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You are sixteen. Your head still aches from the memory of the power suppressors, your mouth tastes like blood from your own desperation.
There is a boy in front of you, and he is wearing your face.
And something in you decides to love him.
You are sixteen. Your brother-who-you-do-not-really-believe-is-your-brother looks at you, your own eyes downturned, brown in a way yours are not.
“Do you have somewhere to stay?”
You feel the laughter press up your throat, but when it spills out through your chapped lips, it just makes the grove between his— your —eyebrows deepen, teeth digging into the flesh of his— your —lip. You clear your throat, and look away from this stranger with your blood in his veins.
“I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry about it.”
It would not be the first time. You have been figuring it out for as long as you can remember, ever since your father left and your mother decided locking you out of the house in the cold was an easier alternative to beating you.
He does not look reassured. You try and tell yourself you do not care.
You are sixteen. He is nervous, and kind, and has this deep sadness in his chest that you think one day might overtake him.
That’s okay. You’re used to sadness. You can help him.
You’ve always liked helping people.
You are sixteen. You do not believe him when he says you are her children, but hidden in the back of your mind, you decide he is your brother anyway.
The truth hardly matters, really.
You are sixteen. His parents stare at you, and you keep your back so straight it hurts, the way you learned in juvie.
“Mom, Dad, this is Tommy.” He does not grab your hand— you told him you did not like it —but you kind of wish he would. If only to make the stares of his parents fade, even for a moment.
“Hello,” you say. Your voice sounds foreign in your ears, but not the way his does. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Their eyes take you in, and you know what they are seeing— your tangled hair (it’s not your fault your speed whips it the way it does), the bruise high on your cheekbone (you are not a supersoldier, not an alien shapeshifter, not a witch. You are just fast. And speed fails), the way your clothes sit on your body (they are his, you have none of your own, and they should fit you perfectly because you are him but instead they scratch your skin and you swear they do not fit right on your form), the way you shift and squirm and do not meet their eyes.
(You are so, so scared.)
They smile. You try not to feel like your heart is beating out of your chest.
You might fail.
You are sixteen. He threatens to vomit on you when you bring him up to your speed. You laugh.
He does vomit on you. Somehow, you don’t mind.
You are sixteen. “You could stay the night,” he says, and he is trying to be casual about it and failing, eyes eager as he stares at you. You grin, a little nervous.
“Be serious, dude.”
“My parents won’t mind,” he says. “They love you.”
“Of course they do, I’m incredible.” You say the joke, but you don’t mean it. You can’t fathom a world where anyone loves you, except for probably him.
“Just stay the night,” he asks, and despite how everything in you screams not to, you agree.
Of course you do. It’s him.
You are sixteen. Your mouth tastes like his mint chip ice cream. He offered you half his cone— you dropped yours.
You said no, and ate it anyway. You think he expected that.
You are sixteen. Your face feels hot as you try and justify yourself under his gaze— “It doesn’t even matter, really. I don’t mind. She’s just like that, you know?”
He frowns, the expression all his own on the face you recognize in the mirror. “That doesn’t make it okay.”
“But I don’t care,” you insist, because you don’t. You don’t!
It’s not like she is doing anything you haven’t experienced before, anyway.
At least she bothers to act like she cares about you.
“That doesn’t make it okay,” he says, and you grin at him, confused.
“Of course it does.”
You are sixteen. There is blood in your mouth, and you hear him scream.
It’s a little comforting, hearing him scream your name.
Like he might actually care.
You are sixteen. Your grandfather— when did you start believing that? —stares down at you, and you move closer to him, tucking yourself behind his shoulder and pretending that protects you.
“Wanda,” your grandfather says, the words directed at him, but he looks at you, with eyes identical to your own, and you already know you will agree with whatever he asks.
“Okay,” you say, and his smile is blinding.
Your smile looks nothing like that, somehow. Sometimes you think he is nothing like you. He is all good where you are all bad, so how can his smile be like yours?
It isn’t.
He isn’t.
You are sixteen. She is your mother. You know that. You have always known that, you just did not want to believe it.
You did not want her to leave you, the way everyone else does.
Everyone but him. And he smiles at you, eyes soft, and he takes your hand and he guides you towards her even as you spit out your protests, the words ashy on your tongue and useless against his stubbornness.
She wraps her arms around you, and he presses his hand between your shoulder blades, and you try not to breathe too hard, like even that will disrupt this moment.
Maybe it will.
You are sixteen. Your friend is dead. Two of them are. You stare at their bodies, the nausea numb in your throat. Your chest. You think you might be crying, but you cannot tell. It does not feel like it. It does not feel like anything.
Beside you, his breath catches in horror, and you think for a moment that he will break. Snap. Fade.
He does not.
He does not.
You are sixteen. You hear your teammates tell you they are leaving, and you protest with words that cut your lips, your tongue, and you swear you can taste the blood.
And then he tells you that he is leaving, too, and the word falls out from under you.
You are sixteen. He will not talk to you. He will not look at you.
You die a little, inside. It does not get better.
You are sixteen. You are so sick and tired and angry. You yell at him, scream, and it does not make you feel any better.
He does not respond either way.
It does not matter what you scream until your throat is torn. He will not look at you.
He won’t even look at you.
You are sixteen. “I am leaving,” you tell him. You cannot stay. It will kill you, you think. The suffocation. The fear in your chest. The fact that you cannot help people, now.
The fact that he will not look at you.
“I have to,” you say. Trying to justify it. To pretend like he is begging you not to. That he wants you to stay. “I have to. I can’t stay here.”
He does not move. You tighten your grip on your backpack strap, and make good on your vow.
You leave.
But not before he whispers, voice barely audible, still not looking up, “I’m sorry.”
And that might kill you all the same.
You are sixteen. He does not call you. You would not pick up if he did.
You want him to try anyway.
You are sixteen. You are alone. You have always been alone. You will always be alone. You do not know why you ever tried to trick yourself into pretending otherwise. Why you tried to delude yourself into thinking he cared.
He does not.
You are alone.
The clock reads 11:58. Then 11:59, and then it blinks 12:00, and you flick out your lighter in a pale imitation of a candle, the aching in your chest a pale imitation of a wish.
“Happy birthday, Billy,” you say to no one at all.
You are seventeen. You wish you did not love him, the way he has stopped loving you.
What a stupid thing to wish for.