A/N: Thank you all so much for continuing to read and review my story. Your comments really affect what I write about and how.
I'm going to be out of town for the next couple days, and though I'll have my laptop, I don't know if I'm going to have internet access. So I might be slow on writing or posting another chapter.
If any of you guys have constructive criticism on my writing itself, please, please post it. I struggle with style as much as the next person, and your views on how I could improve help me so, so much, not only for this story but with my writing in general.
---
"I'm not going to school, dad." Christine wraps her thick blanket around her head and kicks, bare footed, at her father. He's pulling on her ankles.
Her first instinct is to look out the window at her neighbor's porch. Had she been dreaming last night? She wants to look so much, but not in front of her dad, not until he leaves. Her head throbs.
Her father is yanking, pulling, dragging her out of bed, laughing at her, pulling her toes. Christine finally kicks him hard enough to get him to let go, then sits up, red eyed and bleary. "Fine, go away! I'm getting dressed, alright? Jesus Christ, leave me alone." She flops back down.
Her father turns his palms up in frustration and seems suddenly very peeved. "You have to go, Chris. We have to leave in fifteen minutes, so get dressed." He walks out of the room, turning back to give her a stern look, then closes the door behind him.
She stares at the door with one eye for a minute, then sits bolt up and takes her place at the window, balancing her elbows on the sill to look at her neighbor's house. It's dark, but the walk is shoveled, and she can see big boot prints going from his door to the sidewalk, then around back to the tenant parking lot. She smiles a little, remembering the voice, before pulling herself away from the window.
Christine goes through her morning routine: she looks in the mirror, cringes, ties her frizzy blonde hair back. She stands in front of her closet, shifting her weight, before pulling on a thick knit sweater and a denim skirt. Her dad is yelling to get downstairs. Her clock is blinking twelve.
So the power did go out. She smiles to herself again, then waves dreamily at her neighbor's dark living room, rubbing her eyes. He must be unreal, she thinks. Maybe she's the only one in the world who sees him.
Her father is standing at the bottom of the stairs with his arms crossed. "Quit dragging your feet!"
She rolls her eyes at him when he turns his back to lock the front door, and they both go downstairs together, out to the car through the back. Her father looks at her as he pulls out his keys.
Suddenly, he's soft with her, smiling when they get into the car. "I'm so proud of you."
"I want to drop out," she mumbles, but he doesn't seem to hear her.
"This is supposed to be the best year of your life." He's far away, remembering.
"It's not." She's pouting, crossing her arms, looking much younger than she is. It almost makes her laugh, thinking about how she must look, but she stifles it, wanting to be dramatic.
"Oh, shush. You're almost done, anyway. All you have to do is get through one more semester, and then..." Her trails off, looking at her, smiling halfway.
"And then four more years of college and I'm stuck in a stupid job that I'm destined to hate for the rest of my life!"
Her father is quiet for a few minutes, thinking, until suddenly he turns to her. His eyes say he doesn't know quite what to tell her, but he tries to look wise anyway. "You can do whatever you want with your life. This is only the beginning."
"Well, whatever, it feels like the end."
---
"Hey, Chris!"
"Shit, give me that." The girls lean close to each other, and Christine takes the half smoked cigarette from the pretty girl's mouth. "I've been out for days. Where's Andrew? He needs to buy me a pack like, right now." She takes a drag, then puts the cigarette back in the girl's mouth. Her lungs burn, but she holds in the smoke, finally crossing her arms and exhaling it up to the sky.
"Whatever, I don't know, here." She pulls a loose cigarette out of her purse and hands it to Christine. "I heard you had a run in with the ER, dude. Here, light. Cameron told me- look at you, talking shit about ODing! That's my girl. Seriously, what happened?"
She takes her time lighting the bummed cigarette. "A girl can't keep a freaking secret in this place, can she?" She tries to sound nonchalant, but panic bubbles in her throat.
"No, Cameron can't keep a secret."
Christine smokes, staring up at the sky, watching clouds pass lazily in the ice blue. Her panic isn't eased, but she presses it down with drag after drag of smoke. It stings her throat, so she clears it, then says, "Well, I so thought he'd be able to put a lid on it. It's not my fault that his appendix exploded the same day that they're wheeling me in on a freaking cart with IVs all stuck in me and telling me I'm suicidal and shit- which, by the way, I'm so not, if our friend Cameron didn't bother to tell you." She pulls the cigarette off her dry lips and looks at it, then looks back at the pretty girl, tilting her head up. "I took too many of those stupid vicodan you gave me is all. Straight up hydrocodone my ass, you need to read the label next time, Ms. shittiest drug dealer in the world." She looks around, half sneering, but everyone is just watching the conversation in awe. Christine feels brave for standing up to the beautiful girl. She also feels sick somewhere deep down in her soul.
"Ain't my fault." The pretty girl scratches her scalp self consciously, avoiding eye contact.
Another, younger girl sits down at their at their picnic table, watching the conversation bounce from person to person. She finally builds up the courage to speak. "Christine, you are so hardcore."
The older girls bust out laughing; Christine snickers a little bit. "Yeah," says the pretty girl, "idolize her for being more messed up than you." She claps a hand on Christine's shoulder and shakes her a little. "That's how we got here, isn't it?" And they laugh again; when they stop there is silence, before the pretty girl turns to Christine. "So, dude, what did you do over break?"
"You know, same old, nothing... but you know, I met this guy." Everyone goes oooo, but Christine just shakes her head and smiles, looking at her lap. "Yeah, you know, he's the tall dark and handsome type, and he's got the best taste in food, and he sings like nothing you've ever heard in your life, none of this choir shit, it's like an angel." She doesn't mention that she didn't try the cheese- or that she's never seen his face.
The girls all look at her in awe, and for a minute their false worship cuts Christine's loneliness.
The pretty girl slaps Christine on the back. "Way to go, dude, I was starting to think you were a dyke or something."
The younger girl pulls out a cigarette and lights it, looking around wide-eyed. "Are you going to bring him around, Christine?"
"Well, he's, you know, older." She finishes her cigarette and flicks it into the grass, kicking her feet at the cement under the picnic table.
"Statutory rape much?" The pretty girl laughs uproariously at her own joke.
Christine's loneliness returns. Only gone for a moment. She could never tell any of these kids the truth about herself, about the pills or about Erik's dark living room.
Pretty girl looks at her designer watch and shakes her head. "Hey, shit, it's class time. Anyone have Brit Lit?"
Everyone makes a sound in response, and the group stands up to walk back to the school. Christine doesn't move: she's looking at the picnic table, thinking. "You coming, Chris?"
"Nah." She scratches her jaw and turns to the group of girls, smiling feebly. "I think I'm actually going to pass on last period, and just head straight home."
"God, you are such a slackass."
Christine only smiles, waving at them with two fingers, gesturing for them to go on; they quickly do. She sits at the table long after they've left, closing her eyes every few minutes to try to block out the sound of traffic and remember the angel's voice.
---
The note is posted on the back door, and Christine can see it from several feet away, her heart skipping a beat. She strides up to it, quickly but steadily, staring at it for a minute before ripping it off. It's computer paper, done in colored pencils.
She unfolds it, knowing what it is, then smiles. It's a drawing, done by little children, of a big happy family happily picnicking in their front yard. There are the town homes, and the drawn Christine stands outside one, waving to the picnicking family. Her hair is sunflower yellow.
It is divided into five even sections, each one labeled with a different kid's name. From left to right, Christine runs her fingers over the age progression- 3 year old scribbles, all the way to a 22-year-old's realistic sketches.
22 year old. She reads the name. Raoul. She hasn't seen him for years, since he left for the marines, when he was an 18 year old who wore Metallica shirts and ran varsity track. He was so thin it was frightening. What does he look like now, Christine wonders. He must be back on leave.
She was only 13 when he went away. Would he remember her as the short, pudgy little blonde girl, or would he even remember her at all? She folds the drawing back up and turns to the house with the children, waving to the window even though she can't tell if anyone is inside.
The house is quiet, her father won't be home until five or six. She walks into the kitchen, opening the fridge and staring at all the items, until finally deciding on a piece of celery. The cheese taunts her. She shuts the fridge, to the discomfort of her growling stomach, and makes her way up the stairs to her room to stare out her window at her neighbor's porch.
The phone's ring pulls her out of her trance, and she just stares at it for a moment, contemplating whether to answer. The caller ID is a number she doesn't recognize, but she decides to pick it up anyway, and grabs her phone just after the fifth ring. She can hear the answering machine click.
"Hello?"
"Hello, this is the emergency RN at Lutheran Hospital, may I ask who I'm speaking with?" The woman is stern, her voice quiet and steady.
"This is Christine and look, we don't have any money to donate this year, but thank you anyway." She goes to hang up the phone, but the voice on the other end clears its throat.
"Are you Mr. Daae's spouse?"
"Daughter, why?" Her heart is beating faster. What do they want? She just wants to hang up, but the nurse is pausing solemnly to keep her on the phone. Christine glances out her window to her neighbor's house. She thinks she sees a dark figure in the living room, and it calms her.
"We'd like to ask you, if possible, to come to the hospital immediately concerning your father, Christine." The woman's voice goes soft and comforting, like she's talking to a crying child, but the change in tone doesn't cushion her words.
"What? What about? What's wrong with my daddy?"
"We can't tell you over the phone." The nurse covers the mouthpiece, but Christine can still hear her bark out an order to someone in the background. "Do you know where we're located?"
"Yeah, yeah." And Christine hangs up the phone and sets it down, sitting on her bed stunned for a moment, before the situation sinks in and she jumps up.
She runs outside, but the bus has just passed, and with eyes wide she looks around for something, anything, a way to get there. She wishes so hard that she would have just gotten her driver's license, instead of letting her permit lapse and her dad drive her around. She swings her head to all sides, looking, but the weight of the situation is too much for her and she sits down in the hard gravel of the parking lot, sobbing uncontrollably.
She hears the footsteps come up, but doesn't want to react until they come to a halt right behind her, and she waits a moment before turning around. The sight that is there stuns her for a moment: the man is tall, well muscled, with striking features and close trimmed brown hair. He seems familiar, but looks nothing like the skinny track boy she knew years ago. "Raoul?"
He smiles tentatively at her, then bends down to wipe her tears. "What's wrong, little Lotte?"
She almost laughs, before suddenly remembering her plight, even in the face of his attractiveness. All her words come in one breath, "Raoul, the hospital- Lutheran's- they called and my dad is there and they wouldn't tell me what but I need to go there right away they said and I don't have any way to get there Raoul can you please give me a ride and I'll be forever grateful, this is so important, please?" Her blue eyes plead when she looks at his face.
"Of course, Chris. Come on." He doesn't want to worry her by being in too much of a hurry, but he takes her by the hand and stands her up, guiding her briskly to his car.
---
The hospital has always bothered Christine. The sterility is meant to be comforting, but she can smell the death in the air. All around are the ghosts of hundreds of people who died inside the building, and the thought of it gives Christine the creeps.
Raoul sits next to her in the waiting room, clutching her cold, small hands in his. He has brought her a sandwich from the cafeteria, but she told him that the nerves make her lose her appetite, and she only picked off a few bites. Raoul wraps his arms around Christine; she is so small, so frail. He remembers her as a young girl with a round face and a little puppy fat, but she looks sick now. He wonders about her, worrying.
All they know is that Christine's father passed out at work, and he's stable but unconscious. They saw him for a moment, in the ICU, and he looked so thin, with his eyes closed and the delicate skin under his eyelids sunken and black. Her father looked like an old man. The image scares Christine still.
None of the nurses will tell her anything about why he passed out at work or why he's still unconscious, only that he'll be okay, he'll be okay, I'll make sure he's okay. The nurses have a predictable script. Christine rests her head on Raoul's shoulder and cries a couple cold tears.
The main RN steps out of the main office and gestures for Christine to come over, but when Raoul follows, she puts out a hand to stop him. "Only family, please." Christine shrugs apologetically at him, but he smiles, nodding for her to go on.
The nurse walks her through labyrinthine hallways with door after door filled with posted clip boards, name tags, medical information, until they get to an isolated hall with plastic on the entrance. "Here," says the nurse, holding the plastic aside for Christine to step though. The smell of the disinfectants is overwhelming. Christine almost bursts into tears.
Her father's room is the last door on the right, one that has no name tag or clip board, only a sheet with a doctor's name printed on it and some medical notes written in shorthand that Christine can't decipher. The nurse stops her right in front of the door and bends down, bringing herself closer to Christine's height.
"He's awake, but delirious. He'll be glad to see you, but don't expect your dad to be 100, okay?"
Christine nods and opens the heavy wooden door, almost falling to her knees when she sees her dad hooked up to countless machines, laying in bed, a small figure. She runs to his bedside. "Dad, oh, dad, I'm so sorry." She kneels by his bed, laying across him, sobbing. He puts one hand on top of her head.
---
It is dark in the hospital room. Christine sits bolt upright and looks at the clock: it reads 2:47. She must have fallen asleep crying- but what about Raoul? Did he go home? She forces herself not to worry, tells herself that he left and assumed she'd want to stay overnight with her dad.
Dad. She looks at him, eyes wide, but he is sleeping peacefully, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He doesn't look as bad, Christine thinks, his condition is improving.
She smiles and looks around, reading the labels on all the equipment, trying to figure out exactly what it is they've got hooked up to her father. Her eyes land on a chair in the corner of the room, and she stands up, her legs weak from kneeling on the hard floor.
She looks to her dad again to make sure he's not disturbed, then turns back to the chair. But there, in the chair, is a dark, hunched over figure, stroking its jaw and watching Christine intently. She almost screams, but claps her hand over her mouth, then closes her eyes, just for an instant, out of fear. When she reopens them, the figure is gone.
Her heart pounds. There is nothing there. The chair is empty. She walks over, pats it, inspects it, timing her breathing to calm herself. The chair is empty. She sits in it.
"Little Lotte?" The voice is in her ear, calm and melodious, so comforting. She absorbs it for a second before realizing that the voice was actually there, as though the man behind it was standing right over her shoulder.
"Who are you?" Christine stands up, ready to fight.
The voice is smooth as silk, as though it could become song at any moment. "Your father looks so sick. Poor Christine, you are tired and your day was long. School makes you anxious, doesn't it?"
She nods, still trying to pinpoint the source of the voice, but it is in her ear, or worse, in her head. Her father doesn't seem to hear it, as he doesn't wake.
"Come now love, sit down, and I will sing you to sleep." Christine can only nod again and follow the voice's command.
The words are meaningless, sounds and babble, but the voice's song is beautiful. It reminds her of nights spent curled up in her mother's arms, long ago, as though she can almost remember her mother. The voice caresses her skin, coaxes her to relaxing, to going limp, and the voice fills her head with images of summers, spent happy and lazy, to spin her dreams around.
Before she nods off, she hears the voice speak between bars of song, "Christine, you are so beautiful. Only your angel can see your true beauty."
Christine, childlike and sleepy, whispers, "Angel, I love... angel," before she finally nods off.