It felt strange walking through the streets of River City. It felt too normal. Rosa couldn’t quite understand why that bothered her. She came to this city to find normality, but now that she was simulating it, it felt strange.
Perhaps it was the adrenaline still charging from her escape. It felt strange to her that little more than an hour earlier she was trapped. Now she was free and alive, even if this new circle of “friends” left her wary. The man with her though certainly seemed different than the others.
Garrett Vos walked with her towards her apartment. He was quiet for most of the walk, but friendly and outgoing enough. He explained his powers, his nickname and went on about how much he loved River City. Rosa wasn’t sure what to make of him, but his big, fuzzy hair was adorable and she could see how that smile could melt any woman’s heart.
Once they reached her apartment, it took just a few minutes to get a new key from her super. Garrett waited in the hull as she took a very quick shower.
She cleaned up in a matter of seconds. She quickly donned a pair of blue jeans, a modest blouse and a new set of the special running shoes she wore. She ran her brush through her hair a few hundred times, then tied it in a simple ponytail.
She stopped to look at herself in the mirror. She looked good, but not too good. She found this Garrett attractive, but she barely knew him. She did not want to give him the wrong impression about her. She wanted to wow him, not make him think she was some cheap trollop.
She nodded her approval to her reflection before she ran to the door.
“Ready,” she said as she hit the hallway.
“What? It’s been like two minutes. How did you—?” He stopped himself. “Super speed, right.”
She smiled at him. She quickly—but not super-quickly—locked her door.
“Where are we going?”
The last answer Rosa expected from her question was a bus stop. But that is exactly where Garrett took her. He wouldn’t tell her anything about their destination. As they waited for the transportation to arrive, she could only stand still and tap her foot impatiently.
“Are you trying to wear a hole in the cement?”
Garrett’s words made her realize her foot was beating against the ground at superhuman speeds. She forced herself to stop.
“Sorry. Patience isn’t my greatest virtue.”
“I can’t say that is too surprising, all things considered.” Garrett said it with a smile, instantly taking any cut out of his wit. “But the bus is the easiest way back to my neighborhood, unless you suddenly want to lift me up and carry me.”
She looked him up and down. They didn’t call this man Stomp for nothing. His thighs and calves were massive hunks of meat. She suspected each of his legs weighed as much as she did. She wouldn’t get more than a few blocks with him in tow.
“The bus then. Why would not take the trains?”
“I’m not a big fan of going underground,” Garrett said. “I would prefer to avoid it by any means necessary.”
His eyes drifted away from her, down the street. But he seemed trapped in an unwanted memory. Rosa stopped herself from asking anymore questions. This was clearly a sore subject for Garrett and this was supposed to be an upbeat afternoon.
If she could put El Sanguijuelo out of her mind, it wasn’t her place to force him to talk about something uncomfortable for him, even if she was curious about him. But not wanting to ask the question just caused a long silence. And that was no more comforting for either of them.
“My old neighborhood was a slum,” Rosa said. “Crime was everywhere. Children disappeared without even a report to la policia. The police might have been in on some of the disappearances after all. My parents tried to make a difference there, but those streets…it was not easy. Guadalajara was not a nice place.”
“I’m sorry,” Garrett said.
“It is all right. We moved away from there when I was eight. We moved in to the center of the city, into a shining tower the likes of which I had never imagined. I went from next to nothing to every amenity I could imagine. I wouldn’t see those streets again until they gave me my first costume.”
“After that, I went with my parents many times to the old neighborhood. But it was different. Dressed up like a flashy hero, no one looked at me like I was one of them anymore. Instead I was just another outsider not to be trusted.”
Rosa couldn’t help but drift back to the memories of that time. She could still see the fear in the eyes of children she once played alongside.
Garrett’s hand found her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “It was a long time ago. And if it wasn’t for that, I might still be there, still wasting my life pretending to be something I’m not. I’m not a metahero. I just want to be a person.”
“Powers never make life easier,” Garrett said. “If I’ve learned anything in all this, it is that. Life doesn’t always make life easier though. I wish it all came with a manual, you know?”
Rosa smiled. Garrett smiled back at her. Rosa found herself relaxed with this man—more at ease than she felt with anyone in months. She wished she could figure out why. He was cute, but she knew better than to just let any cute boy sweep her off her feet. She wondered if he had some hidden power.
I must be careful.
“Hey, there’s the bus,” he said. She turned to see the large white rectangle slowly pulling in to the stop.
Rosa found that she loved the River City Metro Transport. After so many years separated from normal everyday people, she suddenly found herself surrounded by them. An old woman in front of the bus chattered incessantly at the bus driver, an African American man that only half listened to her nonstop droning. An old beard man, dressed in worn military fatigues, spoke to no one in particular. A twenty-something girl, tattoos covering her necks and arms and her hair worn in gelled spiked on her head, spoke loudly into a cellular phone. A large woman, at least three hundred pounds, argued with a small child no more than seven or eight, perhaps a grandchild.
“You’re staring,” Garrett said.
“It’s all so interesting. I’m not used to being around people. I mean normal people. After I left the old neighborhood, everyone in the place I moved to wore a costume. My parents, my ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’, the random people we regularly fought. Outside a few police contacts, I barely ever got to even talk to someone without powers. It still feels strange to walk around the streets without a costume, let alone be accepted as just a normal person on the street.”
Stomp shook his head. “All my life, I just wanted to be noticed. My entire community service bit makes me proud, but even I admit I love the glory I get from it. The adulation and the fame. And here you are running from what I’ve always wanted.”
“I—”
“I don’t want it to sound like I’m judging you,” he said. Rosa felt her body suddenly relax at those words. “You made it clear you’ve had moments in your past that framed your decision. I’m not going to pry in to them. But I just found it amusing, the die—what’s the word?”
“Dichotomy?”
“And you speak English better than me too.” He laughed. “But yeah, dichotomy. It’s strange we end up together on this bus when we seem to be heading in exactly opposite directions.”
“That can be blamed on Doppelganger and his allies.”
“Well, yeah. But that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m getting to the whole opposite direction, but both end up here and not thing. Fate, you know?”
She shook her head. “I do not believe in fate. But I do believe God works in mysterious ways.”
The bus pulled to another stop. A large black man, nearly as wide as the aisle, climbed aboard. Loud music boomed from the phone he held.
“Is it always this loud on public transit?”
“Pretty much,” Garrett said.
“How much longer?”
“Awhile. You should probably sit back and try to enjoy the music.”
“I think you and I may have different definitions of ‘enjoy’ and ‘music’. Where are we going?”
Garrett smirked. “You’ll see.”
No comments:
Post a Comment