Saint of the Last Streetlight

The halo cracked the night she stopped pretending it was a crown.

Rain stitched the alley silver. Brick held her shoulder the way a friend would if a friend were made of stone. Her wings were too large for the street and too tired to hide. The hoodie did the hiding instead: skull on the chest, hands in the pocket, chain tapping against her boot like a clock that had given up on heaven.

People still looked up when they passed, expecting a sermon. She gave them a stare and the wet cobblestones. Blue eyes, black mouth, freckles like sparks that never quite became fire.

“Fallen?” a voice asked from the fog.

She shifted her knee, felt the wall take her weight, and almost smiled.

“No,” she said. “Just done climbing.”

The halo burned on anyway, a broken ring with nothing left to bless except the girl who refused to leave the ground.

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