Heaven's not waiting.
It’s spilling its secrets.
It’s right here between us,
And we have no other choice,
But believe.
Heaven Here – Dashboard Confessional

Wisps of murmuring rifled the silence. No doubt, it was the female population of my homeroom class.

I stared at the copper-haired, yellow-eyed guy standing at the front of the classroom. Yellow-eyed didn’t much cut it, truthfully. It looked more like caramel, to me. 

I tried to keep the fact that he was amazingly gorgeous away from my mind.

“Good morning. I am Angel,” he said. 

Beside me, Mike sniggered and threw a snide look above my head to Jessica, seated to my left. She giggled and rolled her eyes – but this gesture was faked; I knew from the gleam in her eyes that she had already pinned this Angel guy as her next plaything. 

Wait - Angel? Was that what he had said his name was?

Mr. Beagle laughed nervously and nodded, as if he thought that had been a joke. I couldn’t tell, honestly. “Right, class, you can call him-” He checked the name-list. “-um, Edward. Edward Cullen.” 

I looked at his straight posture, his practically-perfect features, his polite smile, his flawless, but smart, dressing and thought that the name Angel fit him to a T.

Then I caught myself with a frown - I wasn’t going to turn all Jessica over a guy. No way. I wouldn’t let myself. 

She – Jessica – turned to me and smirked. “That guy’s so weird, right?” 

I gave her a weak grin and buried my head in my notebook. We were “friends”, I suppose, but I didn’t particularly like her and neither did she me, but she didn’t say anything - probably since Mike, her Crush-of-All-Time, seemed to like me. 

Mr. Beagle cleared his throat and rubbed his neck. “Uh, right,” he said after an awkward pause. “Why don’t you take a seat, Edward?” More sniggers around the class. I couldn’t understand this – but then again, I couldn’t understand most of the kids here. Some of them struggled to remain original, different, away from the crowd. 

Me? I’d rather fade into the background and be forgotten, and being part of Jessica’s entourage granted me that opportunity. The only catch was in the form of Michael Newton.

Anyway. I turned my attention back to the new guy – Edward.

“Thank you,” he answered the teacher, politely but coolly. 

And then he walked right up to Jessica, and smiled. From such a close proximity, he looked even more angelic – I realized that his eyes weren’t caramel; they were warm gold.

It didn’t surprise me that he was attracted to Jessica; who wasn’t? What surprised me, though, was the jealousy that stabbed me from the inside. I glared at my notebook accusingly. 

The next thing he said, in the same cool, clipped tone, was, “May I have this seat?”

Jessica stared at him like she couldn’t believe what she’d just said. I couldn’t believe what he’d just said. No one, no one, asks Jessica to move from her throne.

In fact, if it had been any other ordinary mortal who had asked Jessica for her seat, she would have laughed in his face and branded him a loser, and following that his social life would be ruined.

But no, not Edward.

“S-sure,” Jessica stuttered, still maintaining her stunned, doe-eyed expression. 

She gathered her stuff and moved to the next seat, where she’d recovered from her trance quickly enough to shoot a glare at the girl sitting there; a glare that said, “Move it, bitch.”

“Thank you.” Edward graced her with a smile, and took his place at the desk beside me.

*

I couldn’t concentrate at all. Throughout the lesson, I could feel his eyes on me, and every time I sneaked a sidelong glance at him, his gaze was pinned on me, as I’d suspected.

I couldn’t help the scarlet in my cheeks any more than I could help squirming under his stare. It wasn’t hostile; somehow I could feel that he meant nothing unfriendly, but it felt… personal, somehow. Too personal for my comfort.

Class finally ended - I heaved a sigh, thankful that I could at last go to Biology… only one more hour till I could see Angela, the only person who I honestly liked as a person. 

Packing up my books and shoving them into my book bag, I made for the locker, avoiding Mike’s “Hey!”s. 

I had a strange feeling about Edward – he was too perfect, and for some reason every time I saw those unsettling eyes of his the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. If I had my way, I wouldn’t see him in any other class besides homeroom.

I stepped into the Bio lab and, to my great dismay, he was already there and seated.

And not just seated, but seated where my lab partner was supposed to sit. I shuffled into the lab, dreading the hour to come. What was that about Murphy’s Law again? 

He smiled as I shuffled past him. “Hello, Miss Swan,” he greeted me.

I tried to smile, but I think I failed. “Uh, hi…” I set my books on the table and focused on a speck of ink on my finger.

Wait.

Had he just called me Miss Swan?

As far as I knew, he wouldn’t have had a reason to know what my name was, let alone my last name.

“How did you know-” I started. 

Edward grinned. “Sh. Miss McKenzie is here.”

Five seconds after he said that, Miss McKenzie stepped into the lab and demanded for silence.

I gaped. “How did you-!”

“You have forty-five minutes to complete this test. This will be pair-work, and five percent of your grade will be based on teamwork- Ah. I see, a transfer student? What’s your name?” she asked as she spotted Edward.

“Angel, ma’am,” he replied with a straight face.

I expected Miss McKenzie to turn purple and explode, but surprisingly enough, she didn’t. Instead, she laughed – actually laughed – and pat Edward on his shoulder. 

“Oh, such a humorous child. Right, then, Angel-” she said this with a bit of a wink, “-you can work with Isabella, here.”

I shuddered. Miss McKenzie was the only person I knew who resembled a snake – she even looked like one, and if you offended her… goodbye to your sanity.

Edward turned to me and gave me one of his smiles. “Then, shall we start?” he asked me without missing a beat. What was up with this guy?!

“Why do you keep saying that?” I whispered to him as Miss McKenzie started passing out the test papers. 

“What should I not be saying?” he asked me innocently. I noted that he didn’t even bother to whisper.

“That your name is Angel!” 

“Because it is,” was his reply. I wasn’t even kidding. 

“No one names their son ‘Angel’!” I said this acidly, but the moment the words left my mouth, I regretted saying them. I didn’t really mean to insult him…

“I didn’t have a mother.” My eyes shot up to his. They looked more frank and matter-of-fact than saddened.

“Um, oh,” I blushed. “Um, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” he asked curiously. 

“Stop talking,” Miss McKenzie said sharply. 

“Okay, we better start…” I conceded. I didn’t want Miss McKenzie on our case.
 
“What’s this black object?” Edward asked me after studying the microscope. He stroked it lightly, and then turned to me. “What does it do?”

My jaw dropped. “What do you mean what does it do?”

“That’s what I asked,” he replied, but not snidely. More like he didn’t understand what the hype was about.

“It’s a microscope… are you sure you finished elementary school?” I eyed him suspiciously, but he simply smiled mysteriously.

He mumbled to himself, “Ah, the microscope. I see,” and then started carrying out the experiment as though… well, as though he’d been using the apparatus ever since elementary school. Although he hadn’t known what it was until I’d told him.

Or… he had pretended not to know. 

I fumed silently, careful to hide my frustration. Either he thought he was being funny, or he was taking me for a fool.

We worked silently, taking turns to peek at the specimens and finished so quickly that Miss McKenzie came over, beamed at us and told us we could have the remaining time off as a study period.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked me as we left the lab.

I eyed him.

“Are you suicidal?”

I stared him down, my stare morphing into a glare. “Why would I be suicidal? And why are you asking me?” I looked at my reflection as we passed a glass window. Did I look suicidal?

“It’s my job,” Edward answered simply. 

“Your job. Which would be…”

“I can’t… really tell you.”

Right. He’d come halfway to telling me, and then he couldn’t tell me. Although this killed me inside, I pushed aside my irritation.

If I hadn’t wanted anything to do with Mr. Angel/Edward, I certainly did now. I was intrigued about him - and the seeming enigma that shrouded him. He wasn’t quite like… normal. He was straddling the line between normal and abnormal.

I watched as he stood in front of his (locked) locker, and even without him touching the thing the door flew open as if it were awaiting him.

Alright, maybe he was pushing the line. Just a little bit.

I interrupted his little menagerie with the locker and hoping I wouldn’t sound like I was prying, asked, “So where did you come from? Before you moved here, I mean.”

Edward turned around – without much surprise, I noticed that he had on his usual cool, detached smile – and pointed his eyes heavenward.

I didn’t get it at first. I thought he was expressing his complete boredom at my apparent nosiness.

And then his yellow – Gold? Topaz? – eyes met mine again with a humorous twinkle in them. 

“Oh.” This time, I rolled my eyes. “Right. Heaven.” Angel, heaven.

He smiled again and nodded. “That’s right. Or something like it, anyway. I knew you’d understand.” 

“That's it! I don’t understand. I really don’t,” I told him honestly. “What is this all about?”

Edward took a step closer to me. In the unusually stark hallway, I was all the more conscious of his eyes beating down on me. “I can’t tell you… but if you find out, you absolutely will not tell anyone else. Not even Charlie.”

I blinked. “You know about Charlie, too?”

“There are many things that I could have knowledge of; some I already know, like your name, and Charlie’s; some I have to recall.”

I made the link. “Like the microscope?” 

“Exactly,” he replied. 

“And this adds up to…” 

“Like I said-”

“You can’t tell me,” I finished.

“Yes. That’s correct.”

The bell rang, then, and our supposed study period was up. People started flooding out from the various classroom doors, and before I knew it Angela was standing right in front of me with a smile, amongst the throngs of bodies squeezing their ways to the next class.

“Hey,” she greeted, and I said hi half-heartedly while searching for Edward.

He was already gone.

*

That night, after Charlie was long asleep, I thought long and hard about Edward.

Flawless looks; perfect manners;
Seemingly omniscient;
Seemed to be otherworldly.

Edward Cullen.
Cullen.
Cullen, Edward.
Angel.
Angel Cullen.
Edward Angel.
Angel Edward.

I groaned. I was going nowhere.

Our conversation was replaying through my mind, again and again like the replay button was stuck. 

“I didn’t have a mother.”

“It’s my job.”

“I can’t… really tell you.”

“Good morning. I am Angel.”

“Are you suicidal?”


I jolted; I’d heard a knock on my window… like a pebble was tossed at it – the blood in my veins froze. 

For some reason, I already knew that it was Edward. Edward Cullen.

No, not Edward.

The Angel of Death was at my door.