What did I do wrong?

Elaine is dead, and apparently there are people looking into the deaths of the others. Enough for Troy to pester me in class about it. I assumed no one in the police department would care. This just points out their hypocrisy. Doesn’t it? Would they have cared if I had chosen people who were of lower profile? It irritates me. They moved so swiftly when it was someone important, like Morrison, like Hayes. They were just fashionable criminals they paraded on TV.

“You look down,” Charles mentions while we take a break before our next class.

If I am being honest, Charles’ presence at this given time only annoys me. It annoys me because I know what I have to do. I have to play pretend. Wear a smile that reassures him.

“It’s nothing,” I imitate his carefree speech.

“Are you sure? It must be hard, you had two neighbors die right next door,” Charles states with concern.

So I plaster on a smile, people wear when they try to reassure someone else.

“I am more worried about you Charles,” I put on That voice, “That wasn't something you should have been there for. That must have been difficult.”

Charles frown and bites his bottom lip.

“I am trying to reassure you,”

“And I am trying to reassure you I am fine, while also making sure you’re reassured,” I giggle.

Charles smiles. There’s a light in his eyes, “Okay Quinn. I am glad you’re okay. I’m handling it in my own way. Who were you texting in class? You seemed bothered by the messages.”

Will he stop asking questions? It’s annoying. Why does he care so much? Why is he so nosy?

“No one,” I state.

Charles raises a brow.

Stop asking me questions. Stop trying to prod me for answers. I thought I wanted to be friends with Charles, but now he annoys me in the same way Dominic and James do.

“Please Quinn, give me something, you said you wanted to be my friend,”

“Fine,” is my irritation slipping through, “It was my annoying grandpa. He wants to meet up with me, and I have curfew and he’s yelling to me about my grades. Because I get straight D’s and C’s.”

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That’s believable enough.

“Why are your grades so bad?” Charles asks.

“Because I don’t find school interesting,”

“But you’re clearly smart,”

“Grades are not good markers of intelligence anyway, why is everything in Oakside so ass backwards? You know, in the Celestial Crest and the Northern Asian Alliance, they don’t give out grades, they give out performance evaluations. Why does it matter?”

“I could,” Charles pause, “Tutor you, if you’d like.”

“I don’t need a tutor,” I tell him, “Honestly Charles, I am-”

-I should stop talking. Mother has always told me not to lay all of my cards out onto the table. And if I say anything further, I will end a friendship before it even really started. Even if Charles annoys me, he’s too much of a bleeding heart. The type to wear his emotions on his sleeves. The type of person who sees the good in everybody. And honestly, he’d challenge me every step of the way if I told him the truth.

And I rather not get irritated with him.

“You are?”

“It’s nothing, I would have said something out of anger anyway,” I respond.

Charles frowns.

“I know we haven’t spoken before,” Charles tells me, “And we’re only starting to really get to know each other. But everyone in school sort of knows who you are, there are rumors about you. I want to believe you’re a good person, but you’re going to have to trust me a little.”

Am I a good person?

Apparently, if the police are investigating Karma’s actions, how do they judge me?

“Well, trust me too,” I tell him, “I am sparing you, I think, from the parts of myself that I don’t I like. But I am not sure. Often, it just feels like a lot of nothing.”

Charles nods, he gets up on cue as the bell goes off.

“You really should talk to the - school counselors,”

They won’t help. I’ve spoken with the school counselors before in the past, in different schools. They all say about the same. They all give me the same look. They perceive me all the same way. They are terrified of me, disturbed by me, or a combination of both. They think that there is something wrong with me, they’ve brought it up with my Mother before who denies the entire thing. She says I am fine the way I am. I don’t think I really understand the truth about myself.

Originally, when I became Karma, when I accepted the powers of the Pen, I thought I could do more good. But nothing good seems to come out of it. Elaine is dead. And the police are apparently investigating me - Karma. Why do they care about someone like Zoe? She killed more people than I have. What makes one person’s actions more acceptable than another’s?

Hayes was a terrible person. Why do they care about a man who forced himself upon others? Morrison aided Hayes. Lured his victims so that way Hayes could prey upon them. The police are so hypocritical. We have a Penitentiary; the Director has deliberately gone on the news and claimed criminals deserve punishment, not luxury.

Instead of praising Karma. They condemn Karma.

Karma isn’t supposed to be the figure they condemn. Karma isn’t supposed to be someone they judge with the same lens they judged these people. Karma is supposed to be an idea, he’s supposed to be more than this. He’s supposed to be something people like Zoe fear and the Police praise. Like the heroes they praise on TV. The heroes we plaster on walls and posters and praise for the same actions. The fictional heroes we idolize like Powerman. And these fictional heroes have caused more indirect harm. Yet people aspire to be them.

The world is so hypocritical.