[Tears of an Angel]

[potter_fan122]

((Open to oldies, please.))

The throngs of people in Hogmead passed the girl as if they hadn`t seen her. People were afraid of what they didn`t understand, what they couldn`t understand. They were afraid of Stacey. As she stood in front of the shop with tears running down her face. The tears had wet the fron of her robes and stained her crossed arms like rain stains cement.

People barely glanced at her; they just ignored the slightly familiar looking girl standing there. Her eyes were dark blue and glazed over with fresh tears. She stared unblinking into the window in front of her, even though she didn`t see anything in front of her. She didn`t think anything either. Her mind was completely blank. It was as if the tears she had cried had washed everything away. One could tell she had been crying for a long time; around her eyes were red, her nose was red and running slightly, and her hair was matted a little from pushing it away from her face.

But as the wind blew her hair into her face once more she didn`t bother to move it. She didn`t move an inch, a centimeter. It seemed as if she were made of colored stone-- an incredibly life-like statue. But you could feel the sense of saddness thatw ashed over her. She heard nothing of the people that had tried half-heartedly to comfort her, walking away before fifeteen seconds had passed.

Nothing. She was empty.


Someone rudely slammed right into Stacey, knocking her onto ehr bottom. She came back to the present with an umph! It took her a moment before her eyes cleared enough to see who had pushed her down.

[Sky]

"Oh my gosh..Stacey!" Sky exclaimed, immediately holding out her hand to help Stacey up. "I didn't see you--I'm so sorry! It's insane trying to walk through here today!" Sky had been in Hogsmead on one of weekend trips. The air had been so warm, she thought she would see if the shops were having any sales on anything. She looked at Stacey, into her sad blue eyes that were full of tears. She could see the path of the tears and knew that she wasn't crying from the fall. She pulled her hand away and bent down to Stacey's level and pushed her long black bangs out of her gray eyes.
  "Stacey..why are you crying?" She asked gently. She looked through her uniform pockets for some sort of tissue or cloth, but couldn't find anything. So she wiped the remnants of her tears with her sleeve.

[dobby888]

Leah pushed through the crowd.  The crowd was more just pushing Leah around.  She saw Sky on the ground, with someone, but the crowd pulled her away before she could see who.  She shoved through, and eventually was deposited a little ways downstream from where Sky was.  She stayed close to the buildings and made her way to where she was.

"Hey Sky! What's going...Oh my gosh! Stacey!" Leah crouched down by her friend.She too searched her pockets in vain for a tissue, and then ended up using her sleeves as well.  She pulled Stacey's hair back from her face, into a low ponytail.  She wiped the tears off of her arms, and then looked into her pain-filled eyes.

[potter_fan122]

Stacey`s breath caught in her throat as she tried to clear it. She let her two friends wipe the tears from her face; she had barely registered the fact that Leah came later than Sky. Nothing was clear right now. All of her surroundings were slightly blurry. Mostly what she saw was black cloaks rushing around her.

She tried to focous in on Sky and Leah`s faces, but she had been spaced out long enough to make that very hard to do.

"My... parents." She said softly, fresh tears falling down her eyes. Her cheeks were stained with dried tears that had never had the chance to dry and her voice was hoarse.

[Sky]

Sky gently pulled Stacey up and hugged her. "What happened to your parents?" She asked, trying not to be pushy. She looked at Leah, unsure about what to do. Some people were staring.

[potter_fan122]

Stacey gently pulled away from Sky. She felt weak all of a sudden, like she had been asleep for so long that her muscles grew faint. She pulled her sleeves down and wiped at her eyes carefully. "They... they`re getting divorced." She finally mumbled. To some people that didn`t seem like such a horrible thing to cry over, btu it was for Stacey.

Her parents had been fighting for as long as she could remember, always on the brink of losing it. It seemed like they had gotten a little closer when they found out about Stacey`s engagement, but no, they had just kept the fighting away from her more.

Now that the wedding was only weeks away, her parents would be in the middle of a divorce. She couldn`t handle it all, not right now. Her parents, the voices, the wedding, the guests, school... It was all just too much.

[dobby888]

Leah tried to think of a way to make things better, but none came to mind.  She rubbed Stacey's back, just the way her mother used to.  She wanted to say that everything would be OK, but Leah didn't know that, not for sure. 

"You know, everything happens for a reason."  She said.  It might help, and it might make it worse, but anything was worth a try. Leah continued to play with Stacey's hair.  She looked into her eyes, trying to convince her that everything would be OK in one look, which was difficult for obvious reasons.

[Sky]

Divorce was something Sky could not say she had been through. She had been through worse, but divorce was still a painful thing to overcome. She slowly inhaled and exhaled and looked at some people walking by.

"I'm sure you already know this, but this isn't your fault. You can't control what your parents want. With that being said, you can't change that fact. Your parents aren't happy. So perhaps this is the only way to make them happy." Sky knew she wasn't being too gentle with her words. She hoped she didn't sound too bitter. She wasn't intending for it to be like that. She just wanted Stacey to understand.

"But your parents love you. Though they may not want to be united anymore, they will still continue to love you because you make them happy. Though they may be separating, they are still your parents." Sky knew what Stacey was thinking about. The Wedding.

"And though your parents are disagreeing, they will respect you at your wedding to put their differences aside to watch their daughter grow up." Sky said.

((I've been through divorce. IT SUCKS!))

[potter_fan122]

((I haven`t gone through divorce with my parents, but I haven`t seen or heard from my dad since I was three months old. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn`t.))

Stacey took a shaky breath. Nothing was okay, even though Leah was trying to make it seem that way. And she knew her parent sloved her, at least her father did. Her mother was very questionable at times. Carrie had gone to the extremes to force Stacey home from school because she suddenly couldn`t have her daughter near magic. Of course that kept Stacey away from Aiden, and that`s what had hurt her the most.

Stacey shook her head and tried to scoot backwards a little bit, but the croud made that hard to do. "I`m fine, really." She said softly, knwoing they wouldn`t believe it. Her mother`s letter burned in her pocket, and the little trinket she had sent with it weighed her down, although it weighed less than an ounce.

[dobby888]

Leah knew that Stacey's world was crumbling down on her, so she said, "I know your world is falling apart, but it can't ever crumble completely.  You have us" She indicated to herself and Sky. "to hold it together for you." 

She had never had a divorce in the family, but both of her parents had died long ago... did that count?  Of course, death was much different, harder in some ways, yet easier in others. 

"I can't try to pretend to know what you're going through, because I don't.  I also can't tell you that it'll be easy, because it won't.  But I can tell you that if you ever need anything, anything at all, no matter what it is, you can ask me."  Leah told Stacey the absolute truth, and all of it too.  She didn't want to make this harder than it already was.

[potter_fan122]

Stacey looked up and gave a tiny smiled to her friends. "Oh, Leah." She said, wrapping one arm around each of them. "You guys are awesome." She said. The necklace was still in her pocket, and she pulled it out know. It was a silver angel holding a diamond heart. It was brillinat and beautiful. It was a bribe.

"My mom sent me this. It`s a peace offering so I`ll pick her and a life without magic over my father and Aiden." She spit. What she said was true. She had expected so much more from her own mother, but she never got it.

[dobby888]

Leah nearly had tears in her eyes.  How could a mother do that to her own child!? Leah's mother never would have done that to her. Even when Leah became a vampire, and her mother knew that Leah could kill her, she couldn't stay away from Leah.  She had to be there to help her through it.

"A life without something that makes you special, and without two people who realize just how special you are, isn't possible."  Leah said.  "The necklace is beautiful, but the thought is ugly."

[potter_fan122]

Stacey sniffled and closed her fingers around the necklace. It would be so easy to destroy it. All she had to do was melt it with her own powers. She could even use Leah`s strenght to mold it to and unrecognizable lump. With a sigh, though, she opened her fingers again.

"She just can`t grasp that." Stacey whispered.

[dobby888]

"If she can't grasp that you love Aiden with all of your heart, then she doesn't deserve to see how special that kind of a connection is! It's not something that you see all the time."  Leah said, hugging Stacey with one arm. "You could alter the necklace and wear it as an anklet to show her that you're above bribery."  Leah suggested.  She wasn't sure if Stacey would even want to keep it, let alone wear it.

[potter_fan122]

"You`re latter guess is correct." Stacey said coldly, easily catching her thoughts with the close contact they had. "And she could grasp it if she tried. She just can`t except the wonderful thing that is magic." He voice was soft and her eyes glassed over again.