Halo Of Fire: An Angel In Trouble

Tea, Crumpets, and Poor Cecily

The sedan stopped in front of a very modern-looking town-home in Tribeca, cozily hugged by a brick building on each side. We all slid out of the back seat and I stared at it with my mouth hanging open. "This is your home?" I asked in awe.

"The New York one, yes. Mom wanted something more modern for here," She shrugged, "I like the house in Maine better."

My eyes nearly bulged out of my head and I craned my neck forward, "You have a house in Maine?"

She looked at me like I was a confusing 5000 piece puzzle that was missing a piece. "What's that face for?" Then realization dawned on her, "Oh, right, public school," She grinned sheepishly, "Sorry, I forgot."

I raised my eyebrows and scoffed, "Oh it's not a problem at all, totally normal for me to have rich friends." I said in a sarcastically teasing voice.

"Shall we go up?" She said flashing her wrist full of bracelets in front of a flat pad and unlocking the door.

"How'd you do that?"

"Chip in one of the bracelets. Unlocks the doors to all the houses we own."

"Ok that's unnecessarily cool and flashy." I laughed. "Is that what this one does?" I asked pointing to the bracelet that was handed to me by the nice red-headed receptionist.

"Something like that. Except it's also their attempt at a new form of hall pass/monitoring and class presence tracking. They've been working on updating the system since last semester." She opened the door and led the way upstairs to the second floor.

The room that we walked into was a big dining room/living room area annexed to the kitchen with two-story-high windows that gave onto the main road. "Oh wow."

She smiled and then asked an older man, probably in his fifties, to get snacks ready, "Are you guys fine with tea?" We all nodded our heads, myself more out of shock than anything else, and the man walked over to the kitchen as we sat on the couches. Jay began pulling their books out of their backpack so I followed suit, and soon we were all diligently working on our homework.

"I honestly can't think of a time when I had a study session with my best friend and we actually got any work done," I said as I pushed my notebook to the side to make space for the tray that the man brought over just half an hour later. It was full of handmade sandwiches and croissants with a beautiful porcelain tea set.

"Oh but that's the beauty of this. We do the work first and then we get to enjoy ourselves." Jay said and Ophelia nodded her head as she dispersed the cups to each one of us.

"So how long have you three been friends for?" I asked letting Cecily fill my cup with the amber beverage and waiting for the honey to come around. "And do you have tea parties often?"

They all either smiled or chuckled. "We've never actually hung out before, I just knew you knew them from lunch and wanted you to feel comfortable."

I blinked, "I think that's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." Liar, liar. My mind taunted, The memory of blond locks, a punch thrown my way, falling down, the feeling of the gravel digging into my palms. Then an argument, an altercation, and someone helping me up from where I had fallen all flashed behind my eyelids as I blinked. That was the first time I met Tatiana, she really knew how to stand up for herself and for others. I still had a scar on my left palm from where we had to dig into it to pull out the gravel with tweezers. The scent of blood and hydrogen peroxide mingled in the air of her bathroom and the bandaging didn't last the walk home, but I had made a new friend.

I felt tears begin to well in my eyes so I excused myself to the bathroom to rinse my face. When I returned to the living room I started a conversation with Ophelia to try to get to know her and I realized that she wasn't anywhere as intense and unapproachable as I thought. Jordan told me about her passion for knitting, and Cecily disclosed that her parents weren't home most of the year.

"They missed my birthday last year," she said nonchalantly but I could see her aura turning blue, gray, and black. All signs of pain, sadness, confusion, and anger.

I felt a pang in my heart. I couldn't imagine what it was like to have both parents, let alone parents that wouldn't make time for their own child, "I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," she said shrugging, "I get the house to myself most of the time, so I can have friends over. I'm thinking about throwing a party this year. Last year they had promised they'd come so I didn't plan anything but this year I don't think I want to wait."

"When is your birthday?" I asked, wondering what I could do or give to this girl who clearly already had everything. Except for her parents.

"October 21st," she said, "You'll all come, right? We'll have a big thing, black-tie edition kind of thing." Her eyes twinkled at the thought.

We all assented, "Of course we will. It sounds like a lot of fun." She was sad deep down, and though I got warmth from her aura, there was a detachment in it that I just couldn't put my finger on. She was rich and had everything she could ever want, but at the same time, didn't have the only thing we both wanted. Poor Cecily.

Hello, hello again reader! I'm glad you're here and continuing to read. Where do you think this is going? How do you feel about the characters so far?
Veronique