Unearthly (Unearthly 1)

“Oh, right.” Angela looks at me incredulously as she tugs the brush through my hair-spray-saturated hair. “Save it. You know you’re totally in love with him.”

“I don’t even know him that well. Ouch! Take it easy!”

“Well, I’ve known him since kindergarten,” says Angela, ignoring my protests as she works the tangles out of my hair. “And trust me when I say that Christian Prescott is all that he’s cracked up to be. He’s smart, funny, nice, and oh yeah, hotter than hell in July.”

“Sounds like maybe you’re in love with him,” I point out.

“Eighth grade,” Angela says. “Ava Peters’s birthday party. We play spin the bottle. My bottle points to Christian, so we sneak out to the back porch to kiss.”

“And?” I say.

“And it was fine. But no sparks. No chemistry. Nothing. It was like kissing my brother. Don’t worry, he’s all yours, C.”

“Hey, this vision is a job, remember,” I say. “Not a date. And I believe he’s all Kay’s, so enough with the crazy talk.”

She scoffs. “Kay’s pretty. And she’s clever enough to keep his attention. But Kay’s a normal high school girl. You’re an angelic being. You’re smarter and more attractive than she is in every way. You’re genetically superior. Okay, so there’s the hair thing. It’s a bad color, distracts people, whatever. But you’re totally hot. You’ve got a whole Scarlett Johansson thing going on, minus the boobs. Every guy at Jackson Hole High knows who you are, trust me.” Then she adds, “Besides, Christian and Kay are almost over.”

“What do you mean? What have you heard?”

“Nothing,” she says flippantly. “It’s just the timeline, you know? This kind of relationship has a definite shelf life.”

“What kind of relationship is that, exactly?”

She looks at me levelly. “The physical kind. What, you think Christian’s attracted to Kay’s dazzling wit?

“Their expiration date is almost up. Trust me,” she says when I don’t answer, the corner of her mouth twisting up into her evil smile. It’s unbelievable that her wings are whiter than mine.

“You’re a weird one, you know that?” I say, shaking my head. “Weird.”

“Just wait,” she says. “You’ll see. Soon he’ll be all yours. He’s your destiny, after all.” She flutters her eyelashes.

“Oh really, you think my purpose is about me getting a boyfriend? That would be awfully nice and all, because clearly I could use some help on the romantic front, but don’t you think the world is a little bigger than me and Christian and our love lives?”

“Maybe,” she says, and it’s impossible to tell whether or not she’s serious. “You never know.”

After school, I wait in the parking lot for Wendy. We’re going back to my house to study for a Jane Austen exam in Phibbs’s class. I can’t help but locate Christian’s Avalanche, parked in the back like always.

Wendy walks up and playfully punches me on the arm. “Tucker told me you were a queen today,” she says.

I drag my gaze away from Christian’s truck. “Yeah, I ruled. Literally.”

“I wish I’d seen you in your costume,” she says. “You should have come and gotten me at lunch. I could have helped you get ready.”

“Oh, you didn’t need to help me with the history class stuff,” I reply as if I hadn’t wanted to impose on her. But the truth is, I don’t know how to handle Angela and Wendy in the same space. How weird would it be to talk about normal things like school and boys now when I’m so used to talking about angel stuff with Angela? The last couple weeks I’ve mostly seen Wendy in class and at lunch, where I still sit at the Invisibles table. I’ve been busy with Angela working on our project most days after school.

“Ready for Jane Austen?” I ask.

“You know I’m crushing on Mr. Darcy, big-time,” she says.

“Oh, right,” I say distractedly, because I’ve spotted Christian and Kay.

They’re standing next to the silver truck, talking. Kay is smiling up at him. She leans into him as she talks, practically draping herself over him. He doesn’t seem to mind. They kiss, not a little peck, but a long, lingering kiss where she twines her arms around his neck and he curls his arms around her waist and pulls her close and lifts her up. Then he steps back and brushes his hand across her cheek, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. He says something. She nods. He opens the driver’s side door of the truck, and she climbs in. He hops in after her and closes the door. I don’t have a good view of what happens next, but the Avalanche doesn’t move. They aren’t driving anywhere.

They don’t look like a couple whose expiration date is almost up. They look happy.

“You’re not listening to me, are you?” says Wendy then, loudly.

I jump, startled, and look over at her. She has her head cocked slightly to one side, her blue eyes narrowed.

“Sorry,” I say quickly. I smile. “Did Tucker tell you that I had him executed today? It’s good to be queen.”

I expect her to lighten up, make some smart-aleck remark, but she just shakes her head.

“What?”

“Christian has a girlfriend, as you might have noticed,” she says. “I suggest you get over it.”

My mouth opens, then closes, then opens again.

“Hello, rude!” I finally sputter.

“It’s true.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” I shoot back.

“Well, maybe I would, if you ever bothered to talk to me anymore,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Oh, I see, you’re jealous now. Hence the rudeness.”

She looks away quickly in a way that confirms it—she’s jealous of Angela and all the time we’ve been spending together. “I’m sick of watching you drool over Christian Prescott like he’s a piece of meat, is all.”

It’s been a long day. And so I lose my temper.

“What’s it to you, Wen? It’s my life. Why don’t you stop being invisible for once and get your own?”

She stares at me for a long moment, her face slowly reddening, her eyes shining with the beginnings of tears that she’s too stubborn to let fall. She turns away. I can see her shoulders starting to shake.