Page 51 of The Deer and the Dragon
But I knelt and collected each of the pills that night from where they’d stuck between the fibers, then watched them swirl as I flushed them down the toilet.
Seven days passed before I saw the silhouette in my room. This time, I wasn’t afraid.
“You were here the other night.” I sat up in bed and held my knees against my chest as I watched the shape move from the corner.
“I was,” replied the voice. It was a young man’s voice, and it was decidedly gentle. I searched within myself for wariness, for a sliver of fear, for anything that told me to keep my guard up, but none existed. “I couldn’t let you do it.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I lied.
His answering silence hung heavy between us.
“Are you real?” I asked. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark in time to see a beautiful face, pale hair, and a lithe shape. Gone were the thoughts of a serial killer lurking in the shadows. My cheeks heated at the taboo of having a boy in my room. The warmth crept down my neck, flushing my chest and seeping into every part of me as my eyes traveled over his sharp jaw, over the broad shoulders, the ripple of muscle, the musical purr to the way he’d spoken.
“I am,” he said quietly. “Though this wasn’t how, or when, I wanted to meet.”
“When?”
But the beautiful phantom did not elaborate.
For weeks that bled into months, my forest walks were not graced by a fox. I recognized the white hair and silver eyes as he moved in the ethereal form that could only belong to an angel. Instead, I’d wait up at night to see if the marble-hewnvision would step from the shadows and join me. Sometimes I’d fall into a disappointed sleep only to have my dreams allow me permission and bravery to touch him, to breathe him in, to run my hands through his hair. On the nights he did appear, he remained on the far side of the room, leaving contact to my imagination. The beautiful anomaly usually asked me about my day, about friends, about life and thoughts and feelings, though he never stayed long after ensuring I was okay.
“Wait,” I said as he began to shift his weight toward the shadow as he always did before departing. “Do you only visit at night?”
“I’m not sure if it’s wise for me to visit when the sun’s out,” he replied cautiously.
“Why?” I asked.
He paused for a moment before saying, “I know you can see me now in the shadows, but it might alarm you in the light of day.”
“Is that why you appeared as a fox?”
The question had been a risk, but I asked it anyway. I knew from the way his jaw ticked that I was right.
“Be not afraid,” I responded quietly, thinking of the angels who’d appeared to the shepherds on the hill. I asked him if he was the guardian angel that God had sent, and he made an unforgettable smirk as he said he was there to make sure I had a good life. I thought of the first time my heart had shattered as I’d clutched a soapy sponge and the fox had kept me from breaking, and I knew he was telling the truth. He’d appeared to keep me whole, to keep me sane. I asked if everyone had a guardian angel, and his words rang through me.
“I can’t speak for what everyone has, but I’m only yours.”
It was one of the first times in sixteen years I’d felt special. I clutched the words as if he’d handed me a beautiful diamond necklace and slipped it around my neck, holding this secret close to my heart forever.
I asked him his name, and he said what I called him didn’t matter.
“Gabriel is an angel’s name,” I offered, “If you’re a guardian angel, would that be a good name for you?”
He made a face like eating blanched vegetables. It felt decidedly childish, but so was having an unseen friend. I giggled, and he said, “That name’s taken. Can you think of anything you like that fits me better?”
I looked to the books on my piles from sophomore year and drifted to Shakespeare.
“Do you like Caliban?”
He smiled a lovely, perfect smile. It was prettier than the actors’ in movies and far kinder than the plastered grins of the church pastor and greeters who forced me to shake their hand every time I entered the sanctuary. It was a little sad, the same way that my mom’s smiles were often blue around the edges—the same way thatmysmiles were often tinged with heaviness.
“Doyoulike Caliban?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Then that’s my name.”
“Caliban,” I repeated, his name a smile on both of our lips.
