“You can’t be afraid of your power, Alex,” Birgit said angrily, fully yelling at this point. Her eyes widened a moment after she spoke. “Sorry,” She let out a long sigh as she stepped off me and sat down next to me.

“What?” I asked her, frankly unable to form any other words. I used my free arm to destroy the ice before sitting up next to her. “What-what does that have to do with anything?”

“You wouldn’t get it.”

“Try me.”

“I don’t want to go to Atlantis,” she said frankly. She was looking at me with a challenging look, like she didn’t think I could fathom this.

And she wasn’t wrong. It was something I couldn’t relate to. Going to Altantis–to any hero academy–was a dream for me, no matter how far away it seemed, even now. It was the first step in being like Alpha Surge and all that stuff.

“You don’t want to be a hero?” I asked her hesitantly.

There were about one million questions I wanted to ask–what was she doing here then, was her mother pressuring her, ect–but I had the feeling any of those would result in me being turned into a block of ice. And that wasn’t something I wanted to go through today.

“No, no, I do,” she said quickly. “Of course I do. But I also don’t want to leave everyone I care about behind. Every single one of my friends is like me, and we’ll be scattered to the winds and I’ll be–you know, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just the way things are, isn’t it?”

I’ll be alone. I couldn’t be sure that was what she wanted to say, but I had a pretty good feeling. I relate to that. I was going to lose my only friend for the same reason. Well, not actually lose him. I hoped at least. It was still going to be-it wasn’t going to be the same.

“I’ve only ever really had one friend,” I began before I could even properly think about it. “He was always going to be a hero. I, as you could probably tell, wasn’t. And so we had this plan. Atlantis lets students visit their homes bi-monthly if they want to. Two weekends every month. So I never really worried about losing him.”

“And then something happened between you two. A big fight or something like that.” said Birgit confidently. “That’s what that Maria chick and you were talking about.”

I gave her a small smile. “Όποιος βιάζεται σκοντάφτει,” I said to her. “It means that you shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” I explained in English. Birgit scoffed in response, muttering something in Danish I couldn’t understand.

“But you are partially correct,” I continued like nothing had ever happened. “He has a scholarship offer. It’s all but guaranteed, and he will either go to an academy in Northern Europe, or North America. So, no matter what happens with me and Atlantis-”

“-with the busy schedule and distance, you won’t be able to communicate regularly,” said Birgit. I shot her an annoyed look for interrupting me, but she merely grinned in response. “Do you have another Greek saying to throw at my face, or am I right?”

I chuckled slightly in spite of myself. “You’re right,” I said, a small smile etching itself on my face. “I didn’t have the best reaction to the news. There’s a school gathering next Saturday, and I’m going to try and fix things there.”

What I didn’t mention was that the whole idea frightened me. I still didn’t know exactly what I would say to him, or how he would react. The chances of things not going well were small, but they were there. Not to mention I’d be in the same area as pretty much all of my classmates, and that hadn’t exactly proven to be the best idea in the past.

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“Hey, Birgit,” I said with what I hoped was a convincing amount of indifference. “Would you-Could you-Will you be able-Would you like to come with me?” I probably just ruined any chance of appearing indifferent. Still, I managed to get through the sentence, so I counted that as a win.

The look she gave in response wasn’t exactly promising. “You want me-” she pointed to herself, “-to come to your highschool whatever party?”

“Well-”

“I’m not finished,” said Birgit. “In the same party, where you’re going to be off trying to win back your little boyfriend. Meaning, even if I do come, I’ll most likely be stuck with a hundred strangers from a different country. Is that correct?”

“No.” I responded. She tried to speak again, but I patted the air in a placating manner cutting her off before she even began speaking. “Let me speak.”

“Fine.”

“Second, I don’t have any intention of staying there for the whole night. I don’t want to spend my Saturday with a bunch of people that either don’t know I exist, or hate me with the passion of a hundred suns. All I want to do is fix things with my friend.”

“So, where do I fit in all of this?”

“You saw how Maria was. People don’t like me there. Like I said before: they hate me with a passion of a hundred suns,” I said, probably sounding way too defensive. It was a sensitive topic, but I wasn’t about to admit that I was afraid of my classmates.

When we were in school, it was different. The teachers and Iraklis being my best friend kept the worse ones off my back. There were only a handful of times where people got-where they got physical. Now, there’d be no teachers around and I didn’t want to see what they’d say and do with that kind of freedom.

I guess some of my feelings must have shown on my face, because I saw Birgit’s look shift from exasperation to pity, before she did a surprisingly good job of hiding it behind a nonchalant look.

She groaned before responding. “When is this party?”

I thought for a bit before realising that I didn’t actually know. I knew the date, but not the time. Usually these things started at about nine or ten at night, so I figured I’d overshoot it slightly. “July nineteenth. We’ll meet up at ten thirty, and go to my school.”

“Where exactly?”

Remembering last week’s fiasco, I gave her very explicit details–which bus she should take, which stop she would need to stop at in order to meet up with me–in the hopes of getting her where she needed to be without any events.

“And if any buff Americans come your way, don’t fight them, just run away. We don’t have the time for that.”

“You must have used a lot of brain power to come up with that one,” said Birgit under her breath.

“You know I heard you, right?”

“Of course I do. If I didn’t want you to understand me, I’d have spoken in Danish,” she responded smugly.

We continued chatting like this for a couple more minutes, before we decided that it would be for the best if we got back to training. Time was running short, and we couldn’t afford to just laze around for much longer.

We were making our way to the elevator when I realised that I actually hadn’t said anything to reassure Birgit. The whole conversation was shifted to me and my problems with Iraklis. Granted, I didn’t know much about her situation, but I felt bad about how this happened.

“Hey Birgit,” I said while she pressed the floor button and the doors closed.

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t finish your story,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully. “What does your situation with your friends have to do with my power?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, and I was worried I might have said the wrong thing. I wanted to get closer to Birgit, but it wasn’t exactly the easiest thing. Nor was I good enough at picking social cues or generally talking to people.

“I guess I just want you to be there,” she said eventually. “It’s like you, wanting me at that party. A friend makes things simpler. And I’d like to think that we’re at least on our way to being friends.”

I didn’t even try to stop the–probably huge–smile that formed in my face. It was a rocky start, for sure, but I was never bored when I was with Birgit, and I thought we worked quite well together. Plus, I couldn’t help but feel slightly giddy inside. at the thought of making another friend after so many years.

“I certainly hope we are.” I turned to her, trying to emit more confidence than I felt. “And when we make it there, Atlantis won’t know what hit them.” I put out my fist in the space between us. Birgit chuckled and called me a dork, but she bumped it right after. It was a feeling that I missed. I was hopeful for the future.

No matter what happened with the entrance exams, I truly–for the first time–believed that things were going to be better by summer’s end.