I, Immortal

Chapter Four

"How was school today?"

I kept my eyes fixed on my plate of spaghetti. My dad always knew how to ask questions I didn't want to answer.

"It was..." Good, great, fantastic, A+! Anything but what it actually was! "Well, Coach told me I'm no good at PE."

Great. Now I've said it. 

"The coach did?"

"Yeah. And you know..." I shoved a forkful of noodles into my mouth, hoping I could swallow around the lump in my throat, "I think he's right."

I glanced across the table at my dad, watched him dish out a second helping of spaghetti onto Lulu's plate.

"Maybe so," He sighed, "Maybe you could excel at something else."

"Like what?" I muttered.

"Science, for one thing," My mom cut in, "Math, art, history. Surely you can get straight As in something."

"What's his average grade anyway?" Dad turned to her, and I instantly became drawn to a crack in the wallpaper, dreading his disappointment in my fairly good grades.

I winced as my Dad pushed his chair back, shouting frustratedly. "A B? My son is getting a B?"

In all my life, I never could recall a time when my father was proud of me. Or when anyone was proud of me, for that matter. When I took my first step, no one bothered to catch it on camera. When I first rode my bike without training wheels, no one was there to cheer me on. When I wrote a poem for my English class, no one cared about the time I'd spent trying to rhyme the impossible.

Nothing rhymes with orange, the teacher had chuckled cynically. She crumpled my poem into a wad and shoved it into her desk drawer. Later, I sneaked the poem out, took it home, tried to smooth the creases from the page. I contemplated talking to my mom, but she wouldn't have cared anyway. I had only ever failed in her eyes.

The more I reread my poem, the more I hated it. I stuffed it away in my secret stash in the garage. After that, I never bothered showing anyone the things I held important. Except to Lulu. She knew I wasn't a failure. I just had to prove that to my parents.

*

I slept like a log. I woke up like a rock. Every fiber in my body groaned from the achy stiffness I had gained from the day before. I rolled myself out of bed, stumbled like an old man to the jet tub.

Steamy water poured from the faucet and bubbled as I turned on the jets and slid my sore body into the huge tub. Enveloped by the wonderful liquid, I relaxed against the side of the tub, rubbed my aching muscles. Water shot from the jets, massaging my back. I stayed in the water until my fingers and toes looked more like prunes than appendages. Not only did I feel old, I looked old too.

I slipped into a pair of olive drab joggers and a brown shirt, brushed my teeth, and rubbed my hair dry with a towel before selecting a couple slices of French toast for breakfast. I stuck a granola bar in my pocket for later.

Cy knocked on my door just as I finished off my last forkful of French toast. I slowly stood up, walked to the door and opened it. He perked up like an excited puppy. "You ready?"

I massaged a rather tender spot on my shoulder. "I guess."

I pulled on my tennis shoes, followed Cy out of the flat and down the stairs. We walked out of the grand hotel into the busy morning air of New York. Cy pulled a dollar bill from his wallet and hailed a cab.

As we stepped into our taxi, Cy casually commented. "One day closer to being superhumans."

In that moment, for some strange reason, my stomach twisted into knots. As if I was afraid. As if some part of me, some quiet part tucked away deep inside, regretted undertaking this adventure.