AUTHOR'S NOTE-

Like I mentioned in a previous one shot titled Cupid, I'm not confident in my skills in writing from a male's POV. Aside from that, I feel like this isn't my best work in general. The dialogue may be unnatural and it may be cringey, but I thought the story line was such a unique and interesting idea and I wanted to get it out there.

Please be mindful and kind in the comments. No harsh criticism is allowed.

You're Supposed To Be My Guardian Angel

The snow was coming down hard. Neighbors were standing at their windows taking pictures and awing at the white blanket starting to dust the ground. Christmas lights were strung around the lampposts and around everyone's houses.

The neighborhood's preparing for the annual Christmas light show scheduled for tomorrow evening while I'm getting ready to propose to my girlfriend. This is her favorite time of the year; not just because it's Christmas but because she loves the snow. Plus, she's always dreamed of being proposed to in front of the tree with the fire crackling from the fireplace.

I know that because of the constant hints she's left me to finally pop the question since the second year mark.

The lights and the snow just make the setting that much more romantic. I order takeout from Olive Garden - her favorite restaurant which we always celebrate special occasions with, but she thinks we're celebrating her completing her novel that she's been working on for months.

Candlesticks are lit for the centerpieces at the dining table, Home Alone 2: Lost In New York is playing on the TV and the plan is to have her check inside her stocking where she'll find the ring.

Tonight is going to be perfect. It has to be.

And it was.

Layla says yes, of course. She takes selfies in front of the tree showing off her three carat diamond ring and falls asleep on the couch. After five years of movie nights, candlelit dinners, midnight beach trips, I finally get to call this beautiful woman my fiancé and soon enough, I'll get to call her my wife. Our little peaceful bubble is shattered within seconds when the front door barged open.

Three men enter my house dressed in all black with black ski masks covering their faces. Layla's still fast asleep. She can sleep through a thunder and lightning storm and not be bothered by any of the sound, but I, on the other hand, am wide awake now. My heart is in my throat.

A painful twinge resides in my stomach and my first instinct is to guard Layla with my body. One of the men points a gun to my head while the other two gather up my most precious valuables - my TV, the iPad on the coffee table, my watch and my PS5. Joke's on them. I don't even use that anymore. They throw everything in a garbage bag and hurry out the door.

But the man with a gun doesn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

-

Heaven's nothing like I picture; no gardens, no waterfalls, no angels, no God, nothing. It turns out that it's just an office with cubicles, men and women dressed in all white handling paperwork and answering the phones. No one seems to notice me at first. A woman on my right is on the phone and whoever she's talking to is clearly making her distressed.

"Oh dear. Yes, Lord. I'll send her guardian angel to her right away. Thank you for informing me, sir." She pulls the phone away from her ear with her hand covering the listening end. "Lilian! You're up! Julia's house is about to get robbed. Make sure she and her mother are safe."

"Guardian angel? What the f-" I noticed something strange on her shoulder. A tattoo of a single wing. Another one on her other shoulder. Come to think of it, everyone here had the same tattoos. I furrow my brows and whisper a string of curse words to myself. "Where the fuck am I?"

"Sawyer Miller? You're not supposed to be here."

"Where the hell-"

"Collins!"

Another man scurries toward him with his hands behind his back, nervously weaving his fingers through his hair and stumbling over his words.

"What the hell are you doing down there? He's not supposed to be dead. You're supposed to be protecting him."

"Y-y-yes, sir. And God called in about the robbers at his house, but his neighborhood was hosting some light show for Christmas this year and you know that I'd always wanted to see one when I was alive-"

The first man holds his hand up to stop him. "None of that matters, Collins. You need to be by his side at all times just in case something happens to him." He slams the stack of paperwork onto the nearest desk and claps his hand together. "I'm sure you have... hundreds of questions-"

"Try millions."

"Yes. And you'll receive answers. Starting with, you weren't supposed to die. Collins, your guardian angel here, was supposed to be watching over you, but as you can see, he failed." He pauses to send daggers to Collins through his eyes, but a polite smile quickly replaces it when he turns back to me. "You, being his client, get to decide his fate. When you return to your body on Earth, can he remain your guardian angel or is he fired?"

"Wait... I can go back?"

"Why, of course. It wouldn't be fair for you to stay since you were never meant to be here. At least not right now. You're supposed to grow old with your gorgeous wife and watch your kids grow up and start their own lives."

Layla.

She was sleeping during the robbery, but there's still the possibility of them coming back and doing unspeakable things to her. The thought of that happening makes my hands ball up into fists as I imagine beating the crap out of them until they die. "Is she okay? My fiance."

"Yes. Her guardian angel is with her as we speak." He snatches a remote from his desk and turns on the flat-screen TV that's mounted on the wall in the corner.

Video footage appears on the screen of my living room where an angel kneels down by Layla who was sobbing over my body.

Tears welled up in my eyes watching her cry like that over me. If my guardian angel was actually doing his job, none of this would've happened and the love of my life wouldn't be falling apart.

I don't know if hallucinations are a side effect of death, but the angel comforting her looks oddly familiar from the back of her head. My feet are footed to this spot when I realize who she was. "Mom?"

My mom died of breast cancer when I was little. We used to be really close before she got sick. We'd have movie nights, she'd buy me presents even on days when it wasn't my birthday or Christmas, she'd take me to the park for a picnic and cook my favorite foods any time I had a bad day. Now, she's my fiance's guardian angel.

"Since her own mother... unalived herself, there are some steps she needs to take to be deemed worthy enough to become a guardian angel. But in the meantime, God assigned her to Layla the moment she arrived here since He planned for the two of you to end up together in the future."

"How come she isn't mine?"

"Well, we have a rule to follow as angels. Female angels are assigned to female humans and male angels are assigned to male humans. I mean..." A blush colors in his cheeks as she awkwardly chuckles and rubs the back of his neck. "You wouldn't want to be, like, seventy years old, fall in the shower and have your mom be the one to help your old and wrinkly butt up, would you?"

I take a second look at my pathetic excuse of a guardian angel who's too busy munching on a cheeseburger to pay any more attention to this conversation. Where did he even get that? "Fine. He can stay on as my guardian angel."

Collins moans while he responds with a big nod and a thumbs up. Something about the way he's more enthusiastic about his dinner than he is about the fact that he isn't fired enraged me. In a fit of rage, I grab him by the collar of his dorky-looking sweater and shove him into the wall that's straight ahead. Other angels try to stop me, but their attempts to pull me away are futile.

"But if you slack off one more time, I swear to God-"

"Actually, there's, there's a rule, we have a rule about swearing to God. We find, we find it, we find it offensive-"

"Oh yeah? Well, I find it offensive that I'm stuck with a sad excuse of a guardian angel like you while everyone else gets an angel that actually gives a fuck!" I use all my might to shove him into the wall again. "My girl has already been hurt. By her own damn mother! Even her father who was the only family she had left abandoned her after her mom died when she needed him the most and I'll be damned before I hurt her too. You hear me?!"

He frantically nods. "Y-y-yes, sir. Understood."

"Good." The second I let him go, he's swarmed by the angels who are checking his body for any bruising and bumps on the back of his head. Meanwhile, the angel whose name I have yet to learn rests his hand on my shoulder.

"You ready to go back?"

A wave of disappointment hits me as soon as I realize what he's implying. That I won't be able to see my mom when she returns from comforting Layla. I have a feeling I already know the answer, but I ask anyway. "I have to go back now? Can't I stay and wait for my mom to come back?"

His sigh says that he anticipated I'd ask that. "Sawyer, you can't stay. It's our strictest rule we have. No angels can reunite with their living family members. No matter the circumstances."

I may be disappointed, but a brief glance at the video footage that's still playing on the TV convinces me that the sooner I get back, the better. Layla hugs my body and stains my button-up with her tears, pleading for me to come back to her. "Yeah. Yes, I'm ready to go back."