The Missing Chapter
From the roof you could see the twinkling of a distant town, made up of yellows, whites, and blues.
"Any tips for a beginner?" He questioned teasing, for the most part. I smirked, "Yup, have your wings out – and flap," Sarcasm evident in my voice, as always. He grinned good naturedly.
"Is that how you learned, being pushed off a roof and flapping?"
"Nope," I popped the p. "I jumped from a tree and didn't flap." Sadly I wasn't lying – surprising enough in itself – I had tried gliding seeing as how that's what most birds do, and ended up on the ground with a broken, bloody arm.
He's your perfect other half. He's been chosen for you, it's time to except fate and go with the flow. Came a greatly unliked and unneeded Voice. I scowled, Dylan thankfully looking the other way, and replied.
You know what? I'm sick of having people 'choose' things for me and I'm sick of fate! This is one thing I get to decide for myself.
"So…what's first?" An unsuspecting Dylan asked, having not noticed the current 'I'm ticked off' state I had entered. "Well as the great Aristotle once said," I began, "What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing." How's that for using your brain?
With that I pushed him over the roof. It took a second to realize… his wings were still tucked in…
Oops…
At least he was facing down. After a few seconds he pulled his wings out and started flapping. Sadly he wasn't flapping hard enough so he slowed but didn't start going up as I'd originally planned.
Feet from the ground he figured out what was going wrong. He beat his wings harder, but not enough to change his collision course with the unforgiving ground.
Landing with a thump Dylan had face-planted under a tree. Then with a groan sat up and shook his wings out, probably to see if I had broken anything.
Swooping down I landed softly beside Dylan. "Uh… you okay?" I questioned not quite sure what to do. He nodded as he took a second for things to focus, he had hit the ground pretty hard – he'd actually left a mark where his face had hit.
"Not a very good first try was it?" Dylan replied. I was shocked, I'd just pushed him of a two story roof without even having his wings out and he was the slightest bit mad? He just brushed it off as we climbed back up to the roof to try again.
It had taken only one more try before he caught on and was soon able to fly without plummeting to the ground. After we were done and about to head in I felt his hand on my shoulder and looked to see his eyes glazed over.
"We were made to be together, Max, forever." Then he smiled as we headed back inside, acting as if he'd said nothing.