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  “Only if you promise never to say anything like that to me again.”

  “Okay, okay.” Jake held up his hands in defeat. “I promise — not another word.”

  When I saw Xavier after class, I didn’t mention the conversation with Jake. I suspected it would only make him angry and result in a confrontation. Besides, Xavier and I already had enough to think about without throwing Jake into the equation. Nevertheless, keeping things from him gave me an uneasy feeling. When I looked back on it later, I realized that was exactly what Jake Thorn had wanted.

  “Can I talk to you about something?” I asked Xavier as we lay on the sand after school.

  We had intended to go straight home and study for our upcoming third-quarter exams, but we’d been distracted by the prospect of ice cream. We’d bought cones and taken the long route home via the beach, walking hand in hand. Inevitably I’d wanted to dip my feet in the water. Then we’d ended up chasing each other, until Xavier caught me and we’d both sprawled on the sand.

  Xavier rolled around to face me, dusting the grains of sand from my nose. “You can talk to me about anything.”

  “Well,” I began awkwardly, “I don’t know how to say this… and I don’t want it to come out sounding wrong. ..”

  Xavier sat up and pushed the hair out of his eyes, his face serious. “Are you breaking up with me?” he asked.

  “What!” I cried. “No, of course not — just the opposite.”

  “Oh.” He slid back down and smiled lazily. “Then you must be about to propose. You know, it’s not a leap year. ..”

  “You’re not making this any easier,” I complained.

  “Sorry.” He looked at me earnestly. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “I want to know what you think… how you feel about…” I paused and lowered my voice, “the S word.”

  Xavier rested his chin on his hand.

  “I’m not good at riddles. You’re going to have to be a bit more specific,” he said.

  I squirmed uncomfortably, not wanting to say it out loud.

  “What’s the second letter?” Xavier laughed, trying to help me along.

  “E,” I said. “Followed by X.”

  “You want to talk about sex?”

  “Not talk about it,” I said. “I’m just asking if… well, if you ever think about it?”

  “Where is this coming from?” Xavier asked gently. “This doesn’t sound like you at all.”

  “Well, I was talking to Molly,” I said. “And she thought it was weird that we hadn’t… you know, done anything.”

  Xavier scowled. “Is it really necessary for Molly to know every detail of our relationship?”

  “Don’t you think about me in that way?” I asked, feeling a sudden tension in my chest. That was a possibility I hadn’t considered. “Is there something wrong with me?”

  “Hey, hey, of course not.” Xavier reached over and took my hand. “Beth… for so many guys sex is the only thing that keeps their relationships from falling apart, but we’re not like that. We have so much more. I’ve never discussed it with you because I’ve never felt that we needed to.” He gazed at me. “I’m sure it would be amazing, but I love you for you, not for what you can offer me.”

  “Did you and Emily have a physical relationship?” I was hardly listening to him.

  “Oh God.” Xavier flopped back onto the sand. “Not this again.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “How is that important?”

  “Just answer the question!”

  “Yes — we did. Happy now?”

  “There you go! That’s another thing she could give you that I can’t.”

  “Beth, a relationship isn’t only based on the physical,” he said calmly.

  “But it’s part of it,” I protested.

  “Sure — but it doesn’t make or break it.”

  “But you’re a boy, don’t you have… urges?” I said in a lowered voice.

  Xavier laughed. “When you meet a family of celestial messengers, you tend to forget about your urges and focus on the bigger picture.”

  “What if I told you I wanted to?” I said suddenly, surprised to hear the words come out of my mouth. What was I thinking? Did I have any idea what I was committing to? All I knew was that I loved Xavier more than anything in the world and that being separated from him caused me physical pain. I hated the idea that there was some part of him I hadn’t discovered, a part of him that might be closed off to me. I wanted to know him inside and out, to memorize his body and burn it into my memory. I wanted to get as close to him as was physically possible, melded in body and soul.

  “Well?” I asked him softly. “Would you say yes?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Why!”

  “Because I don’t think you’re ready.”

  “Isn’t that for me to decide?” I said stubbornly. “You can’t stop me.”

  “I think you’ll find it takes two to tango,” Xavier said. He stroked my face. “Beth, I love you and nothing makes me happier than being close to you. You’re intoxicating.”

  “So…?”

  “So if you really want to do this, then I’m in one hundred and ten percent, but not before we think it over carefully.”

  “When will that be?”

  “When you’re thinking clearly and when you haven’t been speaking to Molly.”

  I sighed. “This has nothing to do with Molly.”

  “Beth, have you considered what the consequences of something like that might be?”

  “I suppose—”

  “And you still want to do it? That’s crazy.”

  “Don’t you see?” I said softly. “I don’t care anymore.” I turned my face up toward Heaven. “That’s not my home anymore. You are.”

  Xavier wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. “And you’re mine. But I could never do anything that might hurt you. We have to play by the rules here.”

  “It’s not fair. I hate that they rule my life.”

  “I know you do, but right now there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “We could do what we want.” I tried to stop myself, but the words seemed to be spilling out uncontrollably. “We could run away, we could forget that anyone else exists.” I realized that I had been holding this back for some time. “We could hide, they might never find us.”

  “They would find us, and I’m not going to lose you, Beth,” said Xavier forcefully. “And if that means we abide by their rules, so be it. I know you’re angry, but I want you to think about what you’re suggesting. Just think for a little while.”

  “Like a couple of days?”

  “Try a couple of months.”

  I sighed, but Xavier was adamant.

  “I’m not going to let you rush into anything you might regret. Just slow down — we need to be calm and reasonable. Can you do that for me?”

  I leaned my head against his chest and felt the pent-up anger drain from my body. “I can do anything for you.”

  “What would happen if an angel and a human made love?” I asked Ivy that night as I was pouring myself a mug of milk.

  She looked at me sharply.

  “Why do you ask that?” she said. “Bethany, please tell me you haven’t. ..”

  “Of course not,” I cut in. “But I’m just curious.”

  “Well…” My sister was thoughtful. “The purpose of our existence is to serve God by helping man, not mingling with him.”

  “Has it ever happened before?”

  “Yes, with disastrous consequences.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that the human and the divine were never meant to merge. If it happened, I believe the angel would lose his or her divinity. There could be no redemption after such a transgression.”

  “And the human?”

  “The human would never be able to return to normal existence.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because the experience would surpass all h
uman experiences,” Ivy explained.

  “So he would be damaged for life?”

  “Yes,” said Ivy. “I guess that’s one way of putting it; a kind of outcast. I think it would just be cruel. It would be like giving a human a glimpse into another dimension and then barring him from it. Angels exist outside of time and space and can travel freely between worlds. For the most part our existence is incomprehensible to humans.”

  Although the concept was complex and unclear to me, I knew one thing — I couldn’t rush into anything with Xavier, much as I might want to. Such a union was dangerous and forbidden. It would mean Heaven and earth coming together in an unnatural way, a collision of two worlds. And from what Ivy said, the impact could be potentially devastating.

  ___

  “Xavier and I have decided to wait,” I told Molly, when she quizzed me in the cafeteria at school. Sometimes I thought she had an unhealthy interest in my love life. I couldn’t explain to her what Ivy had told me, so I worded it the best way I could. “We don’t need to do anything to prove how we feel about each other.”

  “But don’t you want to?” Molly asked. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “I guess so, but we’re not in a hurry.”

  “Oh boy, you guys really are living in a time warp.” Molly laughed. “Everyone else is dying to do it every chance they get.”

  “Dying to do what?” Taylah asked, appearing behind Molly, sucking on a lollypop. I shook my head at her to indicate that we should change the subject, but Molly ignored me.

  “Get down and dirty,” she said.

  “Oh, you want to lose your V-plates?” Taylah asked, flopping down beside us. I must have looked alarmed because Molly burst out laughing.

  “Relax, hon, you can trust Taylah — maybe she can help you out.”

  “You got a sex question, I’m your girl,” Taylah assured me. I was skeptical. I trusted Molly, but her friends all had big mouths and little discretion.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s not important.”

  “You want my advice?” Taylah asked, not seeming to care whether her advice was wanted or not. “Don’t do it with someone you love.”

  “What?” I stared at her. She had just thrown my entire system of beliefs into chaos with a few simple words. “Don’t you mean exactly the opposite?”

  “Oh, Tay, don’t tell her that,” Molly said.

  “Seriously”—Taylah wagged a finger at me—“if you lose it to someone you really love, it all goes to hell.”

  “But why?”

  “Because when it ends, you’ve given away something really special and you can’t get it back. If you give it to someone you don’t care about — it won’t hurt so much.”

  “What if it doesn’t end?” I asked, feeling a sickly lump rise in my throat.

  “Trust me, Beth,” said Taylah earnestly. “Everything ends.”

  As I listened, I felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to be as far away from them as possible.

  “Bethie, don’t pay any attention to her,” Molly said as I pushed back my chair and stood up. “Now look, you’ve upset her.”

  “I’m not upset,” I lied, trying to keep my voice level. “I have a meeting. I’ll see you guys later — thanks for the advice, Taylah.”

  I picked up my pace as soon as I was outside the cafeteria. I needed to find Xavier. I needed him to hold me so that I could breathe again and his smell and touch would wash away the violent waves of nausea erupting inside me. I found him at his locker about to head to water-polo practice and skidded into him in my haste for reassurance.

  “It’s not going to end, is it?” I buried my face in his chest. “Promise me you won’t let it end.”

  “Whoa, Beth, what’s wrong?” Xavier detached me firmly but gently and made me look at him. “What’s happened?

  “Nothing,” I said with an unsteady voice. “It’s just that Taylah said…”

  “Beth,” Xavier sighed, “when are you going to stop listening to those girls?”

  “She said everything ends,” I whispered and felt Xavier’s arms tense around me and knew the thought was just as painful to him. “But I couldn’t stand it if that happened to us. Everything would fall apart; there wouldn’t be anything to live for. If we end, I end.

  “Don’t talk like that,” Xavier said. “I’m here and so are you. Nobody is going anywhere.”

  “And you won’t ever leave me?”

  “Not so long as I’m living.”

  “How do I know that’s true?”

  “Because when I look at you, I see my whole world. I’m not about to walk away; I wouldn’t have anything left.”

  “But why did you choose me?” I asked. I knew the answer, I knew how much he loved me, but I needed to hear him say it.

  “Because you bring me closer to God and to myself,” Xavier said. “When I’m around you, I understand things I never thought I’d understand and my feelings for you seem to override everything. The world could fall apart around me, and it wouldn’t matter if I had you.”

  “Do you want to hear something crazy?” I whispered. “Sometimes, at night, I think I can feel your soul next to me.”

  “That’s not so crazy.” Xavier smiled.

  “Let’s create a place,” I said, as I pressed against him. “A place that’s just ours; a place we can always find each other if things ever go wrong.”

  “Like under the cliffs off Shipwreck Coast?”

  “No, I mean a place inside our heads,” I said. “That we can visit if we’re ever lost or apart, or just need to make contact with each other. It’s the one place nobody else will ever know how to find.”

  “I like that,” said Xavier. “Why don’t we call it the White Place?”

  “That’s perfect.”

  23

  R.I.P

  According to the belief system of most humans, there are only two dimensions, the dimension of the living and that of the dead. But what they don’t realize is that there are many more. Every day people on earth exist parallel to other beings; close enough to touch but invisible to the untrained eye. Some are called the Rainbow People, immortals who can travel between worlds and are made up of nothing but wisdom and understanding. People catch glimpses of them sometimes, shooting between realms. They appear as a streak of glittering white-gold light or the faint glow of a rainbow hanging in the air. Most humans think they’re witnessing a trick of the light. Only very few can sense a divine presence. I liked to think Xavier was one of those few.

  I found Xavier in the cafeteria, slid in beside him, and nibbled from the container of nachos he offered me. When he shifted position in his chair, his thigh brushed against mine and sent a tingling heat through my body. I couldn’t enjoy it for long as the sound of raised voices reached us from the counter. Two boys in their early teens were arguing over their place in line.

  “Man, you just pushed in front of me!”

  “Whatever, I’ve been here the whole time.”

  “That’s bull! Ask anyone!”

  With no teacher in sight, their disagreement escalated to the point of shoving and name calling. Some junior girls just behind them started to look worried when one of the boys seized the other in a headlock.

  Xavier sprang to his feet to intervene but sat down again when someone beat him to it. It was Lachlan Merton, a boy with bleached blond hair who was permanently plugged into his iPod and hadn’t handed in a single homework assignment all year. He was usually impervious to everything going on around him. Now he was pushing his way between the two boys and hauling them off each other. We couldn’t hear what he said, but the boys reluctantly parted and even complied with his directive to shake hands.

  Xavier and I exchanged looks. “Lachlan Merton behaving responsibly — now that’s a first,” remarked Xavier.

  It occurred to me that what we’d witnessed was a prime example of the subtle shift in thinking at Bryce Hamilton. I immediately thought of how pleased Ivy and Gabriel would be to hear their efforts were p
aying off. Of course there were needier communities in the world than Venus Cove, but they weren’t part of our mission. Other watchers had been assigned there. I was secretly glad I hadn’t been sent to a part of the world ravaged by war, poverty, or natural disaster. The images of those places on the news were confronting enough. I tried to avoid the news as it often led to feelings of despair. I couldn’t watch footage of children suffering from starvation and illness caused from lack of clean water. When I thought about the things humans could turn a blind eye to, it made me want to cry. What made one person more or less deserving than another? No one should be hungry or lonely or wishing for life to end. Although I prayed for divine intervention, sometimes the thought just made me angry.

  When I talked to Gabriel about it, he said I wasn’t ready to understand right now, but that one day I would. “Address the things you can address,” was his advice.

  The next morning the three of us set off to Fairhaven, the local nursing home. I’d visited Alice there once or twice as promised, but my visits had dropped off as I tended to devote most of my free time to Xavier. Gabriel and Ivy were regular visitors there, however, and made sure to take Phantom along with them. According to them, he always made a beeline for Alice without needing directions.

  As Molly had also volunteered her services, we made a detour to pick her up. She was dressed and ready, despite the fact that it was nine o’clock on a Saturday morning, and I knew that she rarely surfaced before noon. We were surprised to find her dressed as if for a photo shoot in a denim miniskirt, high heels, and checked shirt. Taylah, who had stayed the night, couldn’t understand Molly’s decision to forfeit a Gossip Girl marathon to work with “old people.”

  “Why are you going to a nursing home?” I heard her say as I opened the car door for Molly.

  “We’ll all end up there one day,” said Molly with a smile. She checked her lip gloss in the car window.

  “I won’t,” Taylah vowed. “Those places stink.”

  “Call you later,” said Molly and climbed in dutifully beside me.

  “But, Moll,” Taylah whined, “Adam and Chris were going to meet up with us this morning.”

  “Say hi from me.”