Gravitate (50 page)

“Then why have you called us here?” Marty was still suspicious
, unsure of their motivations.

George coughed gently and spoke in a hushed voice, “It’s my fault, really.”

“What is?” Marty stared at their faces.

“Marty, you remember Henry?
What happened to him?” Olivia was speaking again.

“Of course.
Nobody forgets that.”

“How long ago was that?
Can you recall?”

“It must be two decad
es ago now,” Marty paused. “No. No.
It can’t be true.”

Olivia looked at him kindly, “I know you don’t want to believe that it’s possible.”

“Just rumours and myths.”

“It would make sense.” George was speaking now.

“No.”

“We can’t know for certain,” Olivia had walked over to Marty and put a hand on his shoulder, “but you know it could explain a lot of things.”

“Could somebody explain what you’re all talking about, please?” I was confused by all these cryptic phrases.

“No.” Marty stared at me.
I couldn’t believe he was going to keep me in the dark.

“Olivia?
” I looked her in the eyes. She glanced at Marty.
He shook his head and she sighed.

“I will tell you,
when the time is right.
It isn’t anything to worry about because it’s not true, anyway.” Marty sounded firm and I knew there was no way I’d be able to
get the truth from him.

“You’ve got some tidying up to do when you get back, just in case.” George’s eyes met Marty’s and he nodded.

“Not a problem.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to investigate the possibility?” Olivia asked.

“There’s no point.
It would
n’t change anything.
I’d like to take Claudia back now, she needs rest – all this excitement isn’t good for her after the shocks she’s suffered.”

“Before you go, Marty, there is something else
we’d like to discuss with you.”
Nina was smiling as she spoke.

Olivia matched Nina’s grin as she said, “We’d like you to remain as Claudia’s guardian angel, until her twenty-first birthday.”

I was smiling then.
Marty embraced me and kissed my cheek.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” I giggled.

“We feel Claudia deserves protection,” George and Marty shared a look I couldn’t read, “after the events of the past year, of course.”

“There is one more thing,” Olivia added, “following your heroic efforts last night to save Claudia’s life – including a slight stretching of the truth to protect her – it has been decided that you have earned your wings.”

I gasped as a pair of transparent wings appeare
d from Marty’s shoulder blades.
They we
re beautiful, strong, powerful.
His face beamed as he extended them to their full wingspan
.
He then wrapped them around me as though t
hey were an extra pair of arms.
They felt cool to the touch, soft and s
upple like a well toned muscle.
I looked up at his face and saw a single tear of
happiness roll down his cheek.
I wiped it away with my thumb, a mirror image of the
first time he dried my tears.

“And my angel wept both night and day and I wiped his t
ears away,” I whispered to him.
He kissed me, ignoring the numer
ous pairs of eyes watching us.

“You’d better head back,” George gently sug
gested, “together.”
He gave us a bittersweet smile and I remembered what Marty had said about the reason
George had stopped watching me.
He’d begun to fall in love with me.

Marty continued to embrace me, in both his arms and his beautiful wings, as we be
gan our descent.
I still had a million questions to ask him, but my lips were only goi
ng to be kissing him right now. The questions could wait.
We had
all the time in the world now.
And I fully i
ntended to make the most of it.

###

About the author
:

Jo Duchemin still feels like a teenager even though her driving licence tells a different story. Jo lives in
England
with her husband and a mad dog called Ernie
. She began writing
‘
Gravitate
’
as a project to keep herself entertained and
it quickly took over her life.
Her best writing sessions are fuelled by champagne. She is currently writing more Young Adult/Crossover books, in
cluding the sequel to ‘Gravitate’. Her latest book ‘Losing Meg’ will be available for download in June 2012.

Connect with Jo Online:

Twitter: @joduchemin

www.joduchemin.co.uk