A/N: This is a songfic for CrazyClavie's August Writing Challenge. The Mediatore is my all time favorite Meg Cabot series, and "Haunted" is my fave book ever. Anyway, I chose this song because it played on repeat when I first read The Mediator's "Haunted" and has been the book's official theme song for me ever since. The bold words are song lyrics, as are Paul's final lines. Enjoy, and please READ AND REVIEW.
Disclaimer: Song: Angel
Artist: Amanda Perez
Words:1,472
Send Me an Angel
I've never been a Write-in-a-flower-covered-diary kind of girl. I'm really more of a Hold-him-by-the-short-hairs, take charge type. But he took that from me. He took that fight from me the day that he…the day that he…
See, that's just it. The problem I mean. I can't exactly remember what it was that he had done to make me hate him so much. All I knew, was that ever since I had met him at the Pebble Beach Golf resort, that numb, hollow hole in my chest ached more and more with every bat of those sneaky blue eyes. It was like being reunited with a first love whom had ripped your heart out and stuffed it into a meat grinder, and I knew that my best friend Gina would swear that we had had a thing in some not so distant past life. I could almost hear her voice, "Now Suze girl, you know what that fortune teller chick said about you only having one true love and all. I bet that this Paul character is him. Wouldn't you just die, Suze? Wouldn't you just die?"
Die. That was a better word for the feeling that I got every time Paul Stalker rested his cerulean gaze on me. It was like something inside of me had died. Like he had let it happen without even giving me a fighting chance…
It's been five months
Since you went away.
Left without a word,
And nothing to say…
Kids filed out of that day's final classes with thoughts of surfing and sunbathing on their minds. I, who's past extracurricular activities and present location had officially made her the class freak, sat inside of the mission's cemetery.
Now, before you get all sentimental, no, I don't know anyone here. And as a mediator, you would think that I would stay far away from the final resting place of the dead. But you know what I've found: ghosts don't really like to frequent their final resting places. And yes, you read that right. Ghosts. Guess cemeteries aren't all that final after all.
See, as I'd mentioned before, I am a mediator, which is a legion between the living and the dead. I, reluctantly, make sure that ghosts reach their actual final destinations, with or without their cooperation.
Father Dom has impressed upon me plenty of times that my by-any-means-necessary method is less than satisfactory in his book. But though I love the old guy, I couldn't help but think that my method of mediating was more effective. I have, after all, a sixteen year success rate at being a mediator.
Only now, Paul tells me that I'm not a mediator at all. He says that neither of us are, and that he has answers if ever I would get the courage to ask the right questions. Oh, I bet he had answers all right. And I had no doubt that they all lay in the back of his throat. But he was right. I did have questions, which was the reason that I was letting him take me to his house in five minutes, even at the risk of receiving the thorough tonsillectomy that I knew was inevitable.
"There she is!" My friend Adam called when he saw me coming out of the De Silva family mausoleum. It was my favorite place in the cemetery, and yeah, I already mentioned that I was a freak. Get over it!
"We've been looking all over for you, Simon," CeeCee, my best friend and Adam's secret admirer called, her long white hair flapping behind her like a cape. "What are you doing?" I made up some excuse about a student council project that I know that they didn't believe. Still, the birds were chirping, and the sky was dotted with a never-ending arc of blindingly white clouds, so she let it go.
"Whatever. We're going to the beach. Want to come?"
"Sorry, I…um…I have some, stuff to take care of with Paul Slater." I stalked away quickly in the direction of the front lawn—and Paul's car—careful not to look in their direction.
"Sleeping with the enemy," Adam mocked in reference to Paul's running against me for student council. "For shame, wench!"
I had been here for two hours and so far, all I had to show for it was three paper cuts, some old, wrinkly newspaper clippings of a man named Dr. Slaski, and a purple bruise on my hip from every time Paul pressed it against the ancient silver belt buckle—that I had stolen from him when he went to get us sodas—in attempts to jam his tongue down my throat. The last time that he did it, I kneed him in the groin and demanded that he take me home. Or at least I tried to, but he had taken to wearing a cup during our lessons.
"Just for that reason," he had informed me.
"You know that I hate you, right?" So why do you still try so hard?" I had wanted to know.
"Because, I know it might sound crazy, but after all that, I still loved you," he teased putting on his Ray Bans and sliding that sleek little car of his out of the drive way. Oh yeah, I am so sure!
That night, after another one of Andy's, my new stepfather, fabulous meals—chicken and shrimp carbonara, I sat on my bed and stared at the silver belt buckle. It reminded me of the time that Doc, my youngest and only tolerable step brother, had given me a history lesson on our house. I closed my eyes, and tried to picture this house, even my room, as a boarding house, and when I opened my eyes, I was there.
Ok, so I admit. I was a little slow on the draw at first, as I didn't actually know where I was when I first opened my eyes. At first, I just thought that I had fallen asleep. Rubbing my eyes, I reached for my wall light and found an oil lamp. Wait, what?
The oil lamp spilled dim yellow light into the room. Outside, I could hear voices and decided to follow them. The voice—turns out, it was only one voice. Well only one human one anyway—was deep and laced with only a small hint of an accent.
"Cuidate, cuidate," the man soothed, and I instantly wished that I had taken Spanish instead of French.
I stepped further into the barn, unable to resist seeing the face that belonged to that voice, when the horses that he was tending to started whinnying out of control.
"Who's there?" I started to run back to the house, but then he turned around. And my heart stopped.
Yes, that heart that I had blamed Paul for somehow ripping out of my chest was beating wildly. Let's not even talk about the condition of my hands, which were both cold and sweaty at the same time.
"Are you okay, Miss?" Where did I know him from?
I nodded slowly, and he continued, "My name is Jesse. Can you speak?" Jesse. The name itself sent shivers down my spine. Never mind what his liquid, chocolate eyes—framed by inky black eyebrows, one of which had a deep white slash through it—were doing to me. Caught up in the moment, I dropped the lamp. Flames sprang up out of the hay and spread around the barn at an alarming rate. The horses cried out, and black smoke billowed from the open barn doors. It was enough to alert the house's inhabitants, and I could hear footsteps rushing toward us. But as I stated earlier, I am more of a take charge type of girl. So I did the only thing that I could think of. I grabbed Jesse, closed my eyes, and thought of my house.
The blast of the shift, sent us both spiraling through the air, the fall knocking the wind out of him. Worriedly, I shook the stunned man beside me. I dealt with death every day, but that still didn't mean that I had wanted this man to die right before my eyes.
Then, his breathing slowly picked up, and his face returned to that deep tanned color that I had come to—and probably always had—love. His lips twitched as he struggled to form words, and when he finally did, I instantly knew that I had found what was missing in my life in that one word, "Querida."
God send me an angel
From the heavens above.
Send me an angel to heal
My broken heart from
Being in love.
'Cause all I do is cry.
God sent me an angel
To wipe the tears from
My eyes.