LOVED BY AN ANGEL - Completed ✔️

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX:-

ELAINE

I woke up Sunday morning with the sound of Mama's footsteps in my room. My head still hurt from crying myself to sleep yet another night. I kept replaying Adriel's embrace and cursed myself for having lost myself in his arms again even though it felt so damn right.

Mama went ahead and opened the curtains, the bright morning light sting my eyes and I cursed out loud. She opened my closet and took out a dress—one of  many I never wore—and laid it on bed.

She told me to get ready for church and I grunted something sarcastic. She ignored me and went to prepare herself for church. When she came back fifteen minutes later, I was still in bed.

"Elaine-Claire!" she exclaimed. Okay, I knew this was going to be a brawl since she usually called me by my full name whenever she begun a fight.

"I don't feel like going anywhere Ma'." I grunted but she seemed to ignore me again.

"Breakfast is already on the table, I'm giving you five minutes to get dressed."

"I said I'm not going." I said firmly. Seriously, this woman needed to get a better hobby than nagging me.

"And I say we are going to church together like a normal family..."

"Normal my ass!" I spat. "What for anyways? God has long deserted us so let's do something useful instead, huh? Like letting me sleep."

"Please come to church with us Elaine.  I know you are still grieving, but spending some time in the house of the Lord will make you feel better. Prayer is what you really need right now for clarity. You should probably go for a confession too, Father Jacobs always says that our souls are weighed down by the spiritual clutter of unrecognized and unconfessed sins in our lives. And for us to..."

"That is the bullshittiest of all the bullshit I've ever heard! So what, you think repenting puts me right with the Big guy  and magically changes the dreadful fate we are suffering?" I snorted. "Trust me, It doesn't work."

I should know. I had stayed clean for the last few weeks and so far what had that brought me? A dead brother, a dying mother, a failed relationship (even before it begun) and more bills to pay. I wasn't ready to sit there and listen to somebody preach to me that bullshit again.

"Don't talk like that!"

"Or what? The Big guy's going to get real mad with me and punish me? What more can He do that He hasn't done already? He has taken away everything I love; Grandma, Randy, you..." I trailed off in tears. "He's taking you too Ma and all I can do is just sit here and watch! So don't expect me to go sing Halle-freaking-lujah and say thank you for the things he has taken away!"

Mama just stared back, tears streaming her face and for the first time ever, she did something that she had never done before whenever we fought. She walked away.

I stayed in bed and cried some more. Strangely, a familiar musky scent...Adriel's scent drifted in my room. And I hated how much I longed for him. My world was crumbling around me and I needed him so freaking much. Ironic, wasn't it? The one person who could make everything feel bearable was the one I could not be with.

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Rumor had already spread in school that my punk of a brother had died of drug overdose. People eyed me suspiciously as if they could tell whether I was stoned by just looking at me. I was in the bathroom when I heard two girls gossiping about Randy's death. They didn't know I was in one of the stalls and as much as I wanted to come out of there and punch their gossipy little asses, I stayed quiet in hopes of finding more information about my brother's death that the police and I were not aware of yet.