I’M EXHAUSTED, BUT sleep won’t come. I jolt between burning women and burning cars whenever I shut my eyes. Amelia’s face blurs into Mom’s, into my own, like I’m looking through a distorted horror-house mirror.
Luckily, Lyssa’s used to me waking up screaming. She doesn’t comment.
I do catch her scoping out my bandage, though, after I heave myself out of bed around ten. She raises her eyebrows and mm-hmms at my claim it’s just a bad graze. I make good on my promise to take her to the bougie park, just to shut her up.
Guarding Lyssa’s vacated chair isn’t my idea of a fun morning. Still, I nurse a glimmer of pride, watching her feed the ducks with her friends. She’s the best shot by far. You’re not supposed to give birds bread (so says animal welfare, pest control, and everyone else who hates fun), but the park sells overpriced cups of oatmeal, so stale cornflakes can’t be far off the mark. Lyssa nails one duck in the noggin, and her school friends whoop so loud the sunbathing crew slide down their aviators to glare.
But I can only pretend to be okay for so long.
It happens that evening. Lyssa’s vegetating in front of the TV again while I reacquaint myself with my bed and answer the barrage of checking-in texts Hernando always sends on his breaks. I slide Jav a text, too, to let her know I’m not dead and that we should meet at the library soon so she can be inspired by my presence, like one of those Ye Olde-Timey artistic muses who were paid to drape nakedly over couches and eat grapes. But then I start thinking about Amelia being, y’know, actually dead, and my fingers shake across my phone screen like I’m tweaking.
Usually, talking to Jav makes my chest fizzle. But this time my rib cage tightens, and tightens, and tightens, strangling the breath right outta me.
Not my first rodeo. I let autocorrect take care of the worst of it and repeat in-two-three-four-five, out-two-three-four-five until I stop feeling like I’m being crushed in an invisible fist. Still, knowing how to handle panic attacks (thanks, Mom) doesn’t make them any less awful.
My most obvious trigger is getting into cars. So, duh, I don’t make a habit of that. But then there’s the shit I can’t predict. A distant explosion that shocks me back to that crunching impact. The smell of burning gasoline. Or when I feel myself start to shake and I don’t have the first clue as to why.
I’m not looking to be fixed. Just to feel like I have my hands on the wheel (metaphorically. Cars being my kryptonite and all). And evidently, watching a villain burn a woman to death? Not helping.
It’s almost like … exposure therapy … should be conducted in controlled environments …
Who’da thought.
Thing is, I knew joining Hench was a crap idea. I guess I wanted to prove something to myself by becoming a henchman. That I could be a badass. That my mental-health bullshit doesn’t have to hold me back. But it does hold me back. That’s why it’s mental-health bullshit. I can’t just grit my teeth and muscle on through.
Lyssa comes in at some point. Doesn’t say a word. I don’t need her to. She’s just there, sliding down the wall to sit, tucking an arm around me, rubbing my spine. I forget she’s an obnoxious little gremlin child for long enough to hug her back.
“How come you don’t get this so badly,” I mutter, once I can talk again. “We were in the same crash.”
The real reason: brains are weird, we’re all wired differently, Lyssa got knocked out immediately and didn’t have to watch that awful part in the middle that makes my mind freeze like an old computer whenever I think about it, full blue-screen-of-death.
Lyssa Garcia’s reason: “Super gene, duh.”
“You don’t have the Super gene. For the last time. And I’m fairly sure ‘resistance to trauma’ isn’t on the official powers list.”
She winks at me, only she sucks at it, so it’s more like a really exaggerated, staggered blink. “Two weeks to my birthday. Guess we’ll find out.”
She’s just being a brat. Mocosa, Abuelita would say. No way is she getting powers.
“Stick to writing self-insert fanfic,” I tell her, unfolding from my curl. My body always feels so tight and heavy after a panic attack. Like my joints have fused. I have to dig my thumbs into my thighs to stop them cramping. “That’s the only way you’re hanging with the Super Squad.”
Unless she lies about her age and joins Hench. After last night, though, I’m never letting my little sister anywhere near a real hero/villain battle. I’d rather face a thousand panic attacks, every single day.