Page 27 of All Superheroes Need PR
But ... that little part of my brain still stuck in a past life worries about my inability to talk to men. What if ... I never find a partner? I’ll still have my family. I’ll still have my work. But it might be nice, maybe, to one day be able to come home to someone. Ideally someone reliable, who’ll be in my corner no matter what.
Who’ll say things like,I see any of you hounding her on the streets, I’ll melt the cameras to your hands and light your underwear on fire,without flying off immediately afterward. Maybe a human man who also won’t mind me being fake girlfriend to a superhero with a surly attitude and only two pairs of sweatpants.
Yeah, right.
The reporter with the floppy blond hair struggles to keep pace with me as I near Memory Park. “Is it true?” he huffs as we pass the glittery bronze statue of Taranis at the park entrance.
It’s Taranis as a little boy. This is where he fell. Sundale’s own hometown hero, he was the first member of the Forty-Eight I ever saw in person. It had been in a parade. I’d been thirteen and he’d been somewhere around there, presumably. Smiling around at the crowd, he’d had lightning bolts dancing on the ends of his fingertips and occasionally would make the lights lining the parade flare and die and dance in different colors. He’s back on top of the headlines now, even if he was displaced by the Wyvern for a few minutes.
“Is it true that you can’t please him sexually and that’s why he’s cheating on you with the Olympian?” I stumble, almost fall, but catch myself and pull ahead a little bit faster. I’m not used to jogging quite this fast, but that’s a really stupid question, and I want to get away from it. Not the first part—because that could definitely be true, as inexperienced as I am, but the second part is one of the greater reachesI’ve heard in a while, and I have no desire to piss off the Olympian’s PR team.
I pass the kiddie pool to my right and lose the reporters in a crowd of strollers. Their questions keep up with me, though.
Ididaccept the Lois Lane contract. Even if it was insanity that compelled me to, I should actuallydothe job I signed up for. If he doesn’t want to see me anymore, that’s fine, but we do need to be seen in public. It’s a fake relationship, but if we can’t even get our picture taken over coffee, all those little fake pieces are going to crumble.
I huff, annoyed. I can be a better Lois Lane than that. I just need him to buck up, get over whatever it is that he doesn’t like about me, and match my Lois to a halfway passable Clark.
Clark. Ha. Who am I kidding? He’s more of a Kylo than a Clark.
Maybe I’ll make Margerie yell at him,I think with a smile as I jog through the skate park feeling light, already going over what I’ll say to him—what I’ll try to say to him—next time I see him.
You’re such a chicken shit, Vanessa ...
No.
You ever suggest anything like that again ever, I’ll tear out your spines ...
“Vanessa! Over here! Is it true the Wyvern isn’t really ...” The reporter jumps out at me from behind the half-pipe, andclumsydoesn’t even begin to describe my response.
My feet leave the ground as I fall, arms cartwheeling, and I can feel my mouth open in a silent yet dramatic wail. My phone, which is strapped to my left wrist in its handy jogging holster, hits the ground first, the loud cracking sound making me wince before my torso hits the ground on top of it. My chin hits the pavement last, knocking my thoughts loose. A bright pain flashes through my mouth and a much milder one through my chest.
“Ow ...” Aware that I should get up, move, and that they’re probably, most definitely still filming, doesn’t help propel me to my feet at all. On the contrary. I’m grounded. My left arm is stuck, and mylegs are tangled, and the sun brushes my face and is soothing in a way that has me tearing up.
I blink in the sight of pavement and people shouting. “Hey!” “The fuck?” “Those guys with the cameras knocked that lady over!” Kids’ voices. Low and warbly and prepubescent and adolescent and almost grown and all the things in between.
Fingers nudge my right shoulder against the ground, and I wince, disliking that I’m being touched by strangers until I hear a little voice squeak, “Hey, miss, you okay?”
“Dude, give her some space!”
I roll onto my back to find a little girl and a little boy looking up at me. No, looking down at me. I’m down, they’re up. Whatev ... “Ooph.”
“You don’t look so good,” the little girl says, her head cocked, her long black braided pigtails swaying with the movement.
The slightly older boy gasps. “Oh, cool! It’s her! That’s the Wyvern’s girlfriend!”
A chorus of gasps go around, and I nearly laugh. I let the kids in front of me offer me their hands and pull me up into a seated position. I wait a few seconds for the adrenaline to settle to make sure I haven’t injured myself worse than suspected. Feeling shaken but otherwise okay, I nod. “Yuh, I dam.” Wait. What did I just say?
“Ohh! Where’s he now?” The little girl’s round brown face beams with excitement.
“He’s not going to light us on fire, is he?” The boy, who could be her older brother with how similar their skin tones and face shapes are, is already looking up at the sky, and I laugh.
“Doh, doh, dot at all. Dank you for help ... me.” Something’s off. My mouth feels like hell and I can taste blood.
“Yeah, don’t worry, lady. We ran those guys off!” I glance up at the new voice that’s spoken to see a boy, maybe thirteen, with an awesome naturally red Afro pointing down the path where the reporters are being blocked by a small armada of kids wielding bicycles, scooters,and skateboards. The reporters try to intimidate the kids into letting them through, shouting louder and brandishing their badges—that is, until someone throws a gigantic compostable cup down onto them from the top of the half-pipe.
The kids all burst out laughing as blue goes everywhere, soaking the reporters’ shirts and cameras, and I can’t help but bark out a laugh with them that makes all the bones in my chest ache. I cover my sore mouth with my hand and wince again. My chin hurts, too, I realize, and my head is spinning a little. I should probably get a lift out of here but know that I can’t as soon as I remember the shattered phone on my wrist.
“Hey, do you haff a phone?” I slur like a clever drunk, just able to be understood.
