Fawkes

The Cat's Out of The Bag

The majority of Digital Literacy that day consisted of me amusing Justin and Mindy by hacking into the principal's email and sending an obscure video of a monkey to every parent in his recents. It was hard to contain our laughter when Mr Beauregard's frantic voice rang over the announcements claiming that he did not post this video and there was someone hacking into his account.

I avoided Dick for the majority of DL as well. We sat on opposite sides of the class, but usually one of us would roll over to the other. That did not happen today.

I didn't really know how I felt about the whole situation. On one hand, I was angry that Dick had invaded my privacy like he did. I told him I was fine wearing the uniform I was wearing, but he kept pushing me.

On another hand, I knew it wasn't his fault. Our relationship wasn't the happy go lucky, 'how was your day?' 'good, and you?' type. It was more of a bantering, 'I'd bet my life savings you can't do this', 'well then prepare to pay up, idiot' friendship. I preferred it that way. Even if we hadn't been friends long, I was pretty comfortable around him. Still cautious, of course, but I no longer resented him like before.

So I shouldn't be mad that he pulled up my sleeve, because he didn't know. I guess it was more awkward than anything. Maybe I was even a little embarrassed about it. I also didn't want him pitying me. In fact, that was the last thing that I wanted. I knew Artemis pitied me. Sometimes I caught her looking at me when I wasn't looking at her. Maybe it was after I mentioned my past, but she sometimes had that look in her eye, the one that said, 'I'm sorry you had to go through that' without actually saying it. But why would she be sorry? It didn't make sense. I hated when people said they were sorry something happened.

'I'm sorry you were raised by a lunatic clown.'

'I'm sorry you were abused as a child.'

'I'm sorry your parents died in front of your eyes because you were too stupid to realize you'd be followed.'

Great. You're sorry. You're sorry for something that was in no way your control. You're sorry for something that I did, or something that I went through. It's not your fault. Don't apologize for something that isn't your fault.

'But I'm sorry it happened,' they say.

Well, that's fantastic. But what good does it do? Why dwell on the past when it's over and done with?

'But you didn't deserve all that pain.'

Oh trust me. I did. I deserved all of that and more. I deserved to see my parents die in front of me knowing that it was my fault. I deserved to go through all of that hardship. If you knew what I had done to people, all the people I'd killed and tortured, then you would choke on your apologies. I can promise you that.

I didn't wanna hear those words come out of Dick's mouth. The only other person who never pitied me was Robin, and that was because we weren't on friendly terms.

I wasn't gonna lie and say it wasn't nice to have a friend who didn't know about me. It was like a fresh start.

A fresh start that seemed to have ended too quickly.

Maybe if I ignored him long enough he'd forget about it and we could go back to being friends like we were.

If not, then I'd have to cut him out of my life. No biggy, I wasn't one to get attached to people anyway. I could grow closer with Mindy and Justin and Sam and Sandy. They seemed nice enough. They didn't know jack shit about me either, so that was a bonus.

All this thinking was leading me to punch harder.

I was currently in the training room, at the ripe hour of 3:15. There was no scheduled training for today, but that wouldn't stop anyone on the team from taking advantage of the room. Especially me. I had too much on my mind, so I had to let it out. The punching bags were the perfect opportunity to do so.