My Angel, My Devil (unfinished) - Tamara L. Garcia (summer reading list txt) 📗

Chapter 1
Classes were the same as always-P.E. was a pain in the butt, trig was a good rest, philosophy was the only good class, and English was so easy it hurt my head, lunch was spent on the roof, and Science was overly hectic. I made my way to my next class overly wary of my surroundings because of her.
“Hey look Geek White’s here just in time to hand us our homework,” a shrill and all too familiar and annoying voice boomed. Great, she’s here. I kept walking, careful as to not walk too fast, and pretended that I didn’t even hear her. But she’s persistent, and (surprisingly-not) called louder, “Geekerella, get your ugly ass over here!” she never failed to annoy the living crap out of me.
I turned with a perfect nonchalance and looked at her innocently. “Yes, Paris?” her face was sullen and triumphant that I wasn’t one of those people who beat the crap out of people for others just calling them names. She did a once over on me starting from the top of my Billy Boy cap to my Fake Heaven boy T-shirt, to my black and grey checkered belt from Hot Topic to my black faded boy jeans, and stopped at my black and white converse.
Assuring herself there’s no one like her, I bet. Oh, by the way my name is Christopher Ren Hirazaki. My first name is supposed to be from this angel or something like that (or maybe a relative or something-I don’t pay much attention to my own birth stories; it’s creepy is all), and my last two names are Japanese. I’m a pretty weird mix; half-Japanese and half-Cuban. Not often you see one of those, right?
Well to lay it out for you, my father is this rich business man from whatever company (I’m not that into whatever he’s doing-that’s his business, and, so far he’s had no reason to bore me with job details) and he’s Japanese. My mom is a super laid-back Cuban woman-she is really beautiful, too. My parents met back in her modeling days. She retired when she had me, my two brothers, and my sisters-at the same time. There are five of us and no nanny.
I can imagine my mother throwing on one of those bullet sash thingies but in place of the bullets there were baby bottles. I stifled a laugh while I handed the Bitch Witch her homework. She looked up as if she believed she could smell fear a mile away. “You can go, Geek wad.” I stopped myself from rolling my eyes at her, walked off adjusting my comb/headband thingy, and entered my next class, blissfully unaware of what was to come.
In the middle of Mr. Ferguson’s droll lecture, the vice principle walked in sweating like a pig. That’s figuratively and ironically, of course since she was obese and she wasn’t sweating as much. I’ve never seen her go faster than a walk in my entire life, and I don’t plan to (it will not be pretty). She glanced at me and she looked sorry, so I guess it had something to do with me. As soon as that thought occurred, I tried to push it back. Me plus the vice principle Harriett’s pity equals something bad-really bad. Harriett’s heart is about the size of a pea; and mine just sank into my stomach.
She slowly and warily walked over to Mr. Ferguson and whispered something in his ear, and immediately he went pale. She couldn’t have shared my personal life with him; she’s not like that, but judging from the look on his face I knew I was either in deep shit or something tragic happened. It’s hard to tell since the guy is so old his wrinkles cover all of his expressions. Mr. Ferguson ended my distracted mind babble by saying, “Christopher, you are excused from class. The principle needs to have a talk with you.” I started to get up and I heard him shakily say, “Please bring your things with you, too.”
Oh shit. One thing you must know is Mr. Ferguson makes Harriett look like Snow white. This is really bad; he sound sad, sorry, and pitiful. What’s worse is that it’s directed towards me-I can feel it. I tried to not look shocked into another universe and gathered my things, trying to keep my legs steady as I walked out of the classroom with Harriett.
The walk to her office was quiet, weird, wary, and for the most part, annoying. The lady wouldn’t stop side glancing at me as if I were going to reveal I was a terrorist. She’s not the kind of person who would judge on looks when it comes to things like that, but I was really annoyed so my face probably looked like something that would attack her. It happens when I’m really nervous and kind of pissed (it must be why people don’t go near me-especially if it can scare this woman).
When we got to her office, I swear you had to saw the tension in the room. I took my usual seat while Harriett sat with a solemn look to her face. She cleared her throat and paused for a long while before speaking, her words piercing the comfortable silence. “Chris, I hate to be the ultimate bearer of bad news…” she trailed off. Holy to the crap-never have I seen this side of her, and it’s scaring the hell out of me. She’s sounding and acting nice- definitely not a good sign.
I felt my face tighten and she flinched, and then continued in a smaller voice, “I don’t know how to tell you this, really. I don’t think there’s a way to sugar coat this, or even make it easier for you,” she looked guiltily down to her folded hands on her desk, and clenched her teeth twice before speaking again. “Christopher,” her voice cracked two times as she said my name, and I thought I saw wetness in her eyes. “You’re house burned down…” she trailed off.
What? My house burned down? How-more importantly all of my stuff is burned down. Damn. Mom’s going to breathe fire when I ask her to buy all of it again-no pun intended, I swear-and with 3 sisters and two brothers, ouch. This is going to hurt dad’s wallet, weather he’s rich or not. Mom’s always kept a tight lock on funding, telling us ‘to get your lazy asses up and learn the value of the almighty dollar or so help me I’ll starve you’ or something along those lines.
Oh yeah, mom. Hmm. “Do my parents know about this? Do any of my brothers or sisters…” I shut my trap. Her face displayed the one thing I’ve always wanted in my enemy: it was like the pillar of her meanness crumbled as the despair in her tears traveled down her face. My stomach sank into oblivion, as my guess of what she was about to say slithered its way from my brain to my now sinking heart. “Where are my parents?”
“I’m so sorry Christopher,” her voice was only above a whisper. “They’re dead.”


Chapter 2
Sitting in the principal’s office, you’d never expect to hear something like that-ever. Seriously, you’d expect to hear she’s a ninja that’s going to kill you before that. At least, that was just me trying to trick myself. “What do you mean? How? Why?” inside, there was a small hope that asking those stupid questions could make it disappear; what she had just said, the unnerving shock I’m in, the urge to vomit like never before, and most of all, hearing what I wanted to know in my heart the most.
“You’re mother was caught in the fire with your two sisters. The police are investigating how the fire started, and how they could have gotten stuck in there. They say it’s a wonder they couldn’t escape from the fire, unless the gas was on for a very long time-which they say is very likely-” I stopped listening and got up, deciding that seeing is easier to for me to believe. I gathered my things and left.
I didn’t hear her stop me. I’d almost forgotten that she and my mother were really close. I flinched; surprised at the fact I’m already using past tense with my parents. I want to know what the hell happened to my father, too. And another thing; what the hell? It was one thing that both of my parents are… but what about my sisters? How did they d-
I stopped myself from thinking that word. I am so not going to start blubbering in front of people-not now, not ever. People started to pull out of class. I rushed past everyone for the sake of myself. This time I’m not going to be caught by Paris-I’m a girl on a mission. Still, something felt weird. The plummeting feeling from before was gone. Why in the hell am I not as sad as I’m supposed to be?
Hearing what I’ve just heard, why am I not crying a river? As I entered the staircase, the same question echoed inside me, and I felt wrong; broken. I should be sobbing; sorrow should be riddling my body with a vengeance. Even though things are easier without my throat threatening to close off all words, leaving only cries of sadness left, tears threatening to overflow, my whole body screaming heartbreak for my mother, Mei, Rein, and my father, it felt so unbelievably wrong. I needed to cry, I needed my whole body to be racked with cries of pain so I could someday forget or at least ignore what happened to them.
I quickly spotted a boy in all black, and he looked like the poster child for Hot Topic. He was just about to get on his bike, and without hesitating, I ran over to him and grabbed one of the handle bars. “Sorry, can you give me a lift? I’m in a hurry.”
His face was a mixture of bored and pissed and his pale features looked thoughtful, like he was actually going to do it. Just now was a spur of the moment thing, and I realized that adrenaline was pumping through me. He turned his oddly demanding gaze on me. “Get on,” was all he said. I got on and he handed me a helmet.
I fastened the helmet and held on to him as he slowly lifted the clutch and pulled out of the school’s parking lot. “Where to?” his deep voice took me by a surprise.
My steady gaze met the back of his head. “My place,” I said. No specifics, which is stupid, but he went full off like he knew what he was doing.

• • • •

Surprisingly, he knew what he was doing. This guy turns out to be my neighbor; I’ve never felt as shallow as I have right now. He pulled into his garage, and before we could get in there, I took the helmet he gave me off and sprinted to a cop nearby. I took in the scenery reluctantly. “Oh my angels,” I whispered. There were about three cop cars, two ambulances, and two fire trucks. Our home wasn’t huge and flashy with a gate or anything, it was just big. It’s amazing.
I left this place today