• “You alright?” Chad asked softly.
    “Ya,” she murmured, nodding softly. “Just a little dazed still. It all ended so fast.”
    She pulled the jacket tighter around herself. “Thanks for the jacket,” she added.
    He looked over at her, blowing his hair out of his eyes. “Sorry, I would buy you a sweater, but it took all of my money paying for the room.”
    She laughed, a humorless, hurt laugh. “I still can’t believe he actually did it.”
    Chad looked at his feet, kicking a rusted empty pop can away. “He’s a teenage guy. He got what he wanted from you, and he left.”
    She laughed again, gingerly touching the bruise forming on her cheek. “I went there willingly. I knew what I was getting myself into.”
    They walked along silently, the gnats flying silently around the streetlights, desperately longing for something they couldn’t reach.
    Without really knowing why he put his arm around her shoulders. “It’ll be ok Liz.”
    “He didn’t have to hit me,” she sobbed softly. “He’d already left me and taken my cloths.” She cried openly, hugging Chad tightly.
    “Liz…”
    “As soon as he was done he got dressed. I tried to hold him but he just pushed me off and got dressed. I was too shocked to do anything. I don’t even remember what he said to me, but he went on for what seemed like hours. I don’t even know he just calling me a… calling me a…”
    “It’s not your fault Liz. Just forget about it.”
    “No I can’t just forget about it! He left me naked and crying on the bed. He just walked out the door. I curled up around myself and kept crying. The next thing I know he was standing over me again. He didn’t even say anything he just hit me and walked off again.”
    Chad held her close half pushing, half carrying her to the bench along the street. “Liz it will be ok somehow,” he said sitting her down.
    “No it won’t,” she cried. “Look at me Chad. Just look at me.”
    Against his will he turned his eyes to her flushed tear streaked face. Her cheek was turning a dark purple where he had hit her. Her hair was sleeked and wet from the shower and hung around her face like spider legs.
    “Look at me Chad. You call these cloths? I’m wearing nothing but your jacket and boxers. How can there be a god when people like that are allowed to live. How can there be a god, how could there even be your precious Buddha?”
    “And what would you have god do Liz? You want him to strike Paul with lightning?”
    “Yes,” she sobbed. “Look at what he did to me, doesn’t he deserve to die? He’s going to go out and do it again I know.”
    “Are you so righteous that you can suddenly hand out judgment to the wicked? It was your choice to go with him Elizabeth, you knew you were going to have sex.”
    She cried harder. “I know that, but he was supposed to love me, he said he loved me.”
    “Liz…” He murmured. “I don’t know if there is a god, I don’t even really know if Buddha is real, but sometimes you have to fall before you can go higher.”
    “But I don’t want to go higher Chad, I don’t want to be here anymore. It hurts too much.”
    “I didn’t want to wake up at three A.M. Sunday morning to pick up my best friend at a hotel and walk her home. But here we are. Life goes on, and so will you.”
    She got up slowly and started walking quietly. He got up softly and put his arm around her again.
    “Besides, you have me, and I’m not going anywhere.”
    They walked in the cold dark, slowly turning down her street.
    “What am I going to tell my parent’s Chad? They think I’m staying at Jill’s house.”
    “Tell them the truth,” Chad remarked simply. “It’s not easy, but it’s the only thing to do. They do love you, and they’re not nearly as evil as you make them out to be.”
    Their feet plodded softly as they walked up her porch.
    “Do you need me to stay with you until you talk with them?” He asked softly.
    “No, I’ll be alright, it’s going to be terrible as it is.”
    He nodded and reached out slowly for the doorbell. Before he could reach it she hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek.
    “It’s silly, but sometime I think you were sent to be my guardian angel.”
    He laughed softly. “Now that is silly Liz. I’m just Chad.”
    He touched the doorbell, and walked off slowly. “I’ll make sure you get inside,” he murmured over his shoulder. “See you at school.”
    She nodded and faced the door silently and grim faced.
    He watched from the shadows as her father came to the door, stammering as his daughter hugged him tight.
    When the door closed Chad walked farther into the shadows and pulled off his shirt. It was the usual, pleasurable painful experience when his shoulder bones swelled and grew into wings. He leapt into the air crouching on the roof of the nearby building. She was stupid; he didn’t really know how she’d gotten herself into this bad of a mess. She had lost something she was never going to get back. But through the window he could see her mother and father holding her tight. He sighed half smiling. He was being too hard on her.
    He flew airborne, letting the wind blow through his hair.
    She wasn’t an angel after all, and besides, even he had been young once. And in love.