My superpower is invisibility. Not by choice. It's the only way I know how to be.
Until the cute guy on the bus shows me how to fly, but there's a catch.
And it has nothing to do with me being the one who can see him.
But sometimes falling feels...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
I can hear my mom's phone, but I keep my eyes glued shut. Seriously, I could win a sleep marathon with these skills. Can't even remember when I hit the sack last night, especially with my mom's snoring frenzy. Please decline and give me just five more minutes.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Crap.
Mom is in full-on groan mode, doing her morning yoga of inhales and exhales. "Ugh, shit. Sorry, girls. I can't find my phone."
Wait.
No way.
Am I... still alive? Maybe someone upstairs gave my pleas a listen and thought, "Sure, let's toss this kid a bone and keep her kicking with the fam." Or, plot twist, Leo cracked the secret to immortality because I feel great for a dead person, which means I should probably get up.
Quickly, I jump to my feet, looking down at my body. First, my hands pat around my face, staying the longest on top of my head, since you know, my brain. Next, I move to my neck, my chest, and I feel okay. Warm, and like myself.
Did I just dodge the death bullet?
"Randi?" Mom's voice echoes, pulling me from my self-patting trance. "What are you doing, sweetheart?"
"Uh, I... I'm just... you know, not..."
"Randi! Get up! This isn't funny." Mom's words pierce the air with a mix of pain and terror. My hands freeze mid-air, and my heart joins the party. The urge to move battles with this invisible force holding me down, and all I'm left doing is swallowing. Hard.
"Amara! Avery!" Mom's desperation fills the room.
"Mom, chill! It's like five in the morning," Amara moans.
Summoning every ounce of bravery, I lift my gaze. There she is—Mom, right there on the floor. Hair cascading over her face, but I can see her shoulders shaking.
A smidgen lower, and it hits me like a magical punch: I'm cradled in her arms. My own mother, holding me close, her fingers brushing against my cheek, pleading for me to wake up.
"Come on, baby. Don't you dare do this to me," her voice trembles, and I feel every tremor.
"Oh my God," Amara's words are a frantic, her hand shaking Avery awake.
And then my heart shatters. She moves her hair. Those eyes, normally filled with warmth, are oozing with tears.
"No! No! No!" My words tumble out, as I fall to my knees and crawl my way over to my own body. There I am, lying in my mom's embrace, an unsettling stillness replacing the semi- vibrant spark that was me. Lifeless, cold, unresponsive—it's a scene out of some twisted nightmare.
My eyes sting as they lock onto the lifeless shell that once held my spirit. My fingers stretch out, trembling, as if I could reach through the veil between worlds and reclaim what's rightfully mine. But there's an invisible barrier, a force that mocks my efforts to bridge the gap between here and... wherever the heck I am now.
