Angels and Demons|| Nate Jacobs

||Prologue||

            You'd think it'd be impossible for an Angel to be born right? Wrong, you obviously haven't met Angel Rivers. She was once happy, content, sloshing around in her own private, primordial pool. Then one day, for reasons beyond her own control, she was repeatedly crushed... over and over by the cruel cervix of her mother, Quinn Rivers. 
She put up a pretty good fight, but lost in the end, and for the first time, but definitely not the last. 

She was born in the scoring heat of July when people were celebrating independence and shit like that, she had no idea what was going on. Her parents spent a week in the hospital, watching her under the harsh lighting of the hospital room, her father Elias wishing he was able to go out with the boys like he normally did. 

And then again, without warning, a middle-upper class childhood in an American suburb, across the street from a built-in best friend. 

     Six-year-old Angela Rivers sat in her playroom with Nate Jacobs as she listened to her parents fighting, again. "Do they always do this?" Nate frowned. 

      "Yeah..." She sighed, "But it'll be over soon, daddy usually goes to his friends." She shrugged. 

     "Oh... okay... wanna play something else now?" Nate asked. Angel smiled widely as she nodded her head and Nate ran over, pulling out a board game. The sound of the door slamming made Angel jump as she let out a small whimper. 
    Nate frowned, moving over to the blonde, wrapping an arm around her. "It's okay, Angel, I'm here." 

      That wasn't the first time Nate had gone to her house and heard her parents fighting, it was every time he was over. 

Angel was never physically abused by her dad, just verbally and mentally. So at the age of fourteen when she started to become disconnected from the world, her mother took her in to see a therapist, who then told her she had a list of shit going on in her head no twelve years old should have to deal with. 

     A now twelve-year-old Angel sat in her room, her headphone in hoping it'd drown out the sound of her parents fighting, but it didn't. "I didn't ask for such a fucked up kid!" Elias Rivers yelled. 

      "Then leave!" 

"Don't have to tell me twice." The door slammed like it did every day at five o'clock. She winced, holding the pillow higher to her chest. 

      Angel blocked out a lot of her middle school years, her parents got divorced and her anxiety got worse. And if she let herself think about it, She'd stop breathing.

     The blonde Twelve-year-old rushed out of class, gasping for air, her best friend, Nate Jacobs saw this, instantly getting worried. "Angel? Angel!" He rushed out of his own seat, grabbing her bag which held her inhaler. 
   He sprinted down the hall, seeing the blonde leaning up against the wall. "Angel?"

     "Nate.. i-I can't..." She gasped. Nate instantly searched through her bag, pulling the inhaler out, this wasn't the first Anxiety attack he had witnessed, they had happened so often he had one at his house, one in her mom's car and one in his own bag.  
   He put it to her mouth, pressing down, the blonde inhaling the medication. 

     She slowly started to breathe again, Nate calming down. 

Nate would never let anything happen to her. He spent every second of every day helping her as she spent every second of every day trying to out-run her anxiety, that's when we became friends, during my anxiety attack in sixth grade where she grabbed some kids phone and smashed it, he was taking a video and she knew it wasn't funny. She got detention but ever since then, we've been friends. A dynamic duo. 

     Now, fourteen, Angel continued to move stuff from her room into the basement, a couple of months earlier Quinn Rivers had agreed to let the teen move into the Basement, get rid of her dad's man-cave, he'd be out of the house for two years now and it was time. "Hey, mom, can you help me..." She trailed off seeing a man in her living room with a girl about her age. 

      "Angel..." Quinn sighed, the man in the living room was William Rodriguez, her mother's boyfriend, and his daughter Reina. Angel expected that her mom had a boyfriend but she never thought she'd be meeting him, or his daughter. 

     "No, fucking way..." She sighed. 

______

    "I can't fucking believe it, it's bullshit!" Angel ranted as Nate sat on her bed. No matter how much of a shitty person was, it was her dad and she loved him. 

      "Let's just get fucked up," Nate suggested, his brother Aaron used to come home fucked up. 

     Angel stood there for a second before nodding, "Yeah, let's get fucked up." 

      That was the first time Angel ever tried alcohol or her poison... Angel Dust. Nate knew it was his fault and made her promise not to do it again, The hallucinate made her feel good, forget about all her problems, Fezco, a friend of Aaron's had given her a free sample and she loved it, but Nate didn't. 
So, she hid it from him and kept doing it. 

      Age sixteen, Angel snorted the line of her favorite drug the knock on the side door startling her. It was Nate. She wiped off the extra powder and shoved the twenty-dollar bill in her pocket. She opened the side door, smiling at him. 

     "How come your door was locked? It's never locked." Nate frowned. 

      "I forgot to lock with when i woke up." She shrugged, Nate believed her, knowing she could be forgetful. 

    "Okay, cool, you ready?" Nate asked she nodded, picking up her bag, following Nate to his small pick-up. it was his first car, they both had their licenses but Nate insisted on driving her, so she let him. "You excited for school?" 

     "Fuck school." She chuckled. 

Angel and i were like two lost souls, she was literally my angel. She never worried, well when she was high she didn't, or she did and she just didn't show it. I remember one time during a lockdown, everyone was kinda freaking out but she just laid there with her head in my lap like she didn't have a car in the fucking world.
 And trust, we know it seems sad, but we didn't build the system, nor did we fuck it up. 

     Angel waved goodbye to Nate as he dropped Rue and Angel off at Rues. The two girls rushed inside, locking Rue's door, Angel pulled out her little baggie of Angel dust in pill form. "Ever tried it?" 
    Rue shook her head and Angel smiled, "It's so much fun." 

      Yeah, i knew Angel's little secret, but honestly, i wasn't much better, so i didn't try and stop her, and i thought the whole Nate trying to control her thing was bullshit, so i joined the fuck Nate movement and we got high.

At parties, we did whatever we wanted. She knew her limits though, and she was always afraid Nate would find out, i didn't know why she was afraid at the time, but i should've guessed it. 

Like i said before, she was my Angel, so when the moment it happened, when my breath started to slow. She reminded me to breathe, she handled things a lot better than a normal sixteen-year-old did. She was always in control. 

I wish i had that control. The first time i lost control i was so scared i wanted to call 9-1-1, go to the hospital, and be kept alive on machines and apple juice. But Angel had told me i was fine. And that's when i believed her. The two seconds of nothingness was great.