Phenom

by Kay Cordell

  “Not like it can hurt me.”

  “But it’s not just that. The way you just took charge and went for it, no matter what needed to be done. No hesitation. Don’t tell Amber I said this, but she was right.”

  “About what?”

  “She told me that you’re going to be okay.”

  “Amber said that? About me?”

  “Yup. And I agree. I saw it tonight. You’re going to be more than okay. You’re going to be…breathtaking.”

  Jos’ chin drops. If her skin weren’t ink black, she’d be blushing. The poor kid never did know how to take a compliment.

  “Nyesha stopped talking to me.” Jos says it in one breath, as if forcing it out all at once is the only way she’d ever say the words.

  “No!”

  Jos and Nyesha have—had been bests friends since the 7th grade, when Nyesha moved to Englewood, NJ, the Everetts’ hometown. And after Jos’ skin turned into an obsidian-like exoskeleton at the beginning of this school year, Nyesha had been the one person able to coax Jos out of the house.

  “No,” Erin says again. “It has to be a misunderstanding. Maybe you guys are in a fight and you just don’t know it? It’ll blow over.”

  “And she started hanging out with Kelly Strickland, who always talks about me behind my back and whose mom is trying to get me and Amber kicked out of school.”

  “Well, as Amber would say, Nyesha sucks.”

  “But the thing is…” And then Jos is talking a mile a minute. As if now that all those bottled-up words have started pouring out, there’s no shutting them off. “It just happened overnight. One day we were fine and the next, it was like we’d never been friends. I’ve been wondering if maybe she really couldn’t handle how different I am now.

  “Like, what if on the inside she’s been freaking out all this time, but on the outside, she was pretending things were normal because it’s easier than accepting that something has changed. I mean, I’m still freaked out about it like ninety-percent of the time and it’s my body. Has been for over six months. Because change is scary, especially when you don’t see it coming.”

  Erin stops short, bringing Jos to a halt with her. “Dammit.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s just…you’re right. From the mouth of baby sisters. And for the record, I don’t care if you ever look ‘normal’ again. I just want you to be happy. I’m sorry if I made you feel like my happiness rests on your shoulders.

  “The truth is I have been praying for the old you to come back, but it has nothing to do with how you look. Maybe I just want you to forever be the little girl who loved playing Pretty, Pretty Princess and watching Saturday morning cartoons, but you haven’t been that girl for a long time.

  “Since before we got our powers, you were figuring out who you are. You were always going to grow up and become your own person, superpowers or not. Whatever changes you have to go through, I promise to do better. I’ll always be your big sister.”

  “If it makes you feel better, I still like Saturday morning cartoons.”

  Erin laughs and they start walking again. “Have you heard that saying, people come into your life for a reason, for a season or for life? If Nyesha doesn’t want to be your friend anymore, then let her go. I know it hurts, but if her season is past, then letting her go will make room for that ‘for life’ friend who’s waiting for you.”

  Jos doesn’t say anything for a while. Then, “Is Carter a ‘for a season’ friend? Will you let him go?”

  Erin grunts. She doesn’t realize that she’s stopped again, that’s she’s grabbed her chest until she notices the concerned way that Jos watches her.

  “If that’s what he really wants…” she trails off.

  “It’s not,” Jos strolls ahead, leaving Erin to double her steps to catch up. “Obviously. And I don’t think you want that either, anymore than I want to lose my best friend.”

  Wrapping an arm around Jos’ shoulder, Erin pulls her little sister in close. “Then don’t let her go without seeing if whatever happened isn’t something you can fix.”

  “Right,” she says, vaguely. Then she says it again, this time with more resolve. “Right.”

  “When did you become so perceptive, by the way?” Erin asks.

  Jos winds an arm around Erin’s waist. “It’s in my goth nature. We’re very emotionally sensitive people.”

  14

  After hitting the showers, Jos falls asleep in Toya’s bed the second her head hits the pillow. But Erin’s mind won’t stop churning and replaying everything that has happened in the last nine hours.

  She isn’t sure where Toya ended up hunkering down for the night. Now that her anger has subsided, she’d take back that part of the evening when she kicked her out. And everything she yelled at Carter while she’s at it.

  But it’s not only thoughts of wrong things said that keep her up. There’s also Carter’s warmth as she snuggled drowsily against him. That little sideways grin he gave her when they walked side by side on the way to the restaurant. That first glance of him when she’d opened the door to him after he came knocking.

  When did things change between them? Was it after he asked her out? Or was it way before? Tiny shifts over time, little nudges that drew them closer every time they hung out, only she hadn’t noticed.

  When did Carter Neeson become someone she misses when it’s only been hours since they stopped talking to each other?

  It’s past 4am when she accepts that she and sleep aren’t cool with each other right now. Which is how she winds up wandering the halls in her favorite, worst pajamas, and eventually stumbles into the common room.

  Common Room Camille is there of course, curled up and dozing on the room’s biggest couch in front of a Dick Van Dyke rerun on the TV. Her precious camera sits on the coffee table next to the remote.

  On the other side of the room, a couple of guys play foosball, celebrating a little too exuberantly every time one of them scores, or blocks the other from scoring, or makes the wooden figures spin really, really fast, or just when they feel like it.

  Doesn’t anyone sleep around here?

  She doesn’t see Carter dissembling his latest Lego creation until she’s far enough into the room that it would be awkward—and obvious— if she turns around and flees. He occupies the tight sitting arrangement of a small sofa, coffee table and a pair of chairs in the claustrophobic alcove to the left of the door.

  When he sees her, his fingers go still in the middle of pulling apart Lego Luigi. Neither of them speak.

  She becomes ridiculously aware of the fact that she’s standing there in her rattiest pajamas.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he says finally.

  Erin isn’t sure whether it’s a question or a statement, but she nods. Seems like an appropriate response either way.

  Then it’s more silence. Like the day he’d asked her out. Like that night at the restaurant. She hates this feeling with a depth of loathing usually reserved for the most vile supervillains.

  She should have followed her first instinct and fled the room.

  No, this is good. No more avoiding this situation just because it makes her uncomfortable. She’s Phenom, dammit! She tackles problems head on.

  Straightening her back and lifting her chin, she marches to Carter’s corner like the superhero she is. If she can save the day, she can mend things with Carter Neeson.

  And maybe even figure out what it is she really wants from him.

  At her approach, he jumps to his feet.

  “I’m sorry,” he says before she can get her own apology out.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I do. I was being pushy and all that stuff I said was so wack. Maybe there’s a good reason I’m a man of few words.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to string you along, for months apparently. In my defense, I can be really dense about this sort of thing. I mean, the guys in high school weren’t exactly knocking down my door. And I was more conc
erned about grades and extracurriculars and getting into an Ivy League. And before Thursday I didn’t know how you felt. I promise.”

  “Okay.” He nods. “I get that.”

  “So we can agree that we both said some really stupid stuff that we’d take back if we could, right?” she asks.

  He lets out a breath. “Yes, please.”

  “Good… Good.” She stops herself from saying “Good” again.

  But then she doesn’t know what else to say. As glad as she is to have cleared the air, all she can do is stand there twiddling her thumbs like an idiot.

  “So what now?” Carter asks.

  “I don’t know.” Erin sits. When he settles back into his spot beside her, she turns to him, arm propped on the back of the sofa, knee folded between them. “It turns out, and this is fresh off the presses, I’m not as amazing at accepting change as I thought I was.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Shut up. But yeah. In fact, I basically suck at it. I’m not saying put your life on hold for me, but can you give me time to wrap my mind around ‘us’ changing?”

  “I can do that.” He resumes the deconstruction of Luigi. “I’m a patient guy.”

  She responds to his flitting smile with a wide grin, then grabs Yoshi off the table and gets to work pulling it apart.

  “I still don’t know how you can just tear apart what you’ve worked so hard to build,” she says.

  “I know I’ll be creating something even better from the pieces.” Carter’s eyes meet hers, unwavering. “I can already see it.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Erin face warms. She looks away, focusing on separating the green and white bricks.

  Side by side, they work wordlessly. The sounds of the room create a strange but comfortable ambience around them. The soft, sharp clatter every time they toss a handful of Legos into their small, color-sorted containers. The soft snoring from Common Room Camille on the couch in the middle of the room. The upbeat tones and laugh tracks from the TV. The guys playing foosball jeering and whopping and knocking the little soccer ball around. And the ever-present hum of the city leaking in through the big bay windows.

  Eventually the foosball guys leave and the common room is quiet except for the re-runs and commercials on the television. The Dick Van Dyke episode ends and another begins. Carter’s elaborate tribute to Super Mario Bros is nearly all disassembled, only the big green sewer pipe and a brown mushroom guy are left. Erin feels more at peace than she has in days. She steals a glance at Carter and smiles.

  And right then, watching the serene expression on his face, the swift, assured movements of his hands, she knows—or at least, she’s pretty sure she knows—how she really feels about him.

  And the realization makes her giddy, or maybe she’s just punch drunk.

  And she almost says something.

  And…

  And…

  And…still something stops her.

  Once the words are out, there’s no taking them back.

  She tosses the last bricks of the little mushroom guy she’d been taking apart into their container, rubs her palms over the fabric of her pajamas pants, suddenly having nothing to do with them. Suddenly needing something to do with them. But the only thing left to disassemble is the sewer pipe and Carter’s already working away at it.

  She snatches up a New Am U course catalogue from the coffee table and flips through pages painted with highlighter.

  “Any closer to picking your major?” she asks.

  “Nope?”

  “Anything you’re kind of interested in? Any classes you sorta like more than others?”

  He shrugs. “We all can’t be like you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You showed up on day one knowing exactly what you wanted to do.”

  “Well, yeah. Majoring in chemical engineering was an easy choice. I love science.”

  He huffs a laugh. “Easy, huh?”

  Shutting the catalogue, she turns her full attention on him. “I want you to try something. Close your eyes.”

  He raises an eyebrow instead.

  “For real. Just do it.” When he doesn’t immediately comply, she plucks his glasses from his face and settles them onto her own. “They’re heavier than they look. Oh, wow.”

  She looks around the room in amazement.

  “I’m not that blind,” he says.

  “Yeah, you are. Is the world just a bunch of formless blobs of color for you now?”

  “Hardy har har.”

  “Anyway, do it.” She takes off the glasses and folds them in her hand. “Close your eyes.”

  Leaning back, he laces his hands over his stomach and shuts his eyes.

  “Now imagine it’s ten years from now,” she says, “and every day for the last decade you’ve stuck with one single thing, and you still love it. What is that one thing?”

  He opens his eyes, but doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. The way he watches her says it all, and without his glasses, his face is even more of an open book than usual.

  Her heart skips a beat. She swallows, bites her lip, finds herself avoiding his eyes once more. A smarter, braver part of her whispers urgently, Say it. Say it now.

  “I wish I had your focus,” he says. “You know exactly what you want and you go for it.”

  Erin laughs. A very unpretty guffaw. “Me? No way. Maybe with something easy like, choosing a career or what to do when I suddenly get super powers. But with other things, the really hard stuff, sometimes I don’t know what I want until it’s staring me in the face.”

  She meets his gaze, doesn’t look away.

  He sits up, the movement careful as if she’s a bird that’ll startle away. “What are you—?”

  She kisses him.

  His bafflement doesn’t last long. Quiet, awkward Carter pulls Erin into him, his arm solid and warm around her waist. They fall back against the sofa together as she presses into him. His forgotten glasses are a clumsy hinderance in her hands and sets them on the coffee table. Only she can’t bother to pay attention to what her hand is doing and hits a Lego container, knocking it noisily to the floor.

  They pause to glance at the mess, chuckle.

  Carter tugs at one of her braids, traces her jaw with his thumb. “When you make up your mind about something—”

  “I make up my mind.”

  And then they’re kissing again.

  “No!” A strangled sound somewhere between a gasp and a stage whisper. Erin untangles herself from Carter and jolts to her feet. She doesn’t slip into superhero mode quite as quickly as she should. But who could blame her.

  Common Room Camille is sitting up on her couch, twisted around to face Erin and Carter. She’s near tears.

  “No,” she says again, “it’s supposed to be me.”

  “Is she sleep walking or something?” Erin asks Carter. “You hang out in here more than me. Is this something she does?”

  “I know you like her,” Camille says, “but me and you have so much more in common, Carter. And I know she’s superhero and you can’t resist that any more than the rest of the guys here, but I’m a super too!”

  Erin and Carter exchange a glance. He’s just as baffled as she is.

  “When I found it, I knew it was a sign,” Camille continues. “I just need time. Just a little practice. And I figured it out. I was trying to show you things that you like, but I think it’ll work better if I start with the things I love.”

  “What are you talking about, Camille?”

  But before Erin can finish asking the question, Camille is pulling her hand out of her pocket. She immediately recognizes the green patina and gold-inlaid shapes of the round ancient artifact. “Guess we know who found Mr. Mytholic’s moon disc,” Carter says from the sofa.

  “Yeah, looks like it. Wait, what?” That last part comes out as a shriek of disbelief.

  To be fair, Erin doesn’t often shriek. But some situations call for a higher octave.
>
  Like finding out via casual comment that your close friend turned I-don’t-know-I-guess-we’re-dating-now? is also your favorite partner in crime fighting.

  Because there were only so many people in on that conversation after they took down Mr. Mytholic and The Hot Chick.

  Erin whips around to face Carter, but he doesn’t look at her as reaches for his glasses and rises to his feet. A small grin pulls at the corner of his mouth.

  “I’ll show you!” Camille says, reminding Erin that she’s still there.

  The moon disc flashes. When the blinding light fades, the whole room is a flutter of frantic motion.

  Camille screams, but Erin can no longer see her. So many butterflies fill the room that she can’t see through them past a foot or so. There must be millions. The room is dim, the swarm so thick they block the light.

  Erin’s skin crawls from the sensation of countless thin, frantically beating wings bouncing against her. They’re a flurry of bright colors, but she can’t admire them. With this many, they’re just bugs. And they’re gross.

  “No! No!” Camilla cries. Somewhere out there. “That’s way too many!”

  Carter draws Erin against the wall and pulls her close, blocking some of the technicolor swarm with his body. Erin reaches for the coffee table and positions it in front of them as a sort of shield. It’s not a completely effective set up, but it gives them some relief.

  She glares up at him. She could have snatched the Moon Disc from Camille if he hadn’t distracted her with that bombshell. Now she’s lost her line of sight, and she can’t exactly do her telepathy thing on something she can’t see.

  Erin jabs a finger at his chest. “Your timing sucks.”

  “Not comedically.”

  “So, Tech, where them Bots when we need them?”

  “On their way. I have to sneak them from my closet and out the door. Gave Toya my bed. Knew I wouldn’t be getting any sleep anyway.”

  “You have to sneak them past Toya but not Nate?”

  “He knows.”

  “Of course he does. But you don’t have to be sneaky. You know Toya’s the world’s heaviest sleeper.”

  “Too many!” Camille is still yelling. “Too many! You’re supposed to be pretty.”