The Night School [GxG] [First Draft Edition]

Chapter Seventy-Six: Bioluminescence

"Hazel." I knew there was a reason for Micha to be hanging around after Grace had left my house. The door was still open, so I threw a half coy smile at my girlfriend as she made her way to the car before closing my front door slowly.

"Yes?" I folded my arms, frowning.

"I'm taking you out on Saturday. Noon. Be ready. I'll pick you up and you'll be back before three." She stated plainly like it was normal for her to make such random demands.

"Excuse me?" I narrowed my eyes. Was she flirting with me?

"Jesus, Hazel, it's not a date. You're not that spectacular." She rolled her eyes. "I just want to clear some things up with you over coffee like civil people. I have to take Grace home, so I figure we settle things on our own terms. Bye." She waved boredly before making her way out of the house.

As I walked back to the living room, I noticed my phone had lit up with a new message alert.

Grace: Is Micha being mean to you? I told her not to be so if she is tell me and I'll deal with it.

I smiled despite my recent dilemma with Micha.

Me: No. She just wanted to talk.

I shut my phone off when I heard two voices babbling away by the garage door.

. . .

I look stupid.

That was my only thought.

I looked out of proportion, incomplete, and bare. I looked vulnerable and weak.

One of the defining characteristics of my kind is our wings. They and our mentality are what make us so perfect for the job we do. Without them, we are simply incompetent and flightless. Our strategic prowess is far less useful when we are grounded, since we think three dimensionally and not from a perspective confined by gravity; so here I am with this sense that there is everything I can't do.

Had I my wings intact, I would not feel like the large size of the room made it feel uselessly empty. I would stretch them out and feel the ceiling pour water down on my feathers, making me aware of each individual shaft. I would spend hours meditatively combing them out to perfection. Instead I am spending the time staring at my drenched, naked self in a full length mirror in the shared bathroom, thinking about how ridiculous I look without my wings.

I could still move the muscles that had once been attached to the limb of my wing, but I didn't because it strained the stitches on my back and hurt like hell.

My hair was soaked through and plastered to my neck and back. I was considering cutting it. I probably should. My skin looked damn near ghastly and I wondered how the hell Grace found me, of all the humans and others in the normal world, to be worth all she has invested in me. And why she was so attractive to me. I knew for a fact that she was not the most perfect creature in terms of look, yet I couldn't care less because I felt that she was.

Which brings me back to my incompetence towards emotion. I definitely felt something for the brunette. Something of magnitude and lucidity. Something that made me feel like even the less than lovable person I presented was special and valued. Something that made me want to keep the human girl and give her everything she could ever want. And that was a dangerous sensation.

Where was I?

Grounded.

Where was I meant to be?

Getting ready for this coffee date with my girlfriend's friend's girlfriend. Micha, rather. Honestly, I didn't know if I had the right to call Grace my girlfriend right now. But I would like to have myself convinced that I'd be allowed to keep her indefinitely since I had won her over once. Theoretically, humans were morally and legally mates for life, no? And by animal law, she was my mate and I was hers. Ironic. Animal law. Realistically, in general humans are notoriously good at mating with as many other humanoids as they can. Which would mean I was just another mate of my soulmate and that I, and all that she claimed to feel for me and that I was meant to feel for her, were insubstantial in comparison to the myriad of other sexual and romantic partners the human was bound to have.