After cold sandwiches, they all went to the lake as promised because if there was anything this already awkward situation needed, it was bathing suits.
Maybe it was only Jordan who thought so. He was very shy about his body. That's the part he didn't miss about football, the constant locker room changes. Though he'd found creative ways to get dressed like starting to put his shirt on before the other shirt came fully off.
He could have worn a swim shirt that had UV protection built in, but he didn't really need to. In fact, he felt better when he was soaking in the sun, and he didn't burn. Both those things made sense now. He'd wondered sometimes why Mom hadn't made him wear sunscreen like all the other mothers. He had a vague memory of mentioning the lotion made him feel tired and unwell, not an allergy just biology.
He supposed that good feeling was why he'd found the perfect rock to sit on now, where the sun's golden rays hit him just right.
Natalie swam up to his large gray rock and joined him. He bashfully folded his arms across his chest in a way that he hoped was not obvious. He knew she was his half-sister of sorts, but she was his sister, which made the feeling of needing to grab a shirt even stronger.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," he returned, focusing on the others who seemed to be enjoying the lake, splashing and floating in the murky waters.
"I thought Grandpa Sam was never going to let us swim. 'No diving. Watch out for wildlife, rocks, debris, and vegetation. And above all, don't have any fun. It's too dangerous.'"
He laughed hard. She'd made up the part about the fun, and it wasn't particularly funny, but her impression of him from the expressions to the voice was just so dead-on that she could have said, "The sky is blue," and it would have been funny. In the laughter, he dropped his arms.
"I guess you can't blame him," she went on. "We're probably all still on edge from the Kryptonian invasions in our worlds."
"Yeah," he said, the discomfort returning.
She shuddered. "And there's still Superman out there. I hope to God that I never have to lay eyes on him."
Why was she opening up to him, he wondered, wanting to be anywhere else but here. It was the curse of being the quietest in the group. People, strangers even, had a tendency to pour out their heart to him. He felt an obligation to reassure her. "Yeah, but he's not what you think. He's a good guy, the best. He's the one I'd want to help me out of a jam."
"Spoken like a true Metropolitan. I used to share that opinion until I watched him kill millions in front of me. Even my own mother."
He squirmed. Why didn't he just stay in the lake? "Yeah, I know about that, but he was possessed. Our Superman isn't. Not anymore. I mean, you know your dad's been working with him, right?"
"Yeah, he told me about it. I don't like it though. I don't like him. No one person should have that much power. Superman brought Metropolis to its knees in five minutes. An entire city all but gone in three hundred seconds."
"It's not like he asked for them, the powers," he said. He didn't know whether he was talking about his dad anymore. He hated the deception. He hated that the powers made him so different that he couldn't get close to people. And here Natalie was feeding into the fear that if did tell someone outside his inner family circle, they wouldn't accept his being a half-alien. Even his own grandfather looked at him different, not that they were all that close before.
"No, but that doesn't change that it's terrifying. I guess I should be thankful that there's only one Kryptonian roaming free around the planet again, right?"
"What I think is that you shouldn't judge an entire race of people on the actions of a few," he said, irritation growing. "And you know something? Did you ever stop to think that maybe Superman finds it terrifying too?"
He broke one of Grandpa's rules and dove into the lake without knowing how deep it was; he was that eager to get away from her. He was afraid. Afraid that she would see the truth of what he was. Afraid that so much damage had been done to the Kryptonian name that he could never tell anyone ever, not even Sarah, without being seen as the monster that he sometimes felt like.
He envied the large brown, speckled trout that swam in front of his face as he was submerged, living an uncomplicated life. He wished he could stay beneath the waters with it, but sooner or later, he would have to come up for air. And sooner or later, he would have to face Natalie again and attempt to explain his weird behavior.