And with this, we're at the halfway point in the story. So far I've enjoyed writing it and I'm extremely happy with the reception it's gotten so far. The best part is that I published this a month ago, which means that it will —probably— not take me three years to finish this fanfic hahaha.
I'm slightly surprised at how there's a KEY piece of information that is the final clue to solve the mystery and no one noticed lol It makes me happy, cause when the revelation happens and I can tell you what chapter it was all set up on, some of you will go back to that scene and let out an impressed whistle as you say "Dang it, Hero, you madman".
As always, thank you all for reading, and thank you to those that review it as well.
STR2D3PO: Yes! Her last name is an homage to Jim Morrison.
Jeff: Thank you! I'm enjoying writing Sam and Luna's relationship, it's been super fun and endearing.
Chapter 5:
You are the music in me.
"Is this happening right now?" I asked in a whisper, standing up with my heart beating fast.
"It's… it's the live feed," said Sam, whispering too as the color drained from her face.
We were in trouble. We were in serious trouble.
"I thought there wouldn't be anyone at this time!" I said, rubbing my hands and tapping with my feet. "I thought the janitor would be the last person to leave!"
"He is! There shouldn't be anyone else in here until, like, six a.m."
"Did we activate an alarm? Are they coming for us? God damn it, Sam, I told you this was a bad idea!"
She glanced at me, half apologetic, half offended. "They're not coming for us," she said as she pointed at the screen. "They're in the auditorium, on the other side of the school grounds. If we had triggered an alarm or something they'd know we're in the main building. Plus, look at them. They seem to be working on something."
Trying to remain calm, I stopped to pay more attention to what the security camera was showing us. It was hard to make out any detail. The camera didn't have night vision or anything like that. The video had good enough quality to be more than a pixelated, distorted feed, but ninety percent of the image was nothing more than the absolute darkness of the auditorium, only disrupted by a single cone of light that originated in a flashlight that flashed the stage, occasionally aiming at the ceiling and the seats. It was impossible to make anything out of the person carrying it. They didn't seem to be a tall person, and they were wearing a jacket and sports pants. I couldn't see anything about their face, their hair, or anything like that.
The only noticeable thing was the fact that they were carrying a toolbox that they occasionally looked into, but they weren't doing any sort of repairing or intervention to the room. It was strange.
"Do you think it's a janitor?" I asked. "Maybe something's broken in the auditorium."
"Why would they come here this late? Besides, if they needed to fix something they'd turn on the lights, they wouldn't work in the dark."
"Maybe the lights are broken."
"Then they'd go fix the generator set or the spotlights, they wouldn't be in the middle of the stage with a Wal-Mart flashlight. Come on, Luna, I thought you were good at Ace Attorney, how can you be so bad at investigating?"
"Sometimes I hate you."
"I don't mind; even Jesus had haters back then."
"Should we leave?" I asked, biting my lower lip.
We'd check the recordings. Even though we now had a slightly clearer idea about the nature of the attacks, there hadn't been any sort of concrete evidence to get us closer to the identity of the perpetrator. We only knew that it had to be someone with some sort of superpower, probably of telekinetic nature, and that they worked with a substance that could be administrated as either a liquid or a gas, or something to that effect.
It wasn't a lot, but that's all the security camera's videos seemed to be able to give us. We'd done our research. We'd found few answers and come up with many more questions. Mission accomplished, right? Why would we stay there?
When Sam didn't reply right away, I took my eyes away from the screens to look at her. She seemed uncomfortable, her brows furrowed in a gest of worry.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"You do know this is probably whoever was behind those attacks, right?" She asked, turning her head to look at me.
Part of me sensed it. I wasn't entirely sure. There probably wasn't a way to be completely sure. But when Sam said it, I wasn't surprised. After all, everything she'd said was true. Why would someone be there at those hours, at that place, acting so suspicious? And considering the recent events, it wasn't too crazy to think that the mysterious figure on the screen was up to no good.
"Yeah. Probably," I said.
Sam sighed, looking at the screen for several seconds. "We should leave and call the cops as soon as possible."
"Definitely."
"We… might get into trouble, though."
"If they get them, it'll be worth it."
She sternly nodded. "They deserve to go to jail for what they did to our friends. Let's go."
And thus, we left the security room and went straight to the exit. My heart was beating faster by the second. It was amazing how anxious this whole ordeal was making me. Why did I feel that way? What was that seemingly growing pressure right under my diaphragm? Why did every step I took towards the exit feel like a calvary?
The silence helped me think more clearly, and given that I consider myself a very introspective kind of person, it didn't take me long to comprehend the nature of my feelings.
It was guilty. But, what was I guilty for? There was nothing I could take responsibility for. It wasn't my fault that this person attacked my friends. I had even broken my promise of never using my powers in public and I had calmed Mazzy and the cheerleaders down before they got hurt. I may have had just found the person behind all of it, and we were about to call the police to get them captured. What else could you ask from a regular citizen?
Although… I wasn't a regular citizen. Even though I had tried for years to act like one, to blend in, to reject the special part of me, that damned side that made me different, the truth is that I was a metahuman. And the person in the auditorium was, most likely, a metahuman as well. We didn't know the true nature or capabilities of their powers, but if there was something that I had drilled into my mind was that metahumans were dangerous beings.
That person was using their powers to attack high school students. What kind of person did that? And if they were willing to attack teenagers, what would they do to some poor police officers? How could they defend themselves from a metahuman?
We left through the same window we used to get in, but after Sam closed it behind us and began to run at the public phone on the sidewalk, I stood still. It took her a few seconds to notice before she came back to where I was nailed to the ground.
"Luna, what's wrong?" She asked me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"
I sighed, looking at her in the eye. I clenched my fists, giving myself a mental facepalm for what I was about to say.
"I… I can't stay here not doing anything," I admitted. "I feel… I feel like I need to act. Like I should do something. I know it's stupid, that I shouldn't get involved in this, but…"
I had trouble vocalizing my feelings because I wasn't entirely sure of why I felt that way. Part of me was hoping that Sam would smack some sense into me. That she'd tell me how stupid my reasoning was, that she'd grab me by the wrist and drag me away from the school grounds to let the right people handle the situation.
Part of me wanted Sam to keep me from doing something stupid. But the other part, perhaps the bigger part of me, knew her all too well to pretend that she would be the voice of reason.
She smiled at me, and her grip on my shoulder became much tighter.
"It might be stupid," she admitted, her electric blue eyes sparkling with pride, "but sometimes that's what it takes to be a hero."
"I'm not—"
"Whoever's in there hurt our friends," she reminded me, raising a closed fist. "We gotta make sure they don't hurt anyone else."
"'We'?"
"Pfft, you're not seriously thinking I'll let you go in there alone, right?"
"Sam, you… You don't have any powers."
"Friendship is my superpower."
"That's not a superpower."
"The Super Friends would disagree. It's in their name."
"It's a cartoon!"
"Based on real life."
"The two main faces of the group had a death battle before the team was disassembled!"
"And ever since they stopped being the nation's biggest team. Ergo, friendship was actually their superpower. Thanks for agreeing with me. Now let's go, we gotta get into the auditorium before they get away."
Arguing with Sam was like trying to stop the rain with a single hand, so I sighed and let her come with me to the entrance to the auditorium's pavilion. If up to that point we had been trying our best to be sneaky and silent, right then we turned into freaking ghosts, trying to mute our every step. We moved as silent as the wind, and Sam took her swiss army knife to force the lock open in the sneakiest way possible. Naturally, that meant she had to do it all way slower, but it was worth being careful now rather than having to pay the consequences for not taking the precautions. Once inside, we walked at a snail pace. I had my phone's light dimmed to the maximum, barely illuminating the floor directly in front of us.
That was almost our worst mistake.
We were so focused looking down that Sam didn't realize that, walking as close to the wall as she was, her shoulder was in a collision course to a metal bucket that hung from the top of a broom. She walked right into it, and even though we were walking extremely slow, it was hard enough to topple the broom down along with the bucket.
Sam let out an audible gasp, but we were so surprised that neither reacted in time to stretch a hand and catch them before they fell. I saw them falling, about to make all the noise we were trying to avoid making. And right at the last second, I managed to finally get control over my body, and without even thinking, I stretched my hand and closed my fist in the middle of the air.
The broom and the bucket hit the floor. The metal bucket even bounced away from the broomstick and rolled away until it hit the opposite wall. And yet, none of the impacts made even the slightest sound. Sam gasped again, and her eyes shot wide open when she realized she couldn't hear the sound of the air rushing into her lungs. She took a hand to her throat and stared at me flabbergasted.
I lifted my closed fist and then put my index finger in front of my lips, slightly shaking my head as I kept a focused look. Her eyes darted from my face to my hand, back and forth, until I saw the proverbial lightbulb turning on over her head.
She began to move her mouth but stopped when she realized her voice wasn't coming out. She smiled once again and tried it again, exaggerating how she mouthed every word so I could read her lips.
"Your powers?"
I silently nodded. Sam chuckled, and then stomped the floor next to her like she wanted to end an ant that had been very rude to her mother. The sole of her boots hit the tiles but no sound came out. She looked at me again.
"Holy shit!"
I rolled my eyes and made a gesture for her to follow me. I kept my closed fist up in the air to let her know that I was keeping a silent bubble around us, which allowed us to move much faster.
It was a very tiring effort, however. Not as much physically, though I was trying to hold my breath for as long as I could like I was swimming underwater. I didn't need to, but the physical manifestation of the effort helped me stay focused, it kept it all from being abstract. The closed fist wasn't necessary either. The only thing I needed was to imagine a still pond of water, with no waves on the surface.
I had never used my powers this way before, but it was one of the many things that, every once in a while, I had imagined myself doing. I know it sounds weird coming from me of all people, but it was impossible not to sometimes feel curious about my powers, as much as I rejected them. Of course that throughout the years I had dedicated long hours in bed thinking of all I could do. Of all the possibilities. In all the multiple ways they could be used if they weren't such a burden or a safe path to disaster.
Even… Well, it's not like I chose to do it. But sometimes, every once in a while, I had dreams where I was a hero. Dressed up with a costume, fighting next to the original Ace Savvy to keep the streets safe. To stop criminals. To save my mother.
It had been a long time since I last had a positive dream about it. Most of the time, dreaming about my powers was a nightmare from which I woke up soaked in sweat and with tears escaping my eyes. I had convinced myself through the years that using them casually and outside my home would bring nothing but pain. And yet, even though this required concentration, it didn't feel painful at all.
It felt great. It made me feel literally empowered. I could feel a small fire crackling inside my stomach, and I had to make a conscious effort not to smile as we approached the auditorium's doors. It wasn't a time for distractions.
When we got there, I made a point to show my closed fist to Sam and then point a finger at the lock. She understood, and soon enough she locked it without making a single sound. I turned off my phone's light and then, ever so carefully, I opened the door.
It was almost pitch black, but the flashlight resting on the stage was illuminating enough for us to get a good look at the silhouette walking in front of us, even if they weren't in the direct path of the light. They were almost as tall as us. They were wearing as we'd seen on the security cameras, some grey joggings and a black jacket with a hood that covered their head. The jacket made their chest look wide, but their legs were thin. They were walking by the edge of the stage, and they had a measuring tape that they had extended to the first row of seats. They seemed to be mumbling some measures, but we couldn't hear it.
And that's when I realized that I had no idea how big the range of my silence was. It wasn't something I had full control of, it was all instinctive. I touched Sam's arm to get her to look at me, and very clearly, I opened my closed fist.
We immediately heard the sound of our breathing, and she nodded.
We both realized that we had no plan. Very well, we got there. We had the person we were looking for, who was probably behind the attacks on our friends. A person that probably had superpowers, that we knew nothing of.
Dear God, what were we doing there?
The good part was that we had the element of surprise. Sam looked at me, and with a hand motion, I asked her to move to the left as I walked to the right, to the flashlight. We advanced slowly, testing our ninja skills. When I finally reached the flashlight, Sam was ready on the other side.
I looked at her. She looked at me. We looked at each other.
With a quick movement, I grabbed the lantern and aimed at the back of the mysterious person.
"Freeze! Put your hands in the air!" Sam yelled with a deeper voice, pointing a finger gun at their back.
The person yelped and dropped the measuring tape. They hurried to cover their face with the hood they wore and they contracted their whole body like they were trying to become smaller. They didn't turn around, though, and kept standing with their back to us.
"Are you the person behind the attacks?" Asked Sam, still using her bad cop voice.
The figure didn't respond, though they ever so slowly raised their hands. They were small, pale, delicate. Female hands? Was it okay for me to assume that? I decided to let Sam do the questions. She didn't seem to be as terrified as I was.
"What are you doing here? What are these tools for? What are you planning?"
Again, there was just silence, though I could swear my heartbeat must have been captured by some seismograph at the Royal Woods Observatory. I was surprised that I hadn't fainted already. All the courage that had flooded my heart minutes earlier was gone, leaving me on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
We waited for the figure to answer, or at least to turn around and look at us. They didn't, however. They stood there, with their hands in the air for some tense, long seconds, until they finally took a step back. Their arms were shaking, and that step, moving away from the edge of the stage, was slow and hesitant. Sam and I took a step back as well, keeping our distance. I was aiming the light at the back of their head, hoping that, if they turned around, they'd be dazzled long enough to not have an immediate reaction and to not recognize our faces in the dark.
They took another step back, and I was so focused and scared that I failed to notice that they had placed themselves right next to the toolbox.
And in the blink of an eye, they were gone.
One moment they were standing there, and a fraction of a second later, they weren't. Sam and I were startled, taking a step back. There was no transition, no fading out. They simply stopped existing from one instant to the other, like we hadn't been talking to anyone.
Experiencing something so surreal and unexpected as that was enough to give us something akin to our brains shutting off. For several seconds I couldn't form a single coherent thought, trying to comprehend what had just happened. We stayed in silence, not able to react until the toolbox levitated in the air and ran away from us.
Even then, our reaction time was too slow, and by the time we understood they had turned invisible, they were several feet away from us.
"Stop right there!" Yelled Sam, and she ran after them. My shaking legs didn't react that fast, and seeing how fast the toolbox got away from me, I realized I wouldn't be able to catch them.
But that didn't mean I could help Sam in other ways. I could cheer her, motivate her, make her do her very best, reaching her limits, and giving it all. I could sing the right song to make her go all out in that little dash.
I pointed a hand at Sam, and immediately sang the first song that came to mind, redirecting all that motivation and energy to her.
Ooh, you're burnin' through the sky, yeah
Two hundred degrees, that's why they call you Miss Fahrenheit
You're traveling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic woman of you!
The effect was immediate. Even as I was still singing, the speed at which Sam ran increased significantly, cutting down the distance between her and the floating toolbox. They were reaching the exit door, but it was clear that my best friend would intercept the invisible person before they ran away.
Then I noticed that the toolbox stopped, hovering in the air, and after two seconds, the figure appeared once again. This time they were looking at us, but the light of the lantern I held didn't reach their face, which stayed concealed within their hood. They got into a pose like they were ready to receive Sam's shoving, and I immediately stopped my singing.
What if they took a knife out? What if they had a gun? What if Sam was running straight into a trap? I had no time to keep worrying, since soon enough Sam ended the distance between them and ran into the figure, her shoulder and elbow aiming at their chin.
And when I say "ran into", I mean that literally, as in her whole body went into the other person and got out the other side like they were a hologram. Sam fell to the floor, her balance sense not accounting for the lack of expected resistance. The person immediately resumed their running, one of their feet moving through Sam as they ran, and then phased through one of the walls like they weren't even there, getting out of our sight.
I ran to Sam right away, checking on her as she stood up, rubbing her face.
"Are you okay?!"
"Yeah… though that hurt," she admitted. "Let's go, we can't let them get away!"
We ran at the exit door, but it was locked, and by the time Sam forced the lock and we got into the hallway, there was no sign of the perpetrator. We went to the exit and looked around, but we couldn't find anything. Not a single clue of where they had escaped to.
Escaped. They had escaped. We had them, and then we lost them. I lost them. We didn't call the cops. And all because I wanted to play heroes. For allowing myself to get carried away for the excitement of using my powers. For wanting to try them out in different ways. For overestimating my capabilities. It was all my fault.
I fell on my knees and covered my face with my hands as I let out a scream of impotence.
I stepped into my house without even knocking on the door. It was almost eight p.m. There was a single lamp turned on in the living room, with Chunk sitting on the sofa watching TV. I didn't dare look at him, but I could see on the corner of my eye that he looked surprised to see me and Sam there.
"Luna? Sam? What are you…? I thought you'd be staying at Sam's house."
"H-Hi, Chunk," said Sam, closing the door as I went straight to my room. "Sorry, there was a, uh… change of plans. Is it ok if I stay here for tonight?"
"Uh… Yeah, sure. Of course! Did you have dinner yet? I could—"
"Not hungry," I simply said, walking into the hall that led to my room. There was a small silence until Sam followed after me.
I was reaching the door to my room when Tabby's head snuck into the hallway. Her eyes were fixed on me for a second and I noticed a tint of worry, but then a smile spread on her face when she saw who was behind me.
"Sam!" She all but screamed, going out to the hall wearing her purple pajama and giving a big hug to my best friend. "It's been so long since you last came to visit!"
I walked into my room and right away let myself fall on the bed, putting a pillow on my head and wishing I could faint and stay asleep until New Year's Eve.
"How's my little Elsa?" I heard Sam asking, making my sister giggle. "Listen, your sis and I got some stuff to figure out. I'll be spending the night here. Tomorrow morning we can talk all you want before school, is that alright?"
"Perfect! That way I can practice my ultimate move before I show it to you. And I already picked up my superhero name!"
"...right, we need to talk about that."
I heard some good night wishes, and then the door of my room's door closing. A few seconds later, my mattress moved with the weight of a new person sitting next to me, putting a hand on my back and gently stroking it.
"So, do you wanna talk about what happened?" She asked me.
I groaned against the pillow, trying to drown the tears that were threatening to leave my eyes. She sighed and grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to turn around. I didn't want to, to be honest. I wanted to cry, and it was easier to do it if my best friend and ex-girlfriend wasn't staring at me so intensely with such worry in her eyes.
"Do you understand what happened?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice from wavering.
"I'm sure we both have very different views about what happened, so I'll let you go first."
Part of me wanted to smack her cute face for sounding so unconcerned, but I immediately noticed that her eyes were honest. Understanding. Support. Everything Sam had always given me and made me feel so comfortable around her. She was always willing to hear me out, letting me vent all my doubts, fears, worries.
With a sigh, I sat next to her, both of us leaning against the headboard.
"I spent years running away from my powers," I began, soft enough for my family not to hear us in case they, for some reason, decided to try to spy on me. "Scared of them. Trying to forget them. Wishing they would magically disappear and let me be a normal person. And today… today I let loose. First I tried to help Mazzy, cause you were right when you said I could use them to avoid unnecessary pain and suffering. There was no one around me, so I thought 'why not?'."
"And you saved them," she reminded me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me close so my head would rest in the space between her shoulder and her head. "You kept them from hurting each other, or hurting someone else, and you got them ready for others to help them."
"Yeah. Maybe you're right and it was justified. But do you know what I felt?"
"What did you feel?"
"That I wanted more," I admitted, burying my face in her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around me and I let her hug me. "I felt… free. I let out a part of me that I tried to ignore for so many years, and the moment I used my power, my body was asking for more. More of that energy, more of that satisfaction. More… power. It's scary, Sam."
"It… it doesn't sound that scary to me."
I shook my head. Of course, she didn't get it. How could someone understand a feeling they were physically unable to feel? It was like trying to teach a fish how to climb a tree.
"It's what I've always feared about metahumans. What I always knew happened to them. What… what I experienced when I was a child. When you have powers… you have something that makes you different. Special. You can do things others can't. And it's like a fucking drug. To feel like I can control reality with a thought. To soothe someone with my voice. To close my fist and turn off all sound, even your voice. To point a finger at you, sing a song, and make you faster. It's like trying to play God, Sam."
I noticed her muscles getting tense, and she held me tighter.
"Don't say that," she mumbled. "You know you're not like that."
"It's how it feels. I haven't used them in public for years, and after using them once, I finish the day using them two more times. And all of it because I decided to go stop that person ourselves. Myself. Why? Because I have powers. Of course, I can stop someone we know nothing about and that could have been extremely dangerous. That's the problem with heroes. They think that just because they can do things no one else can, that means they can do everything. And because of it, they end up getting themselves in situations where they shouldn't be, and innocent people get hurt."
"No one got hurt."
"And what if they had a gun?" I asked, looking up to stare at her with watery eyes. "Sam, what if they had a power that could have hurt you? You ran after them while I stayed back. What if they hurt you? What if… if they killed you? Do you have any idea how I'd feel if anything happened to you?"
"Nothing happened to me, Luna," she firmly said, holding my hand. "I'm alright. Everything went well. You did what you had to do to help Mazzy. Then you used your powers to stop us from getting caught when we were sneaking to catch that rat. And what you did to make me faster? That was amazing! I didn't know you could do something like that, Luna. It's… it's spectacular. Of course, you're gonna want to use your powers if you have them. It'd be like asking someone with musical talent to don't play a single instrument."
"Sam… because of me, whoever they were, they got away. Do you understand? We could have let the police deal with them."
"And what do you think they could have done against someone that can turn invisible and phase through solid objects?" She asked with incredulity. "They would have had the same luck as us, but right now we'd be at the police station explaining how we knew there was someone in the auditorium."
"They're gonna find the videos of us getting inside the school," I said, feeling myself starting to hyperventilate. "They're gonna see me using my powers. My life's over…"
"Luna, stop!" She said, kneeling in front of me and holding both of my hands in hers. She looked dead serious. "Stop thinking so negatively! I know your powers are a touchy subject, but you shouldn't let those feelings get the best of you! How could you not feel great using them? They're a part of you! It'd be like trying to live without your voice. Of course, it felt liberating, like you were free. You broke the shackles you put on yourself for so many years."
"I put them for a good reason."
Sam groaned, lowering her head, visibly irritated by my attitude. After several seconds, she looked up back again, this time with a challenging look in her eyes.
"I'm not the best at explaining myself," she said. "And you're too stubborn to listen to reason."
I didn't deny it.
"So I'm gonna have to speak our language for you to understand me."
She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath like she was psyching herself up. And then, when she looked back at me, she gave me a big smile.
I've been thinking good good things about you
Cool and warm, good good things about you
If you've been thinking good good things about me
So cool and warm when you put your arms around me
Her soft voice was as nice as a velvet touch. It helped to calm my nerves, but not just because of the soft tone and the intense look she was giving me, but also because, just like she had planned, I could feel the emotions she wanted to send my way. Affection, understanding, emotions that let me know that everything was going to be alright, that she loved me the way I was, that I hadn't made a mistake. Unbridled emotions with no filter, coming straight from her heart. And, faced with the certainty that those feelings were authentic, there was nothing I could say to refute it. I could only accept what she was telling me…
Or I could show her what I felt so she could understand. After she finished the chorus, it was me who sang.
I tried to be perfect
It just wasn't worth it
Nothing could ever be so wrong
It's hard to believe me
It never gets easy
I guess I knew that all along
Sam's smile hesitated, but she quickly shook her head and didn't miss a beat to reply to that.
And I know you don't believe me
And you think that I'm a fool but I don't care
Maybe you'll never see in you what I see
The little things you do that make me go crazy, I'm not crazy
You're perfectly perfect to me
For several seconds, I was left speechless. How could Sam have such a positive, beautiful view of me, even after everything that had happened during the day? After I ruined it all. After… after everything I had confessed to her.
She didn't understand the pain I was carrying inside. The insecurities. The fears. The darkest parts that were hiding in my heart. A part of me that I hated, a shadow I wanted to get rid of but that seemed tied to me. I closed my eyes and sang once more, not daring to look into her eyes as I admitted through music just how much I was ashamed of that part of myself.
When you feel my heat, look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide
Don't get too close; it's dark inside
It's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide
I felt her shaking. I wasn't surprised, since what I shared was… pretty strong stuff. Feelings that the words didn't reach, emotions too terrible to name, and that I would never share with anyone else. Only with Sam did I feel comfortable enough to talk about these things. She was the only person that could read me like an open book, that understood me for who I was. The only person I could be truly authentic with, with no filter or masks, that accepted me with all my virtues and defects.
Even with all the years that we had been together, and even though I had sung my emotions to her countless times before, it was understandable that she would feel so shocked by what I had shared with her. Part of it because of how shocking it must have been to understand the way I felt about myself, but also because I was letting her experience those emotions the way I felt them. A piece of what I carried with me every day.
It didn't surprise me that she stayed in silence for a while, letting my emotions vanish away from her system. What did surprise me was that, sooner than I imagined, she placed a hand under my chin and forced me to look at her.
Her eyes were watery, but even without her singing, I could read the smile she gave me. She put both hands on my cheeks and tilted her head to the side before giving me a new smile.
I never thought it would come to this, and I
I want you to know
Everyone's got to face down their demons
Maybe today…
you can put the past away!
To put the past away. To face my demons… Did she believe that? Did she think there was hope for me?
Of course, she did. I could feel it in her voice. One can lie in many ways, but not with their emotions. Not in the music, at least not with me. Sam genuinely believed that, even with all my mistakes, with all the terrible things my powers had done in the past, I could get past that. She always believed it.
She had always supported me. She told me time and time again that my powers weren't a curse like I thought, but a blessing. That using them wasn't necessarily bad, that it had the potential to be a great thing. Even after I had failed so hard to stop the person that had hurt our friends, she still believed in me.
What had I done to deserve a friend like her?
I would spend the rest of the night asking myself that question as she stayed by my side, trying to make me feel better.