Chapter 26 Present Aeon
Present Aeon
The humans caught Lila off guard.
Though she and Eva had been informed of their existence, she’d had no blueprint in her mind for what a human should look like.
She could conjure vague images of the creatures she’d drawn an aeon before, but none of them were human.
So when she saw the humans walking in the Garden, looking only a little lesser than the angels themselves, she stopped breathing, but for a different reason than before.
Nothing in these creatures could strike her with awe. They were inferior copies of Luc and herself.
Not direct copies, certainly, but close enough. Too close.
As Lila watched them from behind a tree, Eva having wandered off to pick more flowers, the humans embraced each other and spoke with wordless smiles.
They walked hand in hand through the clearing in the middle of the grove, marveling at the blossoming flowers and the sweet-singing birds.
It was said that the Creator made them for one another. Another soul-split, Lila supposed.
They were to govern this new world, to take care of it. It would be their home, and theirs alone.
This world. Luc’s world, and her world.
The Creator had given it to them.
It was if He’d laid His hand on Lila’s heart and squeezed it until it burst.
This couldn’t be.
For the other angels, maybe, she could give up this world, but not to these creatures who had no idea what it meant. Who had no idea, even, who Luc was. Why did they get to be happy in this garden, in Lila’s Garden, when Lila could not?
It wasn’t fair. Nothing in her existence had been fair, but this…this…
It reopened a wound she thought had long been sealed up. And worse, it gouged the wound wider.
Deeper.
Coming to Earth had been a mistake. For so long, she’d tried not to think of Luc at all, but she’d remembered him anyway.
Whenever she felt like throwing herself into the Void, she’d play her favorite memories of him over and over.
She’d pick out tiny details and fixate on them.
The tick of his jaw. The curve of his mouth. The sound of her name on his tongue.
She could endure her lot in Heaven, but she couldn’t stand to be here, in the place they’d built together, and not be beside him.
She wanted to go back. She had to go back.
Lila fled the way she’d come till she could no longer view the clearing. She found Eva weaving a daisy wreath into her hair.
“I want to go back,” she announced.
“Huh? But we just got here.” Eva’s face fell; so did her flower crown.
“I know, but…let’s just go. I don’t like this place.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said, Eva. But I’m going. Are you coming or not?”
Eva glanced around the Garden, crestfallen, as though the reason for Lila’s sudden ire might burst out of the trees.
“Well…okay,” she answered. “So much for a fun outing.”
Eva pouted as they headed back to the meadow, and Lila could have kicked herself.
Her friend had been so down lately; she deserved to have fun.
And Lila was being irrational again. She had no claim to this Garden anymore than she had a claim to Luc, but Luc made her irrational.
And selfish. Around him, she bubbled over with desire and duplicity.
“You know what? Wait!”
Lila glanced behind her. Eva had plopped down on a rock, her back against a willow at the edge of the grove.
“No one will tell me anything!” Eva accused, crossing her arms. “Well, I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s bothering you.
Why does no one think they can trust me?
! Why am I always left out?! I can be serious and boring, too, you know!
I can be mysterious and brooding!” She kicked at the ground.
“I just wanted to pick flowers,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry if that’s silly.”
“It’s not silly. I just…” Eva glanced up, and Lila hesitated, but she was already keeping Adrianna’s secret from Eva. At least this secret was hers to tell.
The wind whipped at Lila’s skirts; she felt exposed in the wide, open field, under the glare of the sun and the wounded look Eva shot her. She wasn’t sure if she was flushing from shame or from the heat, but maybe she’d kept her secret long enough.
Taking a deep, bracing breath, Lila approached the rock.
“All right, I’ll tell you. But you can’t tell anyone. Not Adrianna. Not anyone. Ever. Do you understand?”
Eva squinted, her face brightened by the sunlight.
“What is it?” she asked.
Lila shuffled her feet.
“Promise you won’t make a big deal out of it?”
“I make a big deal out of everything. You know that. So spit it out, or I’ll never forgive you.”