Angel Wing

FEBRUARY

IT DIDN'T MATTER that Hadley's dog was dead or how long he had been dead or how dead he was. It didn't matter that his heart had stopped and that they had buried him, old love rotting under the dirt in the backyard, a pile of bones marked on the earth by a collection of stones. It didn't matter that he could still see Jack putting the body in the grave they'd dug and that he could still see Tristan sitting on the grass, his knees against his chest and his arms on top of his knees, his blue eyes bloodshot and glassy, his lip trembling as the April sunlight streamed across the garden. It didn't matter that he could still feel that warmth on the curves of his face, the light flashing red against his eyelids, the shadows of the leaves falling over them while their parents made lunch inside and their neighbours had a conversation about lawn treatments. It didn't matter that he could still feel that silence, rooted deep inside his stomach, and the stillness that pierced them, even in that moving picture.

Okay, so Kirby was dead. They had buried him and he wasn't coming back. That was all true. But, in a way, he was still alive because Hadley still thought about him. The memory of him was still lingering, still floating in an odd space of existence, and that meant, at least in some way, that part of him was still alive.

His grandparents, who had risen from dust and returned to dust, were, in some way, still alive because he still thought about them and because he still looked for them in the particles that floated under sunbeams. When he reached out his hand, rays burning over his loose fist, he still imagined that something of their essence was still there, hiding in plain sight, waiting to be seized, waiting to be remembered, waiting to be brought back to life. And when he opened his hand, revealing the emptiness on his palm, he found another cluster of particles and tried to hold onto those instead.

Sometimes, in still, silent moments when he walked into the living room or trudged upstairs, he swore he could smell that aged, floral scent of his grandma's old house— the house his cousin had since moved into and that he had never visited since— and he was brought back to her foyer and he could see her ceramics on the side, could smell the gardenia and orange blossom, could see the dark wood and her ironed trousers, the rings on her wrinkled fingers.

Sometimes, when he was in his bedroom, he swore that, just for a second, he could hear Kirby barking downstairs or could see his shadow when he sat in the garden. He still remembered the feeling of the fur between his fingers, those dark eyes, the weight of that head on his lap, on his chest, against his open palm.

Sometimes, when he went walking on crisp winter mornings and late summer afternoons, the further he walked, the deeper he felt buried in the past, trying to keep it alive, always waiting for the beat of a long-still heart, always trying to feel the faint echo of an imagined thump.

Really, he knew that what was dead was not coming back. Really, he knew that once a day was over and the candle was burned out, that it would not relight. He knew that once it laid itself to rest, nothing was left of it but bones or dirt and those heavy memories, lodged in his heart like a shard, like something jammed in a hole in the side of a bucket to stop it from leaking; some that always lingered, buzzing in the back of his mind, and others that had claw marks in them.

When he'd showed up at the store for something to do, for snacks to buy for a movie that he'd intended to watch, he hadn't planned on spending time on the curb outside, but when he passed back through the automatic doors, escaping the fluorescence, he found himself unable to move, his body heavy and dull. So, he sat down on the freezing concrete, in front of the street lamps and neon building signs and the glaring billboards and the endless streams of traffic and car lights that burned out all the stars.

With his body like an anchor waiting to be thrown and the crisp wind lashing around him, he shoved his snacks into his pocket, pulled his sweater sleeves down over his hands, huddled into his coat and sat down on the glacial ground, staring at the desolate sky; the vacant city above his head.

He wasn't sure what time he sat down and he wasn't sure how long he'd been there, but people drove in, slammed their doors, passed him, some with a glance, some without any acknowledgement at all, and left a few minutes later, driving off again, leaving the parking lot in a constantly changing, half-abandoned state.

Then, after being passed by faces he took no notice of, he noticed a figure emerging from the traffic-polluted not-really-darkness that he could feel walking towards him, but they remained a blur at the edge of his peripheral vision. He did not turn to look up until they stopped in front of him, blocking out a patch of the starless sky.

"What are you doing?" Spencer asked, the fuzz of a white street lamp forming a dim halo around his head. He was wearing a black fleece and old, loose jeans, one of his hands shoved in his pocket and the other dangling at his side, jangling his car keys. His face was lit by the reflecting red neon sign above the store, still and impenetrable in that distant way he had.

"Oh my god," Hadley gasped, peering up at him, too cold to move his hands out of his pockets and straighten his posture. "What the hell happened to your face?"

"Shut up," he snapped, shaking his head and turning away. The discoloration of his dark bruise, swollen on the right side of his jaw, was violent under that ruby light; his cheekbones sharp and the hollows under his eyes more prominent than usual, a shadow forming over the bridge of his nose. "What are you doing?"

"Sitting," he shrugged, staring up at that vast space above them. Wryly, he added, "Stargazing."

"There are no stars," Spencer replied flatly, without turning around. "There are never any stars here. What are you doing?"

"Sitting," he insisted, pulling his coat collar higher around his neck, huddling back into it and tucking his hands away again. "Just sitting and thinking."

Dubiously, hesitantly, Spencer frowned and turned around, gazing briefly across the parking lot, before looking down at him again. "Are you waiting for someone?"

"No," he said, half-laughing, his brows drawing into a frown. "I'm not waiting for anyone. I'm not doing anything."

Again, he hesitated and, again, turned to look around the mostly vacant parking lot as if looking for an answer there, then turned back towards Hadley and asked, "What are you thinking about?"

"Just thinking," he murmured. Trying to keep everything I've loved alive. Trying to keep everything I've known and still did not love alive.

"Whatever," Spencer muttered and he stepped onto the curb without another word while Hadley stayed where he was, listening to the automatic doors slide open and closed behind him.

Minutes passed, but Hadley considered that it also could've been hours and that it also could've been a few lifetimes and that it also could've been a single second, before he came back out.

The doors slid open and closed again. His footsteps were brisk and decisive, a march on that hard, frozen ground, and he stopped behind where he was sitting, his presence almost tangible.

"Seriously," he began, half-desperately, "what are you doing?"

"I told you what I'm doing," Hadley replied. His face was so bitten by cold that he almost couldn't feel it and, even inside the warmth of his pockets, his hands were beginning to turn numb.

Truthfully, he couldn't have explained it any other way. There was no solid, real reason that he could hold onto, that he could use to explain why he was sitting there other than he did not feel like moving. He did not feel as though his body was capable of standing up, of doing the walk home, of going upstairs to his room and changing, and going to bed. He felt more like a rock than a body, more like a statue than a person, though his heart throbbed strenuously and his stomach was tight with hunger.

"It's freezing out here," Spencer said sharply, almost as if he was scolding.

When he didn't reply, he heard and sensed movement behind him; Spencer sniffling and shifting his weight from one leg to the other. He remained where he was and thought about Kirby, who was gone, and how they had known each other almost their whole lives; how he would probably go on to live for decades more and Kirby would stay in the ground, fertiliser.

When the silence dragged on for too long, Spencer sighed. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. "Is this about Elodie?"

"No," he said flatly, watching the cars drive by on the busy road just beyond the hedged edge of the parking lot.

"Okay," he mumbled slowly after a beat of silence. "What's it about then?"

"It's not about anything," Hadley frowned, shaking his head. "I'm just trying to be a person in the world for ten minutes, is that cool with you?"

"You're always a person in the world," Spencer said shortly.

"Not always," he replied in that same brusque tone.

"Why not?" He pressed, impatience spilling over into his words.

"Sometimes I don't feel like a person," Hadley said flatly, "and sometimes I don't feel like I'm part of the world. Sometimes I feel like it's moving without me and sometimes I feel like I just don't understand it anymore."

Spencer was silent and Hadley supposed that he couldn't think of anything to say. Instead of speaking, he lingered, his discomfort seeming to grow.

Then, as if in one decisive stroke, he sat down on the curb, pulled a bag of off-brand gummy candy out of his pocket and then, clearing his throat, offered them to Hadley.

With a sideways glance, half-smiling, he shook his head and Spencer stuffed the packet bag into his pocket then quietly added, "Sorry. I was trying to be polite."

"That was polite," he nodded, his voice holding a weight of reassurance that made him want to laugh.

Without meeting Hadley's eye, he returned the nod, tried to disappear inside of his fleece and looked around, listening to the sound of the traffic, watching the blurring cars and the lights passing them by. Spencer looked hollow and thoughtful and paler than usual, and dark shadows were falling over his face.

Hadley tried not to look at him and tried to ignore the low stirring of emotion in his stomach, something that he could not find a name for. He thought about the days before, in Mr Martinez's pale office, and how they sat side-by-side, how Spencer's cold, bright eyes glittered and how his voice split the room, how he glared and groaned and snapped, how his face twisted and changed. How alive he was then, how dynamic, and how still he was now, the awareness of some private feeling contained within him.

"It's freezing out here," he said thickly.

"So go inside," Hadley offered, his hands raw and numb. He clenched the material on the inside of his pockets and tried to feel his grasping fingers.

"You must be cold, too," he replied briskly, eyeing Hadley with a flash of impatience, "and you're not going inside."

"No, I'm not," he confirmed, his voice barely above a whisper as he gave a slight nod, "but I'm not complaining."

"No, you're not the complaining type," Spencer remarked brightly, his eyes fixed on the side of Hadley's face. "You're the punching type."

"I made you look cool," he replied, throwing him a glance and a smile. "Say thank you."

"Fuck you," he snapped but without any real bitterness.

"Close," he nodded, the corners of his lips turned down thoughtfully as he considered the gleam in those green eyes, the quick flash of an almost smile. "Not quite, but close."

Spencer rolled his eyes, but something like mirth flashed across his face; amusement like a shooting star. Gone like it had never even been there, leaving the cold sky behind like an open mouth waiting to be fed.

Silence fell over them, but it wasn't entirely uncomfortable. Hadley tried to disappear inside of it.

"It aches," Spencer said finally, daring to take his frozen hand out of his pocket to graze his bruise with the back of his fingers. "The bruise, I mean."

He looked at him steadily, wordless and waiting.

"Usually, I get these dull aches in my chest or in the back of my throat," he continued softly, talking more to himself than to Hadley, his shoulders lifted up towards his ears as he dug his hands back into his fleece pockets. He laughed. "But not on my jaw."

"What aches do you get in your chest and in the back of your throat?" Hadley asked lightly. "What's so different about a throat ache to a jaw ache?"

"Well, a jaw ache happens when some asshole punches you in the face and you get a huge, ugly bruise for it," Spencer answered thoughtfully. "And I don't know why a throat ache happens. I guess there are tons of reasons."

"Like what?" He pressed, staring out at the parking lot, the traffic, the missing stars.

"I don't know," he muttered, his gaze focused upwards on the space above their heads. "Like when you get into a really bad argument with someone and you're screaming, shouting at each other, and then one of you leaves because one of you always has to leave first and then you're alone— whether you're the one that left or the one that was left, you're alone— and then all of a sudden you can't speak. And your throat hurts." He stopped. "Like that."

He hummed and nodded; thought for a moment. He glanced towards Spencer and he hesitated, the weight of unspoken words tingling on the edge of his tongue. He swallowed thickly. "Or like when you have that feeling that you can't keep up with everything that's happening around you and like you're always falling just a little bit behind. You know, like there's always a little more for you to handle than what you can take so to get through it you just have to switch your brain off and go through every day wondering when it all happened, wondering when you'll go back to yourself. And then you go on a walk one afternoon and you guess you must look pretty miserable because some stranger stops and asks if you're okay, and they really mean it, and you say 'I'm okay, thank you' and you try to smile at them, and then you go home and you cry and you can't really breathe. And your throat hurts."

Spencer looked at him, smiled and spoke softly, "And your chest."

"Yeah," he murmured, returning the smile. "And your chest."

Spencer drew his gaze back towards the sky, those bright green eyes glittering, and then he raised his hand, pointing to a single white flash. "There you go," he said. "There's that star you were looking for."

Without saying anything, Hadley threw him a small smile and shook his head, turning away.

Sighing and glancing around one last time, Spencer shivered and stood up, his body stiff, then glanced down at him. "It's too cold for me to stay here."

"I never asked you to stay," Hadley told him, looking at the single star that was at the side of his head.

He stayed there, bouncing on his feet and looking around. "Can I give you a lift home?" He blurted.

"Thanks," he replied, their eyes locking, "but I'm good. I'm only a short walk away."

"But it's freezing and it's dark, and you must be completely numb by now," Spencer continued, looking out at the streams of cars, the neon lights, listening to the occasional blare of a horn or the rumble of a motorcycle, "so just let me give you a ride home and—"

"Spencer, it's fine," Hadley pressed firmly, eyeing him warily.

"I know it is, but what I'm saying is—"

"I can get home on my own. Really, it's not—"

"Please let me give you a ride home," he interrupted, swallowing thickly. Quietly, almost tenderly, he added, "Please."

The car was dark and warmed up quickly, but the temperature change was so sudden that it caused a dull, warm throb to form in the back of his head. The seat was comfortable, and he sank into it, trying to soothe the aches that had formed in his back and neck, and rested his head, trying to forget the weight of it.

As they drove, he tried not to think about Elodie climbing into the same passenger seat that he was sitting in. He tried not to think of her climbing in in the morning, bringing the scents of vanilla and jasmine petals, tried not to think of her kissing him and changing the music, tried not to think about the sound of her voice and the sound of her laughter.

Instead, he tried to focus on the world outside of the car window and tried to make it feel real again, but it was out of reach and his body was still heavy and his heart still throbbed, tender as a reopened wound, and Spencer was in the driver's seat with those neon, artificial beams and flashing shadows gliding over him.

And, from that angle, his ugly bruise on display and his relaxed, silent driving, nodding his head to The Strokes, there was, in a way, something haunting about him, some kind of rare beauty that struck Hadley suddenly, just like it did in the office.

He turned his head away from Spencer— who hadn't noticed him— and gazed out of the window.

note
hello!! thank you for reading this chapter, I hope you enjoyed spending a little bit more time with Spencer :') as always, any feedback is always appreciated and I'd love to know what you thought!!

I hope to see you again for the next chapter <3

originally published
24 february 2025