Page 35 of All Superheroes Need PR
I lean in. His hand moves to cover the side of my face, his thumb rubbing roughly over my cheek. The hysteria monster has taken on a new shape, this one just as unfamiliar. My mouth moves toward his in an awkward jerk, but he holds me back, licks his lips, and seemingly finds sanity and restraint.
“You don’t get to back outta this.”
I’m breathing hard. So is he. I shake my head, looking down at my lap in humiliation as I realize what I’d been about to do—and moreover, the fact that he was the one to pull back. “I don’t even know what this is, Mr. Casteel.”
“Fuck you, Nessa, and fuck that. You may be myfakegirlfriend, but you’re stillmine. And I look after what’s mine.” After a few seconds in which the tension hums with its own tune, he stands and pulls some things from his pocket. He sets the pill bottle from the doc on the ottoman, then squeezes the instant ice pack and drops it onto my ankle.
Without another word, he heads to the front door, which I hear creak open even though I keep my hands trained on my lap. “I better not see you at work tomorrow, Ms. Theriot.” He closes the door softly behind him, and I realize, staring blankly into space for the next few minutes, that this is the first time I’ve ever yelled at anybody and the first time I’ve ever had anybody yell at me back as an adult.
I smile and laugh into my hand before catching the sound in my palm. My eyes flare with heat as I think back on our conversation with both wonder and horror, and I’m crying as confusion grips me with an iron fist and shakes me around for good measure.
He didn’t coddle me like most people do. He wasn’t nice. He certainly wasn’t honorable. He called me a bitch because he believed I was strong enough to take it, or maybe because he’s just an asshole.
But I called him an asshole and berated him like that because he wronged me, yes, but also because at no point in our shouting match did I feel unsafe, did I hear my subconscious mind whispering to me in the voice of my mother.
I felt safe enough to shout at somebody,I think, guffawing audibly.
The novelty of the moment is too big, too much, too new ... so I do the only thing that makes sense in that moment. I schedule a therapy appointment and, while I wait, grab my laptop, settle into the couch with an ice pack, lunch, and determination, and bury myself in work.
Chapter TwelveVanessa
“Oh em gee!” She actually spells the acronym out. “Are you there?”
“What?” I say, unsurprised at how groggy I sound. After working all day and a late-night therapy appointment that made me feel considerably worse than I had expected it would, I stayed up way too late crafting emails to Roland Casteel that flirted with the line between apology and additional beratement.
I currently have a three-page masterpiece, cut down from the twelve-page dissertation I initially wrote, idling in my drafts folder. I don’t plan to send it without drinking a bottle of wine in its entirety first. Unfortunately, it’s midday now and a little too early for wine, considering I spent the entire morning working and am only just getting breakfast.
“At the skate park in Memorial! Some kids are filming your boy! Apparently he had the COE accounting department up all night setting up a school savings account for each of the kids who helped you out yesterday and put ten grand into each of them! The kids’ parents got notice this morning, and some of them even came to the skate parkcryingwith how grateful they are! Please tell me you’re there. This photo op cannot be left to the videography skills of a horde of excited preadults!”
Putting Margerie on speakerphone, I hop over to the vintage burnt-orange corduroy-covered stools pushed in underneath the breakfast bar next to the window with bright-yellow trim. I take one and sit. “Is it on social media?”
“What? It’s everywhere. And now he’s skating with them! You didn’t tell me he could skateboard. That wasn’t in his file anywhere.” I wince thinking of files, their paper wings filling my stomach. “Whoa. Look at him go.”
“Is he live?”
“Yeah, a few times. I reposted a few of the lives to his account. Check them out.”
Pulling out my work cell—grateful I have one given that my personal was damaged beyond repair in my fall—I’m already there, tracking the live footage back to their various sources. I see excited faces pressing in on the camera in between flashes of parents holding up their phones, showing the education savings accounts with $10,000 balances.
“Margerie, there must have been over twenty kids he collected names from ... and he hasn’t even cleared his second paycheck with the COE yet. They pay the Champions in installments. That might have been hisentirefirst check.”
“Oh em gee. My ovaries,” she coos.
I snort. “How is he paying his rent?”
“Is he? I thought he was living with you.”
Guilt kicks me in the skull, and I clear my throat. “No. No. He, uh ... hasn’t come by yet.”
“That so?” she says, sounding appropriately suspicious.
The camera for the live footage I’m watching now pans back up the half-pipe. The Wyvern is standing on a skateboard that’s actually his size—bigger than average—which makes me wonder if he actually had one or if he bought a new one for the occasion.
As the camera swivels around, I don’t miss the flash of a brown face I saw yesterday with hair down to her low back, a boy who looks just like her with his arm protectively looped over her shoulders. He’spointing up at the Wyvern, and I smile, so glad that they both made it back to see him. The little boy was so excited.
“You ready?” he asks the crowd. They all screech and cheer.
The Wyvern drops into the half-pipe easily, and as he comes up the other side, he takes off into the air in a blaze. The kids lose their minds. The camerawork leaves a lot to be desired, and I snort and realize that I’m such a chump, and I’ve got snot in my nose and burning in my eyes. I switch out of the video and scroll. Even in his normal feed, all the videos of him were taken by children under fifteen years old.
