Blind Angels
The lunch bell blares and students scurry out of the classroom. Rising from her seat, Ada packs up her book and waits for Megumi at the doorway. The clock on the wall read eleven fifty five, they have forty five minutes for break.
“Ada,” Megumi’s singsong voice carries through the air, dancing around as she saunters over to her best friend. “Ada did you see Raphael today?” she drags the word “see” out for far longer than necessary. “Ada he was positively breathtaking,” her dreamy sigh starts before finishing the last word and her eyes flutter closed in delight.
“He was okay,” Ada retorts, not too keen on Raphael’s appearance today. He wore khakis and a red flannel with black sneakers—nothing to be enchanted by.
“‘Okay’? ‘Okay’!” Megumi flings her scrawny arms into the air above her head, “Ada he was more than just ‘okay’!” Her pink-nailed fingers clung to the sleeves of Ada’s forest green tee-shirt, “Ada he is absolutely stunning! He’s the most handsome guy in the school—on the planet! Ada you can’t deny this, this is a fact.”
Ada rolls her eyes on Megumi’s emphasis on “fact”. “Megumi, that’s your opinion,” and Megumi gasps and holds at her chest, grasping her heart. “Some people aren’t going to agree with you, and I’m one of those people,” the two leave the classroom and head down to purchase food.
“Ada,” Megumi’s voice is void of its usual melody, “a lot of the boys in this school are fucking hot, and Raphael takes the goddamn cake.” She picks up a sweet roll and slams it onto her tray, “we’re fifteen, there has got to be some guy you like!”
“One: just because we’re fifteen doesn’t mean I like some guy, and I don’t. Two:—emphasis on the two—even if I did like someone it wouldn’t necessarily be Raphael just because he’s, and I’m quoting you on this, ‘drop-dead gorgeous’.”
“Ada that is complete and utter bullshit I have seen your history notes and they’re completely covered in hearts. You cannot fool me, we have been best friends for, um,” Megumi takes out one hand and starts counting on her fingers, lips whispering ages, “for ten years! Stop laughing at me, you know I’m not good at math!” Ada’s laughter is soft but contagious, and soon Megumi is laughing along with her, voice ringing and rebounding off of the walls.
“Ten years I’ve had to put up with you,” Ada nudges her shoulder into Megumi’s, “and all I’ve got is a major headache.”
“Hey!” Megumi feigns offense at Ada’s mock insult. “I’ll have you know I’m a great friend and an expert on romance advice, so,” she pauses and smiles up at Ada, four inches taller, “so you can tell me things, you know. Like who you have a crush on.”
“It’s ‘whom’, Megumi, and I already told you I don’t,” Megumi’s eyes bare into Ada’s with skepticism, “okay, so maybe I do, but it’s no big deal, alright? Now stop talking about it.”
“Alright, alright,” the girls sit down at an empty table against the wall, “and by the way, Nikki and Beth are heading to a club later tonight and invited us, you up?”
“Hell yeah, I haven’t snuck out of the house in a while, do I have to bring my own cigarettes?” Ada laughs, shoving a slice of apple into her mouth.
“Ada, you’re the go-to girl for when people are out, so I’m pretty sure they’re expecting you to bring your own,” Megumi joins in in the laughter, entertained with the thought of Ada being sans cigarettes.
The girls quiet down and eat their food without speaking. Around them, others buzz with gossip about the latest hook-ups and whether that guy is cheating on which girl and who was seen running naked last night outside the public library. Jocks are hustled in the center of the cafeteria, shoving at each other and ignorant to the food flying from their trays. Ada rolls her eyes at the sight, ‘boys,’ she scoffs internally.
Ada finishes her lunch before Megumi, so she’s stuck without a conversation partner for a minute or two before the both of them go to hand in their newly-emptied trays. With just under twenty minutes left in the break, the two stroll across the garden outside.
The garden is well-kept for a school full of chaotic teenagers, and decorates the building to make it appear newer than it really is. It isn’t too large, however it’s big enough for a picnic with around twenty people with leeway. There’s a two large pine trees stretching from the earth in the center—the mossy green pins canopying sculpted earth. Under the trees, flowers have not been planted as to leave room for students to rest, but a little ways outside of the shadows start the floral beds of blues and yellows.
Megumi blathers on about Raphael’s hair and the way his arms danced when he flexed to take notes. She’s absolutely infatuated with him, and Ada feels her heart clench tightly together to hide itself. It is weird, Ada thinks, how almost every girl in all of her classes has a boyfriend. And the girls that are single are constantly fawning over some boy with his shirt pulled up, exposing some of his flesh. Ada finds it disgusting, not the fawning, but the exposed skin right above the boy’s groin.
“And his eyes,” Megumi gushed, “Those lilac blue orbs that shimmer in the sunlight, they’re just perfect. I feel like I’ve grown wings and am soaring in the sunny sky when I see them. Ada, he’s absolutely perfect!” Ada groans much loader than she initially intends to, but gets her frustration across to Megumi who crosses her arms and sticks out her bottom lip in a pout.
“Megumi,” Ada whines, “you barely even know him. Have you ever even spoken with him?” Megumi looks away and hesitates before shrugging. “Megumi,” Ada peers down at her friend, “Megumi tell me the truth: you never have, have you?”
“No, but,” Megumi shoots around and her eyes are wide as she raises her voice, “but he’s just so,” her arms flail around as she looks for appropriate words, “like, you know, you’ve seen him!”
“Yes,” Ada looks ahead of her and down at the flowers they will be passing, “and I have to say, I’m not impressed.”
“Ada,” Megumi stops walking.
Ada sighs before also stopping and then turning to face her friend. “Megumi.”
“Ada you are head-over-heels in love with someone.”
Ada’s struck aghast, “I’m sorry?” she stutters.
“The fact that you can’t acknowledge Raphael’s perfection,” Megumi points out, “clearly goes to show that you’re far too in love with whatever guy you like to even think about seeing Raphael in that way!”
“Megumi,” Ada draws out and flicks her friend’s forehead, “it’s not like that. I just don’t find him very attractive.”
“Lies!” Megumi looks absolutely scandalized.
“It’s the truth,” Ada turns and starts walking down the path again. Megumi treads up next to her and for once stays silent. There’s an uncomfortable air before Ada speaks up again, “I’m not mad at you, you know.”
“Oh,” and Ada snorts at Megumi’s soft and innocent reaction. Megumi’s hunched shoulders straighten as she regains her vibrant smile. “Oh!” she giggles, “of course.”
The two girls chat on about the history exam they took earlier that day and how exhausting it was. They stop at a bench just outside of the garden on sit to resume talking. Megumi does most of the chatting, Ada only adding a few snarky remarks when she deems them appropriate. The bells sounds and the lunch break is over, so the two bid each other farewell and leave for their next classes.
Ada makes it to her math class mere seconds before the bell rings again, which would’ve signaled her lateness. She slides into a seat near the back of the room and takes out her workbook and some graph paper. The lesson for today was scheduled to be inverse trigonometry, but at the moment the teacher was too busy fussing to herself over her shitty personal life—which she allegedly had. Ada hears her mumbling something about her husband and “her”.
Eight minutes past the class’s starting time, the teacher is finally calm enough to begin her lecture on arcsine. “For starters, we begin with a right triangle, with sides X and Y and hypotenuse Z, and corresponding angles x, y, and z,” she draws said figure on the board in front of her. “We already learned that sine of y is Y divided by Z, so arcsine—the inverse of sine—of y is Z divided by Y.
“The same goes for arccosine and arctangent. The arccosine of y is Z divided by X, which is the reciprocal of cosine: X divided by Z. And arctangent is the same, where instead of Y divided by X, like in tangent, arctangent is X divided by Y.” She walks over to her desk and retrieves a pile of papers from the top. “Now,” she asks, “are there any questions before I hand out practice sheets for arc-trigonometry?” With no questions, or at least no raised hands, she passes out a smaller pile to the first person in each row, which they then pass behind them.
The practice sheet is actually a packet of three pages, each with five questions—fifteen questions in total. After writing her name and the date, Ada’s eyes scan the first paper. She lifts the eraser of her pencil up to her lips as her eyebrows furrow in concentration for the first problem.
The school day ends on a fairly regular note, the only notable difference being a pop quiz in art history. Ada slams her locker and peruses the hallway for Megumi. She spots her near the front entrance flirting with Raphael. Rolling her eyes, Ada glides up to the two and wait for them to be done with their escapade.
“Oh, Ada!” Megumi hums as she spins around to greet her friend, “you know Raphael, right?”
“We’re in the same history class,” Ada deadpans, not wanting to elongate this conversation.
“Well,” Megumi interjects, “we were just chatting about this and that, and I thought, ‘wow, I’m sure Raphael would love to go to the club with us,’ so I invited him and he’s tagging along!” She squeals, “Isn’t that just absolutely fantastic?”
The gold that rims Megumi’s blue-green eyes sparks delightedly as her pupils dilate. “Well as long as he brings his own shit, I’m not supplying for extras.” ‘Fantastic,’ Ada thinks, ‘some groggy-ass dude to interrupt my fun time out.’ She scowls, ‘fucker.’
Megumi waves and her smile shines as she and Ada finally leave Raphael and walk out of the school building. “He’s a great guy,” Megumi sighs.
“The best.”
“Ada,” Megumi whines, “you are missing out on so much! I almost feel bad for you, but it means more for me.” She bumps her hip into Ada’s and adds a little skip to her step. “Remind me to thank Mr. Dreamy.”
“The only ‘Mr. Dreamy’ is that one blanket detergent’s mascot,” Ada rests her hands behind her head. “Unless we’re talking about your Mr. Dreamy: Sir Raphael of that one public high school in the asscrack of nowhere, Germany.” Ada’s comment of their school gets a laugh from Megumi. “And apparently my math professor’s husband is pretty hot—he keeps hooking up with side hoes— from what I hear her complaining about during class.”
“Well,” Megumi retorts, “I’m not going to fuck a mascot or an old guy, so I’m sticking to Mr. Dreamy the Second: Sir Raphael of Asscrack, Germany.” The two of them laugh for quite a while, but Ada feels her chest contort and squeeze uncomfortably the entire time.
The two wait at the bus stop for a good six minutes before Megumi starts belching her high-pitched voice in a whine that the world’s finest connoisseur would rate even more exquisite than taking five shots of straight vodka in a row. “This fucking bus,” Megumi pinches her words as if she had picked up a worm. “I don’t have time for this! I have to get home, shower, get dressed, put on the best makeup you’ve ever seen, sneak out to the club, have a hell of time, sneak back home, and then copy some nerd’s homework answer.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a full schedule for tonight.”
“Yeah, and if all goes well I might have to add Raphael to that list.”
“Good luck,” Ada scoffs, throat dryer by the second and breath shorter.
The bus doesn’t arrive for another four minutes, and when it enters sight Megumi shouts obscenities at it. The two find a seat in the front with Ada next to the window. Megumi immediately strikes a conversation with the people seated across from them. Her animated talking contrasts drastically to Ada’s lack of movement: breathing forced. The two were uncomfortably close—Megumi’s thigh pressed firmly against Ada’s, their shoulders were snuggled together, and their arms were practically intertwined.
Staring out of the window, Ada can hear the giggles and hollers from the other bus riders. Megumi’s voice is the loudest—reaching out to all ends of the bus and echoing in everyone’s ears; she’s charming. Everyone likes Megumi: adults, children, and teenagers. With adults it’s easy for her to play the most innocent person to ever walk the plant, and in some ways she really is. Megumi is gentle and polite when the situation demands it, and the adults that gather around her respect that.
Megumi is fun; her brilliant smile is an infection that infests itself into the bloodstream of everyone around her, leaving them with the symptom of smiling. Her cheeks always flush a light pink when she truly laughs, not caring about if she looked weird—when it’s just Megumi and Ada. Her sweet, singsong voice welcomes children to her with open arms in a bubbly embrace.
But teenagers love her for an entirely different reason, a reason so drastic from the gentle fairytale princess the adults and children saw. Megumi is ruthless—no one dares approach her if they aren’t approached first. The exceptions to this rule are Megumi’s friends and everyone she deems worthy of her attention. She isn’t the queen of the school, she isn’t nearly popular enough, but she may as well be leader of a mafia. It’s this fear that everyone holds for her that causes their blood to evaporate into little puffs of adrenaline and eroticism.
Megumi not only entices people with her royal personality, but with her voluptuous physique. Her flaming hair strikes numb the minds of the hapless victims she glides past. Her eyes glimmer in honey hues that skirt around cerulean oceans with waves of raging power. Her lips perk with an orange rose that leaves viewers breathless and their throat dry. Staring too long at the oasis of lust can give its audience the most sensual of mirages. Megumi is the vicious fire that spit malice on your flesh and eats you alive. She is the ocean that hums you lullabies to a slumber you will never wake from as her grasp leaves you drowning. She is the desert that renders you hot and in need of just one sip of water to feel yourself overflowing with desire.
But right now, Megumi is the city at night—bright in places that would be dark if she had not introduced herself. Her eyes crinkle as her laughter injects the bus with a withdrawal that leaves you clawing at your skin. And the people on the bus laugh with her. The bus thuds along the street, causing bodies to jerk up and bob to the side, but nobody seems to mind. In this moment, Megumi is their savior, and she leads them through a pathless abode of trees.
Ada doesn’t invest herself in Megumi’s chatter, it always makes her uncomfortable. Strangers trying to interact with Ada at all makes her queasy and leaves her lips strung down tighter. Megumi’s leg pushes harder against Ada’s and Ada’s eyes flicker down at the contact briefly.
It takes around three minutes for the bus to stop on Megumi’s street. “Bye Ada,” she waves and blows a kiss at her best friend, leaving Ada both chilled and warmer than she’d like. Megumi practically skips down the few steps and onto the sidewalk, and as she meets Ada’s eyes as the bus resumes moving, she winks. It’s small, Ada almost misses it, but Ada smiles in return before her face contorts into a distressed contour that rivals ancient marble busts.
Just only two minutes later, the bus stutters to a stop—the stop closest to Ada’s house. Standing up, Ada’s eyes angle slightly down, not wanting to converse with anyone. She limps out of the bus, muscles still clenching firm in discomfort. The walk to her house takes another four minutes, and Ada spends everyone second of it thinking about tonight.
Nikki and Beth are both in their last year of high school, and if it wasn’t for Megumi’s reputation, they probably would have never met Ada. The two are troublemakers, not even attempting to sugar up to the teachers. Nikki wears fraying skirts that barely hide her ass and shirts that have collars loose enough that if she bends down you can see her cleavage staring back at you. Beth wears denim shorts so short that the pockets hang below the cutoff, or tight spandex shorts that hug her figure, and a graceful top that almost tricks the mind into believing that she is an elegant, proper lady of society.
Ada’s personal opinion of them is that they’re lifeless and dull. Yes, they know of some tremendous parties and have intel on where to get what, but their personalities have nothing once you extract the lawlessness. Nikki and Beth are delinquents, and Ada and Megumi are as well, but the latter two know how not to get caught. Nikki and Beth have a record that triumphs over the rest of the school, but Ada and Megumi would have the high score if authorities knew.
The walk ends and Ada steps across the concrete path that splits through grass families and bleeds into the off-white door. Sighing, she creaks the handle to the left after unlocking the door and strides inside. Ada and Megumi aren’t scheduled to meet up with Nikki and Beth for another six hours, so it’s a bit alarming that Megumi said there wouldn’t be enough time for her to get ready. Ada trudges up to her room and plops onto the wooden chair sat at her desk.
Ada’s parents aren’t supposed to be home until approximately nineteen o’clock, so that gives her three hours of peace and quiet to attempt to complete the shitload of homework she was given. Trigonometry, despite Ada’s good relationship with math, proves to be the most difficult out of all of her classes. It’s laborious and irrational in hindsight, and she audibly groans at the prospect that she is going to have to complete the three-page handout. Wanting to delay the inevitable battle with trigonometry, Ada settles to complete the rest of her homework first.
It’s quarter past the nineteen hour when her mother returns home, and another six or seven minutes before her father does. Ada can hear her father’s loud voice complaining about the lack of voice, and if she struggles she can hear her mother’s muffled voice retort that she had only just got home. And then there’s stomping, growing louder and more violent until the sound abruptly ends at Ada’s door, and a pounding fist thrusts against her door as knocking replaces the footsteps. ‘Well,’ Ada thinks, exasperated, ‘so much for trig.’ She had only managed to finish the first two questions and was halfway through working out the third when her father began banging on her door.
Ada plasters a small smile on her face as she softly opens the door before it breaks. “What took you so damn long you Hell child,” her father roars, “were you taking your sweet time to hide your books of witchcraft and Satan-worship?”
Ada shakes her head and points to her desk, “I was doing homework.”
“And you think homework is more important than your father?” His eyes dance in fury, “I am your flesh and blood! All I’ve ever done is love and care for you, but now you don’t even deem me worth your time.”
Ada wants to sigh, she can’t even be angry at her father’s idiotic attempt at logic, honestly she’s surprised he’s still a lawyer. But instead she shakes her head again and declares, “I love you more than anything, Papa, and I was doing my homework to make you proud.” At your final statement, Ada sees her father’s shoulders relax and his lips form something not quite a smirk, but still more harmful than a polite smile.
“Well,” he begins, “of course I’m proud of you, Ada, I love you. You’re an angel, always doing what you’re told.” His boisterous chuckle hurts Ada’s ears, but she keeps a smile "glued to her face. “Good job with your homework,” he turns and starts to leave the doorway to Ada’s room, “keep it up.” And with that Ada shuts the door, being careful to not make much noise, and retreats to her wobbling chair and picks up her pencil.
At around half-past the twentieth hour Ada gets an email from Megumi: ‘u think Raphael would prefer the short blue skin tight dress or the flowy pink 1 w out a back’ it reads. Ada grinds her teeth—she hates this informal typing style, most likely because she was scolded when her grammar was ever slightly off as a child. But she replies to Megumi anyway: ‘The blue one.’
Megumi doesn’t reply for a while, so Ada takes the opportunity to try completing the final page of her trigonometry homework. There are only two questions left, but both questions are split into at least four parts. Ada taps her pencil and her desk, creating a tick-tack rhythm that distracts her mind from the math work. The page itself is littered in smudges and ripped from erasing with too much pressure.
She works for another fifteen minutes until she’s able to finally start the last problem. The treacherous black letters sneer at her. A ding soon drags Ada out of concentration however, signaling that Megumi has another message for her. Opening it up, Ada is met with a blurry picture of she assumes is Megumi—the head is cut off in the picture—in a sapphire dress that wraps around her torso like a serpent straggling its prey. Along with the picture, the message says, ‘good enough 4 Raphael?’ and Ada fists her hands.
Megumi is constantly trying to impress someone, and while Ada is too, Megumi tries to please the people that Ada doesn’t think deserve her attention. And she doesn’t want Megumi wasting all of her time getting ready to seduce Raphael. Although, Ada admits, she’s pretty sure that Megumi is not going to have a very difficult time accomplishing that. Ada send Megumi a message reading: ‘It’s perfect, but I have homework left to do. Trig’s a bitch.”
At twenty one o’clock Ada decides to start dolling up for the club. She paints her lips a deep crimson and her eyelids a pale blue. Her cheeks become decorated with the slightest hint of an orangey-pink. The dress she chooses to wear is deep purple and stops halfway past her thighs, with a split from the hip down on the right side. The dress is held up with a thin strap on both sides and dips below her shoulder blades. Ada digs around her drawers for some pins and ties her hair up into a semi-organized bun.
Ada’s clock now reads twenty minutes until the twenty second hour, and her dark room fills her with adrenaline. Her parents, despite Ada being in high school, gave her a curfew of nine o’clock sharp. So now, while Ada is presumed to already be fast asleep, her parents don’t even think to spare her a second glance. Ada is aware that her parents are still awake, they have too much work to rest, so Ada’s escape has to be very well planned.
Megumi had sent her a message to meet her at the crossroads by the garbage dump, that way they’re less likely to be seen. Ada grabs a black shoulder bag and throws in some extra makeup, toiletries, and her white heels. Glancing once at where her bedroom door is situated, Ada glides her window up and climbs out onto the minimal roof right below. Closing the pane, Ada shuffles towards the tree a few steps away, and when she reaches it she careful mounts one of its large branches and scrambles down.
The garbage dump is about three minutes away from Ada’s house. When she arrives she calls out Megumi’s name in a soft tone. She waits and replaces the sneakers on her feet with the low heels in her bag. She squats low and begins strapping them onto her feet when a slender finger pokes her cheek.
“Found you,” Megumi sings. “We’re meeting Nikki and Beth a few streets down and then Beth is going to drive and pick up Raphael on the way to the club.”
“Alright,” Ada stands back up once her shoes are latched to her feet, and follows Megumi to their next meet-up. Only about one minute has passed before the two of them spot the other girls.
“Hey girls,” Nikki punches her hand onto her hip and waves with the other one. Beth opens her mouth into a grin displaying her somewhat-large teeth and winks.
“The car’s over here,” Beth spins around and leads everyone to her car. Beth naturally slides into the driver’s seat, and Nikki glides on the seat beside her. Ada sits behind Nikki with Megumi squished besides her.
They drive for almost two minutes before they pick up Raphael, who squeezes into the small vehicle, pushing his body into Megumi’s in order to fit. The one thing about this small space is that Ada is also now pressed firmly against Megumi, and she’s not sure whether this makes her uncomfortable or not.
The car ride last eleven minutes—eleven minutes of flirtatious chatter directed solely at Raphael: eleven minutes of Ada reevaluating her entire life up until this point. She steps out of Beth’s car once it’s parked, and is a tad disappointed at the loss on heat on her left side.
The building they enter is ginormous, and Ada is genuinely shocked that Nikki and Beth know enough people to be able to be invited. It’s loud, Ada knew it would be, but the excess space allows for excess people and excess people and therefore extra noise. The five enter a dimly-lit room and Ada feels suffocated. The room is filled with men groping around women and women rolling against men. She’s used to this though, which is why she typically stays along the walls with the dealers.
“I’m going to look for some single men to get funky with,” Nikki cheers and hollers as she bobs her hips side-to-side while walking into the crowd of love.
“I’m not staying either,” Beth lifts her hand in farewell as she saunters over to a man that appears to be alone.
“I’ll,” Ada forces the words from her throat, “be over there.” She points to the wall and Megumi nods at her and mouths ‘wish me luck,’ before Ada makes her departure.
Against the wall, Ada can feel the music vibrate down her spine. It’s comforting, but she feels uneasy knowing that Raphael is here as well, and with Megumi no less. She sighs and takes out a cigarette. Dangling with the threat of falling, the stick is lit with a small flame from Ada’s lighter. Inhaling, Ada closes her eyes and waits.