In grade school, a "hero" was thought of as a policeman, or firefighter, or even your parents. They did good in society and seemed to be flawless. When we got to middle and high school, the older "heroes" were just people in the way of us to enforce rules we wouldn't or didn't want to follow.
I came from a small town and we weren't that typically rebellious teens, but then again, who needs trouble in a small town anyways? There was little crime because everyone knew each other and word traveled fast. That's why when my brother was named "town hero" because he put out a fire in a medium-sized barn at his job a few years ago, it was no joke that he was praised by everyone.
He denounced the title after a while for some unknown reason to me and everyone but his best friend, but now that we were moving to Manhattan, he would get to leave that behind while our dad and soon-to-be-step-mother would probably try to brag about it to all the city's new people.
Local Teen Boy Puts Out Fire was seemingly nothing in Manhattan. All because of a real hero; a Superhero.
***
"What do you mean?" Kylie, my beautiful-blonde best friend, asked me as she sat on my new bed in my new, seemingly-fancy penthouse in the city. She had helped me move, but of course that didn't actually include her lifting any boxes or unpacking.
"This superhero guy..." I clarified. As soon as we got to the city and received a newspaper, the title was SUPERHERO SAVES DAY ONCE MORE.
"Well I don't understand what you're saying," she repeated. "You don't believe it."
"I don't believe it," I confirmed. "This town, from what I've seen—"
"In the last three hours—"
"—is obsessed with this guy and him saving people," I finished.
"Exactly what don't you believe about it? It's there in black and white," Kylie pressed.
"There's no such thing as super powers and popping up out of nowhere and it's not real!" I shouted. I didn't know what "powers" he had, but it was proven that this city has an interest in this guy.
"Well apparently this Proliator is the answer to your denial," Kylie determined. Ugh.
"I won't believe it 'till I see it," I decided.
"Alright," she shrugged. Suddenly my door opened and in walked my brother and her brother.
"Angela, Kylie, have you seen this city yet?" My brother Sebastian asked, completely amazed.
"No; Angela is being a loser and making me stay cooped up in here," Kylie complained.
"I didn't strain your arm," I reasoned. She stuck her tongue out at me and few words were shared before she left my room with my brother. Kylie's brother, Kenneth, had stayed behind, looking out of my window.
"This isn't like Frankford at all," he commented. I checked him out from behind; he wore his shirt tucked in like usual with his flashy belt buckle that was up to his waist, but as he faced away from me, I saw his nice butt. He took off his cowboy hat and turned to me. I immediately flashed my eyes up to his blue ones.
"I'm really gonna miss ya'll," the words rolling of his tongue were words that everyone had said to me and my family, but they meant more coming from him. Kenneth and I had a courtship that carried from when we were younger until now. Our friends joked and teased at us about our future of settling down together, but I have no idea as to why we had never taken it seriously.
"I'm gonna miss you too," I whispered back. We were now inches apart and my eyes were basically daring him to kiss me. His crystal eyes glanced from my lips to my eyes frequently, as we started to lean in.
"Angela! Angela!" my little brother Jeremy started to call. Kenneth and I sighed as we turned to the eleven-year-old boy that interrupted. "Come downstairs!"
"What is it?" I asked.
"Just come!" he said, already had left my doorway and started to trot down the stairs. I looked to Kenneth, who had already obliged to Jeremy's request and then we had both went down the spiral staircase in order to see the 60 inch TV mounted on the wall had the news on.
"Jeremy, what is this—"
"Watch!" he ordered. I shut my mouth.
"Proliator has done the impossible, yet again," the female news reporter started. "I'm here, live, outside of the Frost Bank, where, not only did an interrupted robbery happen, but also an attempted homicide to our own District Attorney, Ronald Mitchell. Not only is Mitchell home safe from the incident, but the robbers are at University Hospital for their Proliator-caused injuries..."
"Great. More of the Proliator," I breathed.
"Who is he?" Kenneth asked.
"The Proliator is, like, the coolest superhero ever," Jeremy answered. "He's so awesome."
"You just now heard about him, Jem," I reminded. Not to mention he's the ONLY superhero in the world.
"Still," he shrugged.
"There's no such thing as superheroes," I added.
"Yes there is!" Jem insisted. I shook my head and Kenneth looked down at me.
"How do you know? Maybe he could save your life someday," he said. I grabbed the remote and paused the channel, stopping right on the channel's blurry picture of some teenage-looking boy dressed as a vigilante. Someone had failed to capture him in action.
"Please. He's probably just some normal kid that's taken Karate and feels as if he can take on some bad guys," I dissed.
"Oh, like me?" Kenneth asked suddenly, grasping my waist and looking down at me. My heart swelled and I felt as nervous around him as ever before.
"No. You're just the kind of cowboy that knows well enough to defend himself," I restated.
"And you," he added with a smile. I couldn't help but grin back, the only thing feeling reluctant was the question as to why he was acting this way around me when he was now hundreds of miles away. Sure, I had a crush on him for the longest time that was as obvious as a wolf in a sheep costume, but come on. Why now?
I looked away from him and then he immediately narrowed his eyes and loosened his grip on my waist.
"Kenneth, we need to talk," I whispered.
"About what?" he asked, concerned. I didn't know how to say it. I didn't even really know what it was.
"Us..." I started, gesturing between us.
"Yeah?" he asked, his face changing from worry to seduction as he backed me into the nearest wall. I looked to see that Jem had left the room, thankfully.
"What are we doing here?" I asked him in a light mutter.
"Hopefully this," he said with his accent slightly escaping his mouth. He placed a hand against the wall and started to lean in, but when I started to feel the light touch of his lips as my eyes closed, something slammed down outside. We pulled away from each other and looked down the balcony. Down the street, there were three cars collided together with a giant sign wedged high enough to not completely crush the automobiles beneath it.
"Angela, Kenneth, come down here!" Kylie called from the street beneath our new home. I noticed that, not only was Sebastian standing adjacent to her, but so was a brown-haired girl that looked to be our age. Kenneth grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the door.
"Did you see what happened? Are y'all okay?" I asked my brother and best friend. I glanced back and forth from them to the incident down the street. Sebastian focused on the scene as well and Kylie was focused on her brother's hand in mine. I couldn't even tell what her expression meant...she had always teased me and Kenneth, but this was still a union between her best friend and brother we were talking about.
"Well they were just walking, somewhere-I don't know. And I was just coming home and bam, a car hit that pole and then the other two did as well and the sign started to fall but Proliator saved them at a blink of an eye," the brunette girl rambled with admiration in her eyes.
"Proliator?" Sebastian asked with a frown, still consumed with the smashing of glass and sparks of electricity coming from the disassembled sign.
"He's a superhero, apparently," Kylie whispered to him.
"'Apparently'?" the girl asked. "He is a superhero—a fantastic superhero."
Pft. Superhero. If he's so super, where the hell is he?
"Excuse me, who are you?" Kenneth asked the girl.
"Cheyenne Tanner. I saw the moving trucks. I'm your next door neighbor," she smiled, looking to me and Sebastian.
"Hi, I'm Kylie; that's my brother, Kenneth—"
"Does this normally happen here?" Sebastian asked, nodding towards the collision.
"Car accidents? Well of course, I mean—"
"No. This Proliator guy," he clarified.
"Oh," she stated. "Well I mean, there's a lot of crime here, so it's not bad to have him. Usual trouble is way worse than just a car accident."
"Wait. There's worse than this?" Kenneth asked, grabbing my waist and pulling me into him. I wanted to roll my eyes because of course there would always be worse than a car accident, but Kenneth's protectiveness made the sentiment adorable.
"If there's so much worse, then why is he here instead of out in the real world?" I asked her. I had never heard of a superhero saving our town, or anywhere else. Why was he limited to just here? Especially prioritizing a car accident at the same time as when he supposedly saved a DA's life and stopped a robbery...
"He's everywhere that has danger," Cheyenne informed. Suddenly, Kenneth turned my hips and pulled me closer to him. His face was contorted in a way that had me worrying.
"What's wrong?" I asked him.
"I don't want you here," he said.
"Kenneth, I know that—"
"No. It's not just because I want to be together with you, but because it's not safe for you here, Angela," he spoke.
"Kenneth, I have no choice," I told him. Sure, this city was full of opportunity and modern life, but I rather be in the quiet, country town that I grew up in. It was my father's love for my soon-to-be-step-mother and our old farm's debt that brought us here.
"Please," he said with watery eyes. He pressed his forehead to mine.
"She'll be fine here," Cheyenne said. "No one's in real danger here. Proliator handles everything."
It shocked me how much faith she has in this hero, who I've yet to see. It's probably a publicity stunt for the police or something...
"What happens if he's too late?" Sebastian asked.
"He never is," Cheyenne attested.
"And if he is?"
"He'll be the one in danger if that's the case," Kenneth growled, protectively as if he could easily turn on his Proliator GPS and find the guy. Let alone do damage. I sighed.
"Nothing's going to happen," I insisted. "And some imaginary guy isn't going to save me from the imaginary danger I get in."
"You don't know that," he whispered. I gazed up at him, fighting a battle of two strong opinions. Suddenly, the horn from my step mother, Veronica's BMW chirped as they slid into the only space next to the street. My father climbed out of the car and looked at the scene down the street. It seemed strange for such a gruff man to emerge from a luxury vehicle.
"What's going on down there?" he asked.
"Just a car accident," Kylie explained. Kenneth still looked down to me, not moving, as I looked to my father. He shifted positions, with his hands on his hips and looked up into the setting sun.
"Who's this?" Veronica asked, unfazed by the accident.
"This is Cheyenne. She lives next door," Sebastian introduced.
"Nice to finally meet you. I'm Veronica and he's my fiancé Randy," Veronica introduced.
"Where's Jem?" my father suddenly asked.
Shit. I broke away from Kenneth and jogged back into the two-story home.
"Jem!" I yelled, looking downstairs first. With no sight of him, I headed upstairs. "Jem! Where are you? JEREMY!?"
"I'm up here!" he called once more when I had searched his small room. His voice came from my room and all I needed was one step through the door before I saw him on my balcony, sitting on the railing.
"Get down from there," I said. "What are you doing out here?"
"I saw him," he said with a stunned expression.
"Who?"
"The Proliator," he answered. I rolled my eyes.
"Jeremy, that's ridiculous. No one saw him because he wasn't there," I insisted.
"I saw him, I swear!" he cried. I looked off of the balcony, in perfect view of the car collision and the intersection. I could even see all the way downtown from here.
"Ang! Jem! Come down here to say goodbye to Kenneth and Kylie," our father yelled up to us, making me realize that through the medium sized tree past the fire escape, I could see him and the rest of them on the street. Great.
When I got back to the people who I cared about most, the demeaner changed. Instead of her usual friendly self, Kylie wasn't talking to Cheyenne; my father and Sebastian looked completely serious; Cheyenne and Veronica were talking about some fashion thing; and Kenneth looked completely distressed for once.
We said our goodbyes and I was leaning on the truck's window, not wanting to finally leave Kenneth yet. He had been quieter for some reason, but we still needed to sort out whatever relationship we had.
"What now?" I asked him. He reached a hand up and rubbed his thumb across my cheek. I expected him to say "I will wait for you" but he still paused.
"Just live your life here," he said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked him.
"Live your life here," he repeated. I pressed my lips together.
"Kenneth, I still don't know what that means—"
"Start over while you're here, okay?" his words stung. "Forget about me in Frankford and just live—"
I almost hit the side of the truck, frustrated.
"Don't tell me to 'live my life here' again, Ken," I said, raising my voice. I couldn't believe he was telling me this.
"Angela, he doesn't mean—"
"I do mean it," he notified, interrupting his sister. I was mad at the fact that Kenneth had confused me. Sixteen years of courtship and he finally starts to act like some sort of a boyfriend when I move hundreds of miles away, but then he pushes me away again for no reason on departure? I had seen Kenneth in relationships. He was the typical gentleman every girl wanted—that I wanted, but I hadn't seen him play any games like he had with me in the last three hours!
The siblings bickered about his actions toward me, but all I did was quickly wipe away the single tear that fell down my cheek. However, Kenneth noticed and silenced his argument with Kylie in order to reach up and kiss the tear's trail.
"Stop," he whispered. I didn't know what to say and I didn't know what to do. "It's not like I don't want you. I really do. But I also want you to be safe and if you're not willing to at least negotiate with your father about you staying in Frankford with us--because you know our parents would take any of you in--then it's not worth me trying to keep you."
"Kenneth, you of all people know that my father won't allow that—"
"And why not!?" he questioned. "You've spent weeks at my house with Kylie before, not to mention you're there every other day. Two years more in that small town isn't going to be much difference."
"And then what happens?" I asked. "After two years away from my family? I'm just gonna have to leave again or—"
"You'll live with me," he said. "I'm not going to stop you from coming back here to live with your family, but once I graduate, I'll be here with you."
I didn't know what to respond to his promise. However, I didn't need to because my father hopped into the driver's seat.
"Ready to go?" he asked the Bergen siblings.
"Of course. I'll call you when we get home," Kenneth whispered, removing his touch to my face. I stepped away from the truck with only Cheyenne lingering on the dark street.
"First time away from him?" she asked.
"Yeah..." I said.
"He really has nothing to worry about, here," she pressed.
"Right," I agreed.
"I'll even show you around tomorrow," she smiled.
"Tomorrow is school," I reminded.
"We get out at four and—what time's your curfew?" she asked.
"I don't have one," I said. She flinched into a suspicious eyebrow raise and then shrugged it off.
"Well then we have from four o'clock until whenever until you actually have to be back," she decided.
"Alright," I figured. Looking around the lit up city and hearing all the loud noises of EMTs helping the victims, car alarms, dogs barking, and everything else...I knew that Manhattan, New York was nothing like small town of Frankford.
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A/N: Before there are any questions, the hero's name is Proliator which is Latin for "warrior", but I spelt it wrong without realizing it and I already finished this story, so it's Proliator instead of Proeliator which looks weird. I clearly had no ideas for superhero names and I didn't want some name like "[place power here]-man" or those cheesy names. Anyways, comment what you think and I hope you enjoyed!