True Heroes (6 page)

              ‘What the hell’s this about anyways? If I had more hours of sleep under my belt, maybe he’d have more of a reason to call me in, but I look relatively normal today. Friendly talks aren’t the principal’s strong suit. God I just don’t care today. Who the hell could after a night like last night? Two hours of sleep can put apathy into the veins of anybody. Of course, given the same choice, well, it wouldn’t even be a choice.’ Fond memories came over his mind’s eye of what Carol and he had done after the cruise had ended. ‘I’d just wanted to drop her off and save the explanations until later, but her insistence was too strong. Once she held my hand, I was hers for anything.’

              The secretary interrupted his thoughts with a sudden sneeze, but it didn’t take long to revert back. ‘The questions started as soon as we walked through the door: Where do we go from here? How long have we felt like this? Why didn’t either of us ever say anything? All of her questions, while pertinent to the situation, were off topic for what I wanted to say. She stopped herself before I had to, but that didn’t make beginning the long, weird story any easier. It had taken, literally, until the horizon had started to wink glimpses of sunlight for me to tell it all.’ He readjusted in his uncomfortable chair a bit. ‘My explanation was choppy and unprepared, as I was, and she needed some sort of visual proof. I understood that position completely and I gave it to her. I didn’t show off or inspire anything, but my power painted my words for me in a more forward attempt at an explanation. So we sat there in my dark room with our hands clasped together, me gathering a nervous sweat on my neck. My power seeped from between my teeth and cleansed my heart of its clenching fear as my words fell from my mind and glided to her ears, and hopefully melted her heart at the same time. My eyes were closed when I started, “When I think of your face, I wonder how I ever think of anything else and continue to breathe. I’ve seen lung-siezing sunsets, read absolutely awe-inspiring poetry, and experienced other sensations that seemed to be a test sent straight from heaven to see who could stand strongest against things of such perfection, but your eyes—your disastrously deep, green eyes—offer me a glimpse at paradise. That’s because they’re rooted in the richest soil in the universe: your soul. Even when my eyes light up,” I opened my eyes, and smiled a little at her gasp, “they pale in comparison to the purity and beauty that yours put off constantly. With those eyes by my side, I would topple empires for you.” After that flow of emotions, I rose back up from my power and moved closer to her; the only light coming from the dimming moon outside and the only sound: an awkward breath from Carol mixing with my steady stream. It wasn’t long before I felt the warmth of her lips pressed against mine, where they stayed for seemingly an eternity, where I never wanted them to leave.’

That blissful remembrance was interrupted by the principal buzzing him in. ‘Can I bottle that mood?’ He stood and made the two-step journey to the mostly glass door, not bothering to knock as he walked in. ‘The last renovation over the summer was put to good use, it seems.’ A brand new carpet laid on top of a brand new carpet on top of a perfectly good wooden floor beneath it that had been here a few renovations ago. ‘Ridiculous. A thousand bucks on a fully tucked-in floor.’ Principal Hackard sat on the other side of his luxurious, oak desk with his hands folded over a gilded pen and a Post-It note. ‘You know the drill: just take a seat across from the annoyed man and await the start of whatever topic he decided to whine about this time. He looks a little uncomfortable. Can’t be the temperature it feels great in here. What’s the meaning of your rosy cheeks and slow sweat on the side of your face, Principal Hackard?’

              “Oh, Caleb. I didn’t mean to buzz you in quite yet.”

“Would you like me to leave for five minutes so you can re-buzz me?”

              “No, no.” His bald head leaned forward and his gut strained against the side of the desk as he began. “So, what’s this change in appearance to ring-in the last year of your high school experience all about?”

              Caleb smiled a little on the inside. “Sorry, but I seriously doubt my clothes are any of your business. As long as I make the grades, you shouldn’t be worried.”

              The unexpectedly harsh comment sent the man back in his leather chair with cracks and groans against his weight. ‘His shirt’s untucked and his pants are disarrayed.’ He stretched out with his power slightly so his eyes wouldn’t light up, and he soon felt the warmth of a leg beneath the desk a few short inches from his toe. ‘Ah, so he did get a useful renovation.’ He retracted his power and just made eye contact to avoid laughing. “Well are you sure you’re even going to make the grades? Because I’m not. Even if you do, I have to worry about your face being out in the public like it is so often. You’re basically the mascot for our school and you dress up like a little punk looking for more attention. Does graduating first in the class with a respectable image mean nothing to you now?”

              Caleb couldn’t answer immediately. ‘Keep that laugh inside.’ He noticed all of the seriousness in the man’s eyes and refocused. ‘Laugh or no laugh, you’re still a two-faced ass only interested in saving your own image. Behind doors you hate me and in public we’re best friends; pick a side of the fence and plant your tree-sized ass there. Maybe I should strike a little fear into him, throw a pen across the room with my power or something. Ugh, I know there’s no justice whatsoever there. He wins again.’ “What I wear has nothing to do with my ability to think or keep this school on the map. I’ve changed a little over the summer, but I haven’t become vindictive. No worries; you’re not going to lose your pride and joy to drugs and sex.” Caleb leaned forward slightly as almost a friendly warning. “However, what I’ve changed into remains none of your business. I will still run whichever clubs I’m involved with to whatever end goal we set.”

              “Assuming I even let you wear a wristband displaying our school name in public. Caleb, even if these clothes don’t mean anything to you, they will to everyone who sees you. The world is not understanding of dark-and-different things.”

              Caleb noted his agreement with that opinion but didn’t waver. “I can see that you don’t understand it, but what you really don’t understand is that you don’t have to understand how to understand my understanding. Understand?”

              The lingering red in the pompous man’s cheeks flared again as he sat forward, slowly. Mr. Hackard’s eyes had turned to a hard glare that Caleb had seen him use on some of his regular visitors. Caleb just stared him back emotionlessly and let a slight smirk appear on his lips. ‘Respect’s a two way street, Principal.’ “I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to do. Write me a list of the clubs or organizations you’re going to be in this year and I’ll talk to the leaders and get their opinions on the subject. I’ll even be a nice guy and give you the time you need to write the list with a detention for disrespecting me.”

              Caleb fumed a little on the inside. ‘I should kick her shoe, just to show him the amount of respect I have.’ Her heel was now almost poking from beneath the desk to the toe of his shoe. ‘Just to show him where he belongs.’ Caleb sighed slightly and calmly said, “You’re all heart, sir. Hopefully I can do as good a job as everyone else in your office.”

              “What do you mean?’

              His eyes shot down for only long enough to make his point then he leaned his head towards the door. “I mean your secretary. I can’t imagine being in her position. What does she get paid, I wonder?”

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              Caleb walked up to his generic front door of his generic house that had about twenty clones on his street alone. ‘This place is nauseatingly symmetric, but still better than the old neighborhood. It’s crazy how we were in the Hoover-ville only a year and a half ago, right before the old man apparently got some promotion at his mysterious job. That job…half of that mystery is pure apathy while the other is total avoidance by Mom. She’s so avoidant of that topic.’ He opened the door and walked through the foyer of the hundred-grand house to his living room. ‘Welcome to the quarantine zone: white walls in every core compartment and the eerie silence of an abandoned warehouse. Their bedroom is some shade of red, and they let me pick sky blue for mine. Man if we were here when I was younger, every wall would’ve been plenty colorful. Give me half an hour, a box of crayons, and no supervision and they’d be selling the walls to museums in no time.’ 

              He strode for the kitchen—‘That stereo wasn’t here this morning.’ “Hey Mom?”

              His response came in the form of a grunt from the kitchen table where his mother was sipping juice and flipping through a
Victoria’s Secret
catalogue. His feet redirected towards the refrigerator and jutted a thumb back the way he’d come. “When’d we get the new stereo?”

              She took her time answering as he dug a vitamin drink out of the fridge and popped it open. “You’re father picked that up today as an early birthday present for me. He was even nice enough to put your name on the tag with his.”

              Caleb shook his head slightly as he tipped the drink back and took half of it in one gulp. He swallowed and answered, as sarcastically as he could, “How nice of him…I’ll make sure to thank him next time I see him.”

              Her eyes averted to his back. “That man is the reason you’re standing in this house instead of our old one. That should earn him some respect in your book.”

              “Oh it does, but he’s still nowhere near respectable. You can’t make up for some things, Mom.”

              He stood next to the table as she sighed and returned to her magazine. ‘Yeah, like you just realized we had a problem. C’mon Mom, look at me. I’m a walking black hole. Without you I’d have no parent, and these clothes would mean more than what they do now. Without you…this gift of mine would be, well, everywhere I guess.’ “Have a seat, kiddo, we need to talk. How was school by the way?”

              Caleb sat down in the head chair that resembled a small throne and responded, “Other than the principal giving me grief about my clothes, pretty boring.”

              “That man’s throwing his weight around again? I don’t understand why he has to harass you so much. You’ve never started a fight, never gotten in any serious trouble, and you’re the pride and joy of that school. You didn’t do anything to him with your…ability did you?”

              Caleb smiled. “No, but the thought did occur.”

              She smiled as a comfortable silence fell between them for a few seconds. Her magazine closed and was slid down the table before she began again. “Let’s talk about what the future of my baby boy is, all right?”

              He kept a smirk and folded his hands. “Sure, what’d you have in mind for me?”

              “It’s not my decision. I wanted to know what you had in mind for after high school, and let’s face it, you’ve got a lot more to think about than other teens. Quite literally, you’re out on your own island as far as experience and you’re probably the first person in history who can truly say that nothing is out of your reach.”

              “Telling a confused person he’s confused doesn’t help his confusion, Mom.”

              Her look sharpened slightly as a warning for him to respect her above his usual level of respect for people. “That’s why I’m leaving the choice of your path up to you, and since you’ve changed so much recently, I’m trying to stay…,” she paused and chose her words carefully, “to stay informed.”

              ‘Still number one in my respect book for everything you’ve done on your own. You know everything about me, and Carol is the only one who could ever catch you in that category. I guess you and her will be neck-and-neck in a few categories now.’ “The update isn’t much different from how it was at the beginning of the summer. I’m still a teenage boy, still have a power that borders somewhere near super-human, and still haven’t given it much—”

              “Let’s just focus on those powers right now. What do you plan to do with those?”

              He ran his hand through his messy hair. “I’m not even entirely sure how far they reach or what they can do. I’ve just been using them for fun so far.”

              “You haven’t tested their limits yet? That’s not like you.”

              He chuckled again as she took a drink of her milk. The glass hit the coaster on the wooden table as he began his thought aloud. “Something like that can’t exactly be tested out in the open.”

              “I’m not entirely sure you see the depth of what you have in your hands, Caleb.” She straightened in her chair and mimicked his folded hands. “Let’s compare your gift to other humans for a moment. All of the greats throughout history had a gift for what they did and they showed the world that gift. Every last one of them thought along the lines of ‘I’ve been blessed with this, so why not make something of it?’ Now,” she leaned forward and whispered the rest of the sentence like the huge secret between them was in danger of being found out, “remember what they all did. Einstein changed the mathematical world, Newton took an apple to the head and fueled a revolution of free thinking, and even someone of pure evil can rally tremendous numbers behind his cause, but none of them had the abilities that you do. If their inspirations could change the world, can you even imagine what your limitless potential could do?”