Again
"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR BUS!" Mike screamed, pushing me into the fridge and holding my throat until I was wheezing for breath. "WHERE THE FUCK IS MY RUM?"
"I d-didn't take it," I lied, running out of oxygen and feeling my face heat up. I was going to miss my bus – and it was all because of this asshole. "L-let me g-go!"
"YOU'RE A FILTHY LIAR, ELLE!" He tightened his grip, and my eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets. "AND YOU'RE GONNA PAY!"
"MIKE!" My mother screamed, throwing dirty silverware left scattered on the table at his back. "PUT HER DOWN – YOU'RE GONNA KILL HER!"
He let go with a large grunt, pushing me towards the door and yelling something about how stupid my school was in the process before he turned on my mother, who pleaded for me to go in her own drunken mess. I left in tears, holding my sore throat and practically running to the bus stop to catch my bus. I made it in the nick of time – it just pulled up and the driver gave me a strange look as I made my way as fast as possible to the back of the vehicle. I didn't want anyone to see me crying, and I didn't scream this time as the bus was launched into the air and made its trip up to the school. The numbness that came after every time that my stepfather abused me came very very fast, and I found myself barely paying any attention until the bus landed at Sky High and I was forced to get it together so that I could use the little energy I had left to turn my head and read my schedule. Today my schedule included three new courses, gym – one afternoon was marked 'Save The Citizen' which confused me greatly – math and visual art. It was safe to say that I was going to enjoy these days more, but I couldn't help but feel inclined towards my Mad Science class.
I waited until lunch to venture off to the bathroom – my classes had gone find without much interruption and I very much liked all of my teachers. I wondered if perhaps I would be able to reiterate that to my mother; she, at least, had been proud of my getting my abilities and working towards bettering my future. My stepfather on the other had, had only ever taken advantage of them and forced me to heal him when he got into a fight, or when he had beaten my mother so badly that she needed medical attention. I sighed, making my way into the girls washroom and nearly gasping as I saw the dark purple marks that had formed themselves around my neck. Not wanting a repeat of yesterday, I hoped that nobody had already seen them and took out my concealer, wiping on huge amounts. Eventually it covered, and I made my way to the cafeteria with a grimace. I didn't have any money today either; and since I had been woken to such a violent start today I hadn't managed to grab any food from home. Although the boy was already sitting at his table, I took the chance and assumed that my invitation to sit was implied since we had ended up on the right term yesterday. Thankfully enough, he didn't say anything when I sat down, and I sighed in relief as I read my own book.
"Don't you eat?" The boy asked after several minutes of sitting in silence and reading.
"I-I don't have money," I tried to sound nonchalant about it – my situation in life made me ashamed. But instead of laughing like all of the other kids had done at my previous schools, Warren slid a container of soup off of his lunch tray.
"Y-you don't have to do that," I muttered, feeling like a filthy charity case. He didn't say anything, merely tossed a spoon in my direction and continued to read. He didn't say anything else for the lunch hour, only stopping to stare at me out of the corner of his eye when I devoured the soup. Perhaps he had already figured me out – or perhaps he was making wild assumptions in his head. Either way, I hoped that he still didn't have the urge to rip my head off.
"Thank you."
It wasn't until Thursday that I learned his name. He hadn't said anything on Wednesday, allowing me to sit at his lunch table and not batting an eye when I placed my own lunch – a ham and cheese sandwich that I had managed to rob from home – on the table and began to eat it. I wanted to talk to him, but it seemed that Wednesday was silent day, so I waited until Thursday. At first, the lunch started typically – we sat and read our books until 12:30 – but suddenly the boy blurted out a name.
"Warren," He spoke, eyes still covering the pages of his book. "Warren Peace."
"Eleanor Rhodes," I knew who he was – his father had been a famous supervillain and his mother a famous superhero – but I chose not not comment on Barron Battle and Terri Peace and instead responded with my own name. He didn't say anything after that, only nodding slightly, and then went back to reading. Even though no more words were shared (as per usual) I could feel his stares every once in awhile practically burning right through my makeup. It was like he saw right through me.
It was Friday, and he was now reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I couldn't resist the urge to say something – it was like he was teasing me by picking all of my favorites. I mustered up the courage after several minutes, before speaking shakily, but without any stutters.
"Did you like it?"
Warren raised his head in question, tilting his head.
"1984," I clarified. "Did you like it? It's one of my favorites – I just wanted to know what you thought."
"It was thought provoking," Warren chose his words carefully, eyes darting around the cafeteria. "Made me stay up for hours after I finished it."
I nodded, smiling that I had found someone else with just as much of a joy in life with reading as me, and went back to The Two Towers. Originally, I had believed that it was going to be another quiet lunch with just the two of us, but out of nowhere there was a loud yell and food rained down on the table surface in between us. A boy had tripped and fallen, unfortunately spilling his lunch and ending up face first on the floor. I rose to help him up, but not before Warren stood himself and turned to face his offender. It had been a mistake, but it didn't seem like my new friend was taking it that way.
"Oh," the boy clad in blue gulped as he looked up at the large boy in front of him. "Sorry!"
"You will be," Warren glowered, taking a step closer.
"Alright," the other boy rose his hands. "let's not do this."
"You think you can do whatever you want just cause you're name is Stronghold?" Warren spat out the boy's name like it was a disease, tone growing more and more violent by the second. At this point, I could only assume that this was the Commander and Jetstream's – two of the most popular superheroes on the globe – son, William Stronghold. I had only heard about him on the news a couple times when he attended press events with his parents, but now that I looked closely at him I could identify similar features between him and his father. This meant trouble, only because The Commander – Will's father – had put Warren's father – Baron Battle – into prison for a quadruple life sentence. It looked like Warren had some long-held, pent-up anger against the Stronghold family.
"Look," Will began. "I'm sorry that my dad put your dad in jail, but -"
At this point, Warren grabbed Will by the shirt on his chest and brought him very close to his face. "Nobody talks about my father." He seethed, hands lighting up with flames.
I gasped, taking a step back and grabbing both of our books as well as my bag. I didn't want anything to get burnt; and I certainly hadn't been expecting Warren to have this kind of an ability. Pyrokinetics – or element wielders as I liked to call them – were hard to come by, but when they were found it was either a beautiful sight or a terrible disaster. In this case, I could only assume the latter was going to happen, and I was preparing to flee. A crowd had gathered after Warren's initial attack, looking between the two and waiting to see what would happen next.
"Eleanor," Warren growled, eyes burning as he turned to me. "Leave."
"B-but," I stammered, not wanting to leave him in a dangerous situation. "W-what about -"
"LEAVE!" He shouted, only letting a single glance of regret slip out as he caught my flinch. I didn't want the attention turned on me, so I simply fought back tears and pushed my way through the crowds of students towards my locker. I didn't want anybody to get hurt, but what choice did I have when I had been given a command like that? I didn't want Warren going after me after he demolished Stronghold. But nevertheless, I felt a twinge of something different as I left that cafeteria – like he didn't want to make me watch him get angry. I wasn't sure if it was involved in his assumptions about my home life or not, but either way I felt like he was trying to protect me from a different version of himself.
I made my way through the basically deserted hallways towards my locker, trying to ignore the sounds of the fight going on in the cafeteria and intent on hiding away in the washroom until the bell rang. I did exactly that; letting go of the fact that I was skipping two classes (one of which had been canceled because of the fight anyway) and only emerging when I was certain that I could blend right into the crowds of students. I assumed Will and Warren had received detention by this point, so I didn't think i would be seeing them anytime soon. Instead, I headed home on the bus. This time, when I got to the back seat I didn't hold back my tears. I wept because out of all of the things in my life – I didn't need more anger placed into the equation, but he was a friend and he was my friend. I had found someone that I had made a connection with despite the fact that we had probably only shared a page of words between each other. I wept because it was clear that he had his own problems in his life and didn't know how to handle the anger of a broken family – and this resulted in social troubles at school that negatively impacted his experiences. I wept because of the similarity and yet the startling differences between us. I wept until the bus hit the ground, and until it rolled to my stop.
"Have a good afternoon," The bus driver tilted his hat, a sorrow expression on his face at the sight of my tears.
"Thank you," I mumbled, beginning my walk home and wrapping my sweater further around myself. What greeted me when I got home was the last situation I wanted to deal with for the day.
When I arrived through the door, Mike immediately grabbed me by my hair and pulled me towards the couch, where my mother lay unconscious with a large bloody gash on the side of her head. My heart took a leap and I nearly passed out at the sight of it – it was deep enough that I was certain I could see bone – but I couldn't bring myself to move.
"Fix her!" He commanded, swaying slightly but showing no other signs of intoxication besides panic. "Fix her and I'll forget the rum!"
After I didn't move in shock for a second, he tugged at my hair again, causing me to yelp in pain. "Is this some kind of joke to you, Elle? Fix your fucking mother before she bleeds out all over my damn couch."
It's not yours. I thought as I tossed down my bag and quickly made my way over to my mother, placing my hands over her injuries. A warm rush surrounded me as I felt the familiar force of my ability sooth over our bodies and begin to close my mother's wound. I wanted to ask questions – I wanted to ask why he had done this, how long she had been like this and why on earth he made me do this every time instead of just killing us both off, but I held my tongue. Questioning in the past had only gotten me hurt, and I didn't think that I could take any more beating today. I felt the last surge of my powers before my mother's wounds sealed themselves shut, and I did a last scan of any other injuries before standing up and waiting for her to wake. She did so, returning to her normal sober state minutes later, and raised a hand to her head.
"What -" She narrowed her eyes and tried to wrap her head around what happened. "Elle, what happened? Did you -"
"Yes," I interrupted, giving her a kiss on the forehead and then walking upstairs to my room. There were no words from Mike, but I could hear raised tones later on that night as I put myself to sleep. I wished that this entire day had never happened.