The next day was saturday. Between the stuff with Mary and with Erin I hadn’t realised it was friday evening. Jacob takes saturdays off leaving the store closed. Without work in the store to distract me and the weekend leaving me unable to talk to any of the girls my mind was left spinning.

I’m an early riser and as usual I woke to darkness.

I lay in bed looking out the window watching the sunrise while I let my thoughts float around in the back of my head. Eventually I got up. I wandered into the kitchen and started throwing a simple breakfast together for myself. Once I had eaten I went into my room to pull out my daypack. I filled it with the things I would need to go hiking for the day and left a note for Elaine before leaving.

My feet followed the familiar path to the train station and before long I was purchasing a ticket to a large forested park about an hour outside the city. Once I was on the right train I set an alarm on my phone and let my mind drift.

Mary was looking at nail polish in various shades of poison while the other angels were shooing away blank faced men. Every few minutes one of the men managed to peel away a lay of reality from one of the girls until eventually they were all caricatured versions of themselves. Mary became smaller and her face rounder. Rea became taller and her eyes took on a sharper look as her hair slowly developed a twintail style. Erin began developing freckles. Then Sara turned to me and…

Sara, another one of the angels was sitting next to me saying something. I gave her a blank stare waiting for my mind to come back to me. “Sorry, what?”

“I was asking if you were okay. You looked tense.”

“Ohh, I kinda dozed off; call it a nightmare. What about you?”

“Me? I was going to go hiking. Rebecca, Abby, Jessy and I decided to meet up and complain about you yesterday.”

I stared at her blankly for a moment.

“They are all boarding at the next station.”

I nodded and yawned. “Say, Are you all doing okay?”

Sara gave me an odd look. “Yeah, I think so, Why? You seemed pretty unconcerned about mary yesterday.”

“Joe is the kind to brag. I wouldn’t want him spreading anything about any of you girls.”

Sara looked at me for a while then turned away to think.

I watched the scenery pass by as the tallish buildings of the outer city gave way to suburbs.

“So you just decided to protect her?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I guess. Call me weird but I want you all to be happy.” I yawned again then stood up to stretch some while the train car was still empty enough to do so. “Does this mean I’m going to be spending the day with you four?”

“I… don’t think you have to. We really did meet up just to complain about you.”

“Okay. I think I remember hearing that you want to be a chef, how is that going?”

“Its surprisingly difficult to get a kitchen job as a student, outside of fast food anyway.”

As the train approached the station Sara turned and leaned back against me taking up more of the seat in the process. I looked at her, “What’s this about, you are hogging the bench for one.”

“You’ve the right idea, you do it too, otherwise you have to give up your seat.”

“Fine.” I shrugged Sara off of my shoulder and slid away from her dropping her head into my lap. “Is this good enough?”

“Jerk.”

The train arrived at the station and people started filling the train ready to escape the city for a few hours. I got a few glares and returned a few more as people tried to take the space Sara was occupying.

“Ohh, Eric… and Sara.” Abby was the first to find us and I turned to see a devious smile on her face.

“Hush Abby, were saving you all seats.”

“Morning Abby, I hear you all are meeting up to gossip about me, am I that popular?”

“As if, we're all just talking about ways to get rid of an annoying pest.”

“Oh, good idea... “ I let out a sigh, “with how popular you all are with the guys it would suck if any of you got turned down only to have the guy brag about it to all of his friends.”

“Oh, I guess thanks, if it’s true.” Abby shifted uncomfortably and I noticed that she was holding a large case.

“It is, for what my word is worth. Hello Rebecca, Jessy.” I got up and ushered the girls onto the bench while taking Abby’s case and gently pushing her onto the bench. “I’ll take these.”

Seeing these girls lined up I realised for the first time that my eight angels had divided into two groups, These four, the club girls, and the other four.

Sara was in the cooking club, and she was carrying a picnic basket. Abby was carrying a mess of art supplies, well I had them, and if her beret had little to do with her being a member of the school's art club; the image it gave her suited her. Rebecca, sometimes called Bec, held an instrument case and played in the school brass band. Jessy was the only one of the girls without an obvious prop. She belonged to the cross country club and she was the only one of the girls who looked ready to hike.