Superheroes Suck

Chapter 3: You're Blaming Me For Almost Dying?

We split when we reached home, I to my house and him to his. My mother wouldn't be home for another hour or so. Dad, on the other hand, was still out traveling still and he wouldn't be back for the next couple days. When I entered the house however, they were both sitting on the stairs chatting. Neither noticed me as I entered, they might not have noticed if not for the clank of the keys as they hit the key bowl.

My mother jumped, her eyes wide and glassy, "Nova!"

She threw her shaking arounds around me and held me like a lifeline. That struck me as strange, especially because my mother was far from a hugger and the fact she was doing so now was off putting.

"Hi, Mom?" I wasn't sure what was expected of me in this moment.

"You're okay!" She cried and hugged me closer.

Oh, they saw that.

My parents have always been too busy for me but the one time that I wanted that blissful ignorance and space, they pay attention. They dropped everything when all I wanted was for this not to become a big deal. I planned to sit back, relax and come to terms with the fact that an hour ago I almost plunged to my death.

My father took this as a chance to get up and look at me sternly. "Nova, your mother and I were worried about you. What you did today worried your mother so much she called me up and we took off early from work."

Was he serious? "You're blaming me for almost dying? For someone trying to drop me from forty stories up? Are you kidding me?"

"No," The anger was easy to see in my father's eyes. My mother took a step back to look at me, her arm reaching out in support of my father. "What you did was irresponsible, and you need to be properly punished?"

"Irresponsible, going into the city was irresponsible?" I let out a laugh. "You must be joking, either that or completely insane!"

My mother gasped at my tone. I was beyond angry, angry because this whole thing was the opposite of what I wanted. Normal parents would be holding their child tight and insisting on a trip to the hospital or asking if they were alright. A pair of normal parents wouldn't blame their daughter, whose only offense was taking an impromptu trip to the city, for almost being murdered.

"Don't take that tone with your father!" My mother yelled desperately.

"I deserve to have a tone because this is bullshit!" I pushed past them and stopped on the first step, turning back to add: "I'm going to my room."

I was up the stairs before they could even comment anything else. I wanted to slam the door but instead I settled on calmly locking it behind me. The last thing I wanted was to add more fuel to the flames and have them knocking on my door when all I wanted was peace.

My bed was where I found myself next, with a pair of headphones on while I started my homework.

During that time, I got more text messages than I could count. After a while, and after I threw my phone to the other side of the room, I gave in and checked my phone. Most of the texts were from numbers I didn't know, but I did see a few from Mary. All of those messages were frantic. To sum them all up, most of them were either her worried about my safety or pissed I had yet to text her back.

I settled for calling her, knowing I'd have to face more of her wrath if I didn't have the ability to smooth things over before she could start ranting. Mary is a ranter, once she gets started, all you can do is wait until she's finished her thought. One time, I interrupted to ask her to calm down and she call me up and went off on me. I learned my lesson after that.

The phone began dialing as I waited to hear something on the other line. When I did, before she could even say anything, I spoke. "Mary?"

"Nova, I will give you two seconds to start speaking or else I am going to flip shit. You hear me?" Her voice was loud, even though I had preemptively turned down the volume on my phone.