I awake to the sound of my Ma’s car pulling out of the driveway. Working myself up to my feet I discovered that my wounds haven’t healed at all. I walk in the front door that my Ma always leaves unlocked for me since I leave right after her. The more I move the less my wounds hurt and I feel my body warm back up. Maybe it hurts so bad because I was cold? Once I get to my room I grab my longboard and throw my backpack on while heading downstairs.
Ma probably wouldn’t want me to ride my longboard to school but she didn’t tell me not to. Yeah, she knows I ride it to school. If she didn’t want me to she would have said something. But I won’t bring it up just in case. She’s already at work anyway. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Walking out of the back door to head to school I hear the screeching of the middle schoolers getting on the bus. After I cross through a couple of yards I come out on the road to school. I drop my board down and hop on. I am not looking forward to walking back uphill after school, but It’s the price I pay for having such a fun ride to school.
I take off flying down the road. Roads are always so much better empty. I power-slide occasionally to keep my speed in check, bugs hitting me in the face as I raced down the road. So many damn bugs. I wonder? I slow down time. I begin dodging the flies that would have otherwise hit me in the face. Careful not to keep time slowed for too long at once. Reaching out I use my momentum to catch some.
“You son of a bitch will never be able to torment me again. This may be the greatest use for my power yet.”
I power-slide in preparation for a corner coming up keeping tight to the righthand side of the road. As I make the turn I see a car heading in my opposite direction. As the car gets closer a cat starts to run into the road from my side. Shit! Time slows I hop off my board and when my feet hit the ground I’m already in a full sprint. I run close to the middle of the road reaching my left hand out to grab the cat’s tail. Fuck, I’m moving too fast.
As I’m passing the cat my arm wasn’t fully extended yet, and I miss the cat’s tail completely. The car which had already hit its breaks, probably due to me jumping off my board, flattened the front half of the cat instantly. It was like watching a gruesome slow-motion replay. Completely forgetting how fast I was moving I was slammed against the road by my momentum, sliding to a stop. The road peeled away a few layers of skin on my hand, elbow, and hip. I had stopped my head from slamming into the asphalt but that was about it. I get up, blood dripping down my fingers and my whole right side in pain, looking for my board and seeing the car drive away. Yeah, not much we can do to help the half cat, half hairy pancake.
I make my way to school slower than before.
Arriving at school I headed for Tobie’s homeroom class after patching myself up in the bathroom with paper towels. I’ve still got some time before school starts so I’ll hang with Tobie for a bit.
“What the hell took you so long? You look like shit.”
“You’re not going to believe this but I fell off my board on my way to school— “
“No, I definitely believe that.”
“Not that part jack ass, I slid like 8 feet.” I lifted up my shirt and pulled back the paper towels showing my battle scars. It looked like I had gotten into a fight with a potato peeler and lost, severely.
“You’re a dumbass.”
The bell goes off.
“Shit I must have taken longer than I thought patching myself up. Peace.”
I walk out of the classroom with my board and over to the boy's locker room in the gym, just across the hall. Today I have PE first. It should give me some good opportunities to test my power. I doubt Coach has changed any so we will probably be playing dodgeball, basketball, or running laps while he sits on his ass. I go to my locker like everyone else and start changing into my gym clothes which were still there. I should probably get these washed soon. Even if they haven’t been used. Five months of sitting in a boy's locker room can’t be sanitary. I take off my shirt.
“Jesus, dude are you alright?”
I look over and Peter was standing there. Why is he looking at me like that? I look down at myself.
“Oh shit.”
A large bruise covered my stomach. My left side was almost entirely covered in an older, lighter bruise. My right hand, elbow, and hip with the flesh peeled off. Fuck I forgot about my bruises. With this fluorescent light, I look like I was tortured. Quickly I put on my gym shirt. “Uhm Peter… don’t worry about the bruises. The doctor said I’ll bruise easier for a while. It’s…. because I was laying around for so long. You know, because of the coma.” I hope he buys it. What am I thinking, of course, he will, he is Peter after all.
“Oh. Yeah, Tobie said you were in a coma, what happened to you?”
“Nothing much, I just fell off the side of a mountain and hit my head. I can’t remember much about it but I’m fine now. My body is just a little weak is all.”
“Damn, I figured someone put you in it.” I heard from behind. A few lockers down stood Bobby. That’s when I realize. Everybody is looking at me, were they listening? I can’t blame them, not many people can say they’ve been in a coma. Still creepy though so I’m getting out of here. Walking out with Peter and Bobby stalking behind me I hear Coach yelling. “ALRIGHT LADIES, WE'RE GOING TO PLAY SOME DODGEBALL. ANYONE WHO DOESN’T WANT TO PARTICIPATE……. CAN RUN LAPS!”
I swear all he can do is yell. I’ve never heard him speak, without yelling, once. The class slowly starts to shuffle into two groups. I might be able to get some good practice out of this. I’ll wait until the teams are decided and go with the weaker team.
“Should you even be in this?”
“Peter I told you I was fine.”
Bobby slaps my back, “So what team are we going on?”
“The weaker one.”
Bobby grabs a jersey, “That would be the jerseys. Most of the baseball team is on the other side already.”
Peter and I grab ones too and get on our side of the gym as Coach lines the dodgeballs up, in the middle of the court. I can dodge, Bobby has the good arm and Peter is….. Peter, I guess. We line up in the back to let the team dwindle down some, to give us space and balls.
“GOO!!”
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Balls start flying as people get out left and right. God damn, half the team is already gone. These baseball guys are pretty good. We kept in the back until it was just us. Peter took the left and Bobby took the right of me. Now the fun starts.
Bobby starts firing off balls while Peter kicks the spare balls on the ground to the other side since Peter is, well Peter. The baseball players fire back and a ball comes hurtling at my face. I catch it with both hands. FUCK that hurts, and it would have been even worse if we weren’t using the foam balls. Guess I’ll just be using my left hand. Besides, it’ll be more fun if I don’t use my dominant hand. Ducking left, one passes just right of my head. Jumping back one barely misses my right foot.
I might not even need my perception for this. Looking back up from my right foot I see three balls headed my way one in front of the other two. Prove me wrong then. Times slows. Without moving I catch the first one in my left and deflect the other balls away with a single swipe. Time speeds up. They can launch these fucking things, and now they’re all starting to aim for me.
The players hesitate to throw at me. Must not have thought someone right out of a coma could do that huh?
“You go coma boy!”
Always love the great words of advice from Peter—Wait, they’re both out. When did that happen? I understand Peter but Bobby too. At least now the other team is down to five. Dropping the ball in my left hand I catch another one with it and immediately toss it up in the air over the other side. One of the four goes to catch it and I grab a ball off the ground and throw it at him while he isn’t paying attention. This is about the only way I’m going to get someone out with a throw.
Three balls head for me, now with two in front of the other. Time slows. Damn, I’ma have to use my right hand. I grab the two balls, one in each hand, and smash them together on the third one catching it between the two. Hell yeah, I look like a fucking badass now that I got them all out at once. Time to celebrate!
Time speeds up.
“How’s that for a coma boy Peter?”
“YOU’RE OUT! JERSEY’S LOSE!”
“Wait, what!?”
I look around. The three guys, whose balls I caught, were walking away leaving one standing there holding a ball. About five feet to the left of him there was a ball, still rolling away.
“HAHA, how do you even miss that bad?” I look over at Bobby confused.
“Yeah, coma boy or not. That was just terrible.”
You know what, fuck you, Peter. Everybody laughed as I made my way to the bleachers, face flushed. I could just make myself pass out? No, it would make this feel like an eternity and then make it way worse.
“That was almost badass until you totally ruined it with your shitty aim. you got really lucky with that last catch.”
“Nah, he has always been good with balls.”
“Peter I swear to god I will cut your ass!”
“Ah, I can feel the love from here,” Bobby said pointing at his balls.
“Fuck you too Bobby. How did you even get out in the first place?”
“Your ass ran out in front of me and I couldn’t see the ball until after you dodged it, by that time it was already too close for me to dodge.”
“Aw shit, I didn’t think about that.” Wasn’t paying attention to where the ball went after it passed me. I’ll have to keep my surroundings in mind.
“Don’t you want to know how I got out?”
“Not really Peter. I doubt it would surprise me.”
Well, this is definitely going to turn into one of those memories that pop up every now and again to haunt me. I shall start repressing it immediately!
“I’ma go run some laps. My legs need the exercise.”
LATER THAT CLASS
Running around the track, at full speed and covered in sweat, just thinking to myself. Repress it. Don’t think about it. It never happened. Don’t think……REPRESS!
I slowly walked to my next class. I am going to be fucking sore tomorrow. If only I could skip this class, fucking math. Going through the halls a group of freshmen are throwing a volleyball back and forth.
One of them yells, “Go long!”
A smaller kid runs towards me and jumps turning mid-air.
Is this guy a fucking idiot! Time slows and my chest heats up with anger. He’s going to slam right into me. Stepping to the side I kick his legs out from under him and grab his collar, using it to flip him even more. He lands on his head and slides into the wall, I reach out catching the ball with one hand.
The group of kids start yelling, “Dilan, are you okay?”
A second later a girl with large glasses runs up to me, “Thanks for getting my ball back, I’m not very good at baseball, I mean volleyball and the ball rolled out in the -blah, blah, blah.”
This girl talks way too fast, fuck this I have to get to class. I toss the ball to her and walk off as she stands there looking confused.
The voices still coming from behind me, “Dillan, wake up Dillan!”
“Someone, go get the nurse!”
Sitting down at my desk I was quickly reminded of the smell of this classroom, or rather the person who sits next to me in here, Nick. It’s been five months and he still smells like he hasn’t taken a shower. Honestly, the least he could do is move seats. Well, nothing’s changed, the teacher still just leaves problems up on the board to be solved. Is she just lazy? Well, I’m sure she doesn’t expect me to be able to do them, so I should be fine.
“Hey, I heard you were in a coma. Is that true?”
Looking toward the stench, “Huh, oh yeah. I’m good now though.”
At least his breath doesn’t smell, surprisingly. Or maybe it's because his body odor smells so bad you can't tell his breath stinks.
“Tom! you answer the first question. Nick, you answer the second.”
Dammit, look what you did now! I just can’t catch a break. Think, how do I get out of this?
“Mrs. Ross, don’t you think it’s a little unfair to have me answer the question since I haven’t been here? I haven’t had the opportunity to catch up yet.”
“You were only out a week. Besides, this is so if you have problems with the questions we can work through them, together.”
This bitch thought of everything. Did she plan this? I should have worked on the problem instead of zoning out. FUCK! Walking up to the board I began to shake in anticipation of the embarrassment about to come. Grabbing the red marker I stared at the problem. She is right though I can vaguely remember how to do this. I’ll just work it out in my head. Damn it’s hot in here. Alright, combine like terms, then multiply. Wait don’t I have to get the variable on the other side? Shit. I think this is it, let me just double-check. Ok, either this is right or I just did it wrong three times in a row, which is very possible. I hope I don’t look like an idiot. Wait…. I have just been standing here. They probably already think I’m fucking stupid.
I franticly right down my answer, my handwriting jagged, “Huh…. That was rather fast, maybe I made it too easy for you. Alright, Nick, you’re up” I hurried back to my seat.
Fast? What? I did it three times in my head. Did I use my perception? I didn’t notice the world slowing though. I wasn’t really paying attention to it either. In that case, I must have looked really smart. Dammit, if only I had known I would have taken longer. Now she’s going to give me harder questions!
Finally, it’s over, I practically skipped to English while trying to avoid the people asking about my coma. I can’t wait to see Miss. Betty. I hope she is wearing something good today. It will be nice to relax, she never bothers me. Sitting down in class I realize that the class is reading a new book. So I grab the one off the shelf. If she hasn’t changed anything then the first half of the class should be reading. Followed by writing about what we read. I’ll just start from the beginning and see where I get by midclass which probably won’t be far.
Flip…….flip……flip..flip. flip. flip. Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip.
I shut the book and grab my laptop under my seat to begin writing my essay. Yeah, fast or not it’s still frustrating as fuck to read with my dyslexia. But I’m sure this will come in handy—and everyone is looking at me. I look at the clock. Oh shit, it has only been two minutes. I must have been flipping pages like a fucking maniac. TWO MINUTES! I kept my ability on that long and my blood sugar is fine. Is it because I’m getting better with my ability or is it because I was just reading?
I felt eyes burning holes in the side of my head. looking over I saw Miss. Betty with a face of disappointment. Awe man, she thinks I’m fucking around. I can’t even explain I wasn’t. Fuck it, just write the essay. I’m definitely not going to ask somebody what chapter the class is on. The last thing I want to do is bring more attention to myself. I’ll just write it on the whole book, and I will be careful not to type too fast.
I actually thought the book was going to be interesting because it was about the great war, but all it was about was that most of Northern America was left scarred and unlivable and that’s when we started living in these communities and blah-blah. They didn’t say anything about people with powers.
After writing my essay I look up out of boredom and of course, everyone was looking at me. Are you FUCKING kidding me! Was that still too fast. If I type any slower I will blow my brains out.