Jariel was surprised when Dawn caught him with his wings out. He also felt somewhat relieved. He thought that things were going to get better now, easier. Well, easier for him at least. He also feared what, if anything, might happen. He was intrigued though at the way Dawn reacted. Sure, she was afraid at first, but then she grew curious. Her eyes filled with sympathy and concerned when he told her his story. She expected her to be, well, repulsed. The again, most people weren’t afraid of angels. They were taught that they were peaceful beings meant to protect them. Now that he thought about it, he could see how she was no longer afraid of him.
For what seemed like hours, but was only about thirty minutes or so, Dawn questioned him about how his life in Heaven was, if he had any special abilities besides being able to fly, and other small stuff. She was so, so sucked in to his stories, his answers, it made Jariel smile a little. Only a little though. He was happy though, remembering the good old days. His days in Heaven away from this hell hole.
Nightfall came soon and they had to cut the story short, though they didn’t want to. Jariel just felt so free now. He could be himself and not care what she thought. He could have his wings out, at least around her. He fell to sleep that night, happier than he had been in a while. However that happiness was soon to come to an end.
Jariel was running down what seemed to be a long dirt road with no streetlights or any light for that matter. He kept running, from what he wasn’t yet sure. He just felt like he had to get out of there or something terrible was going to happen. He looked behind him, to see if he could get a glimpse of what, or who, he was running from, but found nothing or no one. He tried to stop running, but his feet wouldn’t listen to him. Out of nowhere wind started to pick up, blowing his hair up in his face. He tried to brush his hair out of his face, but the chilly wind wouldn’t allow him to. All of a sudden a wicked laugh erupted around him. Jariel covered his ears at the loud noise and tried to block it out, with no luck. An angel with wings as black as coal, blonde hair and hazel eyes stepped out from a cloud of mist that had snuck its way in to Jariel’s path. Finally his feet allowed him to stop in front of the angel that he knew all too well.
“What do you want Elise?” he yelled, his voice echoing off the invisible walls. “Haven’t you done enough?” Elise didn’t answer, she just continued to slowly walk towards him, a wicked smile placed on her face. Jariel tried to move but he was frozen where he stood. He tried to yell out again, but his voice wouldn’t come to him.
“I am going to destroy all that you love and hold dear to that black heart of yours. I am going to turn your world upside down. Don’t stay too comfortable now.” She whispered in his ears. As quickly as she appeared, she disappeared, leaving Jariel alone and wondering what had just happened.
Jariel shot up so quickly, it would have seemed someone had dropped cold water on him.
He knew it was only a dream, but he couldn’t help but wonder what Elise meant when she said “I am going to turn your world upside down.” Hadn’t she already done that? Maybe she was referring to Jariel’s fall, but he had a horrible feeling in the gut of his stomach that she wasn’t. That something wasn’t quite right. Who was he kidding though, it was just a dream. Nothing to take too seriously. He tried to fall back to sleep, seeing how it was only six fifteen in the morning, but he was unable to. Instead he turned the television on, turned the volume down really low, and watched the early morning news.
A couple hours passed and Jariel groaned when he remembered that he was supposed to meet with Joe later today. Maybe Dawn would let him off the hook, seeing how she just found out and, hopefully, understood his position right now, but a part of him told him that was highly unlikely of occurring. He would still have to suffer through getting a stupid, disgusting, job serving others. Oh what joy.
Dawn walked in around nine and smiled at him. Jariel tried to smile back, but he was just too tired to. He just wanted to crawl back under the covers and fall back to sleep, without the nightmares this time though. He could without those for one night, thank you very much.
Dawn prepared Jariel breakfast, but Jariel turned it down, saying he wasn’t hungry when, truth was, he was too nervous and tired to eat. He really wasn’t looking forward to that.
* * * *
Dawn woke up that sunny, Thursday, morning unsure if yesterday was just a dream or some psychotic dream she had from not sleeping enough lately. She was stressed, what with the Annette drama, the Jariel drama and work on top of the two, which meant that she wasn’t sleeping as well as she wanted to.
She found Jariel watching the news and smiled at him. He tried to smile back, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. She couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong, but she felt as though it wasn’t her place to ask. He would tell her when the time came and if he wanted to tell her in the first place.
She made breakfast and then got ready for work, remembering that Jariel would be stopping by to talk to Joe and she wished him good luck before leaving. She wondered if Annette would be there today, but she highly doubted it. According to Joe, she was “taking a short vacation.” Please, she was just acting childish and avoiding her. At this point of time, Dawn wasn’t feeling sad or guilty anymore about what had happened. She was downright annoyed. It had been over a week without any phone calls, any explanations at all. She hadn’t even called her back when she left her those voice mails. Her best friend was basically letting her know that she didn’t care about her or if she was hurting. Dawn couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t just call her back and at least let her know that she was still angry! But no, Annette couldn’t even do that. Instead she continued to play stupid high school games. Stupid high school drama that, quite frankly, she was completely over and done with. She had graduated high school a while ago and she preferred not to go to back to those days. She didn’t like high school and she didn’t like the drama that occurred in high school. However, Annette seemed to be stuck in her high school phase.
Dawn got to work, a bit relieved to see Jason there instead of Annette. Jason was another worker here. He looked a bit like the actor who played on the newer batman movies. He didn’t like this job, but he was trying to work his way through college. He was a nice kid and Dawn could sympathize with him, He was studying to become a behavioral analysis agent in the FBI. He liked trying to figure out how the human mind worked and he wanted to save lives as well. He had tried practicing his profile techniques on Dawn a couple of times. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that he got most of the information about her wrong, but he was just beginning so it was completely understandable.
“Hey Dawn.” Jason greeted while she came to the front, putting her apron on.
“Hey Jason. It doesn’t seem to busy right now.” She smiled, looking around at the almost completely empty diner.
“You should have seen it earlier, it was packed.” He said, an exasperated look on his face. Dawn let out a little laugh and told him that she was glad she wasn’t here when it was. A high school couple (how ironic, Dawn thought) came in and she took them to their seat. She spent the rest of the time serving customers, cleaning up after them and just lounging around talking to Jason. The diner was surprisingly uneventful today. She tried to stifle a laugh when she saw Jariel walk in, dressed in the nice clothes she had laid out for him the night before. He looked at her, rolled his eyes, and looked as if he was complaining to himself. She called Joe from the back and let him know that Jariel was here. She smiled and waved at him as he went in the back to talk to her boss. He didn’t look happy but hey, at least he was going through with it. Hopefully he would get the job.
The day passed by quickly, much to Dawn’s enjoyment. She didn’t like her job, but she really hated slow days at her job. Since Jariel left at the same time as her, they walked home together, mostly in silence but Dawn enjoyed it that way. She wanted the silence right now. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that Jariel was a fallen angel. It seemed too surreal. It seemed like a dream that she could have easily conjured in her head. She had been known to do things like that when she was a child. According to her parents, she had an over active imagination. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing though. It is what has helped Dawn with her paintings. If only she could think of something to paint right now, she thought.
YOU ARE READING
Change of Heart (NaNoWriMo 2011)
Random**In The Editing Process!!** Jariel, a once favored angel in Heaven, has been thrown out. Not by his own accord, however. He was tricked, made a fool of, by an angel named Elise, bent on being the center of attention no matter what. Jariel is now s...
