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Author: Charlie Farrow

Chapter 12 – You Know Me So Well

Eleven Months Before Impact Day

However good I’d felt the night before, it clearly didn’t last through to the next day. I spent pretty much the entire day staring out the window, lost in thought. That probably wouldn’t have been a problem on a weekend, but it was a school day, and I found myself being scolded more than once for not paying attention. Liz and Aidan kept throwing me concerned looks, and I knew there was a lecture coming later.

Thankfully, they didn’t mention it until after school, when we were all back home and hanging out in Aidan’s room. His room was smaller than mine, but a whole lot neater. I was staring absently at the wall when he prodded me.

“Hey, you okay there?

“Huh?” I asked, snapping out of it. “Fine. Why?”

“You’ve been distant all day,” Liz said. “Seems like something might be bothering you.”

“Oh. No, I’m fine. Just thinking about stuff,” I told them, which was technically true.

“What kind of stuff?” Aidan prompted.

“Stuff like you being nosy,” I said, a little more sharply than I’d intended.

“That was a bit rude,” Liz chided.

“Sorry.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Aidan asked, sounding more concerned than annoyed. Was I really being that obvious?

“Just confused, I guess,” I blurted out, then immediately felt my face turn red. I hadn’t meant to say anything at all.

Liz and Aidan exchanged glances, then looked back at me, surprised. Clearly they weren’t expecting me to open up about it either.

“That’s not like you,” Liz said. “What’s up?”

Don’t say anything, don’t say anything, don’t say anything.

“Just… relationship stuff,” I said. Idiot. I still wasn’t going to give them any details, but maybe I could vent some of what I was feeling. It wasn’t like they’d let me back out of the conversation anyway, so I figured I should at least try and get something out of it.

“Well, that’s unexpected,” Aidan said, suddenly looking a little uncomfortable.

“Something you want to tell us about?” Liz asked, also looking a little less than happy. What was their deal?

“No, it’s not like that,” I lied. It bothered me that they both seemed to relax at that “I’ve just… I’ve never really thought of myself as a relationship-y sort of person, you know?”

“You do sort of give off that vibe,” Aidan said.

“I guess I’m just wondering about that, lately.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Liz said encouragingly.

“I feel like there is. I would be rubbish in a relationship,” I said, a little bitterly.

“What makes you say that?” Aidan asked.

“Well, you know what I’m like,” I said. “I’m sarcastic and kind of weird. And not exactly good at relationship-type things.”

“Charlie, what do you think relationships are about?” Liz asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

“You know, being nice, talking about feelings, making the other person happy, supporting them when they’re down, that sort of thing. All the things I suck at.”

Pity party, table for one.

“You don’t suck at those things,” Aidan said, “you’re just not used to them. You just need to date someone who knows what you’re like, and who’ll be patient as you figure that stuff out.”

Would Rachel be patient?

“And what if I never figure that stuff out?” I demanded. None of that stuff came naturally to me, and it didn’t seem like stuff you could just learn. What if I just wasn’t cut out for relationships?

“There are people who will love you regardless,” Liz said, and Aidan nodded in agreement.

“I doubt that,” I muttered. What if I can’t be what Rachel wants, and she leaves me?

“Hey, you’re a pain in the arse, and I still love you,” Aidan said.

“I do too,” Liz added. “Just the way you are.”

Somehow, that didn’t actually make me feel that much better. Just because they loved me as a friend didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. They didn’t depend on me the way a partner would, so I’d never had the chance to let them down. If I had, they’d probably feel very differently.

“Hmph,” I grunted.

“No, seriously,” Aidan said. “You’re a wonderful person, and anyone who can’t see that isn’t worth your time.”

I had no idea how to respond to that. My brain felt a little like it was short-circuiting.

“Alright, alright, don’t do that,” I said, shaking my head emphatically.

“What, are we embarrassing you?” Liz teased.

“You’re damn right you are,” I told her. “Saps.”

“Well, we’re saps who love you,” Aidan said. “So deal with it.”

I threw a pillow at him, aware I was demonstrating the emotional maturity of a five-year-old. I did feel a little better, though. It was nice to be reassured I wasn’t a complete failure of a person. At least they would never leave me.

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing video games and generally enjoying ourselves. Liz stayed for dinner, then went home. Aidan and I spent a couple of hours doing our homework together. After he went to bed, I snuck out again.

I needed to talk to Rachel. All of this shit that was going through my mind, it only had one logical conclusion. Rachel was too important to me to lose. I couldn’t lie to her, or pretend to be someone or something I’m not, but if there was anyone I could be honest with, it was her.

There was nobody I trusted more than her. Not Sadie, not Aidan or Liz. I loved them all dearly, but Rachel, she was my…

Well, I didn’t have a word for what she was. That was why I needed to talk to her. Alone.

Half an hour later, I was creeping in Rachel’s back door, praying her mum wouldn’t see me. To my surprise, it didn’t even seem like she was home. I pushed open Rachel’s door and went inside.

“Hey,” I said, surprising her. She looked up from the book she was reading, and smiled nervously.

“Uh, hey. Mum didn’t see you, did she?”

“Nope,” I said confidently.

“You’re sure?” she asked, dubious.

“Dude, she isn’t even here.”

“Seriously?”

“Well, I didn’t see her,” I clarified.

“She must have a date,” Rachel said. “She never mentions them to me. I think she’s worried I’ll invite friends over if I know she won’t be home.”

“You have friends?” I teased.

“Shut up.”

I crept up closer to her, trying to get a look at the book she was reading. She hastily slammed it shut and threw it in a drawer, glaring at me. I smirked back at her.

“So, are you busy?”

“That depends,” she said cautiously.

“On?”

“How nicely you ask.” She smiled devilishly at me, freeing her hair from the hair tie she’d pulled it back with, and letting it fall around her face. Somehow, she actually managed to make it look elegant, the way it does in movies.

“I’ll just be going, then,” I bluffed. I had to admit, it was a little difficult to do when she looked at me like that. It was getting harder and harder not to admit how I felt about her.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said.

I stuck my tongue out at her, which made her giggle. Then we just kind of looked at each other awkwardly. After a few seconds of that, I remembered what I’d come to say.

“Are you hungry?”

She frowned. I knew food was a sort point for her, but I really just wanted an excuse to get her out of the house. With her mum gone, there was no better night for it.

“Charlie…”

“C’mon, let me buy you a burger,” I pressed, trying not to sound too insensitive.

“How do you even have money?” she asked, which I had to admit was a valid question. I didn’t exactly have a job. Or an allowance.

“I have my ways,” I said mysteriously.

“You took it from Mark, didn’t you?”

“You know me so well,” I said, sighing.

“Alright, but just this once,” she said, grabbing an old coat from the floor. My heart was pounding in my chest.

Please god let nothing go wrong.

 

Next Week: What If I’m Bad At It?

Chapter 11 – Maybe Punching Someone Would Help

Part 2 – Vigilante

Eleven Months Before Impact Day

On my next night out ‘on patrol’, as I liked to think of it, I was a little better prepared. I’d strapped my old karate padding on underneath my clothes, and left Sadie at home. I hadn’t figured out a way to improve my visibility without revealing my face, so I still had the ski mask, but I had brought along some rope. All I needed to do was figure out how to tie a person up without first breaking any of their limbs.

Alright, so it wasn’t exactly a drastic improvement, but I didn’t really have a lot of resources at my disposal. Oh, to be a billionaire playboy, or whatever the feminine equivalent of that was. A slutty heiress? Yay for gender equality. Feminism truly is over.

I decided to go in a different direction to the previous night, mostly because I felt like a change of scenery. I told myself it was also to avoid becoming predictable, but I hadn’t been out enough for it to make a difference. Nobody was paying any attention to what I did. Yet.

It was nice just being out in the fresh air, alone and free to think in relative peace. It was a lot harder to be introspective around other people, especially when you didn’t want them to think there was anything bothering you. Liz and Aidan lately seemed to notice every minor facial expression I made, which was more than a little aggravating.

Funnily enough, I hadn’t really given a lot more thought to my newly discovered immortality. I mean, it wasn’t that I didn’t have questions, like why I was like this, or how it happened, or what I even was. It was more that I didn’t have any way of answering those questions, and there didn’t seem to be much point in keeping myself up worrying about it.

I had tried to go back through my medical history, but all I managed to figure out was that my family was perfectly normal, and I’d never been sick a day in my life. So I could probably assume that whatever was different about me, it had always been that way, and it probably wasn’t genetic. Then again, that last part probably should have been obvious, given that the entirety of my immediate family was deceased.

Day to day, I didn’t feel any different to anyone else. At least, I didn’t think I did. I couldn’t know for sure what a normal, mortal person felt like, but nothing I’d ever read or watched led me to believe there was anything different about my human experience. It seemed entirely possible that, were it not for the accident, or my attempted suicide, I would never have found out that I couldn’t die. Though, that did raise some other questions. Like, if I couldn’t die, did that mean I wouldn’t die from old age? Did that mean that I wouldn’t age, or that I’d just keep ageing without dying? Would I end up as a giant head in a jar?

If I was going to stop ageing, when would that happen? At eighteen? Thirty? Fifty? What were the rules for this sort of thing?

So, yeah, a whole lot of questions I had no way of answering, and plenty of other things to keep me distracted. Mostly, I spent a lot of time thinking about Rachel.

The fact that Rachel was a girl barely registered in my mind. It didn’t feel like a relevant factor, or rather, I didn’t think I would feel any differently about it one way or another. What that said about me, I wasn’t sure. To be honest, I didn’t really care.

What I was struggling with was whether my feelings for her were romantic, or just strong friendship. I’d never really pictured myself as the dating type, and I didn’t know if my reservations were coming from that, or if it was just that I wasn’t interested in her in that way. Truth be told, I didn’t even really know what dating her would be like.

The relationship we’d had for five years had been great for both of us. We both seemed to get exactly what we wanted, and we didn’t have to worry about anything changing. Dating, though… Dating definitely meant changes, and I didn’t like not knowing what to expect.

Relationships, at least the romantic kind, end. That’s just the way the world works. Friendships don’t end nearly as often. By that line of thinking, I was a lot more likely to lose her as a partner than if we just stayed friends. On the other hand, now that our feelings were out in the open, maybe staying as just friends would actually be more of a strain on the relationship.

I tried to picture myself dating somebody else, but it didn’t really mean anything to me. I just inserted a blank slate into my imagination, and it didn’t tell me anything. Then I tried to picture her dating someone else, and I didn’t really mind that, either. I thought about her keeping secrets from me, or brushing me off to spend time with someone else, and I didn’t like that, but that wasn’t the same thing.

My head just kept going around in circles, asking myself the same questions and not having any solid answers. All I knew was that I didn’t know what I wanted, and I really wished that I did. There wasn’t even anyone I could talk to about it, because I knew there was no way Aidan or Liz would be able to help. It was just a little outside of their wheelhouses. Sadie already didn’t like Rachel, and I doubted telling her about any of the recent developments would change that. Mark was, well, not exactly a good listener, not unless he thought he could get a story out of it. I didn’t really have a lot of other people in my life. Not that I trusted to that extent, anyway.

Maybe punching someone would help, I told myself, as I rounded the corner to see a couple of well-dressed thugs stepping out of a fancy car, and walking up to the front door of a nearby house. They definitely looked like they were up to no good. I crouched in the bushes, watching them.

“This the place?” one of them asked, looking around suspiciously.

“The address is right,” the other confirmed. “But remember, we ain’t supposed to hurt nobody. Just break a few things, get the fear going, alright?”

“Fuckin’, I know, right?” the first one retorted, clearly annoyed.

They rung the doorbell and waited. Nearly a minute later, a bleary-eyed, middle-aged man opened the door. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the two thugs, and tried to shut the door again, but they muscled their way past him, then slammed the door shut behind them.

I thought about sneaking in and helping the guy, but reminded myself it would probably cause more harm than good. They seemed like some kind of gang enforcers, and if they didn’t finish the job they were sent for, it would only make it worse in the long run. Waiting outside was hard, though.

While I waited, I amused myself by letting the air out of one of their tyres. There was actually a method to my madness, but it was also just surprisingly satisfying. I snuck back into the bushes, and went back to waiting.

The two men didn’t come out again for more than half an hour, and when the front door finally opened, my legs were starting to feel cramped. They got into their car and started to drive off, but didn’t get far before they realised one of their tyres was flat.

I followed in the shadows until they pulled over, just around the next corner. One of them got out, locating the flat tyre and cursing. Time for me to see what I could do.

I snuck up on the guy as he stood in front of the tyre with his back to me, and kicked him in the back of the knee, causing him to drop down. As soon as his knees hit the ground, I grabbed the back of his head, slamming it into the side of the car, stunning him long enough to thread one of his wrists through the loop I’d already prepared in the rope I’d brought with me. I yanked his arm sideways, towards the other one, and grabbed the free wrist. He twitched and tried to pull away, but I was just fast enough to get the other wrist through the loop. All I had to do was pull the loop tight, effectively handcuffing him, which would hopefully give me enough time to-

My ears were filled with the loudest, most terrifying bang I had ever heard in my life. In the same moment, an incredibly brutal wave of force crashed into me knocking me over sideways. My head collided with the pavement, and my body was too stunned to react.

As the shock wore off and the pain began to spread, I realised that I’d been shot. My entire chest ached like it never had before, and I could barely breathe. Where did this fucker get a gun?

I saw the hulking figure of the other man looming over me, gun pointed down at my face.

“Stupid little shit,” he said, and I winced, bracing for another bullet.

“Idiot, just untie me, would you? Half the bloody neighbourhood hear that. We need to get out of here.”

And then the silhouette above me was gone. Not long after that, I heard the car race off. I coughed, and blood splattered out in front of me. I lay there for what felt like forever, shivering and dry-heaving until eventually, I heard a voice.

“Somebody’s been shot!” they cried, and I panicked. “Call an ambulance!”

With a desperate effort, I pulled myself up to my feet, staggering sideways. There were cracks everywhere, the impossible cracks, and I could barely see what was happening around me, but I needed to get away. I couldn’t let myself be found there, not by paramedics or police or anyone else.

“Whoa, take it easy, kid,” someone said. I couldn’t tell if it was the same person or not. It didn’t matter. I started running, ignoring the burning pain in my chest, and the way my limbs all felt like they weight one hundred times more than usual. I wan until I was sure nobody was following me, and then I collapsed.

I don’t know how long I laid there for, barely able to move. After a while, the pain had faded to a manageable amount, and I realised I could probably get up, if I needed to. It was a while longer after that before I actually did.

Sadie was waiting up for me when I crawled back in through the window, though thankfully she was the only one. She took one look at the bloody mess that was my clothing, and just ran up to me and hugged me.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I told her, irrationally worried she would get blood on her.

“What happened?” she asked, looking mortified.

“I got shot.”

“What?” she cried out, practically shouting.

“C’mon, I’m fine. Now, at least. Hurt like Hell, though. I do not want to do that again.”

“Does that mean you’re going to stop doing this?” she asked hopefully.

“It means I need a bulletproof vest or something,” I told her.

She pushed away from me with a huffing sound, and I laughed. Despite the way things had gone, I felt good about the night. Somehow, it felt like I was a little closer to figuring it out.

 

Next Week: You Know Me So Well

Chapter 10 – Can I Ask You Something Weird?

One Year Before Impact Day

Later that night, I was lying on Rachel’s bed, replaying that conversation over and over in my head. Something about it had stuck out to me, but I couldn’t figure out what. Rachel seemed to be distracted by something too, since she was just sitting at her desk, poking idly at bits of random electronics.

Most of the contents of Rachel’s room had been salvaged. Her family didn’t have a lot of money, and her mother wasn’t exactly the type to give her anything she wasn’t legally required to, so Rachel had acquired a lot of her possessions and furniture from the side of the road, or as second-hand throwaways from friends, and occasionally supplies ‘borrowed’ from her school. It wasn’t a lot, but she seemed happy enough with what she had.

It wasn’t uncommon for us to hang out and not talk. Often we just enjoyed each other’s company; I would read while she worked, or we’d both do our homework, or just relax in the same space. We couldn’t afford to be too loud anyways, in case her mother overheard, so we usually tried to keep things pretty laid back.

It felt different this time, though. It felt like both of us had things we wanted to say, but neither of us knew how to say it. I didn’t even know what it was that was bothering me, but I knew it was something, and I wanted to talk to Rachel about it. I sighed loudly.

A few minutes later, Rachel turned around, sitting backwards in her chair. She looked like she was struggling with something, but before I could ask what it was, she beat me to it.

“Hey, can I ask you something weird?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I said.

She sat there for a few seconds, her mental debate clearly still raging on. Then she sighed.

“Would it be weird if I told you I loved you?” she asked.

I felt my chest tighten, and my skin turn cold. Of all the things I’d expected to be on her mind, that was about the last thing I’d ever think of. For several seconds, I was literally speechless.

What was I supposed to say to that? What did she even mean by it? Was she being serious?

For that matter, what did I think of it? What did it mean? What did I want it to mean? Did I want her to be serious? Or did I want it to just be a joke that we could laugh about and never mention again?

“Weird?” I asked, my throat suddenly very dry. “Well, I guess that would depend on how you meant it…”

“Yeah, I guess so,” she said. I still had no idea what she meant. Or rather, I had a lot of ideas, but I didn’t know which of them to believe.

“Mostly it would be weird of you to say something so sappy,” I said, trying to lighten the mood a little. It didn’t work.

She sat in silence for a few minutes, staring at the floor. I felt like I’d said something wrong, but I didn’t know what to do to make it better. A thousand different things to say kept running through my head, but nothing seemed right, and it was just giving me a headache.

“Do you think it’s weird for a girl to be attracted to another girl?” she asked, still unable to look at me.

My heart skipped a beat, then slammed into my ribcage and started racing. That cleared up what she meant, at least. It didn’t do a damn thing to help me figure out how I felt about it. How long had she been feeling that way?

“Not really,” I said, struggling to find the right words to say. “I mean, it’s not something we really get to choose, right? Not that it would be worse if it was a choice, but you know.”

She looked up at me, her dark, sullen eyes staring right into mine. I felt my mouth going dry again.

“It wouldn’t make you uncomfortable, or anything?” she asked nervously.

To be honest, I did feel pretty uncomfortable, but it wasn’t because of what she’d said. I was uncomfortable because I’d never really had to think about, well, basically anything that I was thinking about in that moment.

“You’re usually more subtle than this,” I told her, without really thinking. I didn’t meant to sound cold, but I also knew I couldn’t continue the conversation if we were just going to keep pretending it was only hypothetical.

“God, I’m sorry,” she said, burying her face in her arms. “It’s just, after what we talked about, I guess I started thinking about, you know, all of that.”

And there it was. That was what had been bothering me. From the moment Sadie had put the idea in my head, it had just sort of sat there, and I hadn’t been able to shake it.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling a lot more relaxed, but at the same time, way more anxious than I was before. “Me too.”

“Oh,” she said, clearly not sure what else to say. She looked up at me, and I couldn’t help but think that she looked like an abandoned puppy.

“I don’t really know what to think, to be honest,” I told her, struggling to make sense of what was going on in my head. “I mean, I’ve never really been the romantic type, but…”

“But?”

“But you’re definitely special to me,” I said. “In a way that nobody else is.”

And that was the truth. I trusted her more than anybody else, and there was no-one I wanted to be around more. I had no idea what that meant, but I was certain of it just the same.

“I feel the same way. I just don’t know what it means,” she said, mirroring my own thoughts. In a way, that was encouraging, but it also didn’t seem like it would help either of us figure anything out.

“Yeah…”

“So you’re not freaked out or anything?” she asked, biting her lip.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “At least, not because of you. Maybe a little bit because of me.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“For what it’s worth, I do love you too,” I told her. “I just don’t know what that means right now.”

“Me either. But I know that you’re more than just a friend to me.”

The two of us just sort of sat there, looking at each other awkwardly. It wasn’t the conversation either of us had expected to have, but I knew that I felt better for having had it, at least. I hoped that she did too.

“Okay, this is getting entirely too sappy for me. Say something snarky, please,” I begged her.

“We should spar,” she said, leaning back in her chair.

“You want me to beat you up?” I asked, teasing her a little.

“I’m pretty sure I can hold my own.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just the lie you tell yourself so that your pride will let you keep hanging out with me.”

“I’m willing to find out,” she challenged me.

“Where do you want to do this?” I asked, wondering how we could even make that work. It wasn’t like we could do it anywhere in either of our houses, and we definitely couldn’t do it outdoors anywhere.

“Our old club has basically zero security,” she said confidently. “We could sneak in and out and nobody would ever know.”

“They do still have a lock,” I pointed out.

“And I still have a key,” she said, gloating a little.

“You have a key?”

“I thought it would come in handy,” she said, shrugging. “So I made a copy of one.”

“I take it they don’t know about that.”

“God, no,” she said, smirking.

“Sounds perfect,” I told her.

She slid open her desk drawer, and pulled out a rather full keyring, making me wonder just how many other places she had keys to. Maybe there were other places we could sneak into together. That sounded fun.

The two of us snuck out the back door, though the snoring made it pretty obvious her mother was asleep. Even still, it was a risky move, because it Rachel was caught leaving the house, especially with a friend in tow, she probably would have been executed on the spot.

Once we’d safely reached the street, we walked side by side, not saying anything. I felt a tingle against my hang, and reflexively stretched it out. Her fingers wrapped around mine, and I squeezed gently, both of us looking in the complete opposite direction.

 

Five Months Before Impact Day

“I’m sorry, why exactly do I need to hear about your burgeoning teenage romance?” he asked, his voice thick with discomfort.

“Just trying to warm your cold, dead heart,” I said.

“Well, don’t. Unless it’s relevant to the story, I don’t need to hear it.”

I sighed. “It’s relevant. The things that happened never would have, well, happened, if she and I had had a different relationship. I don’t really know how else to explain it, but…”

He grimaced, shifting in his seat. I stretched my arms, still cuffed, up over my head. It was about as much mobility as I could manage.

“Fine. But keep the details to yourself.” He’d stopped making eye contact with me. “Also, you keep mentioning cracks. Is there some reason for that, or are you just going crazy?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I told him, trying very hard to ignore the crack running across the wall behind him. “But given the circumstances, I’m willing to bet it’s more than that. And like you said, you never know what details will be important.”

“Okay, okay. I take your point. Keep going. Tell me about your next attempt to pick an ill-advised fight with my men.”

 

Next Week: Interlude #1 – My Little House of Cards

Chapter 9 – You Don’t Have A Secret Boyfriend, Do You?

One Year Before Impact Day

Sadie spent the next few days sulking, but I hardly even noticed. I felt happier than I had in months, and I didn’t want to let anyone take that away from me.

Liz and Aidan remained somewhat suspicious of me, but neither of them said anything more. That was enough for me, really. They could wonder about what I was up to all they wanted, it didn’t make a difference to me.

For the most part, they went back to being their normal selves, at least around me. We talked about the usual things, complained about school, joked about each other and generally just tried to enjoy ourselves. It was exactly what I needed.

One Friday after school, we decided to stop by a café that we frequented. We stopped by often enough that the proprietor knew us by name, anyway. She smiled at us as we entered, though it was the most pleasantly sarcastic smile I think I’ve ever seen.

“You three again? Don’t you have anywhere better to be?”

Despite her best efforts to look plain, Wendy was a strikingly beautiful woman. She left her short reddish-orange hair wild, and the glasses she wore were clearly fake, but beneath them, she had the features of a supermodel, not to mention the perfect, lightly-freckled skin.

“Is that any way to speak to your best customers?” I asked her, matching her smirk.

“You think you’re my best customers?”

“We are in here a lot…” Liz said, a little nervously.

“We don’t order a lot, though,” Aidan pointed out.

“That’s an understatement,” Wendy said dryly.

“We’re students,” I told her. “Sue us.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“We’ll just go and sit down then,” I said cheerfully. “I’ll have the same thing I always do.”

“Me too,” Aidan chimed in.

“I guess I will as well,” Liz added. Wendy’s face twitched.

“You expect me to just remember what you like?” she demanded.

“Yep,” I said, enjoying her faux aggravation. I knew that she didn’t actually mind, because I’d seen how she treated customers she didn’t like.

“Lucky for you I have a good memory, or you’d all be getting water,” she muttered.

“Thank you for being such a good host,” Liz said.

“Just go sit down,” Wendy said, laughing.

The three of us took a seat in an empty booth, Liz and Aidan sitting beside each other, opposite me. The moment they sat down, I could tell that something was up.

“So, Charlie,” Liz began, causing me to cringe. “Aidan said you’ve been sneaking out at night. What’s up with that?”

“Oh he did, did he?” I asked, glaring at him. He shrunk down at my withering gaze.

“I may have let it slip,” he mumbled.

“You know Mark is going to kill you if he finds out,” Liz warned, her tone annoyingly authoritative.

“And is he going to find out?” I asked, continuing to glare at Aidan.

I already knew they weren’t going to say anything, and even if they did, there wasn’t actually much of a danger Mark would do anything about it. He wasn’t exactly the hands-on type.

“Hey, I’m not gonna tell him,” Aidan said, holding his hands up. “But he is a journalist, you know. He’ll probably figure it out sooner or later.”

“Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” I said nonchalantly.

Wendy brought a tray of drinks for us, placing them in front of us silently. She really had memorised our orders.

“Why have you been sneaking out, anyway?” Liz asked.

“Is it even safe for you to be out at night? In this city?” Aidan chimed in. I was actually grateful for it, because if I could focus on the issue of safety, I wouldn’t have to talk about why I was out in the first place.

“I’m fine, you big baby,” I told him. “I know how to stay safe.”

“You don’t have a secret boyfriend, do you?” Liz asked, and I nearly choked on my tea. Why would she assume that? Most nights, I was sneaking out to see Rachel, not some boy.

“What? No, why would you even-”

“You turned red!” Aidan exclaimed, just a little too loud. “She was right! Charlie, how could you not tell us about this?”

“He’s not some kind of thug, is he?” Liz asked. “Or an older man?”

How had they latched onto the idea of me having a boyfriend? Why did that seem like the most likely explanation?

“There’s no boyfriend,” I insisted. “Guys, come on. You know me better than that.”

“So what are you doing, then?” Aidan asked.

Suddenly, I wished I hadn’t denied the boyfriend suggestion. It actually would have been a halfway decent cover for what I was actually doing, which they would never approve of.

“I…”

“If you don’t tell us, we’re just going to keep assuming it’s a guy,” Liz threatened.

“And we’ll know if you’re lying,” Aidan added.

I doubted that, but I couldn’t think of a good enough lie anyway. I opted to go for the safe route, and give them just enough truth to avoid telling them anything important.

“I’m just visiting a friend,” I told them.

“At night?” Liz asked, concerned.

“Wait, guy or girl?” Aidan added, and I wanted to punch him.

“Does it matter?” I asked, annoyed.

“Just asking.”

“It’s a girl,” I said. “I met her through my jujitsu classes. I visit her at night because her mum is… well, she’s kind of abusive, and if she sees me, things get nasty.” I kind of wish that was a lie.

“That’s horrible!” Aidan said. “Why wouldn’t you tell us about that?”

“I dunno,” I just…”

What? Why haven’t I told them about Rachel? There wasn’t anything odd about having another friend, was there?

“Just what?” Liz demanded.

“Well, if she doesn’t want to tell us, she doesn’t have to,” Aidan said, diplomatically. It felt like he was playing good cop to Liz’s bad cop.

“Yes, but if she’s going to worry us by sneaking off in the middle of the night, it would be nice to at least know why,” Liz said, a little petulantly.

“I know,” I said, trying to sound more apologetic than I felt. “I didn’t really think about it that much. I was really only thinking about her.” That part was also true.

“What’s her name? Can we do anything for her?” Aidan asked, always wanting to be able to help. Also always wanting to know everything.

“Her name is Rachel, and no. You’d only make things worse,” I said. I didn’t actually want to give them her name, but I couldn’t think of a good way to avoid answering without sounding suspicious.

“Well, can we do anything to help you?” Lis asked.

“You could trust me,” I said, a little hurt.

“Charlie, we do trust you,” Aidan said. “We’re just worried.”

“What are you, my parents?”

“Friends are allowed to be worried too,” Aidan said.

“Besides, you and Aidan are practically siblings,” Liz pointed out. “That gives him family worrying rights.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Aidan protested, to my surprise. He was even turning a little red.

“What, you don’t think of Charlie as a sister?” Liz asked, sounding a little accusatory.

“Let’s just not talk about this, okay?” Aidan pleaded.

“I agree. In fact, let’s just drop the whole subject,” I added.

“Alright, alright,” Liz conceded. “We just don’t want you to go missing one night.”

I rolled my eyes. Time to turn this around. I was tired of being interrogated.

“Have you noticed how the two of you talk like a unit?” I asked.

“Huh? We do?” Liz asked, confused.

“Like that. You both say ‘we’ a lot.”

“Well, we both feel the same way about this, so…” Aidan said, trailing off and clearly very embarrassed.

“I think it’s weirder to notice it than it is to do it,” Liz said, equally defensive.

“Whatever you say, guys,” I said. At least I’d taken their attention off of me for a little bit.

I glanced over at Wendy, who was serving another customer. She caught me looking, and smiled wearily at me. I was about to smile back when I noticed a crack beside her, which should have been impossible, because she was in the middle of the room. It looked as though the air itself was cracked. Nobody else seemed to notice it.

Recognising my concern, Wendy wandered over. She rested a hand on my shoulder, staring into my eyes through her messy fringe.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said. “Everything okay?”

“Probably,” I replied, wondering what in the world was wrong with me. The crack was gone, but the feeling it had given me remained.

“You two taking care of Charlie?” Wendy asked. Liz and Aidan swapped surprised expressions.

“I can’t imagine anyone less needing to be taken care of than Charlie,” Liz said, but she looked at me with a warm, nurturing smile.

Wendy just smiled, filling up my glass of water from her jug. She squeezed my shoulder with surprising strength, and left us alone.

“I didn’t realise you were that close with her, Charlie,” Aidan mused.

“Neither did I,” I confessed. “I like that she’s looking out for me, though. She seems like she’d be good at that.”

“She certainly stares at you a lot,” Liz said. “She tries to hide it, too. Which means it’s not just a coincidence.”

And why would you notice something like that, Liz?

“Alright, don’t make it weird, guys,” I said, feeling embarrassed.

“Just be careful,” Aidan said. “Something about her seems…”

“Off?” Liz offered.

“That’ll do,” he said.

“You guys do realise she gives us a discount, right?” I asked, slightly annoyed.

“Caution retracted,” Aidan said. “She’s good people.”

The three of us laughed, but I couldn’t help looking out of the corner of my eye, trying to catch Wendy looking at me.

 

Next Week: Can I Ask You Something Weird?

Chapter 8 – A Little Pain Never Hurt Anyone

One Year Before Impact Day

“I can’t believe you’re seriously doing this,” Sadie said, as she watched me getting ready.

“I don’t know what I’m doing yet,” I told her. “I’m just testing the waters, that’s all.”

“What do you think is gonna happen? You’re just going to stumble onto a mugging, beat up some thug, and be given the key to the city? By the way, you look ridiculous.”

“What were you expecting, a cape?” I snapped, wishing she’d just keep her mouth shut for once.

I may have been inspired by comic book heroes, but that didn’t mean I was going to dress like them. I wanted something practical, nondescript, and most importantly, easy to replace. A distinctive look could come later, if I really needed one. I wasn’t exactly going to start that way.

What I had was a sports bra, a black hoodie, and black cargo pants and combat boots I’d picked up from a military surplus store. I’d even picked up a ski mask to hide my face, because despite what TV tells you, a hood is not enough to keep your face hidden, especially when you’re in motion. I’d probably look like a criminal myself, but at least I wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb, and nobody would be able to identify me by looking at me. Hopefully, they wouldn’t even be able to figure out that I was a girl.

“You look like you’re going to rob the liquor store,” Sadie said.

“Alright, I get it. Now, if you don’t mind, I have better things to do than stand around and be insulted.”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” she said, as I started climbing out through the window. “I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

“Oh, please. What do you think is going to happen to me?”

I crawled out into the front yard, dusting myself off as I started to skulk away from the house. Sadie followed me out, climbing out the same way. Though I had no idea why, she seemed bound by all the same laws of physics as any other person. She was still held down by gravity and she couldn’t pass through walls or any other physical object. Unlike normal people, though, she couldn’t actually move anything, either. No matter how hard she pushed on a door, she couldn’t open or close it. She couldn’t pick up objects, and if they were placed on her, they would just sort of fall through her. So far as I could tell, it didn’t follow any logic or sense.

“Just because nothing can kill you, doesn’t mean you don’t feel pain,” she said, hurrying to catch up with me.

“A little pain never hurt anyone,” I said.

“That makes no sense,” she retorted. I ignored her.

For a while, I just wandered the streets, just generally trying to move further away from home. I had a vague idea of what I was looking for, but I wasn’t sure if I’d recognise it even when I saw it. I was actually glad Sadie was there, just as an extra set of eyes.

I thought as I walked. There are a lot of reasons people do bad things. A lot of crimes are motivated by desperation and oppression, by disenfranchised people who don’t see any better options available to them. People who are generally good can fall into a bad culture, and that can be a powerful motivator for things they wouldn’t otherwise do.

I wasn’t looking to punish those people. There wasn’t anything I could do for them, at least not directly. Interrupting a crime in progress would only lead to preventing that one specific incident, or maybe only delaying it. At worst, someone would get hurt.

The real problem, the one I really wanted to do something about, was the gangs. They’d been growing in power for years, and the police seemed powerless to stop them. Occasionally they would find and raid a hideout, or arrest some particularly careless thugs, but it wasn’t enough to make any sort of real difference.

According to rumour, more than one of them was funded by some of the city’s more excessively wealthy citizens, which did help explain why they were so untouchable. Even still, despite Sadie’s protestations that real life was not like a comic book, the problems in our city had reached an almost comic book level of proliferation. You could find evidence of the gang presence almost everywhere, and they were growing increasingly brazen in their activities.

As if to prove my point, it took only three blocks to find something that looks an awful lot like a gang activity. Three people were trying to break into a very expensive looking car, and from the way they were circling around it, it looked like they knew what they were doing.

“What do you think?” I asked Sadie, in a hushed voice.

“I think you’re gonna get your butt kicked,” she replied antagonistically.

“I mean, what do they look like to you?”

“They look like people who would kick your butt,” she reiterated.

I sighed. “Do you think they’re just some punks up to no good, or are they in a gang?”

“Oh, they’re definitely in a gang,” Sadie said, clearly expecting it to have the opposite effect. Still, it was good enough for me.

I rolled the ski mask down over my face, pulled the hood up over it, and started to creep up on them. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time, but I also didn’t want to just rush in and, as Sadie had so eloquently put it, get my butt kicked.

The three of them noticed me when I was a couple of metres away, sneaking around the corner of another car. They immediately stopped what they were doing to stare at me.

“What the fuck is this?” one of them said, a little too loudly for my taste. “Get out of here, brat. This is our turf.”

Turf? Definitely a gang, then. Good. I could feel better about disrupting their little party.

“Not anymore, it isn’t,” I said, trying to lower my voice and change my inflection. It didn’t matter what it sounded like, as long as it didn’t sound like me.

Things escalated quickly from there. Sneering at me, the one who had spoken pulled out a knife, and charged at me, fast. Sadie screamed, but thankfully they couldn’t hear her.

I reacted almost instinctively. It was obvious from his body language how he was going to swing; a diagonal slash aimed at my torso. Amateur. I was already moving to the side, just far enough that the knife missed me.

His momentum was still carrying him forward, and I needed to use that. I didn’t have the strength to match his. I locked the side of my right arm against his wrist, and my left just behind his elbow, one fluid movement that kept me out of the path of the knife. Inertia took care of the rest; there was a gross crunching sound as his arm broke, and his shoulder popped out.

The other two were already advancing on me, clearly not intimidated. One of them lunged at me, trying to grab me in a chokehold, but she was far too obvious about it. I managed to duck under her arms, twisting on the spot quickly enough to grab the back of her head, using her speed to direct it into the corner of the car. As she slumped to the ground, the third one grabbed my shoulders roughly.

That was a mistake. My fingers clamped down on his hand in just the right places, and with one well-practised turn I twisted his arm around behind him, hard enough to drop him to his knees. Taking advantage of his surprise, I let go of his arm, cupped my hands and bashed them against his ears. The air pressure forced into them would have ruptured his ear drums, stunning him and leaving him entirely too unsteady to do much else.

Without warning, I felt a biting pain in my shoulder. A rough force crashed into me, forcing me forward and into the car. In the reflection of the window, I could see the woman I’d thought I’d knocked out earlier – she’d grabbed the knife, and driven it into my back.

She pulled out the knife before driving it into me again, and I couldn’t keep myself from crying out in pain. She stabbed me again, twisting the knife, and I started to see stars. My back felt like it was on fire, and it was difficult to breathe.

As she pulled the knife out again, I gritted my teeth, and twisted around just far enough that I could slam the side of my hand into her throat. It wasn’t hard enough to cause any permanent damage, but she staggered back, dropping the knife and clutching her throat.

Blood was pouring down my back, and every movement made the wounds stretch, sending deep spikes of pain all through my torso. She and I just stood there, staring at each other and panting. I realised I needed to get away.

An arm wrapped around my neck, and it took me a few seconds to realise it was the guy with the broken arm. I hadn’t expected any of them to be so tenacious.

I bit into his arm, sinking my teeth in far enough to get a firm grip, then jerked my neck sideways, trying to rip out a chunk of flesh. I didn’t manage to cause him any damage, but it was enough to get him to let go, and I staggered away from him.

I had to keep myself from shouting when I saw his face. A crack ran right down the centre of it, but it wasn’t any sort of injury. His skin wasn’t split, and there was no blood. It was just a crack, as impossible as that seemed.

I ran, ignoring the pain and the dizziness. I needed to get away from them before things got any worse. Thankfully, they didn’t try to follow me. I collapsed under a tree about a block away, breathing heavily.

The wounds on my back were already starting to heal. They hurt less, and I couldn’t feel the blood flowing out anymore. Under any other circumstances, I would have taken those as bad signs, but I knew what my body was capable of. After just a few minutes, I felt completely fine again.

“What the Hell was that?” Sadie demanded, popping out from behind the tree. She must have followed me when I ran. That was good. Even though I knew nothing could happen to her, I still worried.

“Beta testing,” I said, wincing as I stood back up.

“Are you kidding me? Can you take this even a little bit seriously?”

“I am being serious,” I told her. “That was important. I learned a lot.”

“Unless you learned not to do that ever again, I don’t think you did,” she muttered.

“For starters, I’m going to need some padding,” I said, ignoring her. “Because ouch. I may heal, but I still feel bruised and sore. I also need to work on my awareness. This ski mask isn’t actually great for seeing around me. And it’s itchy and hot. Also, I need a better way to subdue people, because that was not pleasant.”

“Not pleasant? Charlie, you probably put all three of them in a hospital. You broke a guy’s arm!”

“I think I also dislocated his shoulder, but that’s exactly my point. Fighting like that isn’t exactly helpful, and they aren’t the ones I want to hurt.”

“They aren’t?” Sadie looked confused.

“Of course not,” I said. “People like that are just doing what they have to do. Or what they think they have to do. It’s the really evil ones that rise up, and end up calling the shots. They’re the ones I need to take care of.”

“And how are you going to do that?” she demanded.

“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “It’s a work in progress. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and all that.”

“So you’re going to do this again.”

“Yeah, ‘fraid so,” I told her. “But to be honest, I’m thinking it would be better if you actually didn’t come with me, next time. You were screaming like, the whole time, and it was really distracting.”

“You just got stabbed multiple times, and you’re telling me that I was distracting?”

“It is what it is,” I said.

“You seriously need to work on your priorities,” she told me.

“Right now, my priority is a hot shower. Then as much sleep as I can get before school tomorrow. Any problems with that?”

Sadie just shook her head. I felt unreasonable happy, smiling the entire way home.

 

Next Week: You Don’t Have A Secret Boyfriend, Do You?

Chapter 7 – You May Consider Me Intrigued

One Year Before Impact Day

“I tried to kill myself,” I told her. I watched the words sink in, but the expression on her face wasn’t like Sadie’s. It wasn’t anger, or resentment, or judgement. It was fear.

“What? Jesus, Charlie! Why did you-”

“I don’t know,” I said, cutting her off. “I was feeling really, really low. Like, so deep underwater I couldn’t even see the surface. And the only way out of it that I could think of was, well, suicide.”

Rachel was silent for a few seconds. She didn’t take her eyes off me, and her expression didn’t change.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t know what to say,” I told her. “I still don’t, clearly, but I felt like I had to say something.”

“You know you can always come to me with stuff like this, right? Even when you don’t know what to say.”

God, she was so hurt. Why did I ever think it was okay to do that to her? What would she have done if I hadn’t survived? I’d thought it was arrogant to think anyone would care, but…

“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” Unshed tears were beginning to sting my eyes, and I did my best to will them away.

“No, no, don’t apologise,” she said, shaking her head. “Just… Please, talk to me before you try anything like that again, okay?”

I just nodded, my arms trembling slightly, my eyes still watery. I still hadn’t told her everything, though, and I couldn’t stop there. I knew it was a lot to drop on her at once, but I was going to go crazy if I didn’t say something to someone.

“That’s… kind of what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said hesitantly.

“You’re thinking of trying again?” she asked, not accusing, just patient.

“No. Kind of the opposite of that,” I said.

“I don’t follow.”

Another deep breath. She’d believed me when I told her about Sadie. She’d reassured me when I was worried about our friendship. She hadn’t tried to lecture me about suicide. If anyone was going to know what to say, it was her.

“Rachel, I… I jumped off a bridge. Into traffic. I got hit by at least three cars. And now look at me.”

“That was you?” she exclaimed. “But… you seem fine.”

“I am. Completely. Like, not-even-a scratch fine,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Are you sure that’s actually what happened?” she asked.

“Yes,” I told her. “And I know it doesn’t exactly help me sound sane, but Sadie was there. She remembers it too.”

“Have you talked to anyone else about this?”

“God, no,” I said.

“Okay, so-”

“That’s not all,” I interrupted. Rachel cringed.

“There’s more?”

“You’re not going to like it,” I warned her.

“I haven’t liked any part.”

I hesitated. She hadn’t stopped me, criticised me, or told me I was wrong or lying. There was no reason to believe that would change, but I was still scared. I gave myself a few moments to psyche myself up, then kept going.

“I was curious,” I said.

“Curious,” she repeated, her tone painfully bland.

“So I tried again. In different ways. Nothing worked.”

I could see a variety of emotions at war in her expressions. I recognised the winning emotion: curiosity.

“What are we talking about here? Without graphic details, please.”

“Um… Cutting, pills, asphyxiation, ten story drop. And I didn’t just survive. I’m completely unharmed.”

“That’s impossible,” she said. “How is that possible?”

“I wish I knew.”

She fell silent again, processing the new information. I’d told her everything, and I couldn’t take it back. All I could do was hope it wasn’t too much for her.

“That is kind of incredible,” she said at last.

“Incredible?” I asked, not expecting that at all.

“Well, yeah! I mean, how many unkillable people do you know?”

She actually seemed excited, and intrigued. She wasn’t afraid, and she didn’t tell me to pretend it wasn’t happening. Already, I felt so much better than I had.

“Depends on your definition, I guess,” I said. “Also, I don’t think unkillable is a real word.”

“I guess it kind of runs in the family, doesn’t it?” she said. “Except, like, complete opposites.”

I hadn’t even thought about it like that, but in a way, she was totally right. Sadie wasn’t exactly living, but she was still around, experiencing the world, and so far as I could tell, completely unable to be harmed. In a kind of twisted way, we were the same, but also completely opposite.

“What if I’m some kind of horrible science experiment?” I asked.

“Even if the experiment is horrible, it doesn’t mean that you are,” she reassured me. “Plus, there are all sorts of possibilities.”

“Like what?”

“Oh please, like you haven’t considered the comic book angle. You’re a bigger nerd than I am.”

I wouldn’t ever admit it, but my heart was singing a little to hear her say that.

“I do kinda like the idea,” I admitted, a little embarrassed to be called out on it.

“Right?” she said, excited. “And then we have a whole plethora of options to consider. Toxic waste accident, alien from another planet, mutant gene, ancient magic, the list is endless.”

“Magic? Really?” It was the last thing I’d ever expect her to think of.

“Hey, you will never meet a bigger sceptic than me, but if you’re telling me you have impossible healing powers. I am going to consider every possibility open,” she said, somehow managing to make believing in magic sound almost rational.

“You’ll make an excellent scientist someday,” I told her.

“Piss off, I’m an excellent scientist right now,” she shot back, smirking. “So, have you decided on a design for your costume?”

Costume? Wasn’t she jumping the gun a bit there? Taking the idea a little too far? Not that I didn’t see the appeal, but I also wanted to be taken seriously, and that didn’t exactly seem like the way to do it. I did love that her mind went to the same place as mine, though.

“I’m not a superhero,” I said.

“Of course you’re not. You haven’t got a costume. Or a name.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I told her.

“But you’re smiling again,” she said happily.

“Thanks,” I said, with just a hint of sarcasm.

“Thank you for talking to me,” she said seriously. “It means a lot that you trust me.”

“It means a lot that you believe me. And that you’re not freaked out by it.”

“I’m not gonna lie, I am a little freaked out that you tried to kill yourself, mostly because I had no idea you were feeling that way. But I really do think the whole not dying thing is pretty cool. You may consider me intrigued.”

I was relieved I could count on her to be honest about how she was feeling, too. And realistically, it would have bothered me a lot more if the thought of me killing myself didn’t affect her at all. I felt better having come clean to her, and there weren’t a lot of people I felt that way about.

“If I let you poke and prod me, will you promise not to stay mad?” I asked. Rachel just raised her eyebrows, and I realised the room for misinterpretation there, especially given our earlier conversation. I felt myself turning a little red. “Um. I probably need to get home.”

“Yeah, you know Aidan’s gonna be waiting up for you,” she said, stretching her arms out and leaning back a little. “So what are you gonna tell him? Are you going to talk to him about the whole immortality thing?”

“Ugh, he’s like an overprotective big brother and a nosy little sister all in one. I don’t think I’m ready to tell anyone else, though. At least not until I know more. Once was scary enough.”

“Well, you already told me about it, so if you need someone to talk to, you know where to find me,” she said gently.

“Yeah. Thanks,” I said. “Now, do I need to sneak out the back door again, or…?”

“At this time of night? Mum’s gonna be either too drunk to remember, too drunk to notice in the first place, or completely passed out. I think you’ll be fine.”

“So I can use the front door? Wow, how special.”

“Hey, it’s good practice for you, in case you ever need to sneak out of a boyfriend’s house.”

I frowned. For some reason, something about that comment annoyed me.

“Um, yeah. I guess,” I said, opening and closing her door as quietly as I could. As predicted, her mother was passed out on the couch. A deep crack ran through the floor beneath her. I carefully tiptoed to the front door, and slipped out.

 

Five Months Before Impact Day

“Your other best friend was a mechanical genius?” he asked.

“It’s like she was born with an engineering degree or something,” I said, trying not to sound overly proud.

“So, just keeping score here, you had a ghost, an assassin, a mechanical genius, and… Aidan,” he said, sounding almost as if he didn’t believe it, but wasn’t ready to give up on the idea just yet.

I grinned. “You’re just dying to know what was special about him, aren’t you?”

“Among other things.”

“Don’t you have other things you need to be doing?” I asked. “Not that I don’t enjoy our little chats, but I wouldn’t want you neglecting your evil empire.”

“Well, as you can imagine, without you causing trouble everything is actually going a lot better. So I can afford to take a little time off.”

“How nice for you,” I said.

 

Next Week: A Little Pain Never Hurt Anyone

Chapter 6 – Does Our Friendship Ever Seem Weird To You?

One Year Before Impact Day

Getting to Rachel’s house was not particularly difficult. It was well within walking distance, provided you didn’t mind walking for about half an hour or so. The problem was getting in once you got there.

Rachel lived with her mother, who more or less actively hated Rachel. She also got abusive when she was drunk, which was most of the time. Rachel had been taking care of herself from a very young age, and had learned the hard way how to survive in an abusive household.

Her mother didn’t technically disallow guests, but if she knew I was there, she’d make Rachel suffer for it later. I had to sneak in if I wanted to avoid trouble for her. Luckily, I had a lot of practice.

I met Rachel through jujitsu classes, and we more or less ignored each other for the first year. One day, one of the guys made a racist comment about her, and she told him to go fuck himself. He and several friends then proceeded to physically threaten her and I, in the infinite wisdom of youth, jumped into fight alongside her. There was nothing noble about it, I was just in the mood to fight.

The instructors broke it up before it got too serious, and to avoid further fights, paired the two of us together, since we’d effectively made enemies of the rest of the club. We begrudgingly accepted, because we didn’t really have a choice, but it wasn’t until we actually sparred that we felt any sort of connection.

Working with Rachel, practicing moves and sparring, I felt an almost tangible physical attraction, something I’d never felt before. It was like speaking another language, one only the two of us could understand. An elaborate dance, a silent conversation, an intimate connection.

After that, we became fast friends. We discovered that we had a lot more in common than we’d thought, and I found myself telling her things I wouldn’t tell anyone else, not even Sadie. We spent a lot of time together, but always in secret, because of the situation with her mother. Sadie had never liked her, but I didn’t care. Rachel was my friend, probably my best friend, and she made me feel more at ease than anyone else. Which is why it was her I went to see when I needed to feel understood.

I climbed over the fence of their next-door neighbour, sneaking up to the back door, which Rachel left unlocked. It was the only entrance that made it possible to get to her room without going past the living room, which was where her mother almost certainly was. I knocked gently on her door, and slipped inside, closing it behind me.

She looked up at me, sitting cross-legged on the floor, bits of wire and plastic strewn about her, and smile, her perpetually sullen eyes lighting up.

Rachel’s father had been Latino, and though her mother was as white as it was possible to be, Rachel took after her father almost entirely. It was difficult to believe she and her mother were even related.

“What’cha got there?” I asked, keeping my voice low, just in case.

“Hopefully, a police scanner,” she said, her hands still delicately assembling tiny pieces.

“What, like the thing they use in movies to listen to what the police radio is saying?”

“That’s the one,” she said cheerfully.

“You can just make those?”

I can,” she said. “Not sure about other people. And I don’t know if it’ll work or not.”

“And what if it does?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“No idea! I’ll probably feel pleased with myself, then take it apart and try to build something else, I guess.”

“Yeah, that sounds like something you’d do,” I said affectionately.

“I like building stuff,” she said, a little defensively. Her mother was not a fan of the mess. “I like learning how it all works, then proving it to myself by actually making it work.”

“I know. I think it’s cool,” I told her.

I watched her work in silence, her hands moving deftly as she positioned tiny pieces of electronics, then delicately soldered them in place. She was so focussed, so absorbed, and it was entrancing just watching her work.

After a while, she looked up at me again, and frowned.

“You okay?” she asked. “You seem a little… I dunno. Something on your mind?”

I grimaced, not intending to be that obvious about it. Still, I should have known she’d be able to tell. She always could.

“Where do you want to start?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“How about we start with why you’re still standing all the way over there in the doorway?” she asked, and I immediately felt self-conscious about it.

“Oh, yeah. Didn’t even realise.”

“Really.”

I sighed, stepping away from the door and perching myself on the end of her bed. “Look, Rachel…”

“Oh, this sounds bad,” she said, putting down her radio. She pivoted, staring right into my eyes. I felt scrutinised, but at the same time, it was a safe feeling. Like, I wouldn’t be able to hide anything, but I wouldn’t be judged for anything either.

“No, it’s not anything bad, it’s just…” I trailed off, not quite sure how to say it. “Does our friendship ever seem weird to you?”

“I don’t even know what that means,” she answered, looking a little affronted.

“I don’t know. We spend a lot of time together, and talk about a lot of stuff, and do a lot of it in secret. I just wanted to make sure you don’t, y’know, mind any of that.”

Until I opened my mouth to actually say it, I hadn’t realised just how much Sadie’s words had affected me. Damn her.

“Why would I mind?” Rachel asked. “I’m an active participant too, aren’t I?”

“So you don’t think that we’re, like, too close, or anything?” God, I sounded like such an awkward nerd. What are you even saying, Charlie?

“What does too close even mean?”

I let myself fall backwards, staring up at her ceiling. Part of me almost wanted her to say yes, to say she did think we were too close, just so I didn’t feel stupid for worrying about it. A bigger part of me was terrified that she would say yes, because I wasn’t sure what I’d do if she did.

“I don’t know. It’s just something somebody told me, and I guess I got worried,” I confessed.

“Are you gonna tell me who said that?” she asked, her tone vaguely threatening.

“Are you going to punch them if I do?”

“It’s a definite possibility,” she conceded.

“It was Sadie,” I admitted. At least she couldn’t punch Sadie.

Rachel was the only person I’d told about Sadie. It was one of the scariest moments of my life, because I had no way of knowing how she’d react. I had no way of proving that Sadie was there, that I wasn’t just hallucinating. Of course, there was always the omnipresent fear that I actually was hallucinating, but despite my paranoia, she had believed me completely. She never once made me doubt myself, or asked me to prove anything.

“Well that’s not fair; I can’t punch her. Is she here now? Sadie, you’re probably just jealous.”

“She’s not here,” I told her.

“Right,” Rachel said, looking slightly embarrassed. “Well, tell her I think she’s being overdramatic.”

“So you’re really not worried?”

“I’m really not worried that we’re too close,” she assured me.

Well, that was one concern I could mostly put to rest. Unfortunately, it was also the easiest one to talk about, and I had a lot more I needed to get off my chest. Still, I felt confident that if anyone would listen and not freak out, it would be her.

“Okay, good. But there’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

“Shoot.”

I took a deep breath, steeling myself against the next part. Then I sat up, knowing I couldn’t do it without looking her in the eye.

“I tried to kill myself,” I told her.

 

Next Week: You May Consider Me Intrigued

Chapter 5 – You Could Make A Difference Too

One Year Before Impact Day

I held my wrist over the sink, hand clenched into a fist, the tip of the knife resting against my soft flesh. I took a few deep breathes, trying to tell myself it wouldn’t hurt, even though I knew it would.

“Remember, down the street, not across the road,” I muttered to myself. Who’d have ever thought that little phrase would come in handy?

“What are you doing?” Sadie asked, standing right behind me. I cringed.

“Testing a theory,” I told her, meeting her accusing gaze in the mirror.

“You promised me you wouldn’t do this.”

“I promised you I wouldn’t try to kill myself,” I corrected her. “And I’m not.”

“What do you call this?” she demanded, staring pointedly at the knife in my hand.

“Like I said, testing a theory. Or a hypothesis, or whatever.”

I could tell Sadie wanted so badly to grab the knife out of my hands, but of course she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything, no matter how hard she tried. I hated making her feel that way.

Sighing, I put the knife down. Sadie visibly relaxed, if only a little.

“I don’t think the distinction is really what’s important here,” she said.

“Look, I already know this isn’t going to kill me,” I told her. “I just need to prove it.”

“How do you know?” she demanded, almost frantically.

“Because nothing else worked, either,” I said. Her expression turned from hurt to horrified.

“What else have you tried?”

For a few seconds, I just stood there, debating whether or not I should actually tell her, after trying so hard to keep it all from her. There was no way she was going to take it well, but would good would lying have done?

“I’ve taken four lethal overdoses of medication, held my breath underwater for twenty minutes, jumped off a ten story building and drunk pretty much every chemical under the sink,” I confessed, and immediately wished I’d lied to her. She looked like her entire world was collapsing around her.

“How?” she asked, her voice trembling. “I never saw-”

“You do sleep sometimes, you know,” I told her.

“I don’t understand. Why?”

“Because of what I can do.”

“Do?” she asked, confused.

“Sadie, don’t you get it? I can’t die. Think of the possibilities!”

I already knew she wouldn’t understand. I doubted anybody would, but for the first time, I felt like I’d found something that gave me a reason to keep trying.

“Like ending up in a lab for the rest of your life? Which, for all you know, could be forever?”

“Only if someone finds out,” I said. “And they won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m going to have a secret identity,” I told her.

“What?”

I took a deep breath, knowing what her next reaction was going to be. Still, she was going to find out sooner or later.

“Sadie, this makes me the closest thing this world has to a superhero.”

“So, you’re going to dress up and fight crime?”

“Wouldn’t you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“No.”

“Look, Sadie. I grew up reading comic books. I grew up wishing that I could be more like Barbara, or Kara, or Diana. Reading those stories, it made me wish there really were people fighting to make the world a better place.”

“But those stories aren’t real,” she said. “I read them too, remember? They aren’t even realistic. You can’t just act them out and expect to get the same results.”

I shook my head, wishing I could make her understand.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what do you mean?” she asked. I knew she was trying to understand, even though she wouldn’t.

“Those stories may not be real, but I am,” I told her. “And I can make the difference in this world that those stories made for me. I can be someone that people are inspired be. Something to hope for.”

She shook her head, looking at me like I was the craziest, stupidest person she’d ever met. Maybe she was right. I didn’t care.

“Please tell me you’re not serious,” she pleaded.

“Why not?” I asked. “What else am I gonna do with this power?”

“You mean apart from live a long and healthy life?” she said. “Donate your blood anonymously. Let scientists figure out a way to use it to help people.”

“Or make an army of immortal super soldiers,” I said cynically.

“Charlie, real life is not a comic book,” she said, exasperated.

“No, it’s not. It’s uglier, and more chaotic. We live in a world where a person like me would throw herself off a bridge because it was a genuinely more appealing option than being a part of it any longer.”

“You really believe you can make a difference,” she said, her tone almost accepting.

“I don’t know what I can do,” I confessed. “But I know that I can try.”

Sadie just looked at me, sad and tired but less distraught than she had been.

“You are such a nerd,” she said.

“You could help me, you know,” I suggested, speaking without thinking.

“How? I can’t do anything. I can’t even lift a sheet of paper.”

“Not, but you can see, and hear,” I pointed out. “And nobody can see or hear you.”

“So you want me to spy for you?”

“I’m just saying, you could help. You could make a difference too.”

For a while, Sadie was silent, her expression pensive. I just looked at the two of us in the mirror, marvelling at how different we were.

Even when she was alive, Sadie had been my polar opposite in just about every way. Where I was antisocial and rude, she was shy but very good natured. Where I was athletic and a little short, Sadie was thin and frail, in an elegant sort of way. She had long, straight brown hair, whilst mine was always short and messy. I was aggressive, and she was compassionate to a fault.

“I think you need help,” she said, at long last. “I also think you need to talk to somebody about the way you’re feeling, instead of coming up with insane plans to avoid facing the fact that you’re struggling.”

Her words hit me harder than a slap in the face would have. I knew she wouldn’t understand, but for her to go that far…

I left the room in silence, heading back to my room. Sadie followed, looking a little regretful. I aggressively pulled on a pair of sneakers, then reached up to open my window.

“Where are you going?” Sadie asked. For a moment, I considered just ignoring her, but if I didn’t answer her, she would have just followed me.

“To talk to Rachel,” I said bluntly. I knew if anyone would understand me, it would be her, and I needed to feel like somebody understood me, or at least supported me.

“It’s close to midnight,” Sadie pointed out.

“She’ll still be up.”

“So call her.”

“I don’t want to call her,” I told her. “I want to see her.”

“Video chat, then.”

It felt like Sadie was going out of her way to irritate me. I just wanted to yell at her to leave me alone, but even just talking to her was risky enough. I was always worried somebody would overhear me.

“That’s not what I mean,” I snapped. “What are you so worried about, anyway?”

“I just… I think the two of you are a little too close, sometimes,” Sadie said. “It’s not healthy.”

I felt my stomach churn. That was so unfair, and so unlike Sadie, I didn’t even know what to say. I knew Sadie had her issues with Rachel, but that…

“What the Hell is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just don’t think she’s good for you. And I don’t understand why you trust her more than Aidan or Liz.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I like spending time with her. She’s easy to talk to, and she actually understands me. She doesn’t try to lecture me, or smother me.”

“Fine, whatever,” Sadie said, backing away. “It’s not like I can stop you, anyway.”

 

Next Week: Does Our Friendship Ever Seem Weird To You?

Chapter 4 – You’re Not A Very Good Liar

One Year Before Impact Day

When I woke up again the next morning, there was someone else in my bed with me. I didn’t even need to roll over to figure out who it was, and I knew I could blame Aidan for letting her in without waking me up. I could probably also blame him for her presence in the first place, since he’d almost certainly messaged her about what had happened.

“What are you doing in my bed?” I asked, not really needing an answer.

“Stealing your body heat,” she said, smiling gently.

I’d met Liz on my first day of high school, and grew to like her almost immediately. She gave off the impression of being antisocial almost to an extreme, though it wasn’t antagonistic. She just didn’t seem interested in anything that the people around her were doing. I felt like we were kindred spirits. She must have seen something similar in me, because I became the first and last friend she ever made. With the exception of Aidan, I suppose, but that was more a matter of convenience than anything else, since he was always around me.

In the years that followed, Liz’s detached coolness actually drew more people to her, though she never really seemed to notice. She was one of the school’s top sports stars, a high academic achiever and incredibly attractive by just about everyone’s standards. Her Eurasian features could have led to a future as a model, and she had the most captivating bright green eyes, silky black hair and the sort of athletic build that might have been intimidating, if not for her heart-melting smile. She literally had a fan club, and she couldn’t have cared less.

Probably about half the people in our school would have killed to wake up with her in their bed. In my case, it was nice, but I also knew it was going to come with a drawn out conversation about the night before, and that was something I definitely did not want to deal with.

Meanwhile, Aidan was reclined on my couch, lazily reading a book. Sadie was sitting behind him, reading over his shoulder. That was more or less the only way she could read, since she couldn’t pick up the books herself.

“So, do I need to ask what you’re doing here?” I asked.

“What, I can’t cuddle up with a friend in bed on a Saturday morning?” Liz complained, dodging the question.

“Alright, well, I’m gonna go for a run,” I said, hoping to escape before she had a chance to start interrogating me.

“That’s a good idea! I’ll come with you,” she said, effortlessly dashing those hopes.

“I’ll be here,” Aidan added, not looking up from his book.

“You can get out while I change, though,” I told him. He blushed, then recovered by rolling his eyes and closing the book, much to Sadie’s disappointment.

“What, you’re actually going?” he complained.

“Well, yeah. I could do with some exercise, anyway.”

“And some fresh air?” he asked snidely, parroting my excuse from the night before. I glared at him, and he sprung up from the couch. “Fine, I’m getting out. I’ll go amuse myself somewhere else.”

Sadie followed him out, presumably hoping he would continue his book. Liz and I got changed, her borrowing my spare athletic gear. We left together, jogging towards the park I’d lied about being at the night before.

I tried to set a pace that would be too hard for Liz to maintain and still be able to talk, but she was probably in better shape than I was. We picked up the pace a little more, running in silence for a while, but she started talking before I could get too comfortable.

“So what happened last night?” she asked, all pretences of subtlety dropped.

I sighed. “What did Aidan tell you?”

“That you were evasive,” she said. “So I’m asking you directly.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” I insisted, jumping over a crack that Liz didn’t even seem to notice.

“Maybe not to you.”

“No, seriously. I was restless, so I decided to go for a walk. It was dark, and I fell down a hill. I got a bit dirty, but that’s all.”

It wasn’t that I wanted to lie to her. I just didn’t want to upset her, and if she knew the real reason I was out, she would have freaked out. Plus, if I told her the truth about what I was doing, I would also need to explain why I was fine, and there was no way I was going to tell anybody about that. Not yet.

“You’re not a very good liar, Charlie.”

“Liz, look at me,” I said. “I’m running. You saw me before; I’m unharmed. Shouldn’t that be enough to tell you that everything is fine?”

“Just because your body is fine, doesn’t mean you are,” she said. “I’m worried about why you were out in the first place.”

We came to a stop in one of the more isolated areas of the park. Neither of us were out of breath, but it was obvious she wanted to focus on talking, not running. There was no easy way out of it.

For a brief moment, I did consider telling her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet.

“I just needed some space,” I lied. “It’s been eleven years, and sometimes I still don’t feel like I belong in that house. Sometimes, I just feel like I need to get out.”

“Charlie, you know they both love you, right? You’re as much a part of their family as they are, and you know they’d say the same.”

Liz wrapped her arms around me, hugging me gently. I hugged her back, trying not to feel guilty for manipulating her. It was for her own good, I told myself. I didn’t need to burden anyone else with my problems.

“I’m hungry,” I said, after enough time had passed to safely change the subject.

“Me too,” she said. “Let’s go back and bully Aidan into making us breakfast.”

“Just bat your eyelashes at him,” I told him. “He’ll grumble, but I guarantee he’ll do it.”

“Is that what you do?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nah, bullying him is more fun,” I said. “And I’m not really the eyelash-batting type.”

“And you think I am?”

“You’re pretty enough to be,” I said. She blushed a little, and turned away.

“Let’s just go back,” she said, and started to jog back the way we came. I smiled, and took off after her.

Bullet dodged, I congratulated myself.

It didn’t feel like a victory, though. It just made me feel more lonely.

 

Six Months Before Impact Day

“I’m not sure I understand the relevance,” he complained.

“You mean you’re not interested in heart-warming stories about my friends?” I asked sarcastically, fidgeting in my bonds. They weren’t exactly comfortable.

“I warned you about wasting my time.”

“Fine, spoil the surprise,” I said, sighing. “Are you familiar with the Effe family?”

“They’re assassins,” he said. “Contract killers. Some of the best in the country.”

Of course he knew them. I’d expected as much.

“At least,” I confirmed. “Liz was one of them. Well, in training. She was only seventeen, after all.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “One of your best friends was part of the most respected family of killers in the country. That seems awfully convenient.”

“Like I said, you don’t know the half of it.”

“Well, that’s why you’re telling me your story,” he said. “Now, is it safe to assume that this Aidan will also be important at some point?”

“You could say that,” I said, shrugging.

“How?”

“I’m getting there,” I snapped. “Trust me, it’s all important.”

“It had better be,” he said. “You can tell me more next time. Right now, I need to make some calls. Your friend, Liz… you referred to her in the past tense. Is she still alive?”

“I don’t know,” I said darkly.

 

Next Week: You Could Make A Difference Too

Chapter 3 – That Doesn’t Make You Invincible

Six Months Before Impact Day

I didn’t see him again for what I’m pretty sure was a week. It was hard to know for sure, given the lack of daylight or any timekeeping device, but it felt like a week. I only slept twice, but that wasn’t unusual for me. Part of the immortality deal seemed to be not needing a lot of it.

I spent most of that week being subjected to a battery of tests. They took vial after vial of blood, cut samples of my hair and fingernails, scrapings of my skin, saliva… other things I’d sooner not think about. I got crammed into every x-ray type machine I could think of, which worried me at first, but when they didn’t start ringing any alarm bells, I figured they somehow hadn’t noticed. Guess I lost that bet.

I was almost excited to talk to whatever-his-name-was again when he finally opened my door. Not because I had any sort of misplaced affection for him, but just because talking was a lot more fun than being poked and prodded.

“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me,” I said to him as he led me to the same interrogation room.

“I’m a busy man,” he replied. “I have a lot of damage to undo, thanks to you.”

I was beaming with pride, but I did my best to make sure he didn’t see it. By the time I’d taken my seat opposite him, my face was completely blank.

“So, what do you want to hear about today? My sixteenth birthday? I played laser tag. I won, but I think that’s because Liz let me win.”

He held up a hand to silence me. I considered ignoring it, but remembered I was supposed to be playing nice.

“Six months ago, you tried to kill yourself. I want you to tell me how you went from that to trying to single-handedly dismantle the largest criminal network in the city.”

“It wasn’t single-handed,” I said, enjoying the shock on his face. “I had help.”

“More like you?” he asked, his eyes lit up with a combination of hope and fear. He would not have made a good poker player.

“There’s no-one like me. But they were special.”

“Special how?”

“I’m guessing you want another story?” I asked.

“I want answers. If a story is how I get them, I will listen. But if you waste my time…”

“Point taken,” I said. “Okay, let’s go back to the night I tried to kill myself.”

 

One Year Before Impact Day

Half an hour later, I was crawling in through the window to the basement, which also happened to be my bedroom. The second my feet touched the floor, the light turned on, in the most clichéd reveal I’d ever been a part of it. I had to smile at that. Aidan was leaning against the wall, a concerned look on his face.

Like his father, Aidan was thin in that bony sort of way that made him kind of look both like a stick figure, and also taller than he actually was. The blonde hair and fair skin added a somewhat spectral element to his appearance, though I wouldn’t have described him as unattractive. His grey eyes rarely settled in one place, but when they did, they stared with an intense focus that was almost unsettling, which was exactly what was happening.

It didn’t surprise me that Aidan was waiting up for me. I was even grateful that it was him and not Mark, my adoptive father, but mostly I was just irritated. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for conversation, and there was no way he was going to leave without a long one.

“Oh my God, what happened to you?” he asked, his expression mortified.

It hadn’t actually occurred to me that I looked like I’d been in an accident. Obviously I was fine, but whatever had kept me alive hadn’t done the same for my clothes. They were pretty badly torn up and covered in dirt and dried blood.

“Huh? Nothing,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t accept it but unable to think of a convincing lie in time.

“You look like Hell,” he said.

Rude,” I told him, even though I knew he was right.

“Not like that,” he said. “Your clothes are all torn, your hair’s a mess, and you’re filthy.”

“Oh,” I said, as if I’d only just realised. “Yeah, I took a bit of a tumble.”

“A tumble.”

“In the park. It’s dark, and I fell down a hill. I’m fine though, really.” At least that part is true?

“What were you doing in a park in the middle of the night?” he asked, still sounding unconvinced.

“Just taking a walk,” I said, still lying through my teeth. “I just needed some air.”

“Charlie, it’s not safe,” he said, and I knew he wouldn’t ask me any more questions after that. He was too protective, and once those instincts were triggered, that was all he would focus on.

“Oh, please,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

I had to keep myself from smirking as I watched him bristle. When you’ve known someone for the vast majority of their life, you tend to figure out exactly how to push their buttons. Aidan had been my adoptive brother since the accident, and we were best friends even before then. I knew everything about him.

“Do I really need to say it?”

“Aidan, I can take care of myself,” I insisted. “I have like, three black belts.”

Mark had signed me up for aikido classes years ago in a vain attempt to give me an outlet for all of the aggression I was feeling. It didn’t work, but I enjoyed it so much that I also took up jujitsu and karate. I’d never actually been in a real fight, but I still felt pretty confident I could take care of myself.

“That doesn’t make you invincible,” he said, and I struggled to keep a straight face. “If anything, the overconfidence only makes it worse.”

“You are such a worrier. Trust me, I’m fine.”

“Try telling me that when you haven’t just come home looking like you were hit by a car,” he said, and for a moment, I hesitated. That was a little too close to the truth. There was no way he could actually know what had happened, right?

“God, you’re such a nag,” I teased.

“And proud of it,” he said. “Alright, go and have a shower. I’ll make you some food. Custard?”

If there was one thing Aidan was good at, it was taking care of people. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t get much of an outlet for that, living with Mark and me. We much preferred to take care of ourselves. That said, I wasn’t about to turn down custard.

“That’s cheating. You know I can’t say no to custard.”

“I’m just looking out for you,” he replied, smiling innocently.

I grabbed a clean t-shirt and underwear from my closet, then pushed him up the stairs so I could get to the shower. As he made his way to the kitchen, Sadie followed me into the bathroom. I started the water running so that we could talk without anyone overhearing me, and began peeling off my ruined clothes.

“Are you going to tell him?” she asked, perching on the side of the bath.

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” I said, wincing as I realised how badly my clothes stank.

“You can’t keep everything to yourself, Charlie,” scolded me, as I stepped into the shower. The hot water felt amazing, and almost immediately I could feel all of my muscles beginning to relax. After only a few minutes, I felt like myself again.

“Just watch me,” I told her.

“Aidan’s worried about you, too. Don’t you think it’s unfair to lie to him like this? If you can’t trust him, who can you trust?”

I wanted to say nobody, but there was one person I felt like I could actually trust. I wasn’t ready to talk just yet, but when I was… I felt pretty sure I knew who I was going to talk to.

I turned off the water, ignoring Sadie’s question. She stared at me as I began to towel myself off, and it was obvious she was checking for any sign of injury. I just kept ignoring her, pulled on the baggy t-shirt and fresh underwear, and threw the ruined clothes in a plastic bag. They were going right in the bin.

The smell of custard lured me back into my room, where Aidan was waiting for me, bowl in hand. He offered it to me and I snatched it out of his hands, suddenly very hungry.

“Okay, yes, this is delicious,” I told him, my mouth full of hot custard.

“Feeling better, then?”

“I told you, I’m fine,” I insisted. “Look, not even any scratches.” I pulled up the t-shirt to show him, smirking as he turned red.

“I see that,” he said awkwardly.

“Oi. Eyes up front, pervert.”

“Put some damn pants on, then,” he snapped, looking away.

“Shouldn’t have to,” I retorted.

“No, I didn’t mean-”

“Relax, I’m kidding,” I assured him, enjoying his embarrassment. It felt harmless and natural, which was just what I needed. I also needed sleep, though. I was going to get precious little of it as it was. “Thanks for the custard. Mind if I sleep now?”

“Yeah, I’ll leave you in peace,” he said, collecting the bowl from me. “Just take care of yourself, okay?”

I stuck my tongue out at him as he left the room. It was nice to feel loved. It was nice to be able to recognise it. Even a few hours ago, I hadn’t felt that way at all.

 

Next Week: You’re Not A Very Good Liar