Halo Of Fire: An Angel In Trouble

Set Me Up

After sleeping on the cold floor in the living room on a big blanket to stay comfortable and warm, I woke up early in the morning when it was still twilight. I spent a long while staring up at the tall, white ceiling with the whicker fan hanging from it. The walls were bare. I could see the spots where frames had been once, a long time ago, due to the impressions they left on the paint, leaving lighter shaded squares here or there and little pinprick-like holes.

I wondered what color the walls would be painted and if I would get a say in how anything looked. Then my mind wandered to the world outside, to the skyscrapers and all the little people rushing to work and those sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons. To the sirens that filled the air and the voices that came from next door.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep again because I was awoken by the scent of freshly made pancakes. Aunt Kristy ordered them from a mom-and-pop place down the block. They were still hot when we stood around the counter to eat. "I've enrolled you at Silver Valley Academy." She casually said, while stabbing a piece of fruit salad with her fork.

"What's that?"

"It's a very nice private school that will allow you to prepare to get into nearly any college if you behave yourself."

I rolled my eyes, of course. "Does that mean I'm going to have to wear a uniform?"

She nodded her head, "Yes, we're going to the seamstress this afternoon."

"Prep school and a seamstress. Since when are we so fancy?"

"Since my pay nearly tripled and I can afford to give you everything your mother would have wanted you to have. They renovated and opened it up to boys as well starting ten or twelve years ago and their stats are still very good."

"I doubt mom would have cared what school I went to."

"She was actually a student at The Academy when it was still a school for girls. She was top of her class in her year."

I scoffed. "There's no way."

"Oh but it's true. She was also a star athlete. You'd be surprised by what you don't know about your mother, honey."

It felt like she was judging or pitying me, so I took offense to it. "Well, fine then," I said shortly, changing the subject, "When are the movers coming."

She was quiet for a second. "The movers and the contractor should arrive any moment."

"I'll be waiting in my room then." I stomped off and slammed the door shut. The sound reverberated through the room and in the hollow of my chest. I felt like the room I was standing in: empty and bare, so hollow that my steps had an echo. I sat on the floor and opened one of my boxes. It had a fuzzy white blanket at the top and I immediately knew what it contained. I had used the blanket to protect the statuette my mother had sculpted just before I was born. It was the representation of what she envisioned our family to be like. A family that I never got to experience.

It was about six inches tall, and it depicted my mother holding me as a baby, swaddled up like a cocoon, with my father depicted as an angel with his arms and wings wrapped around us in a protective stance. It felt so fake and yet so real. They were both dead and they left me here to suffer, without that protection that those wings seemed to impart to its clay inhabitants.

The contractor and the movers arrived at about the same time which had me directing traffic for our furniture while my aunt talked to the contractor.

That afternoon, when we left to take care of the school uniform situation, the movers had just finished bringing everything up, and the contractor, whom I gathered was an old friend of my aunt, was going to finish up the kitchen while we were gone. The living room was now a nice shade of soft neutral beige and the fan was replaced with a new shiny silver metal one. I couldn't see the remnants of the past lives of the apartment anymore and in some way, it made me sad, but I was also more preoccupied with the idea of wearing a uniform that wasn't pleasing.

I liked to wear my own things and be my own person, but those were the rules according to the manual Aunt Kristy had handed me earlier in the day and I'd have to find a different way to stand out and be myself. It wasn't a problem, I seemed to be able to do that without even trying sometimes, which both sucked and didn't at the same time.

The seamstress was actually a balding middle-aged man named Carl. He had the face of someone who had seen enough teenagers to last him a lifetime. When he ushered us to the back of the shop behind the velvet curtain he seemed to sigh before following us. His aura was all but screaming 'tired' at me and I felt for him.

The uniform options were few and all in an ugly beige and burgundy color with gold and white accents. My aunt insisted on two skirts and two sets of pants. Then she ordered a cardigan and a sweatshirt in burgundy, and one of those weird pullover sweater things without arms in white, all with the school's crest on them. Add in a couple of ties, black shoes, "school-appropriate" stockings, and socks, and I was the epitome of a Hentai schoolgirl. So exciting.

"Must I wear this stuff? Can't I just, you know, wear normal clothes or go to a public school?"

Aunt Kristy shook her head and rolled her eyes. "No, this is where you're going, it'll be good for your future."

"Yay for the future," I muttered sarcastically.

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Veronique