Losing Her Wings

Chapter 7

Paige couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All she had done was go through and ask her mother whether she should call her father and Angelo, to let them know her results, or if she should just wait until they got home and Danny had exploded into an unbelievable argument with her as soon as her mother was out of earshot. Paige couldn’t help but ask what exactly he meant by asking why she was calling Angelo, confused and curious as to why he was suddenly demanding that she didn’t speak to an old family friend. “Well, what…are you in love with him?” Danny asked furiously, as they stood in the kitchen arguing about the reason his supposed ‘girlfriend’ wanted to call the guy who’d been in love with her since she was sixteen, the instant her results came through the door. But he couldn’t understand what she was doing to him. And it was only made worse when she threw her hands up in the air with an aggravated scream, marching past him and through the living room. “Where are you going? Paige…I’m talking to you.” He called out, following her.

“Oh I can hear that.” She groaned in complaint as she walked into the hallway and up the stairs without pause for thought, but he was being ridiculous. She just thought that she should be polite and tell her father and his best friend about her results herself and what was so bad with calling Angelo? He had been asking about her results since the second he found out they were being sent out, always asking how many days were left before she’d find out. It had been the reason for most of their arguments lately, because he was always asking, almost everyday and calling him, would solve all her problems because he’d no doubt be with his own father and hers, as he always was.

“Paige!” Danny shouted on her, following her up the stairs until she shut her bedroom door in his face, more than angry at the fact that he was blatantly saying that he didn’t trust her. Not just to call Angelo, but with him altogether. He was probably secretly thinking that they were going to fall all over each other in a disgusting display of passion the second they had a minute alone together but she didn’t like him, she never had. She didn’t find him remotely attractive…well…that was a bit much…he had a sort of rugged charm about him she supposed, but she had never considered it a very attractive quality. Paige knew that Angelo had…well he had certain feelings for her and she knew that, she always had, but she had made it clear to him that nothing was going to come of them. She just wasn’t interested in him that way and he was happy to let her have her way and agree to keep their relationship to the more argumentative friendship that they shared. “Paige, let me in.” Danny demanded, pounding on her door furiously.

“Not in a million years.” Paige shouted back, sinking onto the edge of her bed, only for a short glance towards her bedside table to make her smile. There was a little jade green teddy bear sitting next to a photo frame, each item making her smile just as happily as the next. Unable to stop herself, she lifted the little bear, with the sweet knitted jumper, a shade darker than the jade of the bear, with the bold letters staring back at her as she lifted the jumper’s hood and giggled to herself. Angelo had bought her it just a week ago, never actually having admitted to it, or having been so bold as to give it to her in person, but he’d left it in front of her bedroom door one night and whispered to her that he’d left a little something for her, as he’d kissed her cheek goodnight. But it was the words that made her smile. Just a simple ‘Congratulations’ written across the jumper and a delicately written ‘Genius’ on the hood, with an arrow pointing down, each in a bright pink thread. It felt nice to know that someone had so much faith in her that he would give her a congratulations gift, before she’d even been given her results. It was so nice in fact, that she completely blocked out Danny’s roughly barked demands as he continued to pound on her door angrily, demanding to be let inside.

Placing the little bear back in it’s place, she dusted off the thin layer of dust from the top of her photo frame and smiled at the picture it held. It was nothing more than a family photo, except it wasn’t only her family. Dino, Simone and Paige’s parents all stood to the back, with Simone’s sister Ruby sitting on one of the four seats at the front, on her husband Jones’s knee, their three children sitting on the floor around them. Angelo was sitting with his best friend Jacob to his right and Jacob’s younger brother Enrique to his left. Unfortunately, Dino and her father had made sure to bring Paige together with Angelo, sitting her on his knee, claiming that it was a woman’s place to do as she was told. So she had and it hadn’t been so bad, everyone having a nice time and laughing together. Her best friend Nicola, who was in no way shape or form an Italian girl, had been sitting with her boyfriend Enrique, who was just a year younger than her at nineteen and because Jacob’s sister had been unable to make it, due to her pregnancy, he had been able to bring his girlfriend along with him too. And they all looked like one big happy family.