Blog of a Teenage Superhero

Chapter Four: Sleep is for the Weak

I live in a motel-turned-apartment-complex where the closest I get to the ocean is an occasional palm tree thwacking my window. Plantation style, shutters painted candy pink. It's a doll house, flimsy and thin. If a hurricane came, we'd be blown down the coast.

Kai collapses on the corduroy couch the moment we stagger through the door. "Pain!" he wails. Finn collapses beside him, poking buttons on his phone. 

Our apartment is a dollhouse, too. Full white bookshelves line three walls, two matching corduroy couches face each other on opposite sides, and a squeaky green armchair sits by the fireplace. Candles flicker on the mantle, blinking orange and blue. We don't have a foyer. We have a bath mat to keep the carpet in our living room, or our "library," as Dad calls it, clean.

Dad snores in the armchair. He's still dressed in his usual khakis and tie, newspaper spread across his lap like a dinner napkin. This is where he usually sleeps. The day he uses a bed like a normal person is the day we get a paycheck that covers our living expenses. Also known as 'never' and 'not happening.'

I kick open the kitchen door, rinse the percolator in our grubby green sink, and start coffee-making. When the stove's on, I lean my head against the cupboards and shut my eyes. I've stumbled onto something so big a supervillain chased Kai's car and told me he's going to kill me and then... didn't.

Yay?

By reporter standards, that's not too shabby. By fictional reporter standards, I'm dancing on eggshells by existing. Someone should kidnap me right now. How do I know Masquerade really left? Maybe he can turn invisible, too. I do research, sure, but everyone makes mistakes.

 I twist the fleecy insides of Finn's hoodie, the percolator burbling. 

"Hey, Monet—"

I whip around and throw my best hook shot. A boy squeals and crumples to the ground. 

"Hijinks!" shouts Kai from the living room, and then he whoops, and then he goes back to snoring. Dad and Kai, a beautiful symphony. I kneel down on the tile and grab Finn by the shoulders. He clutches his arm. It has begun to swell up like a lumpy beach ball under his peach shirt.

"I'm fine," he says with a croaky laugh, his glasses flashing in the glare of candles sitting on the peephole sill. "Totally fine." His arm is trembling. He gulps hard.

I grip him under the armpits and drag him to his feet. His weight is not a problem. Coat rack analogy, remember? But he's lankier than me, and taller, too. He yelps and topples into the counter.

"Are you okay?" I'm already rummaging through the musty draws, shaking out plastic organizers and turning over mugs and bowls, searching for the first aid kit. He places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. The touch is remarkably soft, nothing like Masquerade's Death Grip or Kai's Hug of Asphyxiation. I flip through salt packets and plastic sporks faster. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean—"

"I'm fine. I shouldn't sneak around like that. I just wanted coffee is all. It's already four, and if I go to sleep now I am not waking up at six." He says it all with a laugh. I wish I was so adaptable. My mind has veered off in a million directions, but he knows just what to focus on: school.

I rinse out a mug and pour him a cup.

Finn takes his coffee black. He only drinks two a day. But Kai and I can go all night, drinking anywhere from four to eight cups in an hour. And I won't even get started on Dad. 

But right now, I don't want to stay awake. I want to collapse on the couch and forget what happened tonight. I could pretend it was all a bad dream. I could curl up against Kai and think hey, I got my friends, I got sleep, everything will be all right.