Shaun wakes in the instant between two breaths, dread and terror swirling in his stomach, his whole body electrified as a power line. Why is he sleeping? He ought to be awake. There's an ache thrumming through him, humming from head to toe, a persistent, deep, throbbing ache...he's twelve years old again, every muscle sore and wrung out, microfractures in his forearms and shins needling through his flesh, exhausted and despairing. Still, he has to stand up, has to return to the courtyard, has to stand tall, proud, and rigid before his masters, or when he lies to sleep again—if they let him sleep at all—he'll be in even worse shape.
He surges upright and knocks his mother's soft, gentle hand out of his hair.
His mother's hand? She isn't here, she can't be, no matter how much his heart cries for it to be true. If she were here, she'd never let any of this happen to him; she'd swoop him and Xialing up and carry them to Ta Lo, that magical village that danced vibrant in all his dreams. Or had done, until his father and all his demons blasted his imagination to dust.
Shaun turns.
Katy's face is pale in her phone's illumination, bright, variable lights playing over her skin. She's propped up against the headboard watching TikToks, holding her hand close to her chest like his touch has burned it.
Her hand. The hand that had been stroking his hair down and around his ear a moment earlier.
They stare at each other. Shaun fights the urge to run his own fingers down the skin she's touched.
She swallows. "You okay, dude? It's been all day. I thought about leaving, but…" she shrugs, locking her phone, leaving them both in darkness, "didn't seem right."
"Yeah," he shakes his head, wincing when the pain bites him like a viper, "yeah, no, I'm fine. You could've left, I know you've got stuff to do."
"What stuff?" She rolls off the bed and flicks the light switch in his kitchenette. When it flares on in irritating fluorescent yellow, he sees that her clothes are rumpled in deep creases. Has she been sitting with him all day?
She steps over to the sink and pours a glass of water, twisting the tap hard to get its persistent drip to stop running. No matter how many times he takes a wrench to it, the old plumbing never remembers. But she always does.
"Here," she hands the glass to him, "you're probably dry. You were snoring for hours."
"Sorry."
"C'mon, man. It's me," she backs away again, leaning against the tiny strip of counter, crossing her arms with a shrug. "Like I care."
He swallows the water along with the words that crouch on his tongue. It's you, but it's not me. Not the me you knew. You have to care about that, how can you not?
He doesn't blame her for this distance between them, the way her head turns so sharply away, as though her eyes can't stand the sight of him. He's lied to her every moment since they met, justifying it to himself that her friendship was freely offered. Over the years, he's tried to pay her back for that kindness, for allowing him into her family, for giving him a friend so open, honest, and selfless. But there's the problem, isn't it? Because no matter how open she was, he never gave her the same. No matter how much he thought it was for her own protection, her own good, he could have tried. He could have given her something.
But he was too afraid. He's still afraid. He's terrified.
Is that who he is, at his core? He failed his mother by not intervening. He betrayed his sister by abandoning her. Even his father…he just ran, and ran, and ran.
Shaun launches to his feet, pacing the three steps from the edge of his bed to the bathroom and back again, restless and frustrated as a tiger in a roadside zoo. With each step, his mind hurls accusations at him. Coward. Liar. Traitor. And now they want him to be a superhero? There's nothing heroic about him.
"Hey, lighten up," Katy's wry voice breaks through his mental fog. Her lips quirk, open, close, and then say, "You look constipated."
It's incongruous, a little mean, probably true, and precisely what he needs. He stops in his tracks, rubs both hands over his (constipated) face, and laughs helplessly, head and shoulders wobbling. Her quick footsteps cross the room and then she's hugging him, bearlike, around the middle, squeezing ribs that would much rather not be compressed, thank you very much, but he doesn't complain. He needs this too. Desperately.
He knocks his head against hers and absorbs her grumble. "Asshole," he mutters, fondly.
She squeezes until he grunts. "Baby," she says, softly.
They stand there for a bit, Shaun managing to wiggle enough of his arms free to hold her as well. It's longer than they'd usually hug—in high school, Katy had been so determined to be one of the boys that she'd mastered the clasped-hand-back-pat 'bro-hug' and refused to do anything else—so there's enough time for him to relax into the warm coconut fragrance of her shampoo. Her hair is so soft; it lies against his cheek like a silken veil.
That's enough of that.
He clears his throat; she takes the hint and lets him go. Still, they're standing close, so close he can feel her warmth. It had been so comforting, earlier, to lie underneath her and let that heat sink into his body, soothing his tense muscles.
"Are you getting sick or something?" she side-eyes him as he clears his throat again, "Want more water?"
"Nah, no, I'm—I'm good." He steps around her and takes his glass to the sink, buying time for the thought of lying under Katy to stop sounding as good as it does. They're friends, good friends, best friends, so his thoughts are both weird and unwelcome. But despite taking a good long minute to wash out his glass—scrubbing hard with the bottle brush—the idea doesn't stop seeming both right and very appealing indeed.
When at last his heart has stopped forcing all his blood into his face (small favors it's not going anywhere more incriminating), he takes Katy's former spot leaning against the counter. She's now sitting cross-legged on the bed, fiddling with a pull on her hoodie. Around and around and around her finger winds the string, until the tip of it is livid and bloody.
"You wanna," he fumbles, "see what's on TV?"
Her eyes snap to his face. "No, dummy, I don't. What, you wanna pull up the latest Gossip Girl and debate over which series works better? Shaun, I know we've both been avoiding it, but," her finger unravels from the string, "you're a goddamn superhero. You don't want to…I don't know, talk about that?"
"How can I talk about it?" he cries, "Do you think I know what it means?"
"No," she shoots back, "but you have some feelings about it, right? I know we've both been taking this one life-changing revelation at a time so far, and I know I'm not one to talk when it comes to planning ahead, but if I've got more ideas about what to do than you do, then something's fucked there."
"We—wait. You know what to do?"
Her lips tighten and she shakes her head. "Nuh-uh. I asked you first."
"You have plans," he repeats, dizzy with sudden hope. But as quickly as he rises, he falls. "I bet that means you want to move to the other side of the country so you won't be wrapped up in any of this craziness again. I don't blame you. I mean, I'll help. Meimei has so much money that I'm sure she'll lend me some—or loan me, if we're gonna be working together, I can pay her back. I'll set you up, you'll be able to…hey, what if you enrolled at a racing school? You could be the first female Asian-American NASCAR dri—"
As he's been babbling on, Katy's been approaching him, step by deliberate step, like a hunter stalking down prey. Now, her finger jabs him in the chest.
"Shut," she jabs again, "up."
He shuts up, mostly because he can't get any air into his lungs when Katy flattens her palm against his chest. If she can't feel his heartbeat from there…
She's still not looking at him.
"I don't want your money."
"You deserve it," his fingers twitch, but he doesn't fight the urge this time, and settles his hand over hers. He's held her hand before, so this isn't any different. Liar. "Katy, you were—you were amazing. You saved my life."
"You saved mine. From crazy ninjas, and your crazy dad, and crazy monsters, and—"
"Yeah, but you wouldn't have been in danger if it weren't for me."
"I insisted on coming."
"I let you."
"You think I'd—" her eyes spark, threatening to blaze out of control, but she shakes herself and rephrases, "You don't let me do anything. You're my friend, and you were going through some shit. Did you think I was gonna let you go through it alone?"
"Katy," he sighs, squeezing her hand, "this isn't bullies in the hallway. This is…I don't even know what this is. I can't protect you if I don't even know how to protect myself."
"Then we protect each other," her other hand rises to enclose both of theirs, and now her eyes are shining, more earnest and beautiful than he's ever seen. "That's what we do."
His throat is dry; he swallows and it hurts. "You could—something could happen to you."
"I know," she says, "but I want…"
She flinches then and takes a short breath; quick in, faster out. Then her hands slide from between his, and Shaun is left with his own hand pressed, lonely and stupid, against his heart.
Katy backs away, eyes darting everywhere but his face, blinking fast. A cough, dry and staccato, bursts from her throat.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine, fine. Just getting a little—little intense. Give me a glass of water?"
"Yeah," he turns to do what she says, the mood change so sudden he feels like she bent down and pulled the faded kitchen rug from under him. "No problem."
He takes the glass she'd just filled for him and hands it over, watching as her lips touch the same place his did. That's stupid, and probably wrong, but he imagines it's true anyway. His heart is beating so fast he's dizzy with it; the room swirls around him and Katy is the only still point in it. When she hands the glass back, their fingers touch, a current running through them; they both flinch.
"You don't want to come." He speaks with dull certainty. "I know you feel like you have to take care of me, but you really don't."
Her lips compress and she squeezes her eyes shut. "How do you know what I feel, Shaun? I don't—everything's so different. I don't even know how I feel."
"You can't even look at me right now. That's how I know."
"That—," she huffs and forces her eyes open, but they're still shy of his; instead, she focuses on the bump of his Adam's apple. "That doesn't mean I hate you. These past few days have been really weird for me too, you know."
"Of course I know. That's why I'm trying to spare you from any more weirdness."
"That's just it, though! If you're not spared, I'm not spared! Don't you get it?"
He shakes his head, confused beyond belief. Their conversation has taken so many twists and turns he doesn't even know which way to go next to escape this labyrinth. "We're friends, Katy. Nothing's gonna change that. But that doesn't mean you have to die for me."
"I don't plan to," she snorts, "but friends don't let friends go off to fight weird mythological monsters on their own. Pretty sure we had an assembly about that once, didn't we?"
"Couldn't have been weirder than some of the ones we actually had," despite himself, he grins, "Hey, remember those two ladies who did the puppet show about cyber-bullying?"
She bursts out laughing. "Oh, yeah!And they wore those hideous patchwork dresses, like what was up with that? It's like they were daring us to make fun of them!"
"And that stupid catchphrase—"
Katy chimes in as he says:
"'Don't be mean behind the screen'!"
Katy wraps her arms around her stomach and wheezes like an asthmatic donkey, but Shaun isn't any better. He's kicking his heel against the kitchen cabinets, snorting with every other breath. Eventually, their laughter peters out into chuckles, and finally deep, wobbly sighs.
"Point being," she says, wiping her eyes, "I'm not leaving you, dude. Magic and monsters, death and destruction, I'm there."
This again. Shaun sighs.
"There's a reason the Avengers work alone, you know."
"How do you know?" she shoots back, "You haven't met them yet either. Besides, I'm not helpless. Who says I won't become a superhero too?"
"No one who sees how scary you look right now," and she does, she's elemental, primal, with her hair disheveled by sleep and her eyes burning and a furious flush rising in her cheeks. 'Scary' is one word for her; 'beautiful' is another.
But as quickly as she flares up, she fades. Her voice is uncertain and faint as she asks, "Why don't you want me to come with you? I went through everything you did, and I'm fine."
"Why do you want to come?"
"I," she hesitates, looks away—always away! "I don't want you to—I want to make sure you're okay."
"You could do that from San Francisco. We have these things now, they're called cell phones, and I could—"
"Goddammit," she stamps her foot, "You're really gonna make me say it, aren't you?"
"Say what?"
Katy stomps over to him, fists her two hands into his shirt, and drags him close, so close they share a breath as she inhales and grits out, "I want to go with you and make sure you're okay in person because I love you, you fucking moron."
He blinks. "Like," he pauses, choosing his next words as carefully as he'd choose the wires of a bomb needing diffusing, "as a friend?"
"Ugh," she flings herself away from him, throwing both hands in the air, "yes, but also…I don't know, more than that? Maybe? This is really new to me, you know? I was hoping for more than a day to figure it out, but if you're gonna be a butthead and try to make me stay here out of some ridiculous and vaguely misogynistic sense of honor, I guess I have to put my cards on the table.
"So," her hands drop, "yeah. I think I love you. As a friend, as more than that, as whatever it is you need to hear to drop all this shit and just accept that I'm coming with you. Cool?"
All those years ago, when Katy had stepped in front of his bully and started singing Hotel California, he'd really wondered how the bully's confusion could make him forget how much he wanted to beat Shaun into next week. Now, he gets it. Because Shaun's now so bewildered—and elated, and hopeful—that he's not sure he could say his own name to save his life.
"Cool?" she repeats, the word an implicit threat of more yelling if she doesn't get her way.
"Yeah. Cool," and because Shaun's not a total idiot, he adds, "More than cool."
Katy nods, brutally satisfied. "Good. I want pizza, do you want pizza?"
Just like that, he's on his ass again. "Uh, yeah. Can we order in, though? Not sure I'm ready to face the world."
"Yeah, I get that," she pulls out her phone and opens Uber Eats, "How about a large Meateor from Little Star?"
Agreeing has done him well so far, so he just nods. "Sounds good. And, hey—"
"You don't have to say anything, man," her gaze is fixed on her phone, but nothing can conceal the fiery blush of her forehead, "We can forget the whole—"
"I don't wanna forget it."
She stills. "Really? You don't have to say something just because I did."
"I know, but…I mean, I'm still figuring it out, but…things are different. Things feel different for me, too."
"Oh," she breathes. "Okay. That's…that's whatever, I guess."
They each fumble in silence for a moment, doing their best to seem like their confessions haven't rocked the earth beneath them.
"Hey," Shaun says at last, "Put some wings in that order, yeah?"
Katy smiles. "Hell yeah."