I Feel Your Pain

CHAPTER ONE

Nova

FORTY-THREE DAYS LEFT

As always, I was in a rush – a surprise to no one but my bruised ego. Had I been on time, I never would’ve taken the shortcut, and I never would’ve gotten into that accident. But then, I never would’ve met him.

I promised myself two minutes to tweak my mural sketch.

Red-violet rays fell over my drawing of Alta Bay, the solar flare that rocked the world over a century ago consuming my community on the south end.

My lips curved, inspiration sparking as I captured the detail.

I ignored the itch of my expired contacts and basked in satisfaction.

The rendering was perfect. Then, the blare of my snoozed alarm rang and my smile faltered.

Two minutes had turned into thirty. Per usual, I was late.

‘Seriously, Nova. You had one job,’ I mumbled.

Well, I had two: almost full-time waitress for Caféology and sleep-deprived freshman at South Alta Community College.

Art, while a beautiful way to decompress, didn’t pay the bills.

I abandoned the rendering and managed to knock over my UV-protectant eye drops in the process.

The crystalline liquid seeped into the carpet.

I would’ve stopped to groan in frustration, but I didn’t have time for that.

Cornflower blue peeked from beneath the stack of clean clothes smushed to one side of my bed. I pulled my waitress dress from the bottom of the pile, shaking out the wrinkles before stuffing it into my backpack. An attempt was made.

The front door creaked as I hurried into the hall, my older brother home and looking beat after his shift on the solar-powered skyrise construction project uptown. He wiped sweat from his brow, the droplets adding a sheen to his warm-brown complexion.

Leo lifted one foot to step inside, saw my eyes narrow, and thought better of it.

Those mud-caked boots on his feet – he knew where to leave them.

He winked as he slipped them off outside, along with his sweat-soaked socks.

I swore I heard them splat when they hit the porch.

My corner of the house might’ve been a whirlwind of art supplies, lab notes and clothes I never folded, but I kept the rest of our home spotless.

Every Saturday morning, I spent no less than an hour dusting the hallway picture frames and fluffing the pillows on our decades-old couch set.

‘Please don’t have your feet stinking up the house. And hose down your shoes.’

I hopped on one leg, trying to force on my kicks, refusing to untie the laces. Another thing I didn’t have time for.

Leo ignored my last comment and grabbed the can of air freshener I kept by the front door for him. He sprayed his feet with exaggerated effort.

I coughed, the taste of lavender assaulting my throat.

‘Better for you, mini-me?’ he asked sweetly.

This time I did groan and ducked under his attempt at a hug.

(Let him cover me in construction-site grime?

No, sir.) We were two years apart with the same round nose, same mahogany eyes brightened by overworn flare contacts, and same dark auburn hair.

But where he styled his with a high fade, I rocked waist-length box braids.

‘Just make sure you shower before touching the couch.’ My hand finally curled around the doorknob.

‘Where are you rushing off to?’ Daddy poked his head out from the kitchen, his light-brown face freckled with black beauty marks. ‘Get in here for dinner. I cooked something good.’

I started to protest but he set me straight with a generations-perfected scowl. I swore all parents inherited that stare the second their child was born.

‘You can spare five minutes,’ he said.

I checked my refurbished solisWatch. The Centaurus AI was well past its capability to receive any updates, but the time feature ticked away. ‘Five minutes.’

‘Busy sketching again?’ Leo smirked. ‘You should’ve snagged yourself an art residency instead of those chemistry courses. This could’ve been easily avoided.’

‘Um, and pay bills with what money after I graduate?’ I stepped into the kitchen after him.

My little sister was already sitting at the table, her feet kicking, not reaching the ground.

Skye was Daddy’s mini-me, with her black freckles and loose curls.

Too young for flare contacts, her flare shades sat nestled in her hair, the clear UV-protectant glasses the only thing capable of shielding her eyes from the sun streaming through our kitchen window.

She crouched over her back-to-school project, pencil moving furiously. I slid her lenses down over her eyes.

She scrunched her little chipmunk nose at me.

Art was never an option, not with Skye in my life.

Because of her, I wanted to be a pediatric hematologist and specialize in blood disorders.

At ten years old, she’d already been in and out of the hospital too many times because of her sickle cell anemia.

Her doctor called her episodes ‘pain crises’, but Skye had always called them ‘ouchie spells’.

If there was an opportunity for me to be a part of finding a cure for her, I’d take it.

My mouth watered at the smell of dinner: smoked meat, onions and garlic.

One pot of food waited on the stove – a large helping of collard greens with a few turkey wings from Charlie and Rox’s Butchery and Seafood – the best side-dish-turned-main.

The seasoned meat was enough to make us forget there was no steak or chicken on our plates.

But greens night meant groceries were low – Daddy stretching what was left until Thursday night’s fresh market.

Today was Monday. And the grocery prices outside our neighborhood weren’t an option.

I risked a peek under the thin towel covering the cast-iron skillet on the counter. The aroma of sweet cornbread hit me.

Daddy popped me on the wrist. ‘Wash up first.’

‘Ow!’ I rubbed the ‘love tap’, as he called it. ‘I should just go. I need three solid paint sessions a week if I’m going to finish the mural before the anniversary.’ I’d managed to convince my advisor to credit the installation toward a humanities elective. It was the only way I’d have time for it.

‘Well, that explains the attire,’ Daddy muttered. Leo snorted.

I was wearing a ribbed tank and cargos, both splattered in paint, with bubblegum pink at my kneecap. I made a face at Leo, then turned back to Daddy. ‘One bite of dinner, then I have to go.’

He huffed, wringing his hands, and I slapped on my widest grin. I slathered a slice of cornbread with honey butter and placed it in front of him – my peace offering. I moved to prepare my own, but Daddy pointed to the pot. ‘Vegetables first. One bite, then you can go.’

Giving in, I swirled the greens on to a fork and stabbed a chunk of smoked turkey. The braised flavors tingled over my tongue with a dash of vinegar. I knew what Daddy was doing. It was impossible to take just one bite. Somehow, I resisted.

‘Well, dinner was delicious.’ I stood, planting a kiss on Skye’s cheek. ‘Make sure to leave out your project so I can check it when I get in. And as long as you’re near that window, keep your flare shades on.’

She fixed her shades, scrunching her nose again.

Rushing out the door and into the mid-August heat, I spritzed on my Black Violet Sunscreen SPF 125 Matte, covering every inch of my exposed melanin.

I hopped on my bike – a vintage seven-speed – and pedaled off, old-school.

Cracked stucco houses faded into brick-faced mom-and-pop shops with retro neon signs.

We didn’t have the fancy tech and solar power of the richer neighborhoods uptown, but we made do.

I hung a left at my favorite corner store and smiled as the library came into view, a few kids playing four-square under the parking lot awning.

Around back, the mural spanned the wall facing the community park.

Painted electric-blue sunrays peeked from under the large covering hiding it.

With the sun still out, the park was empty, which was perfect for me.

I wanted the reveal at the end of next month to be as big a surprise as possible.

After parking my bike, I slid on my mask and gloves, then dug under a few tarps for my paints and stencils.

I sprayed a quick red tint to test the solar-flare inspiration from my sketch session.

I’d need more oranges and reds, and I’d already run through the small stipend from the city council.

I tried not to think about how there was no money for said paint.

That was a future Nova problem. Until then, I needed to focus on finishing.

I had until September twenty-eighth – six more weeks.

I folded back a small section of the mural’s covering.

With the hiss of the paint can, tension left my body.

Between work, classes and everything at home, relaxation was rare.

This was my much-needed therapy. I tweaked the red rays memorializing my city and touched up the electric-blue streaks framing the work.

It’d been one hundred and fifty years since the solar flare rocked the world.

Alta Bay – a quiet city tucked along the Northern California coast just south of Santa Cruz – had been the epicenter.

It’d changed everything, bringing with it helical disease – a painful blue parasitic current rippling through the nervous system of so many people.

Still, we’d found a way to live, and that was what we celebrated each year. Perseverance.

Black, brown and tan faces grinned along the back wall of the library, some with the flare’s signature blue light crackling over their skin. I lost myself in the details, perfecting the scar in Leo’s brow.

I almost didn’t hear Estelle walk up. My best friend nudged her shoulder to mine, the bright pink tips of her platinum-blonde bob tickling my ear. ‘Don’t forget his dimple. That’s the best part.’ She pointed to his cheek.

‘Gross.’

She laughed and a flash of blue streaked over her neck – a hellflare.

She was pale like a porcelain doll, which made the helical disease she carried for someone else appear that much brighter.

Like all Pain Carriers, she’d been selected for her higher pain tolerance, her anonymous Pain Giver now pain-free.

Lightning streaks of blue coursed through her skin like a fashion accessory.

But that wasn’t what caught my attention.

She was wearing a fresh snapback over her bob and a long-sleeve knit I hadn’t seen before.

‘New clothes? Tell me that’s not from that fancy crochet brand over on Sunrise?’

‘Pain Carrier discounts are the best.’ She waggled her brows. ‘It cost me the same as a plain hoodie from S-Mart. You know their motto – shop smart. I just shopped smart elsewhere.’

I held in a snort. ‘I see you.’ She made it look so easy to carry the disease.

Scientists could identify those with a higher tolerance for pain.

One report even linked that capacity to melanin, claiming Black and Brown people were often the strongest, though there were a few outliers who were white like Estelle.

Many of those Pain Carriers – Black, Brown, and white – were in my neighborhood of South Alta.

It was why I celebrated them in my mural.

Here, down the bay, we held up the city, using the Freedom System to connect Pain Givers with people whose tolerances were high enough to carry the parasitic disease.

We allowed society to keep running. And as Estelle liked to remind me, being a Pain Carrier came with discounts on luxurious brands and a monthly stipend.

She’d used her first year of savings on oculsight, an eye surgery usually only the rich could afford.

A thin gold ring circled her irises, providing permanent protection from the heightened UV rays breaking through the patchy ozone the solar flare had torn apart.

Everyone else wore itchy disposable contacts, like me, or flare shades like Skye’s.

‘I saw you ride by and thought I’d sneak a peek. I see that hot-pink splatter on your knee.’ She flipped her hair. She’d been trying to spot her own face on the wall for weeks.

I zipped my mouth closed.

‘Uh-huh. Well, I assume you know you’re late for your shift, right.’ She grinned knowingly, waving as she walked back toward her street.

‘I’m not late.’ This was of course a lie. Beyond Estelle, the sun sat lower in the sky than I’d realized. I checked my solisWatch and tossed the paints back in the crate.

Stars above.

I had fourteen minutes to get across town – and it was a fifteen-minute ride.

I gave myself three seconds to take a breath.

If I took the back road, I’d make it. Hardly anyone traveled that way uptown – the glare of the sun made it difficult to see.

I patted my pocket for my eyedrops to refresh my contacts, then remembered their demise an hour earlier.

Dang. I pictured the fluorescent liquid soaking into the carpet. That’s going to stain.

The ride wasn’t too bad at first. The road curved uphill around a steep cliffside.

I pedaled harder and tried not to worry about being late.

Instead, I ran through everything I needed to do this week.

Why I thought replacing anxious thoughts with more anxious thoughts would help was beyond me.

Groceries, new paints, Skye’s back-to-school project, hosing off Leo’s shoes, chem lecture, labs.

And Daddy’s arthritis medicine. I’d seen him rubbing his hands at the table.

I knew when he was stretching his pills.

I followed the bend of the road, sticking as close to the guardrail as possible, eyeing the steep drop on the left.

The ocean sparkled below, a dark blue with peaks of cerulean, a few colorful barges and floating solar farms sliding across the horizon.

The air tasted salty and crisp. Instead of waves crashing, I heard a campervan puttering past, blaring country pop, veering closer than I would’ve liked in the lane next to me.

Eight minutes until my shift started.

I leaned into the next sharp bend and the sun beamed, a more brilliant red than usual, its rays flooding over me like a spotlight.

I squinted, trying to block it with my hand.

Brakes screeched up ahead, followed by the smell of burnt rubber tires.

Then, something shrieked and shuddered, metal groaning.

My dry eyes struggled to adjust to the sunlight.

I could barely make out the campervan crashed into the guardrail, spun around so it was facing me.

It took up all the shoulder and half the lane, blocking my path.

By the time I pieced it all together, my front tire was less than a foot from the van’s front bumper.

Stars freakin’ above.

A sickening crack reverberated through my ears – me hitting the windshield. Pain lanced up my side, and darkness replaced the vermillion glow of the sun.