The Swords of an Angel

Chapter 2: Punch bag

That call did not end well. Mrs. Blake, my advisor, strongly recommended against dropping the training program. The fitness evaluation was taking place during the first week of October and Mrs. Blake insisted on completing the intensive training course if I intended to start the Academy on a competitive basis. Then she reminded me how important my grades in the Academy would be in order to get the Brassington scholarship for the MilitarySchool.

"You'll get better at this," Blue tried to cheer me up when I told her about my advisor's ultimatum. "Just give it some time and you'll get used to Jerome's methods. The Military school is what you've always wanted."

I wondered what she would say if she knew what my real problem with training was.

"Matt was not so demanding," I said instead. "He helped me explore my limits. Jerome seems to be challenging me the whole time."
Blue gave me a quizzical look. "That's not what really bothers you, is it?"

I should have expected the question. It was the first time I was keeping secrets from my friends and I probably wasn't a good liar. Yet. That was the perfect moment to tell Blue the truth. But how could I explain something I wasn't sure I could explain to myself in the first place?

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Besides the fact that every muscle in my body aches?"
Blue gave me a wicked smile. "Well, just forget about him now. Let's get dressed. There's a band playing at the Waves tonight. I'm sure a night out will make you feel better."

A girls' night wasn't enough to make me forget the voices, Jerome, and that menacing shrink's couch. But being around Megan and Blue always made things easier. The bond we shared was very special and it was getting stronger year by year. There was a funny part; like the way we completed each other's sentences. But there was a darker part too; there had been times we could literally feel each other's emotions; even physical pain. But that was our secret. A secret we'd only shared with Sister Meredith. I used to think that a large part of that bond came from our wounded past. A wound carved from the suffering of loss.

Megan's parents had died in a car crash when she was eight years old. The only thing that bonded her to her past was a family album left by her grandma, her only relative, who died shortly after her parents' accident. I never told Megan, but I had always thought it was really strange to have only one photo of her parents in it. As I never told her that with her curly blonde hair she didn't look at all like her Latino parents.

Blue had never met her father, as he'd left her mom before Blue was born. She'd never talk about her mom either, except for that one time when she told us that her mother was an alcoholic who had died in her sleep. Blue had been the one to find her. Like Megan, she was only eight years old when that happened. On her sixteenth birthday, she changed her name from Maggie to Blue. It was the day she dyed her blonde hair in a light blue color. With her porcelain skin and green eyes, she looked almost ethereal; like a fairy that popped out from the pages of a story book.

The Waves club was close to the Academy and that made it very popular with students. It often hosted live shows with indie groups, otherwise the owners would always find a reason to have a party. Megan worked part-time waitressing there, so we had made it our favorite hang-out.

The night turned out far better than I had expected. The club was teeming with summer-school, Academy students, and only a few locals; sweaty bodies that swayed to the Latin rhythm the band played. I was savoring a strawberry mojito when I saw Jake wave at me, holding up a bottle of beer. I waved back and tried to hide my surprise when I saw him push his way among the crowd towards me. All of a sudden, the memory of Jerome pressed against my body made me sigh.

"Hey," Jake said leaning closer.

"Hi, Jake. I've never seen you here before. Are you sure you're in the right place?"