The Phobia of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  “No, I didn’t have time to work it into a conversation, so I just asked her. Because I believed you at first, but then I kind of suspected that maybe you just said that to gross me out. And I think Kat has a right to know what rumors you’ve been spreading about her.”

  “Seriously?”

  “And she told me that it wasn’t true, not even a little bit, and that you totally made it up to mess with me.”

  “How do you know she wasn’t just being polite? And no more movie marathons if you guys are going to talk about me!”

  Amelia just smirks, like she’s finally gotten the upper hand on me, which she most certainly has not. “It’s time for flying lessons.”

  “I’m kind of busy right now.”

  “Doing what? Talking to Kat? Because she said she had homework to do—I heard her.”

  “I have homework to do.”

  “You can do it later. This won’t take that long.”

  “Amelia, I never said—”

  She scowls at me. “You said you’d do it.”

  “But I didn’t say I’d do it today.”

  “You have to do it every day. The test is in only ten days.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No buts. Flying lessons start right now, or they don’t start at all.”

  The video of what the flying test is supposed to look like ends, and Amelia clicks a button on her laptop to start it over again.

  We’re sitting on the edge of her bed. Amelia has the laptop balanced on her knees. She insisted that flying lessons needed to happen in her room, since my room was too associated with failure. I told her I didn’t fail the flying test in my room, and she said it was at least associated with the thought of failure and that her room was failure free. Which I find extremely hard to believe, but whatever.

  I turn away from the computer. “I’ve seen enough. There’s no way I can do that. And if your whole plan was just to watch videos—”

  “It’s not. And if this is going to work, you have to actually give it a chance.”

  “Maybe starting with a reminder of how I’ll never be good enough wasn’t the best way to go.”

  “I showed it to you so you’d know what your goal is. And so you could see that there’s really not that much to it.”

  I look at her like she’s insane, which she obviously is. “Yeah, well, you’re not the one who has to actually do it. Zigzagging through hoops on the ceiling isn’t exactly my strong point.”

  “I know. That’s why we’re here. But I’m just trying to show you that it’s not that bad. Because,” she says, cutting me off before I can argue with her, “all you really have to learn is how to go up to the ceiling, how to go through hoops, and then how to come back down.”

  “Oh, is that all?” It still sounds pretty impossible to me.

  “Yes. I just mean that you don’t have to know everything about flying. You don’t even have to be that good at it as long as you can do the test.”

  “I have to be good enough that Ted won’t fail me.”

  “We’ll work on that. But it’s really only three moves.”

  “That involve being up high and me not freaking out the whole time.”

  “You can, though. You made it up all those stairs at the gala without freaking out. And you’ve flown before. Well.” She hesitates. “I’ve never seen you, but you claim you have.”

  “Great lesson. I’ve learned so much.”

  “That wasn’t the lesson. It was just part of it. You still have to fly.”

  I look up at the ceiling. My stomach twists. I feel dizzy, and we haven’t even started yet. “Look, Amelia, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but—”

  “You flew for Zach,” she says. “He told me about it. He asked to see you fly, and you did it.”

  “I… I mean, yeah, I did.”

  “He said you went up to the ceiling. I’m not even asking you to do that.”

  “You’re not?”

  “I just want you to get off the ground. For now, anyway. We won’t get to the ceiling until next week. I made a chart,” she adds.

  “You didn’t tell me that. About just getting off the ground.” Not that it really matters, because this whole thing is still terrifying.

  “I shouldn’t have to. You need to trust me, and you’re going to have to go up higher eventually. But this test is really important, and… why could you fly for Zach and not me? When it really matters?”

  I swallow. “It’s not like that. But Zach believed in me.”

  “I believe in you.”

  “And it was just once. It wasn’t like this, where my whole future is riding on it.”

  “It’s not your whole future. I told you, you could work at a gas station or at a superhero diner.”

  “Yeah, well, this might come as a surprise to you, but neither of those career paths sounds particularly appealing.” And whatever I end up doing, I want it to be my choice, and not because I flunked out of something else.

  “It’s still not your whole future.”

  “It feels like it. And even if it’s not, it’s still a lot of pressure.”

  “Stand up.”

  I get off the bed.

  “Now fly.”

  I stare at her.

  She makes a frustrated sound and waves her hand. “Just float above the floor a little bit.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then stay that way. We’re going for five minutes. But you won’t fall, and even if you do, it’ll be, like, an inch.”

  “Amelia—”

  “Just do it, okay? It won’t be that bad.”

  I want to keep arguing with her, because I so don’t want to do this. We’re already in the attic, which is not the ground floor, which means it won’t really just be an inch. That’s bad enough, and even if I don’t have to fly any higher today, I will eventually. More like pretty soon. And then I’ll have to do it in front of Ted, too, assuming I even get that far. All that feels way too big.

  It would be so much easier to just quit now, before I humiliate myself. Before I make myself think there’s even a chance in hell I can do this and then totally fail.

  But I promised Kat I would at least try.

  And Amelia’s giving me this tentative, super hopeful look, like this really is her only chance to feel useful and she needs me to not just walk out of here.

  And maybe it’ll hurt more to try and still fail—to try really hard to only end up right where I started anyway—but Kat’s right, I do not just give up. And maybe I don’t know if I’m still the same person who loves fieldwork, the same person I was before everything that happened at the gala, but I know this one thing is still true about me. Or, at least, I can make it true.

  So I take a deep breath and try not to think about how much is riding on this, and then I lift off the ground.

  Chapter 23

  “I JUST WANT TO talk to you,” Gordon says later that night.

  “Can’t. I’m busy.” I gesture to all the worksheets and pieces of paper strewn around me on my bed. “Morality homework.”

  I wasn’t actually doing homework—I dumped my backpack out to look for my phone charger right before he came in—but he doesn’t have to know that.

  I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I want him to go, short of actually telling him to get the hell out, but instead of leaving, he shuts the door and sighs. “You didn’t say a word to me at dinner.”

  “Not true.”

  “Shrugging after I asked you how your day was doesn’t count.”

  I almost shrug at him in reply, but I catch myself and pretend to be really interested in one of the pieces of paper instead.

  “This… this isn’t how I want things, Damien. Making the decision not to teach you how to fly wasn’t easy for me, but I did it to help our relationship, not to make things worse.”

  “Great. Non-existent apology noted. You can cross it off your to-do list.” I wave a hand toward the door without looking up from my piece of
paper. It’s actually my syllabus for Morality II and it turns out I have a paper due tomorrow, which I totally forgot about and haven’t even started on. The topic is about when someone should or should not use their superpower in the field and the increased responsibility involved with having a dangerous power. A topic I have a lot to say about, but I already know my opinion on it is really unpopular and will just get me a D anyway. And it would only be a D instead of an F because my Morality teacher is really big on giving points for effort.

  “I’m sorry for this morning.” Gordon comes over to the bed and waits for me to move my stuff so he can sit down, but I don’t. “I think some part of me knew you wouldn’t be okay with getting Ted involved.”

  “Only some part?” Well, it’s an improvement, at least.

  “I should have known how you’d react. But I just felt…” He trails off and gestures to the papers on the bed. “Can I sit down?”

  I shove just enough stuff over so part of the edge is free.

  He sits. “I was just so frustrated that I couldn’t help you. You came to me, and I had to turn you down. The one thing I really wanted us to do together, and I had to say no.”

  The one thing? What about teaching me how to drive? What about going out for ice cream? “It’s fine. I don’t need your help.”

  “Damien—”

  “I don’t.” I look him over. “You were right. It wouldn’t have worked out.”

  He looks hurt by that. “Every time you need me, I just… I can’t find the right words to say.”

  “Take your time. It’s not like I’m in the middle of a big assignment that’s due tomorrow or anything.”

  “No, I meant that whenever you need me—”

  “Dad, I don’t—”

  “—you come to me, and I say something that upsets you, or I say nothing at all.”

  “I was following you up until the saying nothing part. I’m going to need an example.”

  “At the restaurant. You came to me for help on whether or not you should stay in school.”

  “That’s not how I remember it.” He’s the one who came to me, not the other way around. “And you didn’t say nothing.” But he didn’t piss me off for once, either, which was refreshing.

  “Helen could tell you were having a problem.” He rubs his forehead. “A bigger problem than just dropping out of school, and she—”

  “It wasn’t her fault. And we really don’t have to talk about it.”

  His face falls. “You heard us arguing.”

  I don’t know how this is news to him. “She was trying to help.”

  “She had something to say to you, and I had nothing. She’s been retired from the League for twenty years, and I’ve only been out of it for a couple of months, and I’ve still got my job, and yet I’ve got nothing useful to say.”

  “That’s not completely true. And I really do have to work on that homework assignment, so—”

  “Everything I believed in turned out to be a lie.”

  I wince. I wrap my arms around myself.

  “Finding out how Helen really felt about her statue, that she’d had mixed thoughts about her time in the League and never told me, only made things worse.”

  “It was my fault.” I say that quickly, so that the words are almost unintelligible. “I broke the League.”

  “You helped expose them. You didn’t make them what they were.”

  “But if you didn’t know all that stuff they’d done, what they were doing, then you’d still be with them. And Helen’s statue would still be in the Heroes’ Walk, and none of this would have happened.”

  “Everything the League supposedly stood for was made up.”

  “But not to you. Not to everyone. You weren’t doing anything wrong, and you would have been happier if you’d never found out. I did that. I messed things up.”

  “You did what you thought was right. And if I’d been paying more attention to what you had to say, about the League and about how other heroes treat villains, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a shock to me.”

  I don’t know about that. I knew how ashamed Mom was of whoever she’d had a one-night stand with to end up with me, and I was still shocked when I found out it was the Crimson Flash. Probably not the best anecdote to tell Gordon, though, even if it really fits this situation.

  “I’ve never believed in something as much as I believed in the League.” He swallows, slowly, like he’s tasting the words. Like he can’t believe he said them and wishes he could take them back. “I’d been with them for my entire adult life, but I believed in them and knew I was going to join for as long as I can remember. It was what my father did, what Ted and Howard and I were going to do, and it was what we wanted for our kids, too. That was my entire life, spent believing in lies.”

  “Yeah, well, I spent my entire life thinking I was going to get a V. So, like, I know how it feels when your life doesn’t turn out how you wanted.”

  “I’m over twice your age. You’re supposed to feel lost at seventeen. I’m thirty-seven, and I thought I had everything together. And now… No wonder I can’t help you figure out your life when I can’t even figure out my own.”

  “I thought getting an X was the worst thing ever, and it totally ruined my life. At the time,” I add, when he looks over at me. “But it turned out okay. Sort of. I mean, I thought I had my future planned out, too, and now I don’t. But, like, it didn’t actually change who I was. And the League rules might be really stupid, but you believed in them for the right reasons. So maybe the League turned out to be full of crap, but, I don’t know, it doesn’t mean your life was. And you still have your family and your job and stuff. You like those, right?”

  “Of course I do. When I said I was lost, I didn’t mean that—”

  “I know.”

  “I love my family.”

  “And your job, right?”

  He hesitates.

  “Dad, come on. The Crimson Flash and the Safety Kids is a national treasure. And Sarah would kill me if she thought I’d said anything to jeopardize its continuation.”

  “I do love my job. I’m not leaving the show anytime soon. But all this with the League has made me realize that… I don’t know. I just wish I was doing more, that’s all.” He suddenly glances around at all the papers on the bed and sits up, like he’s finally realized he was interrupting. Then he looks at me all serious and says, “I probably shouldn’t have told you all that. You’re my son, and you’re only seventeen, and I shouldn’t be burdening you with my problems.”

  “Great way to ruin a conversation. It’s not like I’ve been through stuff and might understand what you’re going through. I liked that you were being honest with me for once, but if you didn’t get anything out of this—”

  “I didn’t say that. And I’m always honest with you.”

  “Not like this.” Not like he actually trusts me or cares what I think.

  He gets up from the bed. “I’ll let you get back to your homework. Though it’s kind of late to still be working on something that’s due tomorrow.”

  “I’m almost done.”

  “Okay, well, goodnight, Damien.” He pauses before opening the door to leave. “And… thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  He laughs like he thinks I’m joking.

  “Do you want my honest opinion?” Riley asks, wrinkling his nose at my notebook.

  I snatch it back from him. “That depends.”

  “It reads like you wrote it in the car this morning.”

  “Well, the joke’s on you, because I wrote it in first period.”

  He takes a sip of his milk. “It’s not even typed. I could hardly read it.”

  “I didn’t ask you to read it. I asked you if you thought it was long enough to bother turning in.”

  “It’s not finished.”

  “It just needs a concluding paragraph.”

  “And an opening paragraph. And a point. And—”

  “It has a point.”


  Riley raises his eyebrows, skeptical of that. “How long is it supposed to be?”

  “Five pages. Double-spaced.”

  “So, five typed pages. You have one and a half pages of scribbling. And lunch is almost over. Isn’t this for your next class?”

  “I’m not going for good here, I’m going for turn-in-able. Enough for a D. Preferably a high D, but I’m not picky.”

  “Is there anything that’s lower than an F? Because that’s what I would give this paper.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t even turn it in? Because that doesn’t sound like something someone who cared about their grades would do.”

  “Someone who cared about their grades would have started at least the day before they had to turn in the assignment.” He pauses, taking a bite of his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. “Probably a lot sooner than that.”

  “They obviously wrote this prompt because of me.”

  “Yeah. Well, I guess I can see how that would make it hard to write about.”

  “It’s not hard to write about.”

  “Then why did you wait so long?”

  “Because. I totally forgot about it, okay? But, you know, I care about my grades so much that—”

  “That you wrote it this morning?”

  “That I wrote it at all. And we were supposed to be watching a movie in first period. So, like, I made a real sacrifice here.”

  “Well, my honest opinion is don’t turn it in.”

  “Fine. Do you think she’d buy that I didn’t understand the prompt?”

  He rolls his eyes at me. “You could tell her you forgot, since that’s what actually happened.”

  “Yeah, right. Like anyone at this school would believe that. Or care.” Plus, if she gave me more time, I might have to actually write it. And, like, do a good job and stuff.

  I close my notebook and cram it back into my bag, then scarf down part of my turkey sandwich to make up for the all the eating time I lost. “And one more thing, Perkins.” I say that with my mouth full, so I’m kind of surprised that he actually understands me.

  “You’re going for the world championship of fastest sandwich eating?”