School started blocking the windows on the west side of the building because we watched an angel dive from the steeple instead of pledging our lives to God.

The first time it happened, only Rylie Evans saw it. She famously stared out the window while daydreaming, and the threat of a ruler slap to the desk didn’t instill fear like they did for our parents. Even the church evolves with enough pressure, I guess. Because of this, lucky Rylie stared out the barred windows and watched as a boy emerged from a hatch in the neighboring church belltower. She shrieked as she watched him—dressed in his Sunday simplest—crumple in mid-air and slam into the gardens with a thud heard three floors up.

The teacher came to the window when Rylie screamed and escorted her out of class. She came back for fifth period with a pair of powdery vanilla cookies and a reluctance to talk about it. Maladaptive daydreams were a sign of the devil, after all. It would be dealt with otherwise. But she told us at lunch, hunched over her tuna salad and cucumbers, that she saw a plume of white feathers just before he hit the ground. We believed her as easily as we believed in God.

To the school’s defense, they weren’t anticipating the storied suicidal boy to jump again, but a week later, almost on schedule, he rose above the town once more. Rylie’s shriek summoned us to the window. Pressing our noses against the glass, we clutched the hems of our plaid wool skirts, whispering through the anticipation heating in our stomachs. We’d never seen him before. He wasn’t one of the boys from the school down the street or one of my classmate’s siblings. He appeared against the clear blue May sky with his arms outstretched for the clouds to hold him. We watched him climb past the barricades and plummet beneath the horizon line of the suburbs, an unceremonious Icarus, fallen angel, and stupid teenage boy all rolled into one quick up and down.

 On Sunday, when we all gathered for Mass, the boy sat just before the altar bathed in a stained-glass kaleidoscope. I looked for any sign of injury on him and found nothing. I got a bruise when I hit my shin on the railing outside my house, but he fell from multiple stories and didn’t have a scratch. My mother sat beside me in her pressed blue dress and I noticed every flaw in her body: a scar across the top of her finger from a kitchen knife, small pockets in her cheeks filled with something cakey, wrinkles around every part of her body that bent and curved. I compared her wrist to mine and laid my hand on her thigh. She brushed me off and directed me back to Father Hegelman.

“We are witnessing a marvel of His power and generosity, ladies and gentlemen. This boy is an Angel among men, a testament to His Glory. Take this moment to realize just what God can do for you. Miracles happen, and this darling young boy, Ryan Putnam, is all the proof you’ll ever need.”

On the way home, Dad got us McChickens and refused to put the windows down. The windshield flashed orange and black in the stream of streetlamps along the highway. His eyes caught mine in the rearview as I stuffed the sandwich in my mouth.

“Don’t go getting any ideas,” he said.

When we got back to school on Monday, the girls and I pounded up the front stairs to our classroom on the third floor. Streaks of light reached through gaps in the planks newly-nailed to the windows, casting highlights across our desks. We did our multiplication tables, began to form our consciences with the help of prayers and passages, and snacked on cheese wrapped in red wax. The murmurs of a small crowd of police gathered outside the church as they argued with some parish members about interviewing the magical boy. Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, the voices turned from annoyance to concern as Ryan Putnam dove from the belltower for the third time that month.

The world was alight with Ryan Putnam. His face decorated the front page of the newspaper, pamphlets from the church hung in all the cornerstone windows, and the media took up residence outside the church. They bled onto the sidewalk outside the school, much to the discomfort of our parents as they ushered us through the gates for morning assembly. Without a line of sight, the concept of Ryan Putnam exploded into something of mythos. Lunch was reserved for trading bags of chips for Twizzlers and concocting theories. We huddled together over spiral notebooks and deciphered everything we knew about him—which was nothing beyond his looks and our opinions.

My lunch table consisted of the same three girls I’d known since kindergarten. Now, I can barely remember their faces, but I recall the simple truths of their lives compared to mine and the jealousies that burned me. Margaret lived on Lindor Avenue in a house with architectural columns that her parents wrapped in streamers for her birthday the color she said she’d dye her hair when she grew up, Abby’s dad worked at the hospital and her bed had a canopy, and Rylie watched Ryan Putnam jump.

“Jesus took three days to come back,” Margaret said as she scribbled over our timeline. “I saw him from one of the back windows on Saturday when my mom dropped off Garrett for choir practice, so he has to come back on Fridays.”

“So he’s faster than Jesus?” Abby asked, circling Friday for emphasis.

“Or he’s not dying,” I said. “He’s just falling and recovering and not actually dying.”

“Can angels even die?” Abby added. “Or is he just blessed? Like an indestructible man?”

“He didn’t look like an angel,” Rylie whispered. We paused, most of us mid-chew, and turned to Rylie. She stared down at her plate, scraping ketchup from the pool in the corner across the edge of a potato chip. “I saw a chicken get hit by a car. It kind of looked like that.”

Ryan Putnam quickly graced the altar beside Father Hegelman, exaggerating both of their sizes in comparison to each other. Hegelman towered over the pews, a thin reed in black clothes, and Ryan grew smaller and smaller with every pair of eyes that attacked his body. He glanced up and around, nodding at those who smiled at him, gently waving his leg back and forth off the edge of the stairs without impatience.

“What a polite young man,” someone said nearby. I kicked my feet under the pew and waited for the hymns to begin.

“Stop kicking your feet,” Dad ordered in a low voice. “Sit still. You’re in church.”

“He’s more than a young man,” someone else answered. “He’s a message from God.”

I opened my eyes once during silent prayer, when everyone tilted their heads down towards their hands and spoke solely to God. Mass had become a spectacle since Ryan’s story reached the news. Cameras pressed against the stained glass, reporters begged for interviews with anyone who walked by, and the congregation became the barbed wire fence between the media and the precious miracle of God that lived within the walls. The feeling of eyes on me at church wasn’t anything new. Mom often looked down over my head like a foreboding lamp, urging me to do well while the spotlight shined on us for the sake of reputation.

I’d always imagined a small stream of light coming from my forehead when I prayed, flickering through the roof into the sky where it connected to God’s, so when a warm feeling grew across my brow and eyelids like a flashlight, a sudden blip of excitement threw my eyes open. Ryan aimed the nearest metal chalice on the altar into a stream of sunlight, sending the bright light like a laser directly into my face. He immediately moved it when I locked eyes with him, and he apologized with no words. My trunk flashed hot and my limbs cold, cheeks turning red with embarrassment and a flush of something I couldn’t identify. His brief grin faded into something else I couldn’t name. Ryan Putnam had no wings, no gold in his eyes, no halo. All the extractions of what my friends and I convinced ourselves stared me down with a pleading, unblinking stare. Silent prayer ended and I pretended my eyes hadn’t just witnessed a miracle.

Before bed, I knelt beside my window and looked out over the other houses on the street. I wondered what Ryan Putnam’s bedroom looked like. Did he really live in the back of the church? Was he sitting somewhere at a window in his pajamas, sweaty hands clasped, begging God to send him back to live with his fellow angels? Did he have to pray at all?

“Look at you,” Dad said from my doorway. “You don’t even need me to get started anymore.”

I smiled with warm pride. He sat next to me and kissed my head, clasping his own hands beside mine. His strictness was steeped in rigidity, following the plan and teachings that governed his life—and by extension, ours. But in some moments, like prayer before bed, he softened into something sweet and wise, where little me could crawl into his lap and read storybooks.

“Do you think anyone’s praying for Ryan?” I asked so suddenly it surprised us both. “Like, dying and coming back all the time is terrifying, right?”

“You’re so sweet,” Dad answered. “I love that you think about other people as much as you do, but Ryan doesn’t need us to pray for him. We’re sinners. What good are a sinner’s prayers for an angel, you know? We’ll only taint him. Don’t get any ideas, okay? He’s holy, but girls…girls are different. Powerful. And boys? You’re too young for boys anyway.” He kissed me goodnight and left me there, in a shield of moonlight, seeing Ryan Putnam’s begging eyes when I closed mine.

After that, I only saw him more and more. Fallen pigeon feathers convinced me that maybe angel feathers could be gray. The television at the diner showed Ryan between two strangers with a shocking resemblance talking to a man in a tan suit old enough to be his great-grandfather. I’d never seen his parents in church, and judging by his face, I couldn’t tell if he’d ever seen them either. The cameras gathered everywhere the boy angel might appear, but he only existed inside the church, on screens, papers, and pamphlets. School became a fan club of scripture between mandatory prayer and the abandonment of all basic studies, to the simultaneous joy and annoyance of my classmates.

I hadn’t attended Wednesday night Bible Study in years. It used to be a babysitting thing for when Mom and Dad worked late, with cracker snacks and a plastic ball pit after our lessons, but I declared myself too old to attend when I turned nine. But something bubbled in my gut; a warmth that made my fingers tingle when I thought about it. About him. Bible Study was the closest I could physically get to him, as it at least got me in the building. I acted brave in the face of holiness, and fully intended to search him out.

I had to see him again. I’d die if I didn’t.

“I could help out,” I said above the car radio. “Can I go?”

“Why?” Mom asked, looking at me while she drove us home. “I mean, yes, you can go, but I thought you said you were too old for it.”

My mouth went dry with lies. “I just want to. Dad said I’m all grown up now since I pray by myself, and I want to…help. I don’t know, the church is so important and—”

“I’ll call Father Hegelman and let him know you’re coming.” She patted my thigh. “I’m so proud of you.”

Bible Study changed a lot since I last attended. The toddlers still threw plastic balls at each other and a woman in a blue skirt still sung songs to those young enough to care, but the actual study occurred in a separate room. Teenagers gathered together with highlighters, notepads, and prepared speeches about what they mean in context to bigger questions and temptations. Listening to them through the walls, I willed my body to age so I could join them in all their maturity. Instead, I sat with a whiny baby that squirmed out of my arms until their parents picked them up.

The kids and teenagers left, then the lady in charge went to attend to some other things and lock up, leaving me alone in the big, empty space. Our church wasn’t one that opened in the wee hours for vagrants, desperate murderers, or anyone else looking for some late-night salvation, so once the doors locked at night, the outside world separated itself from the sanctuary within. Blue evening light streamed through the windows onto the sticky rubber squares that adorned the floor beneath the playpen, and silence filled the air where songs and prayers should’ve been in a way that disturbed me. I wasn’t meant to be there—not in normal clothes, anyway. Jeans and a sweater didn’t belong in church, but it wasn’t until the lady left that insecurity and guilt crept in. I placed the books back on the shelves, tossed the misplaced balls back into the pit, and wiped down the snack table.

A knock on the glass partition wall ripped me from my trance. I whipped my head around, clutching a grimy Kleenex, and found Ryan standing in the hallway. He wasn’t in his Sunday best either, just a pair of blue pajama pants and a grey shirt with sleeves that covered half his hands. We stared at each other without flinching. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and invaded the moment like worms, car horns, and angel’s harmony. He was so boringly beautiful. I thought angels would be golden in all directions but Ryan was just a cherub-faced kid. He puffed out his cheeks and stuck his nose against the glass, waiting for me to laugh at his stupidity. I did, but I put my hand over my mouth to keep it to myself.

I had so many questions for him, but the bags under his eyes made me wary. I searched him for any sign of wings, of the white feathers Rylie described when he fell, and came up empty. He shied away from the window at my gaze, tucking his chin down and smiling like he did on television. I could ask him anything I wanted. Was he actually an angel? Is there a heaven? Was dying scary? What was it like being God’s favorite? Dozens of questions teased me, but he watched me shuffle through them with the same exhaustion that seeped from his eyes.

“What’s your favorite color?” I asked.

Ryan blinked at me. I wanted God to strike me dead to escape the embarrassment of such a stupid question. I pretended to put more books on the shelves and straighten them up. When I glanced up at him, he was watching me with a focus in his eyes beyond his age. He glowed in the hallway lamplight and a short wave of shame flooded me from somewhere else. We stood there, captured and rapt, in the most holy innocence of understanding. I thought maybe that’s what love felt like—honest and uncomfortable and shameful.

“Blue, I think,” he said.

On Thursday morning, standstill traffic lined the street outside the church with license plates from states all over. Crowds gathered on the sidewalks, exchanging their favorite verses and confidently naming where they came from. Half interested families looking for something to do took the day off of work and school to set up lawn chairs and blankets in the front yards across the street from the church. Cameras. So many cameras. Every window in the car as we drove to school glinted with the lenses of newscasters and religious fanatics with their personal Canons. A dozen other girls from school and their families dotted the crowd, much to the visual confusion of my mother.

“This is getting ridiculous,” she mumbled to no one and parked the car in the school lot, beyond the tall iron gates decorated with cherubs and wrought-iron flowers.

The doors to the school stood vigil behind a few teachers, anxiously chatting to each other as they directed a stream of arriving girls toward the side gate exit leading into the church courtyard. Mom held my hand and led me to the front gate, skeptically glancing back and forth at the chaos on the street and the silence inside the school building.

“Father Hegelman thinks that morning assembly would be best spent witnessing a miracle,” the English teacher said.

Mom’s face ran through many emotions in quick succession: annoyance, for now the crowd lumped in front of the gate so she couldn’t drive the other direction if she tried to make her appointment on time; apprehension, for her daughter was to look upon resurrection; excitement, for she was about to look upon resurrection; guilt, for finding apprehension in the first place; and acceptance. “Go on,” she urged me. “Go find Abby or Margaret or somebody. I have to call your father.”

As I exited the school grounds through the side gate, I followed the flood of girls in uniform to a puddle of front row seats in the grass. Sister Katherine led prayers while Father Hegelman spoke to someone inside the church door. Abby and Margaret looked just like everybody else and waved me down to sit between them. The tips of our toes touched an empty half circle of unpaved grass, the perfect target for Ryan to hit from on high. I imagined how small we’d look from up there. The first day he jumped, before he knew he’d wake back up, he must’ve looked out over the grounds of the small parish, smelled the wind through the trees as it rustled beneath him, and thought the leaves looked softer than they were. It must’ve been beautiful. It must’ve looked like death in pure, suburban springtime.

“Now that there’s a crowd, I don’t think he’ll do it,” Abby whispered like a secret.

“He has to,” Margaret said, the secret meaning pricking at my ear as she scooted closer to me. “Angels are meant to fly, right?”

Father Hegelman spat a few more words into the church doorway before turning to face the crowd. His smile reeked of humble pride and false discomfort, and for the first time ever, I shied away from his gaze. He looked different while preaching, like a glowing beacon of the perfect sinner turned towards the light and helping us do the same. Instead, in that moment, he was just Thomas Hegelman, the neighborhood preacher that went home to the clergy house, locked his door, stripped down to his boxers, and watched Dr. Phil reruns.

The cameras flashed. Microphones exploded from the crowd towards Father Hegelman, which he kindly waved away, directing their attention to the belltower. The crowd murmured with anticipation, and when Ryan’s head slowly came into view, the rest of the people couldn’t decide whether to shriek like a concertgoer or stare in silent revelry. Ryan squinted in the sunlight and turned away from the crowd, his mouth moving to someone I couldn’t see. At last, he returned to us, scanning the people and the space laid open for him.

“The angel! The angel is about to speak!” shouted Father Hegelman.

Ryan’s mouth fell open and closed, gaping like a fish out of water. I willed to God—no, I prayed, to Him—that he would spot me in the clump of girls. I bore a nervous hole into his nose, tracing the freckles on his cheeks trying to lure his eyes to mine. His head snapped around, up to the sky and down to the grasses, the nervousness in his eyes quickly devolving into something slow and deliberate. He stepped up onto the banister, down onto the ledge, hooked his arms through the gaps to lean his chest forward, and looked down.

He’d done it before.

He’d done it so many times before.

“An angel among sinners,” Father Hegelman called to the crowd while motioning up toward Ryan. “Look upon him and know that your God is with you.”

Ryan found me. He slipped his foot off the front ledge to the audible awe of the crowd. My heart leapt for every reason. My hands reached out to catch him but they only clasped into my skirt. His hands found me. Ryan Putnam heard my prayer. He smiled at me, half cocky and half exhausted before narrowing his eyes to the sky, like a schoolboy attempting to impress just me and no one else. Not even God.

“Julie,” he shrieked to the heavens.

My warm, giddy excitement at seeing him iced over upon hearing my name. Nobody saw him after that. Both of his feet slipped from the ledge, his arms extending behind him as he stared down the line between the atmosphere and Heaven’s gates. Lumps where wings might’ve lived pressed against his shirt. The wind chased him towards the dirt and relied on God to save his soul.

But God turned away.

The silence snapped like a bone.