

"Get yer little skinny rear end there inside... NOW. I got company, so don't be a bother... go to your room and... I don't know, whatever it is you do... read or somethin'. Don't EMBARRASS me, got it?"

She said this as I made my way timidly up the groaning, old wooden steps. "And you answer me WHEN I ask you, got it?" She smacked the back of my head hard as I entered the house.

I winced. "Yes," I retorted firmly. She laughed at my tough-sounding voice.

She giggled and shoved past me to go up the split-level steps, me on my way down. I got a glance of a large man, early thirties maybe, around The Mother's age, with dark hair, almost black but definitely brown. He staggered and said, not knowing I would hear, "Hey, ya got a beauty there," He laughed.

I turned, disgusted, and headed down to my basement room. Sitting on the army cot, I knew I would be lucky to get anything to eat for supper. I was absolutely starving, maybe even literally, for I hadn't had any decent meal in at least a week. I was known as a geek, a too-skinny smarty. I was the smartest kid in my class, and I used to be beautiful, had I not been practically starved for the past 4 and a half months; not to mention, I was covered in bruises from being beaten every day.

I pulled a Shakespeare book, tattered and old with age because I had read it so often, off of my make-shift board of a bookshelf. I read with interest until my hunger pains were almost unbearable.

I looked at myself in a mirror after searching through the piles of dusty junk. I practically bawled, looking in the broken full-length mirror at my hunger-starved face, the dark circles under my eyes... I lifted my shirt just enough to bare my stomach and show my ribs. Letting tears fall, I pitied myself just a bit.

I looked through a small basement window to see that the rain had just about stopped. I scolded myself in my mind for pitying myself, for feeling sad, for making the angels - and Daddy - upset.

And so, I made myself happier, smiled, and read a happy fantasy romance book in which everything was perfect, enveloping myself in broken fantasies.

The book made me happy, but it left me feeling uncertain, like someone grappling with the darkness, pressing her face into the night, waiting hopefully for that first star that would never come.

I heard the sounds of my mother giggling and bedsprings creaking. It disgusted me, as I knew by now what those sounds meant, and I fell asleep on the army cot, not bothering to change, for I had nothing much to change into, my ears covered tight and my eyes shut as tightly as possible, closing out the darkness with darkness of my own making.

I felt Daddy telling me to be like a drawer - no matter how many times you opened it, as fastly as you could, you could never trap the darkness... it always became light.

But the problem was, there was nobody opening the drawer that was my heart, no light was let in, and I was left to wallow in the darkness.

I fell asleep with those thoughts in my mind, Daddy's whisper in my ears and echoing in my dreams, and a morsel of hope that was slowly drifting away into nothing with each passing moment...