Chapter 17
Ellis
She called me, but I didn’t pick up. To be fair, I’ve been suffering through what feels like a week-long hangover, and I haven’t charged my phone since getting seized.
To be less fair, I’ve kind of been avoiding her.
I was in bed for the first couple days, sitting around with only Vin for company while Maestro ran some tests to see what he could do for me. I mostly watched TV and slept through it.
Things aren’t totally back to normal yet. Maestro’s equipment from under the Steel Spire was impounded after the investigation into the explosion. It’s fine; me and Vin will figure out a way to get them back eventually. At least no one’s using them for anything.
It was all over the news, the mess with Steel Heel.
Apparently the idiot had his microphone turned on while he was explaining his plans, and the one news camera at the event caught the reactions of the ballroom full of guests and city council members who were supposed to be honoring him that night.
Now his businesses are being investigated, many of his investors are pulling out after his whole facade of mutant fights and heroism was exposed. The man of the hour, however, had vanished like a thief in the night, leaving only a battered robot gauntlet behind.
They didn’t get him, in the end. He’s still out there, his crimes unanswered for.
But people know what he is now. That’s worth something. All the money and power he has, he’ll never be able to get what he wanted—an adoring public. And if there’s one more monster lurking in the swamps of New Jersey, well, he wouldn’t be the worst.
Maestro wasn’t thrilled with the outcome, but he did seem a bit more energized as he wobbled around the hideout.
A few days into the aftermath, Vin asked me if Lacey knew anything about where Steel disappeared to.
When I struggled to tell him I hadn’t actually talked to her since that fateful night, he gave me a long, scrutinizing look that confirmed my suspicions: I’m being the world’s biggest weenie about this.
This girl has gotten me into so much trouble, man. Part of me wants to blame her. And I feel like the world’s biggest idiot because I know if she smiles at me one more time, I’m just gonna get all melty and forget about how much this part of it sucked.
Maybe that should have been an obvious one: Don’t date a girl with a superhero ex-boyfriend she’s got weird attachment issues with.
Whatever. Lesson learned, I guess. Sometimes love isn’t enough. People can love you, but if they don’t put the effort into treating you well, then they’re not good for you.
When I finally decided to plug my charger in, I watch the screen slowly load a hundred junk notifications, and eventually, her voicemail. Anxiety curls in my stomach when I play it and hear her voice again.
“Hey, um, Ellis. Uh, I know the dust’s still settling and all .
. . let’s talk when you’re feeling better, ok?
I miss you. And . . . yeah. That’s all. You don’t have to call me back right away, but you know, I want to hear how you’re doing as soon as you, I mean, ugh, forget I said that.
Ok, Bye. Alright, and I’m hanging up now—”
There’s the muffled sound of plastic scraping against the receiver end before her message cuts off. I check the time on it, and it looks like she called me literally an hour after I went home with Maestro.
Not a hint of restraint, I think with a kind of fondness that makes my heart ache. I miss her too.
I mute the notifications from her number after a text from her startles the skin off me. Hey, can we talk?
Just a little further above it remains the messages we ended on, the tail end of our fights, screeds of anger and hurt.
I would trade anything to be able to strike the last words we said to each other from the record.
But we can’t. I want to be with her, but not if this is who we’re going to be to each other.
I know icing her out and making her wait is mean-spirited at best. I can’t justify it to myself, but I can’t find the wherewithal to talk to her, either.
I hate that my every third thought is something I want to say to her, to make her laugh or roll her eyes.
A couple days ago, when I couldn’t stop thinking about her, it was a thrilling, exhilarated sensation, and now it just feels like circling a drain.
One of the times I get up to walk to the kitchen, the TV is on again, tuned to Channel 6. I know it’s Vin’s passive-aggressive way of telling me I should respond to her.
Usually I just turn it off, but in some effort to prove to myself that I’m totally apathetic about this whole situation, I walk past it, straight to the fridge.
“. . . This little bistro just celebrated its grand re-opening after the damages caused by a truck being thrown through the window. We’ve seen an amazing community effort to crowdfund the replacement window,” Lacey chirps into her chunky CHANNEL6NEWS microphone, and the screen cuts to B-roll of the window being installed and the owners cutting a ribbon.
Grumbling, I’m determined not to be persuaded to answer her texts by the way the wind plays with her hair, the shape of her mouth as she speaks. I’ve been in a bad mood all week and goddammit, I’m gonna stay here.
I’m not, like, miffed at all that she looks radiant as always. She has to be all chipper and beaming for TV, I reason with myself as I take a sip directly from the orange juice carton and put it back.
I spend a few minutes just staring into the fridge, letting all the cold out while I try to figure out some combination of leftovers that won’t be horrific.
There’s some yogurt all the way in the back I have to duck my head in to read the expiration date on.
I’m pretty sure it doesn’t actually go bad, it just makes . . . more yogurt? God, I don’t know.
“Be sure to support your local businesses! I know I’ll be meeting up with hopefully my boyfriend, for dinner here later—”
I stand up too quickly and immediately hit my head on the fridge shelf. A number of things rattle, some topple over. Fuck, that hurt.
Reeling from the impact, I stumble back, staring at the TV in the other room in disbelief. There’s no way I heard that right. She couldn’t be talking about Clayton after all that bullshit.
Lacey, of course, doesn’t elaborate or repeat herself, she just signs off with her usual beaming smile. “Back to you in the studio, Barbara.”
The studio’s musical sting plays in the dead quiet of the hideout as she fades off the screen and an older woman begins reading the traffic report. The fridge door swings closed as I let go of it.
The fuck.
My tail lashes behind me as I try to think, bumping the counter.
She wouldn’t go back to him. I don’t believe it. I won’t. I had to have misheard her, somehow, maybe the orange juice was expired, and I briefly hallucinated it.
But I can’t shake the doubt in the back of my mind. It echoes in time with the racing of my heart. I don’t want to even think anymore. Thinking hasn’t led me where I hoped it would, it’s just tangled things up again.
So I just go. I know that corner, I’m just going to go see for myself.
It’s the second time I’ve left the hideout since all that bullshit went down.
The first time flying again was a bit rougher than I expected, but this place is a lot closer.
That’s like five minutes from here, easy flight.
It’s just late enough in the evening that the sky is darkening, and I’m not too worried about being spotted.
The salted asphalt crunches uncomfortably under my slides when I land in the alleyway behind the bistro and start tucking my wings under my sweatshirt.
I spot the Channel 6 News van first, parked a little way down the street.
The back doors are open, the camera guy carefully wrapping up his wires and equipment.
I look around and wonder if she’s not here, if I missed her, or what if in the last ten minutes I just actually forgot what she looks like? Oh, this is uncharted territories of anxiety.
It feels awful, like a shitty first-time meet up between dating app matches. But it’s not, it’s Lacey; I fucking love this girl, and I don’t know what to do now that it feels like we’re suddenly strangers again. It’s only been a week, and . . . one massive fight. I’m grinding my fucking teeth, man.
A moment later there’s the sound of high heels on wet pavement pitter-pattering after me. The cadence of her walk is carved into my mind. My pulse jumps, my heart hammering in my throat.
“Ellis!”
Mm, actually, never mind. I can’t see her. Not like this. Not after our fight. I hastily scale whatever architecture is within reach in a half-assed attempt to hide from her, but she rounds the corner and finds me.
“Ellis!” she calls out again, and I freeze mid-climb up the brickwork. The wind tears at her hair, her eyes wide and worried when they lock with mine.
Lacey.
I drop a few feet back to the ground, rake some fingers through my hair, shove my hands in my pockets trying to casually pretend like I wasn’t just escaping there. Not my most dignified moment.
Silence hangs in the air between us while I panic for a moment over what to do with myself. I don’t actually have a plan. “Uh . . . hey, you.”
“Hey yourself. You’re here,” Lacey says softly, her whole face lighting up as she smiles at me.
“Yeah, uh, so are you.” I grimace at myself. I’d trade everything for a single brain cell, right now. “I, uh, breached containment.”
Lacey nods, glances over her shoulder. “So . . . do you want to sit down?”
She doesn’t really give me time to respond, leading me out of the alley. She doesn’t go far, just a few steps to the curb the bistro’s outdoor seating has encroached on.
It’s a damp, drizzly sort of weather out, but a number of rickety metal chairs and little tables litter the outside, with a few customers who are clearly itching to enjoy even the hint of false spring peeking out from under winter’s grasp.