“I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” I said as I walked out of the bakery. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone, hit 1 and paused, my thumb above the call button.
I wanted to call him, but at the same time, I didn’t want to talk to him. Come on, Hol, you can do this.
I forced myself to press down on the button and waited for it to connect. He answered after only two rings and sounded out of breath.
“Hello?”
“Hey, babe.”
“Oh, good, it is you.”
“Can we talk?”
“O-of course.”
“I mean, like…in person. Are you able to do that?” I need to be sure I can trust you.
“Of course. Sure. Are you home yet?”
“No, I just left work. I took my car today—do you want me to come over and pick you up on the way?”
“I can head over myself. We’re about the same time from your house. I’ll let myself in the garage if you’re not home—that okay?”
“Of course. Talk to—err, see you soon.”
“Holly?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“You, too.” I sighed as I closed my phone. I was pretty sure we’d get over this, but I’d decided in the middle of the phone call that I wanted to talk to him about something potentially worse than his cheating. I needed to tell him about my powers, but first I needed to make sure I could trust him properly.
I held up my hand and let the electricity come out. It shocked its way up my fingers, a blue arc playing up the air between my outstretched fingers from base to tip. I clenched my fist, and there was a soft zzmft! as the energy fizzled. It was something I would need to show him. And the video, probably, too.
I stepped into my car, forcing the rampant energy back underneath my skin. I could feel it again, as if it were crawling on the underside. It was a very, very uncomfortable feeling, but I didn’t want to force the energy any deeper. I didn’t know what it would do to me if I tried to banish it forever. I also wasn’t sure I really wanted to.
I sighed, then stuck my key in the ignition. The car started up, and I set off for home, driving past Alex’s house to make sure his car had already left the driveway. He lived fairly close to the bakery, but the way I drove, I managed to get to my house just as he was flipping up the plastic cover to the alarm in the garage. He smiled when he saw me—a little frantic and nervous—and flipped down the casing, walking towards my car.
“Hey, hon.”
“Hey, babe.” I leaned over to accept his kiss, but he pulled back, like we’d just started going out. “Let’s talk inside,” I said and slammed my car door shut, locking it with the wireless key as we walked towards the house, hand in hand, as if nothing had ever happened between us to make us worry about the future of our relationship.
You need to be able to trust him, Holly, or else why should you continue to be together? If Jesse can already trust Brent with stuff like this…
I disentangled my hand from his to dig in my pocket for my house key.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“You…you keep sighing.” For a second, he looked like he was sixteen again, the shy teenager he’d been the first time I’d met him.
I grabbed his hand again. “Listen, I don’t want to break up. We still need to talk, but that’s not what I want to talk about, so you don’t need to worry, okay?”
At least, not about that. Maybe about me showing off and accidentally killing you. That’s a possibility.
I squeezed his hand, looking into his eyes until he nodded. He looked like he’d been crying all morning, his eyes bloodshot to the extent that he was wearing his glasses instead of his contacts—something I very rarely saw him do.
“I’ve…got something I want to show you.”
“Why does that sound like the intro to a bad porn flick? Isn’t that my line?”
I unlocked the door and looked over my shoulder at my boyfriend. Boy, do I know how to pick ’em. I laughed and shook my head, not bothering to actually respond to that.
“I didn’t think you felt like you needed something quite as corny as that pick-up line, hon.” He laughed too, and it was as if the tension had been lifted off our shoulders. I’d told him I didn’t want to Talk; it was just a talk—small t. I was a little worried—okay, a lot worried—that he would be terrified of my powers, but I had to trust him. If Jesse could trust Brent enough to tell him about this, I could trust Alex.
We sat on the couch in the living room and just kind of cuddled in silence for a few minutes. I wasn’t relishing telling him, but he was playing with his sleeves, and I knew him well enough to know he was trying to hide his anxiety.
“So—” I began, but he cut me off.
“So, what is this all about?” He spoke quickly, not looking at me.
“I wanted to… Okay, I think it needs a bit of explanation first.” I breathed in and disentangled myself from his arm, draped over my shoulder. “When I woke up after the hydro field incident, the entire world felt a little different. I’ve heard of people saying that after they died—err, after they were resuscitated—but I’d never thought about what it might feel like.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for a while, I thought I was dreaming. There was no way I was actually seeing what I was. I thought it was the painkillers messing with my head a bit.”
“What…what were you seeing, Holly?”
“To put it plainly…I have superpowers.”
He blinked, then burst out laughing, crying at the same time.
I cleared my throat. “Okay, that wasn’t exactly the reaction I was hoping for, but it could have been worse.”
“Oh my God, all these dramatics for a stupid joke like that?” He shook her head, wiping tears from his eyes. “I knew you were a ham, but nothing like this! You really had me, hon, you really had me.”
“No, Alex, I—wait, you think I’m a ham?”
“Someone who likes the spotlight and attention.”
“I know what a ham is, Alex. I—”
“It’s not a bad thing. It’s who you are.”
“I’m serious!” That completely sucked the humour out of the room. I’d been preparing for another onslaught of laughter, but he was quietly studying my face, trying to figure out what I was thinking.
“You’re serious.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Okay, I…I have no idea how you…” He shook his head, pressing the heel of his hand into his forehead. “Are you on something?”
I blinked. “Is that a serious question?”
“Well, that makes one whole hell of a lot more sense than you having some sort of fucking superpowers!” He was talking loudly again, and though I knew it meant this was probably escalating into an argument, I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier, and my voice was significantly louder when I shouted back at him.
“I’m telling you that I’m serious, and I don’t know why you can’t just trust me to actually tell the truth!”
“Then why don’t you show me, Holly? Huh? Why don’t you set something on fire, or turn all the lights off with your mind, or whatever the hell you think it is you can do!?” He was standing up now, and I took a step back. I was confident he’d never hit me, but if you’d asked me a week ago, I’d have said the same about him cheating on me. I didn’t know what to think anymore, and unless I used my powers, he would win any physical fight we had. But I was still angry.
“I…can’t.” I nearly screamed the “I,” launching spittle from my mouth, and then paused and said the second word at normal volume.
“Why can’t you? Please, if you’re telling the truth, by all means show me and prove it. Prove to me you’re not hallucinating.”
I held up my hand in a fist, and he backed up.
“I’m not going to hit you! I just want to make sure I don’t accidentally…” Kill you. “Hit you.” Like I did Jesse. I closed my eyes, shaking my head.
“You don’t want to hit me? Holly, I’m not in the mood for these stupid jokes of yours!”
I was doing my best to stay calm and control the energy when he smacked my temple. The sudden attack made me lose my grip. I felt the electricity leave my body the same way it had on the bus, and my heart skipped a beat as I realized Alex was right next to me.
Luckily, I didn’t have as much energy stored up and ready to be used, so the wave didn’t really affect Alex. He shuddered, but that was it.
The large TV in the room, though, fared a little worse.
The sudden surge of power running through its internal wiring overloaded its circuits, and it exploded, spraying glass fragments—tiny, extremely sharp glass fragments—hurtling into the air at high velocity, slicing into my arm and the side of my face.
I yelped in pain, closed my eye and threw up a hand in an attempt to block any more shards from hitting my face and neck. I heard Alex scream, and out of the corner of the eye I didn’t have squeezed shut, I could make out a thick, red streak across his face. One of the larger pieces of the TV screen had flown out at the right angle to slash across his cheek. He ran into the bathroom down the hall and slammed the door shut.
“A…” I looked around, not even finishing his name. There wasn’t really any point. There was the shimmer of glass fragments on the ground, smoke issuing from the TV set and, I noticed, from the surround sound speakers around the room—and I had hurt my boyfriend, all because of these fucking powers.
“Alex…” I let my head hang, clenching my fist. I really, really need to get a grip on this. I’d hurt my boyfriend, even if he had hit me first. I’d terrified him into hiding from me. Worse than that, I’d killed my younger brother, who’d been trying to help me gain control over these powers that I hated so much. I needed to…I needed to decide if they were worth it.
Ignoring the shards of glass, I sat on the couch and buried my head in my hands.