Ari couldn't help but cry, now alone in her room for no one to see. She knew if she didn't get ahold of her emotions she could lose control of everything, but she didn't care. She wanted to lose control.
Everything seemed unfair: Luke's death, her memory loss, her fathers favoritism for her brother, Jordan Li's wrongful ranking, the guilt she held for leaving her friends at the club, and even worse the guilt she had for refusing to tell the truth about Jordan during the interview.
"Fuck!" She screamed, sending the microwave in their room smashing down to the ground with her powers, causing a loud noise and a huge dent in the floor. It was the first thing she saw.
"Everyone okay in here?" Her RA Maverick knocked on the door moments later.
"Yea, everything's fine." She said with a fake smile, wiping her tears when she got to the door, trying to hide the broken microwave. She was good at faking things.
"Good, good." He didn't question her any longer, he just left her alone. Alone like she always was.
She bundled up into a ball in her bed, crying until everything was over, until she felt nothing, not even pain. But maybe it was the alcohol she had stashed in her ottoman, the one that she desperately opened, willing to try anything to ease the overwhelming pain she felt.
She sipped on it until she couldn't even feel the hard liquor running down her throat, until the gross sanitizer tasting vodka tasted like nothing. Nothing. Like her, like how she felt.
She somehow remembered running to the bathroom to throw up the alcohol, feeling more sober in that instance, enough to fall asleep.
The interview, as well as everything else had slipped her mind completely. It was like she had a blank slate, a do over, until Athena came back to their dorm after the night away.
"Ari?" She asked concerned when she noticed that the lights were off.
"What time is it?" Ari asked groggily. Hours had passed and she had slept it off, missing everything she had planned before her interview.
"Have you gone to your interview?"
"Shit, no! What time is it?"
"It's seven thirty."
"Fuck I have to be there right now so I can get my makeup done, but I need a shower. I think I might have gotten puke on my shirt, and I have a massive ass hangover. I'm not going to make it in time."
"I'll lay some clothes out for you and get you some aspirin, you go take a shower and come back so we can talk about this. Text your dad afterwards and let him know you won't be able to make it." She said like a mother as she picked up the half empty vodka bottle.
Ari thanked her, knowing that she didn't deserve it and got in the shower. When she came back Athena was ready to hear the full story.
"I fucking messed up. I took a stupid chance. I could have lost complete control over myself, like I did when it got bad before." Ari started, embarrassed at how she used alcohol to cope again.
"What do you mean?"
"You can't tell anyone, I mean no one."
"You can trust me Ari, I won't." Athena promised, making sure she was listening in closely.
"It was a few months after I found out about compound v, and my mom had died two years before. I wanted answers my mom couldn't give me, and answers my dad wouldn't give me."
"He didn't tell you why they gave it to you?"
"He gave some shitty excuse. Something about generational power, and keeping the secret after his parents did it to him."
"Was your mom a supe too?"
"Yea she had telekinesis, sort of like me, but after what happened mine are more drawn from emotion and less controllable than her powers were. It's like my minds unstable after everything.. I mean I had complete control before."
"I'm so sorry Ari."
"It's fine. I've gotten used to it." Ari went quiet, looking down in her lap, knowing she needed to tell her the truth now.
"What happened?" Athena put a hand on her shoulder, a comforting hand letting her know that she would still be her friend no matter what.
"I started partying every weekend, I mean every single weekend, and sometimes random days of the week. I did drugs, and drank till I was shit faced. But my dad didn't care, 'cause I still made almost perfect grades. It's like I never forget things, everything I learn I remember, a blessing, and a curse."
"Shit Ari, I didn't know that."
"Only a few people do. And it gets worse, like a hundred times worse." She paused taking a deep breath in, almost bracing herself for what's to come. "I was really drunk one weekend after my dad said some shit to me. A part of me had disappeared. I was past my limit completely, and I had no control of myself at all, including the control of my powers." A tear ran down her face making her stop to wipe it off, before she continued.
"My friends wanted to take me home. When I got the car I just started crying, like these awful uncontrollable tears, and they tried to calm me down, but it was too late. I closed the car in on us, I mean I would have crushed myself too if it wasn't for my brother, following in the car behind us."
Athena held her as she struggled to make out her next words.
"The worse part is that I don't even remember doing it. I don't remember killing my friends. And apparently there was another survivor, until I killed them in a panic. My brother and dad had to help me cover it up, so that the whole accident just disappeared. It's not fair. They're dead while I'm still living. "
Ari started sobbing. She hated herself for what she did.
"Ari you didn't mean to. I know you would never do that on purpose. And it's over. It's been years." Athena said in a comforting tone.
"I just remember the after math. People knew we all left together, but I was the only one who made it home that night out of the five of us. It raised some questions."
"I'm sure."
"I'm sorry." Ari quickly changed her mood, wiping any remaining tears off her face. "I shouldn't only be talking about me. I haven't even seen your powers, what did your parents say about compound v?"
"Ari don't be sorry. I am, you went through so much." Athena continued to hug her.
"It's okay. Please just tell me. I need something to get this shit off my mind."
Athena breathed in, giving a nod. "They told me that they gave me compound v because they thought it would make me a hero, and much more a goddess like my name sake. I just feel like there's so much pressure to be exactly that."
"Athena's the goddess of wisdom and war right?" Ari asked, remembering the little Greek mythology she learned in one of her literature classes.
"Yea, it's just this sick joke that the compound v gave me powers that seem similar to hers.. I know every move someone will make before it happens and I have more knowledge than other people in fight strategies. It's like I just know random things and facts, that's what's always made me such a great student and that's what made my parents practically praise me."
"It gets too much, doesn't it? To have to live up to their unrealistic standards?
"It does, but I know you don't get enough. Your father barely acknowledges your strength."
"What strength? The strength I have to mess up our microwave? Or the strength that I can't even control half of the time now?"
"Ari you Litterally held up against punches from Luke, he was number one and you were in the fifty's."
"And I completely tore up parts of the school and missed him by a blast."
"You're being too hard on yourself, like you always are."
"I'm not being hard enough. I don't deserve to be tenth, Marie doesn't deserve to be eighth, Andre doesn't deserve to be first, and Jordan doesn't deserve to be fifth. The ranking here is shit."
"Yes you do. You fought him, you might be the only person in this school that deserves your ranking."
"I just feel so guilty, like I always do."
"Maybe you need to say something to someone. Maybe Jordan?"
"I should apologize to them, shouldn't I ?"
"They did ask you to tell the truth about them during the interview, but you're not there, so you should go to them."
"Are you sure they won't attack me for it?"
"No, but it is worth a shot, and I'm always a call away. I'd literally come running if you called."
"Athena you're perfect. I've been such a shitty roommate while you've been nothing but nice and understanding."
"I'm not perfect. I just care about people, and you." Athena gave her one last hug. "Now go apologize."
✯★⁂★✯
Ari knocked on Jordan's door hoping, no pleading, that Jordan would actually answer.
"I thought you wanted nothing to do with me." They said in their female form, once they realized who was at the door.
"I'm an asshole." Ari confessed.
"I thought that was my name." they said with a slight attitude, attempting to throw at least a little bit of shade.
"I mean what you said about Marie being nothing, was definitely not the best thing you could have said."
"Okay yea, did you come here to argue with me or something?"
"I came to apologize. For real this time, and not just to take it back right before I say I'm sorry."
"What happened to the interview?" Their sudden intrigue reminded her of the reason she was there in the first place.
"I wanted to tell you about that. That's why I'm sorry. I slept in, and completely missed it. They're probably about to go on now."
"Then let's watch it. Live." They made a proclamation that almost scared Ari, where had this person been before. And why weren't they mad at her?
"You mean you'd actually watch the livestream with me, like next to you, in the same room?"
"Don't look so surprised. This doesn't mean I like you."
"Right back at you, Li."
They moved their arm that they had placed on the door to let her walk in and she immediately sat down on one of their chairs, getting comfy.
"Vodka?" They held up a shot glass.
She glared at them.
"Kidding." They laughed.
"Yea well I think I've had enough to drink for a while. I'm running on a massive hangover right now."
"You? Ari Anderson? what happened to not wanting to lose control and being able to have fun without alcohol ?"
"I don't know. I just didn't this time. And it was for more than just for fun."
"What was it for?"
"You ask a lot of questions." She laughed.
"Maybe I've taken pointers from someone." They said, hinting towards one of their previous conversations.
"Well, let's just say it was to ease my mind from the shit going on right now."
"I could drink to that." They poured their self a shot.
"Yea you might have to after this interview. You talked to Marie didn't you?"
They took a shot, not even flinching as the shot ran down their throat. "Yea and I think she might say the truth."
"Really? I don't know.. would she really sacrifice everything for you? We barely know her, and out of all of us I'd say Athena is the only one on her good list."
"We're just going to have to see." They pulled up the live interview on their phone, sitting on the bed and patting for Ari to follow them.
Marie was speechless. She had nothing to say to the interviewer and hadn't even heard her in the first place. "Sorry.. could you repeat the question?"
"This is a lot. I know. Golden Boy the most powerful superhuman on campus, in a murderous frenzy, charging, and it was just you and Ari." Hailey Miller sat tall, knowing exactly what to say after her years on air.
She stayed silent, showing nothing but pure emotion. She had no idea what she was doing, it was evident.
"Marie?" The interviewer said trying to grasp her attention.
She still sat quiet.
"I knew I had had to stop Golden Boy before he killed more innocent people.. it was down to me." Marie lied, causing Jordan to sit their phone down while they just listened.
"Where did you find that kind of courage?"
"I'm superhuman, right? We're made of steel."
"That fucking bitch." Was the first sentence out of Ari's mouth, putting into words exactly how Jordan felt. They weren't as different from each other as they both thought.