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CLARA
    You’d think I’d be used to surprises by now. My life is a series of announcements like, Guess what, Clara? You’re part angel. Guess what: that guy who you thought you were supposed to save, well, he’s an angel-blood, too. Surprise! Angel-bloods only live for one hundred and twenty years, which means your mother is going to die any day now. Ding dong! Guess who’s at the door? Your dad, who’s an archangel, which, by the way, makes you a Triplare, a three-quarter angel instead of the measly one-quarter angel you thought you were. And each of these times I basically have to reevaluate my entire life. You’d think that nothing could surprise me nowadays.
    But once again, I’m floored.
    A buzzer goes off in the kitchen. Phen excuses himself and slips out. I turn to Angela.
    “Ange!” I exclaim, softly so Phen doesn’t hear me spazzing all over the place.
    “I wanted to tell you, but it’s complicated,” she says.
    “How complicated is it to say, Hey, FYI? This boy I like, he’s actually an angel ?”
    “I didn’t know I was going to see him this year.”
    “And you’re like . . .” I lower my voice even more. “Spending the night with him?”
    “It’s not like that,” she says, but clearly it is. She keeps looking at something in the corner of the room. I turn to see what it is—a stack of paintings leaning against the wall.
    I get up.
    “Don’t . . . ,” Angela says, but I’m already flipping through the canvases, until I hit one of Angela, sprawled across the green velvet sofa, half-wrapped in a blanket and nothing else, the sun falling across her hair in a way that makes it shine blue. It’s a beautiful painting. But that’s beside the point.
    “Nice blanket,” is all I can get out.
    Her jaw tightens. “I model for him sometimes. But mostly we hang out. We walk around the city. We talk.”
    “You talk. About what?”
    “About angel stuff, of course, but we also talk about music, and books we’ve read, and art. Poetry. He knows, like, everything.”
    “Right, because he’s an angel.”
    “Yes,” she says, with a defensive edge in her voice. “He’s an angel. So what?”
    “I’m a hungry angel.” He appears in the doorway. “Dinner is served, ladies.”
    This could be awkward.
    “I thought you might be getting tired of Italian,” he says as we settle around a small table tucked into the back of the kitchen. The food smells wonderful, curry and lamb, something Indian. Phen pours three glasses of white wine. I dig right in, because it gives me something to do besides talk. I need some time to let this revelation settle in my brain.
    “So, Clara,” Phen says after a while, “tell me about yourself.”
    I take a sip of wine, which I know should taste good but instead tastes sour and strange. “I, uh . . .” How much has Angela told him about me, I wonder? “Well, I recently graduated from high school. I’m going to Stanford in the fall.”
    “With Angela. You’re a couple of geniuses, you two,” he says. “What do you plan to study?”
    “I don’t have a plan, exactly. I guess I’m hoping that I’ll try out a bunch of stuff and find something I like.”
    “Do you have any hobbies? Talents?” he asks.
    Suddenly I feel like I’m at a job interview.
    “Uh—” I don’t know what to say. I used to be a ballet dancer, but that feels like a million years ago. I’m not into sports like Jeffrey, or poetry like Angela, or music like Christian. Fishing, maybe? I like fishing. But fishing was all about Tucker. Hiking, boating, swimming in rivers, white-water rafting—I can’t separate any of those things from Tucker.
    I need a hobby.
    “Clara’s an empath,” Angela supplies for me.
    I half choke on my bite of meat.
    “Interesting,” Phen says as I cough like crazy. Finally my lungs calm down a bit. I take a drink of wine and wish it were water.
    “What’s your story, Phen? Angela really hasn’t told me very much about you,” I say,