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Angel
I have a guardian angel.

Just like in the movies, she follows me everywhere I go. She casually sits on my shoulder

and persuades me to stay out of trouble. As a beacon of good, she infiltrates my thoughts, and

calculates my moves. She protects me from harm. Alerts me when things go awry. She’s

cautious and careful. She has an eye for danger.

On the day of a class presentation, she wakes me up with a pit in my stomach. As I make

my morning cup of coffee, she runs the presentation’s key points in my head. As I patiently wait

for my turn to speak in class, she gives me some reminders. Make eye contact. Don’t cross your

arms. Remember that interesting point about the statistics. When I get called on, she holds my

lungs in her hands and tightens her grip. As I present, she causes me to speed through my words,

rapid fire, between shaky breaths. Though I’m looking out into the sea of classmates, I can’t

really see them. I’m blacking out, struggling to remember the bits of information I worked so

diligently to memorize the night before. When I finish, I bow my head to the floor as my

classmates tiredly clap. She whispers in my ear: we’re never doing that again.

How lucky am I to have such a dedicated guardian angel.

When I drive on the highway, she clenches my hands on the steering wheel so tightly that

my knuckles go white. I would love to drive myself out of state—into the woods or up by a lake

—but she reminds me that there are too many highways. I find myself unable to push the gas

pedal past the speed limit. Driving is so dangerous, she mentions as I shift into the rightmost

lane. A car tailgates me all the way to the exit. As I make my way up the exit ramp, she leans my

body closer to the steering wheel, shoulders hunched and arms locked. I flicker my eyes between

the speedometer and the car in front of me. At the stoplight, I watch a driver nearly rear-end the
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car in front of them. Scattered honks flow from the vehicles. What if you never made it home?

Maybe I’ll start taking the train.

She has always been guiding me. When I was a teenager, my friend would pick me up

and drive me to school in the morning. My friend usually arrived around 8, but had a tendency to

be late. Every morning as the clock struck 8, she’d fill my body with a shaky feeling. What if

something happened? She’d have me poke my head out the window with every passing car. As

each minute passed, I paced back and forth, unable to sit still. Check the clock, check the

window, check the clock, check the window, check the clock, check the window. Maybe she

forgot about you. My hands shook frantically as I hovered over the call button on my phone. As

my finger moved toward the contact, I heard the rattling of an old car coming down the street.

Ah, no need to worry, she’s just running behind. This time.

When I’m shopping at grocery stores, she keeps out a watchful eye. Not for strangers, but

for people I recognize. To her, there is no ordeal more mortifying than running into someone you

went to high school with. To be safe, she makes me drive 20 mins out of my way to a store less

likely to have shoppers I can identify. I drift through the aisles with my eyes glued to the floor.

Stopped in the soda aisle, I glance at the packages for some soda cans. You really don’t have

enough money to buy stupid things like soda. Defiant, I grab the cans and put them in my cart.

For the rest of the day, she punishes me for it. She washes guilt over me when I crack the first

can open. It doesn’t taste worth it.

We’re walking around the city on New Year’s Eve, and I can hear some kids laughing in

the distance. Like a child, she’s spooked by sudden loud sounds. That morning, as soon as I

rolled out of bed, she planted an unshakable tenseness in me. Suddenly, I see a bright light shoot

up from behind a dark building. When the firework booms above the street, I can feel her racing
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through my veins. She drags an anchor into my stomach. What if there are more? She turns me

around instantly. What if they get louder? With tears streaming down my face, I speed down the

street. I can still hear the kids laughing in between my steps.

Such a dutiful guardian angel never takes a day’s rest.

I thought that if I did all the right things—write in a journal, meditate, go for walks—that

she would let me protect myself. Let me give an off-script presentation. Let me drive in the left

lane. Let friends pick me up. Let me buy cans of soda. Let me watch fireworks. But she still sits

on my shoulder, more determined than ever. Don’t worry, she says, I’ll protect you from

everything.