True Heroes (22 page)

              Caleb eased a little mentally and gave a half-smile. “No thanks are necessary. Truthfully, you helped me know I could be strong enough for two people, so I should be thanking you.”

              “Are you not able to lower your arrogant shell anymore?”

              “No-wait yes, ugh.” ‘Stop trying to figure her out right now. You’re getting left behind in the conversation. Don’t go through the motions.’ “I didn’t mean for that to sound arrogant. I was going for reassuring or that I had your back.”

              “Either way…,” her eyes turned concerned for a flash before fading to regret, “I know as the head of the class, you get to choose who hands you off, and as a token of my appreciation, I wanted to be that lucky staff member.”

              Caleb chuckled. “You’d feel honored to give me a semi-meaningless piece of paper?”

              She cracked a smile and straightened her shirt before placing her hands on her hips. ‘Looks like Superwoman from the old comics.’ “It’s my sworn duty to uphold the sanctity of this glorious institution.” They both smiled together. Those bright whites shined between thin lips as she continued, “Not to mention every teacher you’ve ever had has been clamoring to give you that piece of paper you care so little about.”

              “Eh, I appreciate the poetry of a philosophy teacher giving it to me.”

              “What poetry is that?”

              Caleb tucked his folder and notebook under his arm and stood straight. “Philosophy is all about long-winded speeches and extended webs of ideas. In the end, a philosopher’s pretty words come down to a single action. Whether it’s a choice or a word or a silly-ass piece of paper telling him what he already knows; they know the connection between their work and the real world that lies in the outcome of that action is all that matters. Everybody tells me there’s enough potential in my bones to make the biggest impact, so who better than a teacher of impactful thought to hand me my key to impact?” With that, Caleb simply extended his hand and fully smiled while softening his eyes. “See you on the stand?”

              His teacher curled her lower lip and nodded in appreciation. ‘From the thought? Or the idea of me going through with the action? Or both?’ “Glad to see my last and greatest student learned something useful.” She shook his hand firmly before placing her left hand over their rights. “I’ll be there.”

              A final nod was exchanged before they mutually broke contact and Caleb wondered into the hallowed halls. ‘Is study hall even worth going to at this point?’ His deliberation only lasted until he turned the corner. “There’s our guy!”

              Two tiny jogging persons came to a screeching halt and used Caleb’s body as a leaning post for their recovery. “Sasha and Alex. To what do I owe the pleasure of you two almost tackling me?” 

              They laughed through their heavier breathing. Sasha was the first to recover enough to explain the excitement. “Just came from the councilor’s office and you’ll never believe what college I got into: NYU! I’m gonna be moving into the biggest city in this hemisphere for school!”

              “Congrats, gal, I guess you overwhelmed them with grades and four years of extra-curricular activities.”

              Alex smiled his sheepish smile and talked in his whispery voice, “She almost begged Mrs. G for a commendation letter.”

              “Hey, you shut up! Nobody needs to know about that!” She gave her loyal boyfriend a powerful stare that made Caleb smile. “Anyways, yeah, super stoked.”

              “I can see. I am really happy for you no matter how you got in.”

              “Darn right. What are you doing for graduation? Big man in school got any big party plans?”

              Caleb smiled and scratched at his hair. ‘Didn’t really want to leave my father alone for parties. Pretty sure I have more important things to do than be drunk and stupid anyways.’ “Not yet. I might end up making Carol hang out with me somewhere quiet.”

              “Oh no you don’t. Alex and my parents have put me up to getting out of my shell and going to a club tonight, and you are too.”

              “But graduation isn’t for another week.”

              “Tonight: we get degrees in being socially active. The boring stuff will come next week.”

              Caleb smiled. ‘And he’s cornered….’ “What time?”

              “We will let you know. You better have your phone on after sundown.”

              “Yes, I hear that’s when El Chupacabra attacks most of its victims.”

              Sasha gave a fake angry look directly before the final bell rang, releasing them all into finals week just like that. Caleb strolled out beside his two mates while bypassing his locker and promising not to leave anyone hanging tonight. The crowd thickened once they were outside but Caleb was able to squeeze away and through the fluxing path to the street. He quickly skipped over the black pavement and began jogging once his feet hit the sidewalk. A scant two blocks later, a playful honk sounded twice before the familiar hindquarters of Carol’s blue beauty whizzed by. He sped up his pace while turning left quickly to jump a short fence. Even with his legs being power-free, a short cut could even the odds against the racing Carol to their mutual destination. ‘Ah the advantages of small towns and an over-obsessive photographic memory.’

              He sprinted a good ten seconds through an unbeaten path until his favorite field came into view. ‘The construction site, although still bountiful in destructible and testable commodities, no longer confines my ever emerging power. It has been sprouting quite a bit lately, so it’s time for an upgrade.’ He strolled into the center of the large field while gently resetting his crude wooden markers. ‘Can’t imagine why my power would erupt so much lately. My mom’s last gift was a longer, sharper knife to use in her killer’s death. Serendipity is the universe’s way of laying down a staircase that I will climb two steps at a time.’

              Carol pulled onto the grassy field and rolled down the window, revealing her ladybug sunglasses. Caleb threw his top into the passenger seat and pointed towards the rusty tackling sled near the corner of the field. “Get behind that and push it to me.”

              “The rust will get on my car!”

              Caleb sighed and laughed. “I’ll put on my bikini later and wash it for you.”

              Carol looked down her glasses at him and blew a kiss. “You always know what I want.”

              He walked across his abandoned football field and started doing arm stretches. ‘The little league field has to have been abandoned for a good ten years before I’d found it, which is odd for a small town to let eighty yards of healthy grass go unkempt.’ He grabbed the edge of the single-man sled—‘Also out of place considering its size and weight,’—and turned it around so the rough outline of a man was facing Carol’s approaching car. Caleb hopped onto the back end of the old sled as she pushed it all the way out to the ten yard line. He smacked her trunk and moved into the dreary end zone. Looking out, he mentally checked off the markers he’d been able to knock down out to the twenty yard line. ‘The day after Mom died, I was so sure that my emotional state of mind would fuel my power well beyond that, but I’d still been exhausted from my little…explosion and I was forced to walk away with nothing more than a frustrating nose bleed.’

              Caleb cracked his neck and slowly pushed everything out. At first, he made his energy tall, a glowing blue slab hidden by the trees but still easily doubling the size of a man. With a big breath filling his chest, he exhaled slowly and let the bottom of his power slip all the way to the sled. Once he had a solid wall against it, Caleb lifted his hand and opened it, treating his power like an extended muscle. Everything happened rapidly; the sled carved two trenches out past his previous record. Once his power began to quiver with limitations, Caleb clenched his outstretched hand and swirled the energy around him into a hemisphere. He sat upon the already flattened grass and consumed himself in a series of deep breaths. His clear mind stretched and contorted to the dome of power. Looking through the filter of his power, Caleb saw it again: another silhouette. A feminine structure stood as if facing him. He flexed harder and pushed his power to its absolute maximum, and, as if gently pushing into a bubble, the silhouette stepped forward. The face was instantly recognizable: a soft glow emanating from both cheeks, her clothes the usual mix of casual and maternal, his mother’s face stared on unusually melodious.

              Caleb had no delusions as the buzzing increased inside his head; “She’s dead. Why won’t she go away then? Its logic, but it can’t force her away. She’s coming closer across the dead grass with no shoes.” He couldn’t make his lungs give up their current breath. Real or not, the emotions tied to his mother’s image came flowing back. His concentration wavered and his power slowly retracted until it barely encased him and his mother’s image, a mere five feet wide. A whisper, so quiet even his empowered hearing barely registered it, bounced off the walls of his blue energy, even though neither of their lips ever moved. The colored wave hit his ear and he heard the whisper in his mother’s soft tone. “Forgive him.” Without a movement, her hand was suddenly on his arm, a warming sensation blurring his logic for a moment, before she disappeared completely.

              “That looks like a new record to me.”

              Carol’s naturally sweet voice sounded gravely and echoed through the blue membrane and his enhanced hearing. Her voice forced his focused mind to wince back to a state of normalcy as she swaggered across the field. He let the pain well inside his throat, letting it slowly slip into the locker in his gut. ‘Don’t put her through this she’s seen enough.’ She stayed about five yards out while trying to strike up a few answers. “So, I was wondering the other day: if these criminals you’re supposedly going to be chasing don’t come along quietly, how are you going to subdue them? Super Kung-Fu is out of the question, so that leaves them being afraid of the color blue as your only marketable defense.”

              Caleb smirked, a devilish, teasing crooked line that accompanied an explosion of his power. He rotated his body with one arm sending energy out to the one man sled and the other arm wrapping Carol’s backside, gently, and pulling her to him. The power around the sled slung the metal dummy towards them both, and before Carol could even see what was happening, Caleb stiff-armed the encroaching object hard enough to snap the rusted center in half. A small globe of his energy then gently placed the two halves at Carol’s feet. “Improvisation works wonders when you can slow the world to a crawl.”

              Carol slapped at his collar bone with the hand that wasn’t still clutching for dear life onto Caleb’s bare skin. “What would you have done if that would’ve hit me?”

              “It never had a chance.”

              “Psh, and why not cocky-boy?”

              Caleb pushed his power around them both, making sure to be gentle when pushing it past her, “I would never let anyone hurt you. Least of all me.”

              Despite the brilliance of blues around her now, Carol kept her eyes locked on Caleb’s inflamed iris. “Why do you say that? Why on Earth would you make that kind of a promise to me?”

              “Because I love you, Carol.” ‘Wow that was easy to say. I’ve never even thought those words, let alone said them aloud. My power can’t suppress that? There are still butterflies, still something so potent about those three little words.’ “It’s a depressing irony that I needed to wait until my mother died to feel alive, but I’ve always ever only felt truly alive around you. I’ll never let anyone take that away from us.”

              Carol released her clutch and took a full pace backwards. “Why do you only ever tell me these kinds of things when you’re in your power?”

              “Because I am my power, and only with it can I protect you.”

              Her face lost all traces of a smile. “You do not need this light show to protect me, and you certainly don’t need it to love me. It’s you that loves me? You and not your power? Because it seems to be your power that has all these sweet things to say and never you.”

              Caleb had been muted into thought. Through his logical, power-induced mind he played with the possibility. The cold question actually crossed his mind without a hint of humanity patched to the syllables, ‘Is it possible that I don’t love her?’ Because of that thought, he felt hollow; something about the filtered drone of his power disgusted him enough to throw it back inside his body completely. His cleared eyes and voice spoke to her with a passionately apologetic tone. “You bring out a lot of different things in me, and my power is a big part of me. A big part of us. It’s the whole reason there is an ‘us’ in the first place. Without it, we’d both be rotting away in the ground right now. You would’ve never had the chance to care for me, to love me.”

              “First off, stop saying we love each other. After everything that’s happened lately, you can’t start throwing that word around just because you’ve seen death up close. Secondly, don’t speak for me. You don’t know if I love you or not, and lastly, if you were a corpse for me then I’d love the hell out of you because at least then you would’ve had the courage to stand up for me without that crutch you call a blessing.”

              He let out a shocked chuckle before retrieving his shirt from her hand. With his back to Carol, Caleb felt his arms clench. He thought loudly and passionately, trying to telepathically yell through his ears so that she may hear the pain that threatened his enduring heart. ‘I give you the ultimate word, the word that we’re all here to hear, and you want more! I give you everything I have left after it all fell apart, and you want more!’ He had to speak, to open some hole and communicate somehow before the steam filled him completely. “So you would care for me more as a skeleton than with me wasting air living?”