One could say I'd fallen in love. She was so beautiful – black waves of hair tumbling down her back, usually pulled into one long braid. Her laugh was beautiful – loud, sudden – caught you so much by surprise that the lifting of your lips in a smile was inevitable. Her brown eyes were round, liquid, soft. But more was how she talked. It was an endless stream of words, starting and ending the same point….never and always. I was happy to listen to her, adding words in where hers occasionally gapped. Others called it love. We called it us.
"So, how's your brother?" she asked me one day, thoughtfully munching on a carrot in the cafeteria. Her family was a mystery to me – she had brothers and sisters, I knew, but how they were related was a mystery. She never mentioned any parents, either. Although…I got the implication that Fang and Max were the head honchos.
In referring to my brother, she was inquiring whether his chubby three-year-old arm had healed from its breaking.
"He's fine," I said to her, laughing a bit. "He doesn't like his cast; it's pink."
Nudge gave that laugh, bringing a bigger grin to my face.
"I know, right? Out of all the colors they could have chosen, they chose that one," I teased. Nudge's smile faded and she gazed at me with mock seriousness.
"I like pink." She said defensively, bringing her pizza to her mouth and taking a cheesy bite. The pepperoni dotting the slice had oil pooling in the middle of it. Taking a quick glance around the caf, I noted that no other girls were going near the large pizzas laid out in the lunch line.
I held up my hands. "I'm not going to argue the validity of pink, Nudge."
She gazed at me warmly. "Good. I was going to make you fly with us today."
I shuddered. The fear of heights crippled me from enjoying Nudge's favorite pastime: using her wings. "Yeah, that would be bad."
"So you get nauseous or something?" she said, shoving a spoonful of chocolate pudding into her mouth. She needed a lot of calories to support the massive use of her wings. Like I said: favorite pastime.
"More than that," I said. My phone beeped, interrupting our conversation. The message on the screen was from an unknown number.
Tell Nudge to get home. Now.
I held up the screen to her. Nudge's features contorted into a confused grimace. I placed it somewhere between unhappiness and confusion.
"That's weird." She wiped her mouth, leaving her tray on the table. She stood up. Walking away, slowly, she shouted at me, "Watch my stuff while I'm gone! I'll fly home. Make an excuse. Felt sick – or something!"
"Flight sickness! Got it!" I called after her, hearing her laugh as she left. Man, she was something.