A gunshot woke me up. I must've been living in California too long, because that honestly didn't seem all that off. I looked around for Axl, finding that he wasn't in the bed. I raced around the house, hoping desperately that the gunshot had nothing to do with him. When I saw his figure standing in the hallway with a gun to his head and a bullet hole in the ceiling, this hope disappeared. That man standing in front of me was not Axl, or at least not the one that I knew and loved. "Axl?" I asked carefully.
"Marry me, or I'll shoot myself," he told me, voice barely above a whisper. "You marry me, or I'll shoot myself."
"You wouldn't-"
My vision whirled to life, suddenly able to see his mad eyes and tear-stained face. The grimace of his lips while he clicked the safety off. "Fuckin' test me!" He shouted. "I dare you! Fucking test me!"
I held up my hands. "Alright! Alright! I can see you're serious." I began to retreat back to the room. "I think it's time I find my way back home, actually."
"This is your home."
"No, it's not." I shook my head, still being overly cautious in case he actually shot himself. "My home is with the man I fell in love with, not whoever you are." I stopped retreating and approached him even more slowly. He flinched when I arrived at him. My hand slipped over his, and I took the gun away from him. "You need to stop this now, or I won't be coming back this time."
"Where do you think you're going?"
"The one place I never thought I'd go back to. But hey, everyone warned me." I laughed softly. "I guess I should've listened to what they said." I dropped the gun on the floor. "Goodbye, Axl. I hope you find what you're looking for without me."
&&&&&&&
Going back to Heaven was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Everything felt different this time. My wings felt heavy, my white dress felt restrictive, my hair, which had once been messy and springy, now was cut and tied back to keep it out of my face. Every morning I woke up, and every morning I cried.
Anna was worried for me, extremely worried. When she found me in my depressive state, she couldn't understand it for herself. Really, how could she? She'd never experienced half of the things that I had. Not to mention that she still felt welcome here. I was an outsider, even to the human souls who could barely remember their own pain.
God had given me the opportunity to watch Axl from afar. I did that for about an hour before it became too painful. He was in disbelief, calling out to me as though he'd done nothing wrong. I knew he was a psycho when I met him; I just didn't know it was this bad. I knew he was a psycho when I met him; I just thought that I could change him. I knew he was a psycho when I met him; I just couldn't bring myself to care about it.
I guess that makes me just as stupid as him.
My defiance towards all things biblical over the last few years turned heads away from me. Most of the angels were calling me things like 'fallen,' and 'traitorous.' They weren't wrong. I was a traitor, and I had fallen short of everything that was expected of me. Conversely, so had all of the other souls here who'd once lived on Earth. Why weren't they ridiculed?
"Banish me," I told God when I was tired of being here. "I can't spend another minute in this place. It isn't home to me."
"You want me to banish you? To Hell?"
"It's the punishment I deserve for what I've done. Everyone seems to agree on it."
"When I made you mortal, I expected you to make the same mistakes every other mortal made. I knew you were in love with Axl, which was already a sin in it of itself."
"Love is not a sin."
"No, but lust is. I knew you were lusting after him from the moment that you met. Yes, it did grow into love, but that's not what it started out as." He paused. "Get up."
"You must banish me. I don't deserve Your kindness."
"I'm sending you back to him."
"I can't go back."
"Why not? Because he's out of control?" I nodded. "Lucy, you leaving him isn't going to help that. If you know he's abusive, you need to tell him so. Have patience with him."
"You want me to be abused?"
"I want you to change him because I know you're the only one who can."
"And if I can't?"
I felt a heat on my shoulder. "I know that you can. I've foreseen it."