I stared at the carpet, at the shards of glass. There were a couple larger ones, but it was mostly as if there was a light dusting of snow on the ground. I felt cold looking at it, although I was sitting there in a T-shirt, cradling myself as I tried to come to terms with everything I’d done, so maybe I was actually cold.
These powers are not what I wanted them to be. My vision swam with tears. I blinked them away, letting them drip down onto the powdered glass.
I needed to sweep up. That would probably give Alex enough time in the bathroom to at least tell me he wanted to break up with me face-to-face, instead of with him…well, running into the bathroom to get away from me.
When I had first gotten the powers, I had looked at them like a gift. They could have been such a good thing in my life, if I only…
“If I only knew how to use them properly.”
I saw something drip down onto the ground, but it wasn’t the tears still dangling from the tip of my nose; it had fallen from my outstretched pinky, and it was red.
I took my hands off my head and looked at my arm. The cut had been a bit deeper than I’d thought.
There was a lot of blood, although I was hardly trying to staunch the flow at all. I didn’t really care, except that there would be a permanent stain on the light grey carpet, and both Jesse and I would look at it and be reminded of how large a fuck-up I was when life handed me the ability to do something amazing—something no one else in history could do.
I’d used that amazing ability to blow up a bus and kill my little brother and then proceeded to ruin my relationship—the only good thing still in my life except for Jesse.
I sighed and let myself fall onto my side across the couch. It was a little easier to cry now, to be honest, because the tears could flow a bit easier.
My powers have done nothing but evil. I have done nothing but evil with my powers. I’m not a superhero. I’m a supervillain.
I gulped, crying silently without any coherent thoughts for a moment until one properly formed in my head. Now that everyone—my brother, my boyfriend—had finally left me, it was clear: I was the problem.
If I were a superhero—if I could actually control what I can do—then they would want to be around me, and it would be safe for them. I’ve killed enough people to be labelled a serial killer.
I shook my head to try to clear it of the images of the college student on the bus. I swear I could smell the scent of his too-strong deodorant mixed with the faint smell of the puke stain on his shirt.
I need to figure out a way to not be a supervillain. I can’t do good with my powers, I can’t…
I was struggling to see beyond polar opposites, a good versus evil sort of situation. There was next to nothing in the world that was purely one or the other.
“I can’t make the world a better place by doing this. For anyone.” I held up my hand—the electricity was still crackling on the outside—and made a fist, forcing the energy back inside, trying to draw it as close to the centre of my being as I could.
When it got to the point where it didn’t feel like it was crawling on the underside of my skin, I unclenched my fist. It was…disappointing. Lonely. Like I’d been wrapped in a warm, cozy blanket and then taken it off.
I sighed, tapping my forehead with my fist a couple times, letting my eyes close and the tears flow freely. I ran my hand through my hair. It was an absolute mess, which fit with how I was feeling.
I can’t make the world a better place with my powers, and using them is making everything worse. I need to stop using my powers. My tears slowed at that thought, and as it cemented itself in my mind, I marvelled at how simple it seemed.
I’d only had the power for a few days at most, and with it shoved this far down, into the very core of my soul, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to feel it at all from day to day.
Who knew, maybe in a week, I would forget what it felt like to have it on the outside of my skin. In a month, I might not remember how to summon the energy to the surface.
In a year, I could completely forget about it.
“I can never use my powers again.” I said it aloud, trying to focus on each syllable, as if saying it—hearing it—would make it more real, make it more final, and it did seem to work a bit. That was what finally made the tears stop.
“I can never use my powers again,” I said again. It was almost like a magic spell. When I said it aloud, all the tension in my body suddenly vanished, letting me finally relax.
I sat up, a couple tears still running down my cheeks. Suddenly, though, I could feel the scratches on my arm, leg, and face from the shards of glass I had rubbed into my right side without caring about the pain.
I stood up, wincing when one of the larger pieces snapped loudly beneath my foot.
It was simple, really. I would never use my powers again, and life would slowly but surely revert to normal.
I’d give it a couple days and talk to Alex again, give him time to recover from the shock, and we’d pretend it was a joke that went horribly wrong—whether it was more important to prove it to him or to myself, I had no idea.
I could tell him it would never happen again, that I had learned my lesson. I would never tell him about having killed Jesse. The image of Jesse’s body falling replayed in my mind, and I shook my head to clear it again.
I would never tell Alex what had happened on the bus or why it had unexpectedly exploded.
I would…never do it again.
“I’m not a superhero,” I said, sounding a lot calmer than I had expected. “I need to accept that and move on.”
I walked down the front hallway to the bathroom and knocked on the door.
“Alex?”