Three Days Playing Angel

It was three days before I found out where they’d been. Interestingly enough, when I did find them on the side of route 33, where my first intention would’ve been to check, I didn’t bother with the fanfare of badgering them about their whereabouts. I instead picked them up, carrying them to my car, slamming the door in quiet anger before I peel off the road and back home.

I knew they would leave again, three more days maybe. Or if I was lucky, it would be in another three months. And I would find them again under the symbol of three, because they always knew that’s where I’d find them. If they were smart enough they’d try and change up where they leave themselves. Maybe under route 88 or even the infamous route 66. But I knew they wouldn’t. 3 was their sigil, their signs so I could find them again and again.

The silence of when someone isn’t there is deafening, ironically enough. The searing pain that comes with the knowing, and the not knowing. 

The knowing they’ll come back around. 

The not knowing, when or if they decide to.

The knowing that when they speak, they say what they mean, just as they walk out those clad steel doors. 

The not knowing, the lack of understanding of what words lie in their head, more truth to truth left spoken. 

I wish I could see what was going on in their head. Why was it that every time, I had to pick up the pieces? Was it that bad for you? When I picked you up at the side of the road time and time again, was that you telling me how broken you were? Were you the angel with clipped wings that you always told me about in those stories of yours? 

Yet as I watch you sleep, your head crooned against my shoulder, your heart beating steadily and your chest rising up and down, I can’t help but wonder if I’m the angel you always speak of. The one with the broken, clipped wings, the one that even with the chip on their shoulder they still helplessly find their way back to the comfort of rescuing you at every chance they get. I don’t know how this cycle repeats, or if it’ll ever end. But you laying here against me…I never want this to end.

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