Super•Villainous

XIII

Although I still wasn't fully convinced my step-father hadn't lost his mind, true to his word I signed some papers saying the hospital wasn't liable for anything that happened to me next and that they had indeed warned me about the perils of going home this early into my recovery.

As expected, when my dad saw me walk into the apartment I thought he'd blown a fuse, but Adrian dragged him into their room for a hushed yet tense conversation that I tried in vain to overhear. When they eventually emerged twenty minutes later, they acted like nothing was amiss, overly cheery and not at all as concerned as I thought they ought to be.

Incredibly bizarre.

My birthday passed in a flash of bubble tea, cake, and forced bed rest. I continued to view them both with suspicion over the next fortnight, waiting for them to come to their senses and force me back into a hospital room, though they never did.

One good thing did come out of this disaster, and that revealed itself in the unmatched euphoria of not having any exams while all my friends suffered for a week of cramming and then another week of physical test-taking. Their obvious bitterness was music to my ears, the ambrosia that sustained me through my unparalleled boredom. Unfortunately, their torment ended too soon and thus began our preparations to graduate. After intense negotiations between me, my dads, and the school administration, we all agreed I could walk with my class at minimal risk to my health.

After several days of the dads trying their best to convince me graduation ceremonies were overrated exercises in abject tedium — and I was inclined to agree with them, actually — I put my foot down and insisted. If I didn't get cheesy pictures of myself and my friends in our caps and gowns there would be hell to pay.

Standing in that alphabetically ordered line several hundred students strong, I searched out my attending family in the crowd.

And while, yes, that whole nearly dying thing was horrible — traumatic, even — I felt fine. The fact that I'd been frisked of no fewer than three strategically placed sharp objects before being granted my gown was a coincidence. The actual purpose of the frisking had been to relieve us of distracting cellphones and disruptive foghorns, so the security officer got a lot more than they bargained for with me.

"Let me explain."

Leigh approached carefully, one hand open in front of her like a lion tamer, equally poised to attack or defend at any given moment, her royal blue gown, an identical match to my own, draping low on her forearm.

Immediately, my eyes narrowed. "Explain what?" She greeted my question with resounding silence. Crickets, even. Surprise flashed across her face at the question, there and gone again in an instant. So I repeated myself, slower, "Explain what, Leigh? What did you do this time?"

She took a small step back. Laughing with discomfort and shifting uneasily from foot to foot, she said, "I thought Nicole already told you."

"I haven't gotten the chance to see her yet, since she's off doing all her Salutatorian duties." Reluctant as I was to step out of line, I did, Leigh matching my inching forward with a second step back. "Don't make me chase you in front of all these people, because I will," I warned. "Unlike you, I don't have a family reputation to protect. Just tell me what you two did."

"It's nothing bad, per se."

"That doesn't instill in me the sense of peace and confidence that you think it does," I replied. "The doctors said to keep stress to a minimum for my recovery, and the suspense is not helping. Just spit it out."

Just when Leigh opened her mouth to put me out of my misery, a staff member swept by to drag her back into the line, sternly announcing that the graduation was starting and "You can mess around with your friends later".