The Fallen Angel

Chapter 23: Warm

Chapter 23: Warm

Angelo had disappeared.

After the argument that we had, he made it his duty to steer clear of me, to the point that he was suddenly nowhere to be found in his own apartment.

So I made it my duty to return to mine.

It didn't take long for me to fall back into my old routines. I went back into the tedious cycle of being, well, me. That included going to work even though my job had slowly grown to become loathsome. The only upside there was to it now was the company of Claire. Despite her questionable actions from our last encounter, she was a good person. I would listen to her rant about the hypocrisy in the working world, imagining how contrastingly different Genie would have expressed herself.

I really didn't mean to, but god I missed her.

And that's when I came to the realization that having only one close friend was foolish of me.

It made me begin to doubt if that was due to my poor social skills or had Angelo taken precautions to have my circle as small as possible? That wouldn't have been such an abstract thought with how much he had already interfered with my life.

It's for your own benefit, that was what he would claim I bet.

But how would I know if I wasn't aware of the alternatives to his protection?

If I couldn't remember them?

The only time it was truly warranted was back at that dreadful club where we had first met when that thing had attacked me.

And even that was his fault.

He didn't know better than to not have his holier than thou stench to rub off on me.

I took a sip of my coffee and looked back up, seeing Claire's soft eyes on me. I didn't notice she had stopped talking until now.

"I'm sorry-"

"It's fine," she interrupted with a light chuckle but it seemed forced.

Her face was a canvas for disappointment.

This time, I actually felt bad.

"I didn't mean to zone out. It's just that I have a lot on my plate right now. It's hard to keep focus. Trust me, your rant isn't boring me into oblivion. If anything it's doing me a favor." It keeps me distracted, I added mentally because if I had said it out loud I'd be more of the bad guy I didn't mean to be.

"Are you sure?" She asked, her expression skeptic.

I was pretty sure she saw the hesitation in my face before I nodded.

If so, she chose to ignore it for whatever reason and continued with her one-sided conversation about global warming.

This time I made the effort to at least nod along.

The most outstanding thing swimming around my mind being:

Where could he have run off to?

***

I had clocked out right at seven and made my way home.

The weather was cold now and I didn't have the time to grab a jacket so when I stood outside I was freezing. I shivered so badly I had to bite down onto my lips. It didn't make matters better that they were already cracked from a lack of moisture.

I was startled by the feeling of a scarf wrapping itself around my neck and I looked up to see Claire.

The blonde smiled down at me gently and when I saw something more than that of a friendly emotion, I couldn't help but actually freeze.