Free Finding an Angel by P. J. Belden

they all sat.
    “Hunter,” she exclaims and runs and jumps from the second step into my arms.
    Immediately, I wrap my arms around her and hold her to me, burying my face in her neck. Her flowery scent immediately filling me and calming my nerves, but in a way only Jessa can sense, she pulls back looking at me with concern.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing’s wrong. Honest, Angel,” I insist at her look of disbelief.
    “Then why are you so quiet?”
    “Because I want to ask you something and I’m not sure how you’ll react,” I tell her honestly.
    “Just ask me. Mom and Dad do,” she shrugs.
    My hands begin to shake as I set her down. Getting enough air in my lungs seems almost impossible. Here I’m on the verge of a panic attack and I’m the one that can handle being around people. Taking a deep breath, I force myself to ask.
    “Will you go to Prom with me?”
    Jessa freezes, stiff as a board in front of me. My eyes look up at Mr. and Mrs. Rawlins and silently plead with them for help. After a moment’s pause, they finally stand and come down the stairs to stand by Jess.
    Her father kneels down before her, taking one of her hands in his. “Sweetpea, can you look at me?”
    After asking two more times, Jessa finally looks at her father. “What has you scared by his question?”
    It’s obvious to all of us there what is scaring the living daylights out of her, but one of her goals the doctors have her doing is vocalizing her feelings so she can connect them with what they actually are and understand what emotion is what.
    Last year, Jessa had been very forthcoming about her diagnosis. She says that if I truly want to be with her I need to have all the information. That’s when I found out that she suffers from Manic Depressive with psychotic features severe, autism, anxiety, OCD, ODD, and a few other initial things. Individually, I know what each word means, but the words all together confuse me and I’m too scared to ask her what they mean and her think I’m finding her weird, so I let it drop.
    Over time, I kept telling myself that I’ll look them up to understand what she’s facing. Then I’d sit down at my computer and stare at Google and feel like I’m invading her privacy and shut down my computer.
    “I’m sorry Jess, I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just an important moment in a teenager’s life and I wanted you to share that with me, especially since you didn’t get yours. But I understand Angel. We can just hang out around here,” I rush to apologize.
    “No, Hunter, don’t apologize. This is something she’s been working on in therapy too. Getting involved with the world again. You just have to understand that her…”
    “I mean no disrespect here Sir, but I do understand perfectly well what she’s been through. But I also know how strong and incredibly brave she is. And I know if she’d agree her night would be the same as mine. No one else would even be there because when I’m with her no one else exists. At the same time, I do fully understand what a big step this is for her. If she doesn’t take it, it won’t make me love her any less. I just wanted her to have a magical night just like everyone else gets at our ages.”
    Turning, I start to walk away, regretting eating up my insides for pushing her too far. The fear in her eyes and in the stiffness in her body will be forever ingrained in my head. When I decided to ask her, I thought it’d be a night that she could feel ‘normal’ as she always puts it. I’d decided to graduate at the end of Junior year and start college here at the community college. Even though, I’d been accepted into Berkley, I don’t want to be so far from Jessa. If something were to happen and I wasn’t here, I couldn’t handle it.
    Walking up the steps to our house, I bang my head on our door.
    “Stupid, Stupid, Stupid,” I repeat with each time my head hit the door.
    “What in the world are you doing child,” my mother asks opening