Superhero Effects

11. HEY! THIS IS CRAZY BUT HERE'S MY NUMBER SO CALL ME LUCINDA'S TWIN

"Oh my gosh, Tristan," Peggy breathed as she paced the length of her room. The color had returned to her face, and her eyes were dancing with excitement now rather than fear. "Oh my gosh." I watched her from my spot atop her paint-flecked desk grimly as she turned and paced the other way. "Supers, I mean, actual super-humans. And magic," she gasped deeply and whipped around to peer at me, pushing her curly blonde hair away impatiently. She leaned forward from her distance and whispered loudly, "Are you sure you can't fly?"

I thought about cartwheeling through the darkness and screaming for the Good Lord. I put a hand to my stomach, fighting back the urge to burp. "I'm sure."

Peggy's eyes flickered, and the excitement dropped a fraction. "Oh, I'm a horrible friend. T, you sure you can't just—talk them out of torching all your life's work?"

After Cooper flew me to the house and made me hand over my computer hard drive and laptop so they could completely wipe all my work, he made me hand over my agent's contact info. He also snooped out my advanced copy of the second book when I refused to hand it over and took it, saying Leilani and Tennyson would read it after him.

I texted Peggy and told her to scoop me up from the house instead of meeting me at the park because it would be safer to talk at her place because her dad was always playing music to inspire his artwork. A soft rock song leaked into her room through the walls.

"No," I said, "not a chance."

She bit the side of her thumb, her gaze going unfocused. "This is so cool. My best friend is a mutated human who can detect mutated humans." Her eyes moved swiftly back to me. "You think I could meet one and get the tiniest interview ever?" She pinched her forefinger and thumb together.

I jumped down from her desk. "What, no! Peggy, if they have the slightest clue that I told you all of this, they'd alter your memory, and then—then I'd be alone again... Wow, that did sound selfish."

She grabbed both my hands. "Hey! You are not selfish; your world is crumbling right now, and you have the right to think about yourself. Don't worry; I won't do anything stupid. I won't even tell Archer."

I nodded, leaning back against the desk. "Good. I knew you'd understand."

I didn't have the heart to tell Peggy that her only cousin wasn't really her cousin or that he had been lying about pretty much everything. Peggy and Archer had been my only friends for a while, but Archer had been Peggy's friend for way longer.

"Besides," she went on with a scowl, "I don't trust Leilani, even if she says she's spying on her Dad. I mean, did you see those guys today?" Peggy shuddered. "Now, I'm really, really glad we weren't caught. So, what are we supposed to do?"

"Peggs," Peggy's dad hollered, "Tristan's mom is here!"

I straightened up with a sigh. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay? We can go see a movie or something and just be normal people and not talk about anything weird?"

Peggy's shoulders sunk subdued, but she nodded with a kind smile. "Sounds like a plan."

I grabbed my backpack and started out of her room when she said, "T, you're still the same person. No matter what anyone else says. This doesn't change who you are, and you don't have to let it define you."

"...Thanks, Peggs. I needed to hear that."
***
My mom picked up on my mood right away, she asked what was wrong, and it was futile to tell her I was fine, so I just said I had a bad gas stomachache. When we got home, she reached into the medicine cabinet—which was the fullest cabinet in the kitchen—and handed me an over-the-counter gas-begone medicine. She kissed my forehead and told me to get some rest.