I couldn’t remember the last time Emelia and I had sat down together in perfect silence. I’d kinda gotten used to being at her throat for saying something that would get under my skin, but I guessed if you spent a few months away from someone, you might realize you missed them or whatever. So there we sat on the curb behind the soup kitchen, the breeze achingly cold and the wind tossing out hair into our faces. But we didn’t say a single thing. She sat there, her palms behind her and her legs crossed, staring across the street and into a nearly empty parking lot.

I chose not to say anything, because I didn’t really know what to begin with in the first place. Sorry I left for a few months and said you weren’t a superhero, but how’ve you been? That wouldn’t work. Just doesn’t cut it. I could apologize to her, but every time I was about to speak, every time I glanced at her, her jaw would be tense and her eyes would be firmly locked onto the wet concrete in front of us. Not moving. Barely breathing. She tapped her finger slowly against the pavement, each of them making a small purple spark leap into a puddle, smothering it.

She had her apron slung over her shoulder, her bare arms open to the wind. The arm she had broken in the 12th Avenue fight looked perfectly fine, if not for the faint scar that ran from her wrist to her elbow. Is she bigger?

Em had always been toned, fit—speedsters always tended to be that way, but I swore she wasn’t—

“Two months, blondie,” she whispered. Emelia didn’t look at me. Instead, her focus was squarely on the stray dogs lurking through the city, now with a lot more food to find in the rubble of apartment buildings. “Two.”

“I know,” I said quietly, pulling my leg up so I could rest my elbow on my knee. “I fucked up.”

“I thought you died.”

“But I’m here now, right?” I said, looking at her. Still nothing. “That’s gotta count for something.”

And yes, she did finally look at me, but it almost felt like I was staring into a stranger’s eyes—looking at a stranger’s face. “I looked for you, you know that? I spent weeks looking for you. Every single criminal in this city, turns out, doesn’t even want to say your name, so I kept running and running, hoping that I’d at least find someone who could tell me where you went.” Emelia looked away again and blinked slowly, massaging her temples as she did. “And I found nothing. Not a single word about you. Not where you went or what happened. Not even a body.”

I watched as her words drifted off into silence, leaving the wind to fill the quietness for a moment, because I knew what she meant, and I knew exactly what she was saying. For her, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d have to carry an empty casket on her shoulder, all before the age of twenty, too. It was my turn to look away, waiting for her to keep talking but knowing very, very well where this was going. This odd feeling inside my gut only grew larger the longer we stayed like this, making me feel sick and heavy. Give me a supervillain to fight and I’d smile doing it.

Tell me to sit down and talk with my friends, and suddenly fighting Witchling seems more fun.

“At least the coffin wouldn’t have to be that big, right, if there wasn’t anybody in it,” I said, laughing dryly, but she looked at me—really, really stared at me, making it feel as if her eyes were burrowing into my chest.

“I didn’t even know what to tell Bianca,” she whispered. Em swore and shook her head, then tilted her chin up toward the sky and laughed bitterly. “Ay dios mío, Rylee. I kept wanting to tell her. I kept bracing myself to say it to her, not that her best friend might be dead, but because Olympia was going to be buried in the same grave.”

I picked lint off my jeans. Didn’t have it in me to look at her properly, or to consider the fact that I was more willing to try to save Bianca than actually go and see her, too. Em wasn’t the easier option, but she was the option that wouldn’t be as hard of a landing. Gods, isn’t that hilarious. A girl who could blitz through a monster made from flesh and humans, organs and tentacles and turn it into paste a few seconds later, couldn’t talk to a girl.

“What…” Stop being such a coward for once. “Does she know?”

Emelia stared at me. “You haven’t called her since you came back? Or texted her? Seen her?”

“I just got back!” I said. “And besides…It’s not like I had been planning on vanishing.”

“No,” Emelia said, looking me over. “I guess you weren’t.”

Silence lingered for a moment, and I knew what that meant I should start doing. I sighed inwardly and looked up at the smoke-filled sky, at the eternal darkness so perfectly quiet. “I wanted to save the city from the Kaiju. About a week or so before I went missing, I got into this fight with Adam. That guy who looks like dad. I beat him to hell and back, I’ll be honest, but he also saved my mom before I could get killed. And ever since then, it’s kind of felt like I haven’t really woken up yet. Like I’m still asleep underneath all of that rubble, and any moment now I’ll wake up in the dark and think, ‘That was a hell of a dream. Thank God none of that actually happened.’ But I don’t wake up, and I don’t find my way out of the dark, so I know all of this is real, and Gods, I hate that it is.”

“You seem a little different,” she said quietly. “A lot more…you. The old you”

“Hm,” I hummed, staring at the water-covered concrete shining yellow because of the street lights. All alone out here tonight, silence and serenity and a cold breeze, but my hand wouldn’t stop twitching and neither would my foot stop bouncing, because right about now there was always something that happened. A surprise or a twist, some grotesque murder I’d have to just file away to process when I had the time, or if I ever did have the time.

At the rate that things go in my life, I doubted I would actually ever have that time at all.

“And that’s not as good of a thing that I used to think it was,” she said, looking away. “I had a lot of time to think when you were gone. A lot of time to think, and all I could think about was that everything from middle school to high school to right now, the last thing I ever did for you was run away. I stood up, and I fucking ran.”

“I kind of yelled at you to,” I muttered. “But that wasn’t fair, ‘cause you were just trying to help.”

“Sure, but you were also right.” Em flexed her fingers, clenching and unclenching the hand that had been broken and limp a few months ago. “I’ve broken bones before. You trip and fall at the speeds I run, and a snapped wrist is like a skid knee eventually, but that day was different, because I was afraid, Ry. Honest to God afraid of not being fast enough to fight, or even to run away. You get so used to the villains you’re fighting to read off a script and have a big evil plan that gets beaten by the end of the season that everything in your life is like a play. Lights, camera, action, and then the applause, because you just saved the world, and I got high off of that feeling and forgot that the shit you go through is the real shit that I kept forcing you to knuckle on with for months on end, Rylee.”

I shrugged one shoulder, even if what she was saying left a mark. “Either that or homelessness, Sparky.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I could have bought you a condo on the Upper West instead, and you know that.”

“Yeah, of course I know that, but I didn’t ask you for one for a reason.”

“Rylee—”

“Emelia,” I said flatly. Silence. “Remember the first time you found out I had powers?”

She tilted her head, leaving her hair to flow over her shoulder. “So?”

“So it was the first time in my life I’d seen a superhero be a superhero right in front of my eyes.” I looked at Emelia and gently poked her arm. “Yeah, sure, I threw that old English teacher through a window, but you were busy making sure that nobody in class got hurt in the process. For a long time, I kinda thought you did it to hide my identity, then I thought, ‘Wait a sec, she doesn’t know who I really am.’ It took me a few years to figure that out, and when you got the big tv series contract, I figured you did it because it would mean everyone in school would finally give the down on her luck chick from Lower Olympus some kind of recognition, then I figured that’s also wrong, and I tell you why?” I smiled at her and bumped her shoulder. “Because that was the day that Electra became a thing for real, right there in that classroom. She never existed until your first thought was to save a bunch of kids who made fun of you everyday for how you spoke or how you dressed—a bunch of kids who hated you just because of who you were, and yet you grabbed every single one of them, all because that was just how you ticked.”

But that’s also wrong, isn’t it? Electra was always somewhere inside of you, wasn’t she?

I leaned back on my hands again, stretching out my legs. “Me? I just did it ‘cause I was pissed.”

“What are you trying to say?” she asked me.

“I’m getting at this: I don’t deserve nice things.”

“You need to start being more kind to yourself,” she said, sliding her hand along my back, patting it, then putting her hand on my shoulder. “You’re a hero, Rylee. Doesn’t matter why you started being one. You still are.”

I snorted. “I wasted two months of my life accomplishing things that nobody will ever care about. I can keep pretending all I want, Em, but I’m not good at this. It’s…exhausting, and I kind of want to make it all stop.”

“Are you going to go on another tangent about the ‘humans’ again?”

“Gods, please don’t remind me of that,” I muttered. “But the truth is that I want to give it another go. A better go. Ever since summer, people kept looking at me like I was a tool. Like this thing they could use to fix all their problems, and somewhere along the way, it’s almost like I enjoyed it, because it somehow meant to me that I was being useful. Look at Zeus’ daughter, saving the day in new and creative ways, but all I was really doing was fucking up time after time, and then things changed, and then people needed me. They needed me to save them.”

“And did you save them?” she asked quietly.

“No,” I said, my voice dropping. “I didn’t.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I smiled a little and glanced at her. “I’m still me. I don’t sit around and talk about my feelings much.”

“You’ll need to eventually. That kind of stuff eats you alive.”

“Yeah, said who?”

“The girl sitting next to me,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes, Ry. In the way you’re talking. I’m happy that you’re not going to give up, but I’m also kind of afraid that you’re making a casket out of your costume.”

“If I ever die in it, it’ll be the awesomest thing you’d ever see,” I said, but seeing her face, the worry that wrinkled the space between her brows, I stopped the dry laughter and swallowed bitter saliva. I cleared my throat and let the quietness linger for a moment before I continued. “I’ll be fine. Just gotta keep the old head up high.”

Emelia sighed and took her hand off my back, letting it fall to her side. “Blind hope isn’t healthy.”

I bumped her with my shoulder. “It’s a lot healthier than giving up.”

She stayed silent.

“Em,” I said, my voice a lot more level now, because I wasn’t meant to come here for a long time, because there was still things I needed to do and a girl I needed to save, because it doesn’t end in my life, and I doubted it ever would end until I fixed everything. “I just need you to tell me that I’m doing the right thing. You always knew how to do that. You never over complicated it. You saved the day and made it the thing that everyone our age just wanted to do because you made it trendy. Heck, my rent was just part of the reason I listened to you. A part of me knew that you got things right when it mattered because all that should matter is saving the day and that’s it.”

She smiled tiredly. “We were kids, Ry. It was simpler back then.”

“That’s what we like telling ourselves,” I said. “But it wasn’t. If it was, Sabine would still be here.”

Emelia paused for a moment, then sighed quietly. She combed her fingers through her hair, then rested her forehead on the palm of her hand. “Whatever happened to you these past few months made you a lot smarter.” She let her hand fall and tilted her head upward, shutting her eyes as she breathed out. “You came back so you could leave again, is that it? You wanted my approval this time so you could at least tell yourself you said goodbye if things don’t go to plan.” She looked at me, her amber eyes glowing in the soft yellow light. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“You got me,” I said, smiling. “I’ll be honest, Em. Being Olympia makes being Rylee harder every day that I’m not myself. But wearing a costume means solving problems, and I need that right now. I really, really need it.”

“You feel like it’ll make life simpler, having that symbol on your chest guiding you along.”

“Lightning doesn’t move in a straight line, but it does always go somewhere eventually.”

Em shook her head and laughed, this time not so dryly. “You want my opinion, Blondie?”

“Give it to me, Sparky.”

“I think you’re not okay deep down, and I think being Olympia is your way of hiding from yourself.”

We sat in silence for a while, Emelia still looking up at the sky, and myself staring at her. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and looked away, scratching the back of my head as the air dropped another few degrees until our breaths turned to steam and it felt like my heart was trying to break free from the glass cage that was my chest.

“You’re one hell of an actress,” she said quietly to the sky. “And you’re waiting for someone to yell cut, because you don’t like who you’re pretending to be anymore, but here comes the next act, so you get to change, but you know how the script always goes—death, disaster, tragedy and bloodshed. But when the curtains finally close, you’re going to be smiling, even as you lie there dead on stage in a pool of your own blood, because you gave the people everything they wanted, and they’re all clapping, cheering your name, because you’re their hero.” Emelia stood up, then offered me a hand. I took it, and we faced each other, our breaths lacing in the stiff breeze as she stared at me. “And if you came here for advice, all I can tell you is that you’re doing a pretty damned good job so far, Rylee, but I guess it’s not over, is it, because when is it ever?” Her voice was hoarse and light, almost tentative as she squeezed my shoulder and walked past me, saying, “Be the hero you know you are, there’s your simple answer.”

I breathed through my mouth for several seconds, listening to her sneakers pat against the concrete. Then I turned around and said, “Hey, Em?” She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “I’ll come back, you know I will.”

Emelia simply smiled. “Good luck, Blondie,” she said, turning around again. “You’ve got your people to save and I’ve got mine, but if you ever need saving, then we’re always open to anyone. I’ll keep the light on and a bowl hot just for you, because I know I can’t stop you from leaving again, and I know if I try to interfere or find out where you’re going or why I’ll just be slowing you down, so I’ll text you and I’ll call you, and it’s up to you if you want to call me back or talk to me.” She stopped before entering through the soup kitchen’s side door, standing underneath a pale white security light, hand on the metal handle. “A few months ago you said that it was getting hard to tell which life you were living, about who was who, but you’ve been living the same life this whole time. All you’ve been doing is putting on different faces. It’s just that one of them is afraid, and the other one is you.”

She left me standing in the cold, panting a little as the rain slowly began falling onto the street. Be the hero I know I can be. But…that’s what I’m trying to do, isn’t it? Being good, being different. A new Olympia.

I was trying to save my best friend, starting as soon as Emelia closed the door behind her. But not entirely, because the door was ajar, and the scent of hot soup slipped through the gap. She’d left it open on purpose. Your choice now, Ry. I took a step forward, and grabbed my backpack off the ground, slinging it over my shoulder.

I sighed and shut my mouth with a click, my teeth smacking together. “Alright,” I muttered to myself, turning around and facing the empty roads ahead of me. The dark buildings and the shadows that lingered under every single light I saw in front of me. “Time to put on a serious face, superhero. Bianca needs a hero right now.”

Or Rylee, but…

Well, she could have—should have—been there when it mattered.

It was Olympia’s turn to step in.