The Angels

Chapter One

BEAU

People listen to stories. If you put something in story form, people might dismiss it, but they will listen. They might not care what you have to say, they might really want to hear it. Either way, they will listen. So at this point in my story, I want you to listen. I don't know whether or not you care what I have to say. I want you to listen to my story.

You hear all these stories about people growing apart. Or best friends, one leaving the other behind. With me and Jake, I'm not sure who left who behind. We had been best friends since C.P. Sometimes that felt like the only reason we were still friends. Then Jake began blowing me off to hang out with his other friends. Friends who spent their weekends watching Harry Potter movie marathons, and considered chess a sport. Friends who might be described as unpopular. But to be unpopular, it means that there must be people who are popular. I don't believe that anybody is popular. Because there are more people who consider themselves popular than those who do not. This makes popularity more of a general state rather than a select few. It's really broken down like this: people like what they like. Some people like books, some people like sports, some people like to be social. Regardless of all of this, in the sense that popularity is this amazing, exclusive VIP club, I would not consider myself a member. Better to be a wise man who knows himself a fool than to be a fool who thinks himself a wise man.

But whether or not Jake wants to be my friend, I will not be seeing him for a while. The reason for this is that I no longer live in Lyon, France.

I am now a resident of an New York, one of the only American states worth moving to. At first, I did not take the news of the move well. My parents wouldn't specify, and I couldn't understand why I had to pick up my life and start over if they wouldn't even tell me the goddamn reason. But I have since resigned myself to the fact that there is nothing I can do. My parents can move me wherever they want to, and there's no good reason to not comply and start a clash that there is no good result of. So here I am, my first day in New York that has not been spent packing, trying to make our new house remotely feel like a home.

My parents suggested my sister and I go out and do something. Most siblings that I have observed, hate each other. I don't hate my sister, and I don't think she hates me either. We are not the closest of confidence, but since we are around the same age (I'm about a year older than her, but we're still in the same grade because Paris is smarter than anyone I know). The only subjects I excel at besides sports are art and language, which is why I'm so fluent in English.

I glance at my sister, who shrugs and reaches to grab her jacket. I grab my keys and glasses, because even though they're for reading, I use them driving, too. Paris follows me out the door.

"Where do you want to go?" I ask.

Her eyes skim over her list. She wasn't thrilled about the move, but she has always seemed to like America more than I do.

"I want to find a museum on American history." she responds.

I almost snort. We're a good hour from the city. I don't want to have to drive all the way over there. But I know that she doesn't want to be behind in our new school in history. I personally don't care, but I never have cared as much about my grades as she does. I can at least understand that.

"Tell you what, you find a museum no longer than half an hour away, I will take you there." I compromise.

Paris smiles at me, giving me directions.

I drop her off at a museum of something or other.

I park the car in the museum's parking and give her the keys- I'm going to walk. We make plans to meet up there again in a few hours. I walk around with the kind of aimlessness that August nights possess.