Superheroes Suck

Chapter 5: Even Supervillains Hate the Rain

After that, any part of me that still considered standing in treehouse, a "pleasant way to pass the time", died after Spitfire left. Part of my appetite left with him. That's not to say it won't come back with a vengeance the moment I smell food, but nothing's appealing now.

I carefully descended from the tree house, not wanting to take a chance of the steps breaking from beneath me. When I checked my phone, a message from Penn popped up saying he was on his way and to be ready in ten.

He was just pulling into his driveway as I jogged up mine. I waved his way and went inside to grab my windbreaker off the coat rack. You never know, weather can be an unpredictable thing and the last time I was alone with Penn, a guy dropped me like forty stories. It'd probably have been freezing if that happened at night.

"What'd you say to Oliver to piss him off so much," was the first thing I heard when I entered the car.

The second was, "Hi."

I addressed the latter of course. "Hello to you Penn."

"I'm not joking Nova." Penn pulled out of the driveway and started to the corner. "Oliver's completely pissed, I've never seen him in such a bad mood."

"He's just pissy because I won't stop calling him Murphy." Penn shot me a disappointed look. "What? In my defense, he said he wouldn't stop calling me Wallflower."

He let out a little laugh, "I think his nickname for you is cute, and you know he hates you calling him Murphy."

Wait, did Murphy really hate it that much? He hated it enough that he complained to Penn about it? Suddenly, I felt really bad.

And then I remembered Murphy's a dick.

"Murphy isn't nearly as bad as Wallflower, not by a long shot Penn." I argued but Penn didn't seem to buy it. "Can we just drop this, I argued with Murphy enough over it."

"Fine." Penn said and fixed his eyes on the road.

The rest of the car ride went by with idle chatter. I asked Penn about the lacrosse team and Penn joked about me putting in a good word with the Editor-In-Chief so they'd do another article on the lacrosse team. As if there wasn't already enough about the team in the paper.

Logically, we had to reach the point we did next. Penn was my best friend and all, it only made sense that one of us would bring up a certain girl's lacrosse captain.

"You know, we haven't talked about Ray." I said, not liking dancing around our unsaid questions. "I don't even know why you broke up."

Penn just stopped the car. The behind us slammed on the break and then cursed us out as he drove around us. The rest of the cars followed suit as Penn and I sat in the car in silence.

"Oh." He said after a minute of silence. "Yeah."

"It's okay if you don't want to talk about it. I just thought I'd put it out there." When he didn't respond, I added, "You are my best friend after all and I want us to talk about these things."

"Yeah." He repeated as he started driving again.

For a moment, I regretted what I said. Penn was obviously broken up about the breakup but it hurt a little he didn't want to talk to me about it. Like me bringing it up is such a big thing, he's my best friend for godsake. I want to know that he's alright and I don't need to kick Ray's ass.

Who am I kidding, she'd rip me a new one if I even tried.

However, a few moments late, Penn spoke again. "I don't think I even like Ray."