Angel felt the fear rise within her as she walked as nonchalantly as ever towards the principle’s office. This time, it would have indefinite connections to the scars and bruises ever present on her porcelain torso. She didn’t want them to find out about her private problems. After all, she had it under control or some manner of control at least. Angel crept through the glass doors and surprised the secretary at the desk with her whispered “hello.”

“Oh, hello dear. Go right in, I assume you know where,” she said.

Angel nodded and went to the door. It was safe to assumed that the resident shrink would want to see her arms when she got inside, therefore, Angel was not surprised to see the man seated behind the desk looking at her expectantly. She shut the door behind her and stood.

“You know what I need to see. Roll your sleeves up, please,” Mr. Lucas said softly.

“No,” Angel whispered.

“Are you refusing to comply? We’d have to call your parents.”

“Go ahead and call. Mom’s at work which means she can’t answer and Dad’s passed out on the lawn somewhere. You won’t get an answer and even if you did they wouldn’t care much,” Angel laughed hoarsely.

“It’s protocall that I get in touch with someone. Please wait outside,” Mr. Lucas commanded.

“I’m out of here,” Angel said gauntly, stepping out of the room. Mr Lucas leaped out from behind his desk only to watch in vain as Angel set the dreaded packet of papers on the secretary’s desk and walked out. The top sheet was an acceptance of early graduation; the next, a court order to wipe the school’s records of her existence. The final and most important piece of paper was a restraining order on Mr. Lucas.

“She’s too smart,” Mr. Lucas said softly, flipping through the pages. “Far too smart for her own good.”




Angel looked up and smiled softly at the sight that greeted her as she started down the steps. Standing side by side were her best friends and her one true love. Jesse, Ben, Sara, Jake, and, most importantly, AJ. She took her time getting down the steps, examining each of her friends carefully.

AJ, tall and slender, was wearing one of his giant t-shirts—the kind that would hang down to Angel’s knees. His jeans were obscured by the blowing black fabric, but she knew the pair well. How many times had she folded them? Too many to count. His face was perfectly at peace with what she was about to do; he knew that there was no talking her out of this choice, and it meant that he had her all to himself without that “God damned shrink dogging her at all hours of the night” as he had so kindly put it once. His blue eyes piercing her to the core, his broke into a wide smile that showed his many brilliant white teeth. His glasses glinted in the sun, giving him an almost sinister look for a second, but it disapated quickly. Angel trusted him more than she trusted herself.

Jake, geekified glory and all, stood just to AJ’s left, holding a familiar black bag on his shoulder. It had to be the bag that Angel had packed earlier, since there was only one bag that was as splattered with paint and gore and written on as the one Jake held in his hands, and that was the one that Angel possessed. Jake was quite tall, although not as slender as AJ. His eyes, a different, lighter blue than AJ’s, were not as beautiful in Angel’s opinion, but they held much wisdom and power in their circular depths. His blonde-brown hair, no more than an eighth of an inch long, was the color of burnt grass, but it suited his head well. In his hands, Jake also held his favorite technological item; a cell phone, which he was using to text with his girlfriend furiously, engaging in a texting war with said female. Same old silly Jake, Angel thought nostalgically.

Sara, red hair falling below her waist, smiled broadly at Angel as she descended the steps of the school. A guitar case was slung over her shoulder, and she looked like a woman ready to run and hug an old friend she hadn’t seen in a long time. Of course, some would have said that four months was indeed a long time. Strangely, although her body portrayed her as anxious and excited, her emerald eyes gave off an air of conserved curiousity, as if there were something she wanted explained, but could not ask about it in front of the others. Angel knew that there would be some kind of interrogation later.

Ben, who hovered right next to Sara, had cut his light, carmel hair short again, and now he looked strangely like a cross between his mother and father. Brown eyes alight with amusement and curiousity as well, he was like a vulture waiting for the rabbit it has been stalking to finally die so he could have at it. Beside him was a stack of boxes that held all of Angel’s posetions. They were written on in Ben’s neat scrawl, and labled as to where each had been taken from. Trust Ben to be the organized little bug that has my back, Angel thought, smiling to herself.

Lastly, Jesse stood off to the side, looking as though he were the third wheel. The poor boy was only with everyone else because Angel had asked to see him one last time before they left. She knew it was futile, trying to convince him to go with them, but she couldn’t help but try. She didn’t like the thought of leaving him behind when he had always stopped to pick her up off the ground. Poor boy has been through enough already, Angel thought.

“All set?” AJ asked as she touched the cement of the sidewalk.

All that seperated them now was the road on which the school sat.

“Of course. I’ve never been one for leaving loose ends!” Angel laughed, finding that words were coming easier for her now than they ever had.

All of the sudden, as Angel walked across the street, she heard the sad call of the wippowillow who resided in the tree next to her school. She stepped up onto the curb and smiled, knowing that she would never hear that again and already missing it. AJ wrapped her in a tight hug and smiled at the rest of them as they moved to overtake the two.

It was that bird that made me leave. Of course it calls to me just as I’m about to go. I’ll miss you, little bird.

“Let’s go,” AJ said softly.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Angel conceeded, allowing herself to be led away.

Control... I have it under control now.