Decorated Soldier

The last thing Anna did before she left yesterday was tell me to talk to Susan and ask what she thought about my costumed crusade.  Well, the last thing she did was make out with me some more, but that’s not the point.  The point is, Anna kinda sorta owns me and I’ve accumulated a fairly large debt to Susan over the relatively short amount of time I’ve spent under her roof, so the talking to Susan thing is gonna happen today, like it or not. 

And on top of that, the itch has been on me worse than usual today. 

Which is wonderful.  The two things taking up most of my admittedly limited mental capacity are two things that I really want no part of right now.  A serious talk with Susan right on the heels of a serious talk with Anna plus an intense urge to dress up in a cape and mask and punch people in the face. 

That and peeling off all the purple heart stickers Boone stuck to my clothes.  All my clothes.  The only things not stickered are my socks and boxers.  I woke up with a sticker on my forehead somehow. 

There will be hell to pay for that.

But before I can too thoroughly distract myself with thoughts of revenge and peeling stickers, I bookmark my Hellblazer graphic novel (ignoring the desperately nerdy part of me that tells me Staring at the Walls needs to be read in one sitting) and roll outta bed.  My landing’s a bit heavier than normal, but it’s a vast improvement over the last few days.

“No bullshit.”  Anna told me.  “Just ask her.”

Susan’s in the living room, weaving a pair of metallic green knitting needles throught a complex, fragile-looking spider web of purple yarn.  I think she called it lace or something.

I clear my throat before dropping into the big armchair between Susan and the far wall. 

“Whenever you get to a stopping point,” I mutter, rubbing the back of a finger against my chin. 

I need to shave.

After a few seconds, Susan gently sets her knitting down on the cushion next to her.  She folds her hands in her lap.  It doesn’t look particularly casual.  More like she’s trapping them there so they won’t fidget.

Before I can ask the simple, straightforward question Anna told me to, I blurt out “If you guys don’t want me around anymore, I’ll go.”

She cringes, from her face all the way down to her hands, before taking a deep breath.  And then a second.  It reminds me a bit of the first time we met.  A bit graver, but there’s a similar sense of her gathering herself to answer a hard question she’s been expecting me to ask.

“Where?”

It looks like the question hurts her almost as much as it does me.

Almost.

“Out of the city?”  She continues.  “Out of the state?”

She sighs, pausing for a second to right the ship.

“This isn’t what I want to say.  What I really mean is that you don’t seem to grasp your place within this family.  We want you here.”  She emphasizes each word in the sentence, not letting me break eye contact.  “We want you to feel like you can stay here as long as you’d like.  And then when you’re done staying here to come back and visit when you’ve got the time.  When you first came here, this wasn’t a sure thing.  We could’ve talked to you and then gone our separate ways.  We wanted you to stay.  When you came to live with us, this still wasn’t a sure thing.  Not every family is the right place for every child.  But we let you stay.  We found out what you do at night.  We found out you broke the law and put yourself in danger on a regular basis.”  She smiles a thin smile.  “Admittedly, that was a little more difficult to process, but still.  We let you stay.  None of those decisions were colored by pity or feeling like we were committed to keeping you around, whether we liked it or not.  We let you stay because we want you here.  And to drive that point home, I’m going to spoil a surprise Paul and I were planning.”

She holds up a finger and walks quickly into the hall.  Her footsteps trot up the stairs, stop, and then march back down.  She comes back into the room, holding a thin binder.  Across the front in permanent marker is:  Yard Sale.

She sets the binder in my lap and sits back down.  I thumb through the pages of table layouts and item prices and anything else anyone could conceivable need to run a yard sale.  My mouth’s too dry.  Someone’s filled my insides with molasses.  My lungs and heart labor and my eyes sting.

“We’ve been planning to clean out that other bedroom as soon as it warmed up enough for a yard sale to work.  We wanted it to be a surprise.”

She folds and unfolds her hands a few times.

“We probably should’ve just told you.  I didn’t even think of how you’d see it.  An extra bedroom just sitting around filled with clutter while you had to share a room.”

We sit in silence for a bit.  Susan fidgets and I bury myself in the little binder so I don’t have to confirm or deny anything.  She starts up again.

“I’m sorry if this stupid surprise has made you feel unwanted or, or made you feel temporary, we…we just wanted to give you a proper welcome.”

Don’t say anything.  You suck at words.  Just give the poor woman what she deserves.

I shift the binder aside, slide out of the armchair, and give Susan a brief, tight hug.  It only makes me slightly uncomfortable.  And I ignore the little voice in the back of my head that tells me things are starting to stack up dangerously high in my favor, that things are gonna topple soon. 

****

I’ve spent the last three hours lying in bed.  Most of the first two were spent doing various anxiety management exercises.  Deep breathing, stretching, and the like.  Since then I’ve done the absolute worst thing in the world for managing stress:  I’ve obsessed.  And oddly enough, it’s the obsessing that’s helped the most.  People seem hellbent on keeping me around.  Anna, Susan, Paul, Boone…well, at least Boone doesn’t seem to actively want me to leave.  Plus, he’ll be getting his room back soon.  That’ll help.

For the millionth time, I scroll back to Polar Bear Club’s lovesick anthem, “Drifting Thing” and text Anna back during her study hall.  Susan calls up to me to keep feeling better before heading to her shift.  I close my eyes and drift off until someone shakes me awake.  Literally, I wake up to Anna shaking my leg.

Once she sees I’m awake, she steps up onto Boone’s bunk, pulls my head toward hers, and kisses me.  We spend a minute or three like that.

When we separate her eyes look really big.  She’s smiling.

I lick my lips and smile back.  “What did I do to deserve that?”

Maybe it’s the whole near-death experience I had or Anna finally being cool with what I do, but she’s spent an inordinate amount of time shoving her tongue down my throat these last couple days.  Not that I’m complaining—this is pretty much what teenagers live for—just making a note.

She rolls her eyes like I’m slow.  But the adorable kind of slow. 

“That’s one of the hidden perks of being in a relationship, dumbass.  I can make out with you whenever I want for little or no reason at all.  And I dunno, things feel better now.  Like there’s not as much stress and we can just enjoy being us, ya know?”

“And this is what I can expect from us just getting to be us?”

Another eye roll.  “Yes…”

I tilt my head to the side and lean toward her.  “Just checking.”

Bug Out

I wake up at one forty-seven pm trying to cough one or both of my lungs up.  Coughing, being a rather physically engaging activity, reminds me just how bruised, knotted, and abraded my shoulders, head, arms, and back are.  I cough and cough and cough ‘til I can barely push out anymore coughs and they subside into a breathless wheeze.

Fuck everything.

I was in bed for almost eleven hours, but I couldn’t have slept for more than four.  The exhaustion’s let up just enough to keep me from physically having to make a decision between sleeping and collapsing.  Now I’m just tired all the time, in need of rest, and not really getting it.

No, seriously.  Fuck everything.

This is probably what I deserve after staying out so late last night instead of laying around and healing.  I sit up, wincing when I try and prop myself up on a bruised forearm.  Out of the corner of my eye I see my bedside table looking a little more crowded than usual.  On top of my laptop and next to my phone is a paper plate with a peanut butter sandwich and a big Granny Smith apple.  I unlock my phone and skip past the other three text messages, going straight to one from Susan.

Enjoy the food.  Hope you’re feeling better.  Shift doesn’t start ‘til 3.  Come down if you get this before I leave.

God.  Why is she being so nice to me? 

I know she was on the verge of a heart attack when Anna called her from the hospital.  And so tight on the heels of me getting my shit stomped by Sewer Man.  I keep giving her enough time to think I’ll stay outta trouble and then getting into even more trouble than before. 

I lumber to the floor and grab the plate with one hand, carefully rolling the apple off into the other hand.  I haven’t been eating all that well the last couple days, but today’s feeling like the day that’ll change.  The first bite of the apple reminds my body just how hungry it is.  My metabolism is every bit as post-human as the rest of me.  I generally need more food than the average person to get by, so my recent fast is about to end with a pantry-raiding feast that would put a hall of Vikings to shame. 

The apple’s chewed to the core by the time I’m down the stairs.  I awkwardly switch the apple core for the sandwich and almost choke.  Peanut butter doesn’t go down quite as easy as apples do.  My eye-watering coughing catches Susan’s attention.

“Wesley?”

I manage to stave off one cough long enough to confirm that I am indeed the foster child fuck up she’s looking for.  When she steps into the hall her mouth’s a thin line and her eyes are scrunched, they make contact with me and then flit to the side.

When I finally find myself fit for speech I try to wave off some of her concern.  “Just a ‘took too big a bite’ cough, that’s all.”

It doesn’t seem to help much. 

I honestly don’t wanna know what she has to say right now.  She’s been bottling it up, waiting for me to feel better before dropping it on my head and I know bottling isn’t her thing but I just want her to keep it up.  Hearing how scared she was or how angry she is or whatever just isn’t something I’m up for.  I don’t need her to tell me what a fuck-up I am, I’ve been this way for long enough to know that all by myself.  And if I can keep her from getting going then I can keep her from reaching the end of the conversation.  The point where, spoken straight or insinuated, she tells me I’ve found the line in the sand.  She’s had all the bullshit she’s gonna have from me and maybe more and if I don’t get my head outta my ass this is over.  It’s not her fault I’ve burned through literally every capable foster family in the area and I’ll be shipped somewhere completely new if this doesn’t work out.  I got myself neck deep in shit, it’s up to me to deal with the consequences. 

Or maybe even worse, she’ll tell me there is no line.  That no matter what I do, we’ll just keep butting heads on this and she’ll keep suffering and I’ll keep hating that my crusade is more important than her pain.  Or whatever the less melodramatic version of that may be. 

But not right now.  I really can’t have either of those conversations right now.

“Thanks for the sandwich.”  I raise the plate and avoid eye contact.  “Think I’ll scrounge around for a bit more.  High metabolism and all.”

Everything’s flat and awkward.  I feel like someone’s smashed me into two dimensions.  My voice doesn’t have any life.  My brain can’t seem to do anything but remind me of how much everything sucks, myself included.

My appetite’s soured, but I can’t keep eating light or I’m gonna collapse.  I shuffle into the kitchen and grab a container of leftover chicken casserole from the fridge, plopping most of it onto a real plate.  I feel Susan’s eyes on me, but I’m hoping she’ll just swallow whatever she’s got to say.  I’m only down here for a couple minutes then I’ll be out of her way again.

“Wes?”

“Please, not right now.”  My throat’s swollen like I’ve developed a sudden allergy to this conversation.  “Please.”

I keep my back to her on my way to the microwave and try to look like I’m casually crossing my arms and not hugging myself to keep a pathetic emotional outburst from blowing me apart.  Susan either gets the message or just gets her feelings hurt pretty quickly because I hear her footsteps head toward the living room. 

In between all the self-pity and wallowing, part of me’s screaming:  MAN UP!

The part that runs into burning buildings, the part that functions even with loaded guns shoved in my face, the part that managed to win a fight with a super-powered lunatic and do so without hurting him too badly screams at me all the way up to my room. 

****

I skip past one of Anti-Flag’s lesser songs to one I like more and turn the volume up on my laptop.  I don’t know what it is about two such disparate things that they have the same calming effect on me, but they do.  Angry punk snarls and digging through my bag.  They don’t calm me down so much as they offer a sort of morbid comfort.  Being angry and being mobile, they’re what I know.  So I bury myself in them.

The zipper on my bug out bag is starting to separate from the rest of the bag.  Just a little tear right now and it’ll stay little if the bag stays tucked away under the bed.  But if the bag gets any real use, it’ll be a tattered chasm before too long.  I unzip it, careful not to cause anymore damage, and start sifting. 

A heavy Swiss Army Knife with a notch taken out of the handle.  A black pouch filled with band-aids, disinfectant, and the like.  A flashlight like the one I carry in my costume.  A couple burner phones.  Few pairs of clothes that could carry me through anything short of deep winter.  Other items I’ve deemed necessary over the years. 

At the bottom are a few of my favorite comic books, boarded, double bagged, and kept in a slim padded case I stole when I was twelve.  When it really occurred to me that I was different, comics had taken on a whole new appeal.  I’d scrounged through old used book stores, traded anything I had with other kids at school, and even spent lunch money on them.  At one point I’d even snuck one of my foster parent’s credit cards and ordered a subscription of Ultimate Spider-Man. 

I’m so engrossed in what I’m doing that I don’t hear the footsteps coming up the stairs. 

Anna knocks twice and opens the bedroom door.

“Hey, neither of you idiots is answering your phone.  Is Boone here?  I need him for a project.”

I stiffen and turn around, carefully shielding the bag from Anna.  This is normally the time I would make a joke about waiting before coming in, that I could be naked or worse, playing air guitar.  Instead, I fumble with silence.

Anna makes a face.

“Is this Anti-Flag?”

I nod, still not sure how to speak without giving myself away.

“What’s wrong?  You only listen to them when you’re having a bad day.”

How could she possibly know that?  Who keeps track of that kinda shit?

It’s only now that I’m having my normal, uncomfortable reaction to one person knowing so much about me that I realize how weird it is that I’ve been okay with it for so long.  That I’ve even enjoyed it.

I grunt.  “Haven’t been sleeping well.”

She walks farther into the room and I straighten up, hoping I can stay on the floor and still keep her from seeing the bag over my shoulder.  She kneels down next to me.

“How come?”

I shrug.  “Stress, I guess.”

I don’t make any mention of the fire, but I probably don’t have to.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

She puts her hand on my knee, running her thumb over it in slow circles.  I’m tempted to tell her the truth.  That even with the shit with Susan, our fight, getting mauled by a sewer man, and getting caught up in a burning building, this has been the best place I’ve ever lived and sooner or later the other shoe’s gonna drop.  I’ll find the line, the line everyone has and I’ll cross it.  At some point I’ll stop amusing Boone or I’ll stop being worth all the effort Susan puts in and it’ll all fall apart.

Or that Anna’s gonna get tired of me and dump me and then I’ll spend what little time I have left here miserably watching her move on.

But instead of opening up and spewing red-hot molten crazy everywhere, I do something much worse:  I lean in for a hug.

And when Anna accepts, resting her chin on my shoulder, she gets a clear look into my open bug out bag.

“What’s that?”

Fuck.

“Uh…”

Say something.  It’s my bondage bag.  Everything I need for a night at a BDSM club.  My bank robbing gear.  Supplies for my afterschool job as a clown.  Something!

Anna pulls away and slides past me.  There has to be something I can do to stop her, but I can’t think of anything.  She pulls it onto her lap and starts picking through it and it’s like Susan catching me coming in the kitchen door all over. 

“What’s…”  She runs her hands over my travel toothbrush and deodorant.  Her hand freezes on the little roll of cash I’ve squirreled away.  “What’s with the bag?”

She’s trying to sound reasonable.  Working hard to keep the accusation out of her voice.  Trying to give me a chance.  But she can’t keep from looking heartbroken.  It doesn’t take her long to figure out what the bag means and when that happens I think a little part of me dies. 

“It’s…I’m not planning on…I wasn’t…” 

I try to take a deep breath, to push down the anxiety that scrabbling madly up my chest cavity, but can’t even draw a normal breath.  Anna jumps in. 

“Wasn’t gonna run away?  Wasn’t gonna leave?”  She makes a sound halfway between a scoff and a sob.  “God, I thought we were past this shit.  I get that you’re uncomfortable with this stability or whatever, but I thought you were making progress.”

Breathe.  Breathe as deep as you can.  Breathe and find your words.

“Progress isn’t the same as being better.  It…it takes time.”

I feel like that was the closest thing to profundity I’ll ever manage and what’s more, I expressed it fairly clearly, but even still, I sound whiney.  I sound like I’m making excuses.

The first time Alan set me up with a therapist, I tried to be good.  It was after Henry Campbell and the canings and by that point I’d started identifying the right choices in life and actively making the wrong ones.  It helped and after awhile it started being fun.  But when Alan sent me to therapy, he was so worked up about everything.  He launched an investigation into the Campbells, he started checking in on me more often, and then he suggested I try talking to someone.

Even at my most cynical, I’m not sure I could’ve said no to the face Alan made.  It was guilty and heartbroken and angry and hopeful and everything else in the world.  Way more than any one facial expression should be able to encompass.  So I played along.  No fucking around.

And then I started feeling like a rat trying to navigate a maze.  I wasn’t really allowed to say anything normal, to just talk to my shrink like people.  I’d try and joke about the shit food at the cafeteria and he’d imply I wasn’t eating right.  Just subtly and never accusatorily, but he was like that with everything.  I say something and he turns it a little to the left, poking and prodding me.  It’s not easy talking to someone like that.  Nothing feels safe, nothing’s relaxed.  Nothing gets to be off the record.  He’d say it was, but he was always scribbling on a fucking notepad and I knew he was giving Alan the gist of it afterward.  That was part of our agreement, Doctor Grant and Alan could exchange notes—good communication being the foundation of therapy and all.  But at a certain point it felt less like good communication and more like spying.

It got to the point where I was digging my thumb into my thigh, just to keep from strangling him.  And you better believe he took note of that too.

So I stopped telling him things.  If he asked a pointed question or just anything I wasn’t too fond of, I’d ignore it.  Pretend I was hard of hearing.  I stopped initiating anything and when I did answer his questions, it was as sparsely as possible.

Those are not conditions under which therapy flourishes (or so I was told), so I left.  Alan set me up with someone else and I didn’t spend as long trying that time.  By the third shrink I was actively sabotaging things.  Eventually Alan gave up, under the guise of giving me a little more control over my life.  If I ever felt therapy would be beneficial, all I had to do was say so and Alan would hook me up.

Surprisingly though, I told Doctor Grant about the bag.  I’d started planning one before I gave Alan my ultimatum and I started putting it together in earnest as soon as I got to the next house.

Anna runs her hand through her hair and I wonder if she didn’t pick the gesture up from Boone.  She throws her hands up and makes an exasperated huff.

“Why do you keep doing this?  You need to quit pretending that because you’re not normal Susan and Paul are suffering from…buyer’s remorse or something.  This self-pitying bullshit has to stop.”

“Who’s pretending?  Just because Susan and Paul want me here, doesn’t mean I should be here.  They’re generosity isn’t an invitation for me to fuck up their lives.”

I’m starting to raise my voice again.  Starting to pick a fight with someone who’s just trying to help.  With Anna.  I need to stop fucking do this.

Suck it up.  Stop being a child and speak.

“I…I need you to be okay with me.”  It actually pains me to say that.  My chest feels like someone’s created a black hole the size of a pinhole inside it and my insides are all being sucked slowly through it.  My ears and cheek must be an impressive shade of red.  “With what I do.  I just…” 

I’m not one of those guys who collect sneakers, but right now I can’t think of anything more interesting than staring at my shoes.

I don’t notice Anna moving toward me until I feel her arm around my shoulders.  She sighs into my neck. 

“I’m sorry I keep yelling at you.  I think what you do is amazing.”  She kisses my cheek.  “Not getting into fights or whatever.  You ran into a burning building to save someone.  The police told you not to.  The fire department had given up.  You knew…things on the home front wouldn’t be much cheerier.”  She turns her head away a little bit as she says the last bit.  “I think I got blinded by the danger.  It’s hard, knowing you’re putting yourself in danger like that all the time.  But it’s…incredible.  Stupid and courageous and incredible and I think you’re the most amazing person I know.”

She goes quiet and I imagine I can feel the heat radiating off of her.

Given all the time in the universe I wouldn’t be able to come up with a proper response to that. 

She jabs the bag with her foot.  “Amazing and infuriating.  In equal measures.”

When I find my voice again, it’s small.

“You can hold onto it if you want.  Keep the bag over at your place so you’d know for sure.”

She shakes her head immediately.  “No.  I don’t want you staying here because you’re not able to leave.  You stay or go because you want to.”

We’re both silent for awhile.  I’m out of gestures and apologies and I guess Anna not sure where to go next either.

Tell her you won’t really leave.  Tell her why!

But then she perks up.  “Go to prom with me.”

“What?”

“I’ll believe you if you promise you’ll go to prom with me.  You can’t just up and leave if we have plans.  Okay?”

Tell her!

I have to snort, clear a little snot out before I can speak.  It’s gotta be incredibly sexy. 

I laugh.  At my own self-deprecation, at the delusional young woman asking me to prom instead of killing me, at how my luck’s changed since moving in here. 

“No one in their right mind would ever turn down that invitation.”

She smiles a little.  “That doesn’t answer my question.  You’re not actually in your right mind.”

A real smile overtakes my face.  I can’t seem to just blurt out the super romantic thought on the tip of my tongue, so I stick with, “Of course.”

She squeezes me in another hug and kisses my cheek before pulling back, looking semi-serious.

“But if you stand me up, I will kill you.  Superhero or not.  I will find you and kill you.  On prom night.  In my prom dress.”

For the first time today I feel safe to try a joke.

“What if I bail on you tomorrow?  Would you just wait for prom night to come find me?”

“Yes.  I would give you that much of a head start because there is nowhere you could go to run away from me.”

She kisses me again, on the mouth.  Like she means it.

While we’re locked like that, lips pressed together, I mouth three words.

Smokehouse

I shouldn’t be doing this without my costume.

The only way I can even come close to justifying jumping from roof to roof like this is that in this particular low-income district of downtown it’s possible for normal people to do it too.  The buildings are only about eight feet apart and the eaves on either side extend out two more feet.  My problem is that I don’t know how to jump like a normal person, so I’m clearing the whole eight feet in one go.

Someone’s tied my intestines into one big knot. 

It’s terrifying to be out doing even quasi-superhero things again, but the exhilaration isn’t lessened by that fact.  And it’s even more intense because of how stupid it is to be doing this without a mask on.  I’d never noticed how jumping around like this cuts through my hair.  It’s hard to ignore how nice the weather’s turned, even at night. 

Not that there’s really any alternative.  I can’t stay in my room not sleeping anymore and I can’t just put the costume back on. 

It’s not just that I’ve started getting bleakly philosophical about costuming, seeing my costumed identity as a jack-o-lantern:  hollow and garish.  That the Sentinel’s crusade for peace, justice, and the hope that one day I won’t feel so small feels like the pathetic pipe dream of a damaged child.  It’s that I’m honestly afraid I’ll piss myself if I step outside in it or that I’ll throw up the second I smell the cloying scent of fire wrapping itself around me. 

A coughing fit rattles my lungs and aggravates all the injuries I got from jumping out of a burning building.  I put my hands on my knees and cough ‘til my lungs are raw (which doesn’t take long considering I’ve been coughing like this all day).

There’s next to no wind tonight, but the smell of the apartment building still carries almost a block.  It stinks like the world’s trashiest bonfire.  Wood, metal, plastic, and concrete all went up and most of those have fairly distinct scents.  There was only one reported death in the fire and even though I can’t possibly smell it, I keep catching phantom whiffs of cooked flesh. 

I jump another roof.

All the construction equipment’s gone quiet for the night, but they’ll probably be working twelve hour days to get it done as quickly as humanly possible.  The neighborhood may be poor, but the slumlords who run it aren’t.  They’ll want tenants back in as quickly as possible. 

Before I jump to the building next to the burnt out husk, I see someone sitting on the roof and I pull up short.  He’s sitting on the edge, letting his legs dangle and swing lightly.  It almost looks like his feet are swaying in time to the caution tape’s fluttering, but then I notice he has headphones in and assume it’s more in time with the music.  Losing my privacy really isn’t worth a slightly better view.

I sit down on the corner of this roof.

It was a little weird.  Blaming myself for something so I can get away with something else, but it’s what I had to do to explain away my injuries. 

I was over at the apartment building visiting a friend when the fire started, that’s why no one in the building would really know me.  I fell down the stairs trying to get out, that’s why my shoulders, arms, and back are bruised and why I’m limping a bit.  I was dazed and in the confusion of that masked vigilante trying to rescue people, the paramedics lost track of me, that’s how I managed to wander off. 

“If those damn Illegals would just leave things to the professionals…” the nurse had grumbled.

I just nodded and kept a death grip on Anna’s hand.  Her fingers were bruised the next day and I must’ve spent more time apologizing than I did breathing.  Apologizing and thanking her for coming up with the lies I gave to the nurses because I was too wrecked to know what to say and too paranoid to assume they wouldn’t grill me about why I was there.  But true to Anna’s word, no one tried to stake me to the wall.

Only bits and pieces of the night really push through the mist.  After getting out of the burning building, it’s all clips and phrases.  I don’t remember a single detail of the doctor I saw.  Height, weight, gender, skin color, nothing.  Could’ve been a janitor dressed up in a lab coat for all I knew.

Could’ve been an orangutan in a doctor costume.  Or a doctor in an orangutan costume.

Back home, everyone made a big fuss about me almost getting burned alive.  Susan wasn’t working when I was brought into the hospital, but she made sure everyone was awake and waiting for me when Anna carted me home.  I still don’t know how Anna convinced Susan to stay home instead of dragging the whole house out to the hospital.  The next morning Paul even went in to work a bit late so he could wait for me to wake up.  Just to check-in, I guess.  Susan insisted I stay home from school and turned a blind eye when Anna ditched to stay with me as well.  Boone stood around and looked painfully awkward before making a bad joke about charbroiling myself and catching the bus.  I kinda got the impression he wanted to stay too, but I dunno.

A lot of that day was spent sleeping.  Not very deeply or restfully, but sleeping nonetheless.  Either Susan or Anna were in my room for almost every second of the day.  They stepped outside long enough to let me change when I sleep-sweated through my pajamas, but that was about it.  I’m a little surprised neither of them tried to follow me into the bathroom. 

It wasn’t until that night that I actually slept deeply enough to dream.  Supposedly if you’re not dreaming, you won’t be fully rested when you wake up, but I think that only goes for people who aren’t having bizarre dreams full of melting children’s toys and bones falling through the ceiling and turning to ash.  Every time I got deep enough for dreams, I was quickly and violently jerked back into the land of the living.  If my body hadn’t been so desperate for sleep, I probably would’ve kept myself awake after the first nightmare.  But as it was, I doubt I would’ve been able to delay sleep for more than a few minutes even with the nightmare adrenaline.

Tonight, however, my need for sleep isn’t quite so intense.  So here I am.  Standing on the roof of a building that’s little more than a tenement and staring at the twisted remains of another tenement.

I’m so caught up in my own shit that I barely notice when the guy sitting on the other roof gets up and turns around.  The roof access stairwell is on the other side of the building and there’s nowhere else I can run off to, so I take a deep breath against the mounting anxiety.  Not like exchanging awkward nods with a stranger is gonna kill me.

But instead of pursing his lips and nodding briefly as the Guy Code mandates, he twitches when he sees me and drops his headphones around his neck before offering a sheepish smile.

“Guess I’m not the only one who finds it kinda…fascinating.”

I shrug and hope he’ll leave me alone.

“Like, hypnotic.  I dunno.  There’s something about it that’s hard to look away from.  Even when it gets really kinda depressing to look at.  I put headphones on to block the silence, but I couldn’t walk away.  I didn’t know anyone that lived there or anything…did you?”  He blurts the question out like he’s worried about striking a nerve.

I shake my head.  “No.”

He exhales heavily.  “Good.  Bad enough that it happened at all.”  His eyes roll around the roof, like he’s looking for something that’ll spur further conversation.  “You heard that Sentinel guy busted in mid-blaze trying to save people?”

My intestines untie and retie themselves.  “Yeah.” 

My voice doesn’t sound right, it’s thin and tight, but my new friend doesn’t seem to notice.

“Fucking psycho.  The fire department was making their last sweep when he busted in.  It was getting too hot and they couldn’t risk any of their people even if there was a kid stuck inside.”  He smiles and shakes his head.  “The damn fire department wasn’t willing to risk it and he goes in there just to save one person.  Shit.”

I swallow a few times.  “Yeah?”

“Ten ton balls, man.  Shame he couldn’t save the kid, but just going in there…shit, ya know?”

I guess I’d know better than anyone.

“Shame, yeah.”  My voice is still an awkward croak.

Apparently he’s noticing I don’t sound right now because he’s got this odd look on his face.  “You said you didn’t know anyone that got hurt in the fire, right?”

For a minute, it’s pretty clear how badly I’m losing my mind because I debate actually talking to this guy.  Telling him, no I didn’t know anyone in the building, but it was my fault the kid died.  That I was the Illegal costumed vigilante who barreled into the building half-cocked and was spat back out shortly after. 

It feels like my brain is pulsing and throbbing inside my skull, desperately trying to purge itself.  I don’t know exactly what time it is, but I know Alan won’t be awake.  I’m tempted to call him anyway, tell him to set me up with a shrink first thing tomorrow.  I know it’d mean revealing my costumed escapades because I don’t think patient confidentiality covers that, but it might be worth it.

My chest feels too small; it’s not letting my lungs expand all the way.  I start my deep breathing exercises, but it’s sounding more and more like hyperventilating.  I hunch over and put my hands on my knees.

“Hey, hey, hey…”  I lost track of him for a minute and now he’s less than a foot away from me holding his hands out and looking thoroughly freaked out.  “What’s happening?”

Panic attack, you fucking idiot.

But even as I tell myself what’s happening, which should be the first step toward overcoming it, I can’t remember what I’m supposed to do next.

“Seriously, I’m calling an ambulance.”

I reach out and swat at him for a second until I find his forearm.  I grab hold and shake my head.  Between the recent smoke inhalation and the current panic attack my voice is more of a wheeze than anything else.

“No.  I’m fine.”

His forearm tenses up, but he doesn’t pull away. 

It’s a mild spring night, but I’m sweating.  I’m wearing sweats and a hoodie, but I’m cold.  Either this came on way faster than usual or I was really suppressing my anxiety for awhile.

Let it pass.  It’s going to end.  It’s going to end without killing you.  Let it pass, idiot.

I keep telling myself that over and over.  My mantra.  At some point I all but fall over backwards.  I cross my arms over my knees and rest my head on my forearms.

I don’t know how long it takes, but I start to level out.  The tide rolls back out and the crushing weight of an ocean of anxiety rushes off my chest with one great inhale.  Each following breath eases the weight, steadily expanding my lungs back to their normal size. 

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t ask, but he was not asking far too loudly. 

“Looks like it.”

I turn my head away from my arms and glare weakly.  “No one likes a smartass.”

I speak from experience.

I drop my head onto my forearms again.  We sit in silence for a second.  He breaks it fairly quickly.

“You live around here?”

“No.”  I debate lying about where I live for a moment, before realizing I don’t actually care all that much.  What’s he gonna do with some stranger’s address?  “I live over in Willowwood.”

“Sounds like some fancy gated community or something.”

“Just a middle class neighborhood with illusions of grandeur.  Not all that far away, really.”

He grunts.  “I’m Brandon, by the way.”

I’m starting to feel like a child, curled up on the ground beneath him so I stand up.  When I’m on my feet I offer my hand.  “Wes.”  Smalltalk not being one of my superpowers, I offer up this little gem:  “So where do you go to school?”

“I’m a senior at South.”

South Bluffs.  Is that my school’s rival?  If I had more school spirit, I’d probably know for sure.  Not that it really matters.  “So which building is yours?”

And with that, this is officially the worst first impression I’ve ever made.  And that’s counting the times I was actively trying to make a bad one.

He taps his foot lightly on the roof.

“This one, actually.”

I nod like that’s interesting information and wish I had a question worth asking.

He breaks this silence too.

“Supposed to rain tonight.  Wondered if it’s laying off to let people like us take in the view.”

“Just waiting for the most dramatic moment to loose a downpour on us, I’m sure.”

Brandon snorts.  “Probably.”

Another pause.

I fill it with a few coughs before Brandon breaks it again, with a small smile this time.

“You’re not gonna spaz out on me again, are you?”

“I didn’t spaz.”

“You kinda spazzed.  There was hyperventilating.”

I scowl.  “You should be careful about insulting strangers.  Hitchhikers could be escaped mental patients and all that.”

That earns me a good laugh.  “Guess I assumed if you were gonna strangle me with your straightjacket you’d have done so before I fanboyed all over the Sentinel.”

“True.  Damn…missed my opening…”

“So I never asked what school you went to?”

“East.  Go Flying Badgers…or whatever our mascot is…”

Is this actually how normal people make friends?  Am I actually making a friend or is this guy just too polite to tell me to fuck off?

Probably both.

“Your school spirit blows.”

“That’s because I’m not showing my midriff, three quarters of my thigh, and there aren’t any pompoms on hand.  It’s a package deal.  And when it all comes together…”  I make an exploding motion with my hands.

He sighs dramatically.  “Shame I’m straight or that’d be a sight to see.”

I consider giving him my number, telling him to hit me up.  I have next to no friends, so whenever he wants to chill, I’ll be free.  However, my usual social ineptitude (multiplied by my current state of skullfucked) is telling me that it’d be weird considering our present circumstances.  All of four minutes ago he was trying to call an ambulance to cart me away for a panic attack. 

So, instead of doing something social, I look around a bit and wave.  “Alright, I think I’ve had my fill for tonight.  Plenty of other tragic sites to hit on my sightseeing tour.”

Before jumping the first roof, Brandon shouts after me.  “Brandon Tate.  Hit me up on Facebook if you get bored of all the sightseeing.”

I look over my shoulder.  “Tate.  Got it.”

I start jumping the gaps in what I hope is a more normal-looking way and debate just waiting for Brandon to go back inside before coming back, but I’ve already had more than my fill.  Clearly, I’m a masochist, but everyone’s got a line and apparently my line stops me shy of two embarrassingly pathetic panic attacks per day. 

Probably for the best.  Just jumping around like this is starting to give me the shakes.  Anxiety sucks.  Ejecting myself out of a third story window sucks.  Smoke inhalation sucks. 

Fuck this, I’m going home.

Nuclear Family Fission Revisited

No new story this week, but for those of you who follow the blog (real or imaginary), I'd recommend rereading Nuclear Family Fission.  I made some revisions and decided now was the time to properly introduce it into the novel.

It's a good thing people don't actually keep up with my blog or there might be some folks getting irritated by the lack of new content.  Hooray for minuscule readership!

Held Hands and Hate Crimes

The bus is abuzz with gossip when I step on.  Boone heads back to his usual group and though they immediately start talking, I kinda doubt it’s about the same thing as everyone else.  Boone’s never seemed like the gossipy sort.

Unfortunately for me, some of Anna’s friends are.

We plop down in an aisle across from Haley Zuelch and Monica Demanski.  They start chattering away before we’ve even settled in.  For the most part, I can handle the two of them.  They’re decent people.  But once a piece of gossip is on the wind, they can’t help but spread it as far and as fast as humanly possible.  I slump back against the window and Anna squeezes my hand.  I can’t tell if it’s an “I’m sorry about this” kinda hand squeeze or a “hang in there” or just “I felt you slip away a bit and didn’t wanna let go”, but I give her a quick squeeze back.  Neither of us is huge on public displays (it’s really only fun when you’re trying to make people uncomfortable and that’s not what I want Anna and I to be), but we’ve labeled handholding as PG enough for both of our tastes. 

“—like she thought it would never get out or something.”  Monica’s already on a roll.

“And of all the music they could’ve been doing that to, why did they pick Alice in Chains?” Haley makes a face as she says it, as if music about drugs and self-loathing is somehow inappropriate. 

Some people.

Anna laughs.  “Haley, did you even know that band existed before you saw their video?”

“Well…no, but I do now and I just don’t get it.”

Anna’s not one to spread gossip and she likes to give people who do a little bit of shit, but she’s a more socially normal high school student than I am.  The latest rumors hold some intrigue for her.  Which is fine, the only reason they don’t interest me is because I find most people intolerably boring so why would I wanna hear second-hand stories about their boring lives?

“And,” Anna continues, “of all the things for you to be worrying about here, the music is what you pick?”

Haley sighs, clearly a little off-put by Anna’s difficulty.  “No, I think you know what I’m most concerned about in all this—”

I don’t say “spreading meaningless bullshit about people’s personal lives that won’t matter to anyone in a couple days” out loud because last time I was rude to Anna’s friends she got so far up my ass I felt her using my lungs as speed bags.  Apparently the difference between what she does and what I do is that I’m a bit of a dick.  Oh, and I’m not actually friends with them so it just comes off as mean.  Who knew?

“—everyone knew they weren’t gonna last.  I don’t know what made her think making a video like that was a good idea…”

I’m getting so tired of catching random snippets of conversations that I’m tempted to just ask what the hell they’re talking about.  I’d much rather just tell them to shut the fuck up, but once again, frowned upon by the pretty young woman who is currently slumming it with me.  So, rather than having to spend the entire bus ride tuning the world out, I decide to give being a normal high school student a try.

When Monica and Haley both stop to take a breath, I jump in.  “So what are you guys talking about?”

Both of them give me a wide-eyed look like I’ve just asked who the Beatles are.  Then again, they probably find being behind on the latest school news far more blasphemous.  Anna just stares at me in a mixture of shock and dismay.  If I wasn’t already so sure that I’m gonna regret asking, I would sure as shit know it now.

“Elizabeth Lauter and Raj Sharma broke up yesterday.  Apparently it was apocalyptic.  I mean, they always fought,” Monica tells me this as if I obviously already knew it, “but this time she threw his iPod at him and chipped one of his front teeth before leaving.  Later that day, Raj posted a video of them online.  It was the two of them, Liz giving him a lap dance and then the two of them having sex.  All of it completely on camera.”

And, like, isn’t that just the most scandalous thing you’ve ever heard?

Instead I ask, “What song was playing?”

Anna snorts and rolls her eyes, but Monica and Haley just look at me like I’m not nearly as funny as I think I am.  I get that look a lot.

I offer a sheepish smile that only Anna can tell is fake.  She squeezes my hand again and purses her lips to hide a smile.  “Just curious.  You mentioned Alice in Chains earlier.”  I shrug.  “I went through a grunge phase awhile back.”

“Is the music really what you’re most worried about?”  Haley turns a little pink when Monica scolds me.

I just shrug.  “Mostly.  I don’t care what they do with their personal time and it’s no skin off my ass if they’re dumb enough to make a sex tape.”

I can tell Monica is looking for a polite way to stop talking to me.  Apparently I’m not very much fun.  That’s okay.  I’m not all that interested anyway.  Tried to be normal.  Didn’t give a shit.

I put one earbud in and spend the rest of the bus ride stroking Anna’s knuckles with my thumb and listening to Alice in Chains. 

When we pull up to the school I hold Anna back a second to let her friends get a head start.  She smiles at me.  “You almost gave the two of them brain aneurysms.”

I shrug.  “I don’t get why you’re such good friends with them when pretty much all they do is gossip.”

“That’s just all you see them do.  They’re really sweet most of the time.  You should actually spend some time with us.”

I try not to bristle at her using “us” to describe the three of them and not the two of us.  This whole being in a caring relationship thing comes with a few obnoxious side effects—like being extra sensitive about “us” stuff.  I’m not a big fan of being sensitive about anything.  Sarcastic and irritating is so much easier. 

“I don’t know what you guys do for fun…”  But I doubt it’s my kinda thing.

“Well, it’s getting warm enough for the pools to open up.”  Anna smiles like she knows exactly what I was thinking.  “But I don’t want you to feel obligated or anything…”

I stop for a second and try to think of anything I wouldn’t do if it involved Anna in a bathing suit.

…

Nope.  Not a damn thing.

I smile.

****

Fridays in Modern American History class is article day.  Two people bring in recent news articles, stand in front of the class, summarize, and then give their thoughts on the matter.  I’m one of today’s two, me and Emerald.  Emerald, unlike me, is ridiculously smart and ridiculously interested in school work.  Her little report is gonna be way better than mine (and I don’t mean that just because I picked the first article I saw last night), so I volunteer to go first.  I may not care all that much about school, but no one wants to follow Emerald. 

I stand and deliver a monotone spiel about a failed attempt to free a political prisoner being held by North Korea.  It’s not that I don’t care about personal liberties or the poor treatment of prisoners, I just hate that Mr. Karimov thinks he can make me care by assigning a grade to this shit.  When I finish, I give a little bow (earning a few snickers and eye rolls) to lethargic applause, and sit back down.

Emerald steps to the front of the class and reads her headline.

“Murder of Post-Human Teen, Dennis Reaves, Being Investigated as a Hate Crime.”

Okay, how was that not the top news story when I was online last night?

Emerald continues.  “So, this is one plenty of people are probably unaware of since it happened a little after midnight.  But a high school kid from the Bluffs was killed last night.  The police found him with ‘Restore Balance’ carved into his back in an alley a few blocks from his house.  For those who don’t know, Restore Balance is a radical anti-post-human group that takes actions similar to the Weather Underground that Mr. Karimov mentioned in class the other day.  What makes this unusual as well as tragic is that Restore Balance, like the Weather Underground before it, doesn’t generally commit violent crimes directly against people.  They’ve vandalized, sabotaged, and even leaked secrets, but before today they were bloodless extremists.”

That’s an awfully civilized title for an organization built on a foundation of hate crimes.

“No official statement has been made by Restore Balance to take credit for the killing—”

I snort loudly enough to break Emerald’s train of thought for a second.  She frowns at me.

“—but police are working under the assumption that what you see is what you get.  OPHR has also been called in to aid in the investigation, but hasn’t released a statement of its own.”

She takes a deep breath, like maybe she’s steadying herself for another skeptical snort.  When she starts back up, her words tumble out fairly quickly.

“Personally, I’m not convinced Restore Balance is actually responsible for this.  While I am in no way sympathetic toward the cause, this is the first connection to or even allegation of murder connected to their organization.  I just figure that if they’re going to change their MO all the sudden, they’d broadcast their reasons for all the world to hear.”  She purses her lips and nods.  “Thank you.”

The applause is even more sporadic for her than it was for me.  She clearly did a better job, but she did a better job on a touchier subject.  I’m sure there’s at least one person in the room who isn’t all that fond of post-humans and there’s probably a couple people who are hardcore pro-post-human activists, but the vast majority of people just wanna get by without getting involved.  It’s that group that doesn’t want to clap too loud for fear of being labeled as having an opinion or something.

The school’s wi-fi barely covers this building, but at least I don’t have to worry about Karimov catching me on my phone.  He’s up front, pacing and lecturing and gesturing at his PowerPoint, and as long as I look up from time to time and turn the page of my notebook, it’ll just look like I’m being vaguely studious.  Which would probably look suspicious if Karimov wasn’t so focused on his lecturing. 

Lucky me.

It doesn’t take me long to find the article.  Turns out, hate crimes make for good news.  The first site reports it the same way Emerald did and I wonder if this isn’t the site she got it from.  When the next two sites are all nearly identical I’m about to give up on finding out any breaking developments. 

Ugh.  Why do the police even bother investigating crimes if they can’t solve them within a couple hours?

My knee starts bouncing without my express consent and when I stop it from bouncing, my fingers start drumming on my desk.  I’m neither Batman nor a private investigator, but I’m still having to fight off a nearly overwhelming urge to go out and try my hand at some detective work.  Which is unwise on a number of levels.  For one, I’m not a detective.  I am, in fact, the exact opposite of a detective:  some random, untrained teenager.  And, more importantly, last time I went out in broad daylight in costume I couldn’t go five feet without being gawked at or chasing people off.  Guess I’m gonna have to sit around and wait for this to get resolved like a normal person. 

I refresh each of the three news sites I’m on five times. 

No new updates.

****

When I get back to the house, Susan’s waiting.  Which isn’t the same thing as her just being home.  It’s easy to tell when someone’s walking with a purpose and this is the same thing.  She’s home with a purpose.  When she hears the door, she pokes her head out into the hall and when she sees me, she waves. 

“Wes, can we talk?”

No one ever asks to talk unless at least one person won’t like what’s gonna be talked about.

“Certainly seems like it.”

Susan sighs.  “No, I mean really.  Can I talk to you about something?”

“Fine.  But whatever it is, I’m reasonable sure this time that I really didn’t do it.”  Which is only a half-lie, since from the second Susan caught me sneaking into the house in-costume I’ve felt uncontrollable guilt every time she tries to have a talk with me about anything.

She gives me a pained look and clenches and unclenches her fists spastically for a second.  “Wesley.”

I purse my lips and remind myself that with all the shit she puts up with from me, I probably owe her a few minutes of serious conversation, painful though it may be to admit.  “Okay.  Whatcha got?”

“Well…I’m not really sure where to start with this…I don’t know what you know…I haven’t actually had much time to think about how I want to say this…”

Oh God, just say it.  Whatever it is can’t be as uncomfortable as this build up.

“But word has gotten around that two of your classmates made a…personal video and…I thought this might be a good time to talk to you…”

No!  No, go back to the build up!

“You and Anna are both good, smart people, but I know how things can be at your age…”

I can’t possibly have done anything to deserve this!

“You’re both fairly young still and I know you…feel certain things and think a certain way right now…but I really hope you two are…”

While she grasps for a word, I wonder if it’s possible for my face to get any redder without being water boarded with auto paint.  I can feel wavy lines of heat radiating off of my ears like asphalt on a hot day.  If I could pay a post-human criminal to bust into my house and start a fight right now, I would.  Without hesitation.

My only consolation is that Susan can’t actually know what Anna and I are up to.  Not that we’ve done anything sex tape worthy, but still.  If I could keep Susan from knowing we even held hands, I would.

Susan digs her thumb into the palm of her hand.  “I don’t want to sit you down and shove a lesson down your throat.  My parents did that and it never worked.  I got mad and stopped listening.  They got frustrated and started yelling.  And after it was all said and done…I usually went out and did exactly what they told me not to.  Even if I hadn’t planned on doing it before.”

Huh.  That’s new information.  I didn’t really figure Susan for having a “fuck you!” side.  Then again, I’ve never really considered that Susan might’ve been a teenager at one point in her life.

“I think we can both agree that I’m fairly lenient with you and Boone.  I may get on your case about your…costumed activities, but I let you guys get away with a lot.  You come and go as you please, so long as you leave a note or let Paul or I know where you’re going and when you’ll be back.  We don’t harass you about homework.  We look the other way on profanity.  We respect your privacy.  And by this point I think you know Paul and I talked you up a bit to Anna’s parents when you two started dating.”

I feel real guilt well up, not the almost compulsive kind from earlier.  When she lays it all out like that, I feel like an asshole for giving her any trouble at all.

“And I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here as well.  Paul and I talked about how we wanted to handle things when Boone started dating.  Admittedly, some of the same precautions don’t apply to him…”

What with the difficulty of him getting pregnant with another guy.

“But the principles remained the same.  We wanted to trust him and we want to trust you.  Plus, unless we want to lock you in your room, we can’t stop you from going out and doing what you’re going to do.  And I think in your case, even locking you in your room wouldn’t work.”  She smiles a tight smile that can’t decide whether it means she’s okay with that fact or if it still stresses her out.  “So I’m going to struggle to tell you the same thing I struggled to tell Boone:  we trust you, please use your best judgment, and be respectful.”

If I weren’t such a manly man, Susan telling me she trusts me would make my eyes feel a little hot and wet.  But I am, so my rapid blinking is just because something flew into my eye at an inconvenient moment.

I swallow and nod.  “Thanks Susan.”

She hesitates for a moment before reaching out and giving me a hug.  I let her, awkwardly returning her hug with one arm just before she pulls back.  This time, when she smiles it’s closer to her normal levels of cheeriness.

“Oh, and since Paul couldn’t get home in time to do his part in this, I’ll have to do it on his behalf:  sex is a natural, wonderful thing and you should enjoy it.”

Yup.  There’s a surefire way to torpedo my libido.

Goddammit Paul.

****

“I’m really not a fan of this socially conscious thing you’ve got going on here.”

“Fuck off, Boone.”

Susan sighs.  “Would you two stop?”

Paul throws a piece of popcorn at Boone.  “Yeah.  Don’t discourage his interest in the daily goings on around us.  If he isn’t nurtured, he might wanna stop watching the evening news and if that happens then I have to stop watching the evening news.  I like having a television majority.”

Boone rolls his eyes.  “I’m just trying to do him a favor here.  The whole ‘I’m too cool to try at school, but secretly I actually care about things’ bit is all kinds of cliché.”  He looks up at Paul with his most innocent, concerned look.  “And you wouldn’t want to raise a cliché, would you?”

Paul holds a finger up to his lips, shushing Boone.  “I’m too busy getting my way to pretend I believe you.”

Susan tries hiding a smile and swats Paul’s shoulder.  I take a minute to figure out if I can give Boone the finger without anyone else in the room noticing.  Victory without mockery is a hollow thing indeed.  I don’t quite manage it.  Paul throws a piece of popcorn at me and rolls his eyes, but he’s wise enough to know it’s useless trying to keep us from getting after each other. 

It doesn’t take long for the news to get to the murder and when it does I’m left a little cold.

Bad enough that there’s a radical organization that thinks people like me are abominations.  Being a part of any kind of minority earns you some degree of animosity.  Worse still that said organization might be willing to murder some kid for being what they see as an abomination, but again, there are some bastards looking for any excuse to gun down kids of a different color. 

And then there’s this.  Some macho high school showdown gone wrong.  Two kids never got along and it didn’t get any better when the blatantly anti-post-human guy found out what the other guy was.  Not that similar things haven’t happened before.  Gang affiliations, sexual orientation, and race have all led to violent situations like this.  But I guess it doesn’t really matter that this stuff also happens in the real world, it’s still the worst option of the three.

Those groups, those are adults.  Adults dedicated to hate.  But people my age?  Most of them aren’t dedicated to anything.  Most of them probably aren’t capable of real dedication.

But this kid?  He’s dedicated now.  They’ll probably try him as an adult.  He’ll be that guy who committed a hate crime.  And murder, at that.  He’s buried himself way behind the eight ball as far as making up for high school mistakes goes.  Might end up being easier for him to just roll into the mistake.  Especially if he serves time.

I can’t tell if I’m sadder or angrier about this.

And then it occurs to me that in an attempt to get away with it, he mutilated the other kid’s body.  Anger takes the lead.

I manage to excuse myself without swearing and walk up to my room without storming off, so when I get up to my room I feel rather entitled to some sort of outburst.  I’m sorely tempted to put a hole in the wall, but I know I’d just feel bad about it later and patch it up myself.  Even still, I consider it.  It’s not even nine o’clock, but if I’m not gonna punch something here I might have to head out and about to find something to punch.

Have you ever had one of those lives where everything seems to go wrong?

Magnetic Moment

“Oh, come on!”

Boone snorts, finally getting his breathing back to normal.

“It’s hard enough to get any respect without everyone thinking I’m some idiot teenage Peter Parker wannabe!”

“Aren’t you just some idiot teenage Peter Parker wannabe?”

I glare.

“That is so freaking beside the point!  As if I didn’t get enough shit as it is, now I’m gonna get ‘kiddo’ and ‘sport’ thrown my way like a hot chick catching cat calls!  There is no way I deserve this!”

Boone ruffles his hair.  “I think you deserve it.”

“You’re an asshole.”

Anna pokes her head in.

“Why’s Boone an asshole?”

I arch an eyebrow at her.  “That might be the most ridiculous question I’ve ever heard.”

She rolls her eyes, “Okay, why is Boone an asshole now?”

I grumble and wish I could throw something at the television.  “Some damn reporter-guy poked around in my costuming business, talking to some of the people I helped or jailed and even the police who cleaned up after me.  Nobody said anything slanderous like I kicked their baby but the general consensus seemed to be that they were dealing with a…” I wince and sigh and wish everyone would leave me alone, “plucky young man looking out for the average citizen.”

There’s a pregnant moment of silence before the dam breaks and Boone, still a little short of breath, looses a fresh gale of laughter.  Anna follows shortly after, neither willing nor able to hold back for the sake of my dignity.  She falls forward onto my chair, draped over the back for a minute before falling to the floor.

I look over the arm of the chair at her.  “I hope that hurt.”

“Y-you’re—you’re plucky!”  She jams her fist against her mouth, shaking.

I hear something coming from the kitchen.  I think even Susan’s laughing at me.  She doesn’t approve of what I’m doing and she’s laughing at me.  My life sucks so unimaginably much. 

Boone can’t even form coherent words.  He just mumbles a string of muted vowels and consonants in between throat-strangling bouts of laughter.  I throw the remote at him.  He gets his arms over his head in time to block it, but the remote still makes a satisfying whump against his forearm.

I lean the recliner back as far as it’ll go and pull my hood over my head.

The microwave bleats and Susan calls Anna back in to collect her popcorn.  It takes a minute for her to regain enough composure to stand and she’s still wheezing when she heads back to the kitchen but she manages.  Boone’s crying.  Tears are actually welling up in his eyes.  Susan comes in, sounding a little out of breath.  I try to lean further into my hood like maybe I’ll fall into the abyss if I can only push my skull a little further back.

“Alright, you guys it’s past my bedtime.  Sleep well and don’t stay up too late.”  Susan leans over the back of my chair and squeezes my shoulder.  “Stay plucky, dear.”

I growl and suffer through another round of breathless laughter.

“You people are the worst.  I hope you know that.”

“Yeah!”  When Boone comes to my aid, I know something’s about to go wrong.  Well, more wrong.  “You’re all gonna regret picking on a nice young man like Wesley!  For shame.”

Susan has to stop climbing the stairs for a second to catch her breath.  Anna comes in pressing a bowl of kettle corn against her stomach to keep from dropping it, but she can’t stop a few pieces from rolling down the sides and to the floor.  She holds it out between us, pressing her lips together and trying to look bashful.  The hysterical, lunatic laughter rolling around her eyes undermines the attempt a bit.

“I brought you a peace offering.”

I glare at her for a second but can’t really get any oomph behind it.  I make what I hope is a properly begrudging face and tilt my head from side to side.

“I accept your apology.”

Anna scooches onto my lap, leaning against my chest and dangling her legs over the edge.  Wherever she makes contact with me goes hot and tingly.  I sit still and hope that if neither of us moves for a few seconds I’ll be able to bring my heart rate back to healthy levels.  And keep control of...other things.

“And I never said I was apologizing, that was fucking hilarious.  I’m just offering popcorn and my company to soothe your tortured soul.”

I scrunch up my face and shrug.  “Suppose that’s close enough.”

I root around the kettle corn with my left hand.  I’d almost forgotten how much I love the stuff.  It’s like someone drizzled sweet wonderfulness on salty popcorn.  I chew through a few handfuls of popcorn until I’m sure that Boone’s caught up in what’s on TV and kiss Anna’s neck once, twice, three times.  She presses more tightly against me.

I suppose I’ve had worse nights.

“If you two are gonna start that shit, I’m going upstairs.”

And just like that, a flash fire breaks out across my face.  Whoops.

Anna shifts herself as far to the outside of my thigh as she can, as if she’s decided sitting on my lap wasn’t a particularly good idea.  I find myself simultaneously agreeing and damning the notion to hell.  This must be what adults are always talking about when they use their condescending tone of voice and mention “raging hormones”.  Fuck, I hate when people other than me are both condescending and right. 

Anna bites her lip for a second before sliding off my leg and onto the floor, taking the kettle corn with her.  I can’t help but feel this wouldn’t be so awkward if we weren’t so fresh off a big fight.  It’s not true, neither of us are big fans of public displays, but it’s hard to shake the feeling.  We’re still sort of feeling each other out again.

Anna sets the bowl in Boone’s lap.

“I think my eyes were bigger than my stomach.  You wanna finish it?”

“You sure?”

She nods.  “Yeah, it’s getting late anyway.  If I eat all that now, I’ll still be digesting an hour and a half after I should be asleep.”

You’d think sooner or later, karma would have to start breaking my way.  I’m not a big fan of accepting I.O.U.’s, but I don’t think there’s much room to argue with the forces that shape the universe.  I’ll just have to hope there really is a sense of balance to things.

I hop off the chair and walk Anna to the door.  You wouldn’t think twenty feet could encompass all that much awkward, but I assure you, it most certainly can.

It’s a bit of a strain to wish her a more sophisticated good-bye than monosyllabic grunts.  “I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow.”

An awkward smile and a kiss on the cheek from Anna and she’s out the door.

Not a good day.

****

Boone snores like a small, well-worn bellows being pumped slowly and carefully.  A raspy inhale, slight pause, and a long wheeze.  It’s not loud enough to keep anyone awake, but it’s hard not to notice in the silence of 2:17am.  Thoughts of Anna and I keep winding their way around my wondering what it means that I’m getting all this media coverage.  Both of which crash over the nagging worry that all this attention is gonna get me in trouble with the bigoted folks who just wish us post-human freaks would leave the regular people alone.  And that’s not even considering what OPHR might be thinking of the displays of the Sentinel.  Them being the big-shot post-human organization, I imagine they keep track of as much post-human activity as they can.  And I still haven’t let go of my grudge against Boone.  I stare at the ceiling, watching the shadows twist and wave, not really trying to get to sleep anymore.

Inhale. 

Pause. 

Wheeze.

It’s official.  I can’t sleep. 

Seems like a good time to sneak out the back door and burn off a bit of restless energy.  After all, it is Saturday morning.  Not like I have anything to wake up for.

****

An overturned ice cream truck.  Of all the things I expected to see tonight, an overturned ice cream truck wasn’t even on my radar.  Overturned and lying in the middle of the street with the rear door ripped off.  The door’s on the sidewalk nearby.  I climb on top of the truck—er, I guess I’m climbing onto the side of it technically—and look around.  No signs of explosives, no spike strips; I don’t see anything that could flip a big truck like this.  The front end isn’t crumpled either. 

What the shit?

I squat down over the driver’s side door.  No one’s home.  No blood either, thankfully.  Seatbelt’s not cut.  The airbag’s been deployed and deflated.  I pull the door open and lower myself into the cab.  It’s a narrow fit and when I crouch down to get a better look at things, it feels even narrower.  I have to keep my knees bent straight ahead or I won’t fit at all.  Glass crunches beneath my boots.  The keys aren’t even in the ignition.  

Seriously, what the shit?

I can’t even begin to figure out where to go from here.

Pressure’s starting to build in my temples like my head’s been dropped on a workbench and clamped in a vice.  This is definitely not helping me sleep.  Why do I do these things?  I climb back out and sit down over the front of the truck, letting my legs dangle.  Truck’s flipped for no reason.  No sign of anything or anyone.  No one’s investigating.  Doesn’t even seem like anyone’s called the cops. 

What is an ice cream truck even doing driving around this late?

I hop down and walk around to the back of the truck.  I poke my head in.  It’s cool in there, but not freezer-cold.  Same temperature as the outside world.  Maybe the motor burnt out or maybe it just stops working once the truck’s engine stops running.  I dunno.

I’m about to take a closer look inside when that hair-raising, eyes-boring-into-the-back-of-my-head sensation washes over me so intensely that I actually expect someone to tap me on the shoulder and ask me to “please step away from the vehicle with your fingers laced and placed on top of your head”.  I turn, running my eyes over the street.  A car drives down a cross-street two blocks away.  Someone’s yappy little pocket-dog yips inanely.  I shift my gaze to the rooftops.  Steam billows up from a couple roofs.  Nothing else.  No cop leveling a service pistol at me.  No criminal crew rocking assault rifles, ski masks, and covered in ice cream.  No manically grinning super villain types prowling the roofs.  I take a couple deep breaths, (hold them, and then exhale) trying to steady the overly enthusiastic beating of my heart.

Getting worked up over what’s probably just some soccer mom with insomnia peeking out her bedroom window.  Great.

Back to the truck.  It’s hard to shake the feeling that someone’s watching me, even if the actual feeling itself is mostly gone.  But unless I’m willing to comb every inch of the block at street-level and then on the roofs, I’m gonna have to ignore it and get on with life. 

I spend thirty seconds in the truck before the headache comes back, bulling past the feeling of being watched and reestablishing itself as the dominant presence in my head.  There’s no ice cream in the truck either, just a couple empty boxes.

I quit.  Sooner or later someone else is gonna find this and they can figure it out or outsource it to Batman or whatever it is that needs to be done to solve the Ice Cream Truck Mystery (sounds like a freaking Nancy Drew book) and I’ll catch the outcome in the news.  If I keep at this I’m just gonna fry my brain and spend the rest of my weekend a useless vegetable.  Mind you, that’s not a huge outward change from my usual weekend behavior, but the constant headache I’d be contending with is something I’m just not willing to deal with. 

I step out of the back and poke the tires (nothing) before officially calling it quits.  No use beating my head against a wall. 

Not the best night out I’ve ever had.

****

“—about you.”

I think I missed something.

“What?”

Anna rolls her eyes.  “Carla Flores.  That reporter with a thing for post-humans?  She talks about you in her latest article.”

After the last bit of publicity I got, I kinda wish people would just leave me alone.

“What does she say?”

“Good things.  You’ll have to read for yourself if you want more.”

“I think I’d prefer if someone just called me a menace and started a campaign against me.  I’m getting pretty tired of everyone saying nice things about me.  No one’s scared of the nice superhero.”

Anna pats my cheek.  “Poor baby.  Do you want me to go talk to them and tell them to be nicer to you?”

“No!”  I crease my forehead and frown, pouting.  “That’s the exact opposite of what I want!”

Anna presses her lips together, smothering a laugh.

I growl and turn back to the TV.  It would probably be easier to check online news sites for an update on the Ice Cream Truck Mystery, but my laptop’s all the way upstairs and I really don’t feel like fetching it.  Physically gifted post-humans are entitled to a bit of laziness too, especially on Saturday mornings. 

“And in this morning’s post-human news, an overturned ice cream truck was discovered last night on Mason Street downtown.  The truck was turned onto its side and the rear door was ripped off, no injuries were reported.  The police gave an official statement this morning, connecting this bizarre event with the post-human vigilante known as Lodestone.  Known for her magnetic powers and work targeting child offenders, Lodestone is believed to be responsible for rescuing a child that had been imprisoned in the back of the truck by two men looking to sell her into slavery.  In a statement taken by the police, the victim said that Lodestone stopped the truck as they were passing a stop sign, turned it over, and rescued her from the truck.  With the victim safe, Lodestone apprehended the men, left them on the front steps of the police station, and brought the victim to the hospital.  With…”

“Magnetic powers?  Come on!  How was I supposed to figure that out?  I would’ve ranked alien prank above Lady Magneto…”

Anna looks over at me like I’ve just sprouted a horn and a couple tails.  “What?”

“I found that truck last night.  That overturned ice cream truck full of kiddy pervs?  I found it overturned and completely empty last night.  I couldn’t sleep so I went out and about and I found the truck they were talking about, but I couldn’t figure the first thing out about it.”  I shrug.  “So I left, vowed to catch it on the news from the mouths of people who got it from the mouths of experts, and now here I am.  Thoroughly confused.”

She presses her lips over a smile.  “You found an overturned ice cream truck and your first thought was aliens?”

“What?  No.  Well, not my first thought…and you weren’t there last night.  That shit was eerie.”

She pats my cheek.  “I’m sure it was, Wes.”

I shrug her hand off and pretend not to notice how hot my face is.  “It wasn’t a serious thought or anything…I just...shut up.”

Anna grins.