﻿DO YOU THINK SHE'S MAD AT ME?" HAL ASKS AS I OPEN MY LOCKER.
When your best friend has a jawline that looks as though it was perfectly chiseled out of marble, and he can breathe fire, it's hard to imagine that he has problems like the rest of us.
"I think you'd have to ask Clara that," I say, pulling the books out that I need for the weekend and stuffing them into my backpack.
Hal's problems are legitimate. I'll give him that. I want to help him because he helps everyone else around Gateway City on what is now a daily basis. Only there's something about my being one hundred percent there for him that, with all of his burgeoning superpowers, which include telescopic vision, I'm surprised he hasn't been able to see it yet.
"Have you talked to your girlfriend recently?" I ask him even though I know he hasn't because I always have to cover for him.
When there's an emergency that he feels he can take on like a bank robbery or a flood, I am his constant alibi. When Clara can't find Hal, she comes looking for me to ask if I know where he is. In order for Hal to save the day, I have to lie to her. I think all I ever do is lie to Clara. It's something Hal and I, unfortunately, have in common.
I started writing down excuses I've used to cover for Hal in a notebook so I can keep track of all the white lies and not repeat myself. It took me two months to finally come up with an excuse that I figured people wouldn't want to ask questions about after seeing a pharmaceutical ad on the side of a bus. When Hal saved a family from a car wreck three weeks ago, I told our homeroom teacher, Mrs. Siegel, that Hal had IBS. Of course, Hal wasn't thrilled with this excuse, especially when Mrs. Siegel pulled him aside after class and suggested a medication she was taking for her own IBS.
"No, Clara's been giving me the cold shoulder," Hal let out with a sigh.
He grips the strap of the backpack that has his costume in it. I don't think it's the safest way to carry his secret identity around, but Hal's parents don't have the means to build him a secret lair. They know he's special, but they definitely aren't aware that he's the vigilante known as Heatwave.
We both wished we could have come up with a better name before the press bestowed it upon him, but at the time Hal was figuring this whole superhero stuff out on the fly. (No pun intended. Hal doesn't have the ability to fly.) We didn't know whom to contact in terms of public relations for the caped crusader set, so the name stuck.
"I can understand why," I say as I close my locker.
He stares at me in utter confusion, the same way he did when we first met in pre-K and I asked him if he wanted to play. None of the other kids had. Maybe they were intimidated by his height, but I thought his being almost as tall as a third grader wasn't that big of a deal. We both loved playing with Matchbox cars and the rest was history. "She's been waiting for you to ask her to the dance."
"What dance?" Hal asks, towering over me while we walk down the hall together. I point at the posters on the wall for the stupid Flying of the Ships Dance. It's the thirty-fifth anniversary of when the first supers from outer space arrived on Earth after a small group of nonsupers from the Legion of Peace figured out a way to contact them to help prevent nuclear war.
"Shoot, I forgot," Hal says, running his fingers through his wavy black hair. When he is in his real form, his actual hair color is light purple and his skin is turquoise, but his biological parents from the planet Zyxbrog knew he'd have an easier time with life on Earth in North America if he had black hair, white skin, and male presentation, which was the set of features they set for him before he was sent to Gateway City.
"She's not angry, but she's getting there," I say as we exit school and walk down the sidewalk.
It's a nice day. There's no villain holding the city ransom, no meteor crashes, no landslides or tsunamis. It looks like we'll be able to get some rest. Or he'll be able to rest and I can finally study. My grades have dipped a little since starting to help out Hal's alter ego, but he can read with literal lightning speed as his species uses thirty percent of their brains, or so his biological parents told his adopted parents in a holographic message.
"What should I do? I feel like I keep messing up," Hal says, about to kick a rock, then stopping his foot midway, remembering he'd crush it and someone might notice. He's not as strong as Galaxy Woman, but he's stronger than The Pummeler, or at least, that's what I've gauged from my rudimentary research.
"You buy her some flowers," I say. "Preferably lilies," I say. I know they are Clara's favorite because she said so on our fifth-grade field trip to the botanical gardens. Of course, that was when it was a place you could visit and not central headquarters for Nightshade, a villain obsessed with saving plants from human beings. "Then you go over to her house around six thirty," I continue. That's when Clara will be showered and dressed after field hockey practice. "Then do your whole bashful, 'aw shucks you're so pretty' bit and ask her to the dance."
"Lilies. Right. Thanks, Alia," he says, clutching his backpack strap even tighter. "I can't believe she's… well, that she's finally mine, you know?"
"Remember, women aren't what?"
"Possessions, yeah, I didn't mean—"
"—I know. You're excited she's your girlfriend," I say with a small smile.
Hal had been enamored with Clara since we were all in third grade together. He thought she was sweet and beautiful and he was always incredibly shy around her. For as long as I've known her, she's been the most beloved and popular girl in school. Back in elementary school, I mostly saw her as the kid who read quietly and never wanted to play with the rest of us at recess.
"I think I might be taking on more than I can handle," Hal says, lowering his voice in case any passersby might be listening. "I want to keep helping people. But I can't lose her. She's… well she's everything I want."
"You don't have to do, you know, um, your after-school activity," I say. "It's okay to scale back. I mean junior year is hard enough without, um…"
"Chess club," Hal says with a smile. The son of a gun even has dimples.
"Right. Chess club," I say. "I think what you can do is awesome and chess club is so lucky to have you, but you can't help everyone all the time. Otherwise you might burn out, or sacrifice parts of your life and then—"
"Checkmate," he says. The smile is still on his face, but his pupils start to dilate as he stares past me. That's how I know he's using his telescopic vision.
"Trouble?" I ask.
"The news report on the TV in the old woman's apartment on Shuster Ave," Hal says. Shuster Ave is seven miles from where we stand. "Dr. Radium's goons are in a scuffle with Galaxy Girl at the museum of antiquities."
We quickly duck into an alley and he zips open his backpack while I keep watch.
"What were you saying about taking on more than you can handle?" I ask over my shoulder as I scan for any nosy neighbors, my back turned to him as he changes into his green spandex suit and purple eye mask. We bought it from a Halloween store with cash and made some alterations, but it's not the kind of costume that's made to withstand lasers or bullets.
"I can't let her take on seven guys by herself," Hal says as he taps my shoulder to let me know he's dressed.
I turn around and shake my head. "You look—"
"Ridiculous? Goofy?"
"Stupidly brave," I say. I try not to show him how worried I get because it's not helpful. Every time he goes out there, I get lightheaded, nauseous, and I can't focus on anything, like, for example, all the homework I haven't turned in.
"I'm only going to assist until the big timers get there," he says, trying to reassure me, his skin now his true hue.
When we were younger, I was the one who was assuring him. We were eleven when he decided to show me his real form. He was so nervous I wouldn't want to be friends with him anymore. His powers were new, and he was scared, but he didn't feel like he could tell anybody—not even his Earth parents. I told him that no matter what, there was nobody I'd rather look for frogs and turtles with near the lake, nobody I'd rather talk to about crappy horror movies with, and nobody else whom I trusted to have my back.
That was the same year Joey Hooper maybe had a crush on me and would call me names. Hal made sure Joey cut that out right away by challenging Joey to an arm-wrestling match. Hal didn't snap Joey's arm in two, but I swore I could hear the bone about to crack. It was the only time I was ever a little afraid of what Hal can do. I told him so the following day. He cried, then I cried, and we promised each other that we'd never do anything to hurt one another.
"Let me know when you get home," I say.
Hal winks at me, then closes his eyes, furrows his brow, and teleports out of the alley to where he needs to be.
"Be careful," I whisper to the kicked-up dust he's left behind. I take a deep breath before I take out my phone and look up which flower shops are open and have reasonably priced lilies.
"Hey, Alia!" Hal shouts at me down the hallway outside of the school library. His arm is draped over Clara's shoulder. I guess the flowers worked.
"Hi, you two," I say as they walk toward me, giving Clara a brief nod.
She does the same, but holds on to Hal's dangling fingers on her shoulder, probably so she can make sure he can't run off anywhere.
"What are you up to?" Hal asks, beaming at me with the purest smile. I don't blame him. He's with the love of his life. We should all be so lucky.
"I was going to try and do this thing called studying," I say, my gaze fixed on Hal and the unabashed happiness on his face.
"Clara and I were going to hang out at the pier if you wanted to join?" Hal asks.
I notice Clara squirm a little out of the corner of my eye.
"I think you two should enjoy a romantic sunset on your own," I say.
Hal's smile crumbles a little.
"It has been a while since we've been alone," Clara reminds him.
"Oh," Hal says, looking down at her with adoration and concern. It makes me queasy.
"The three of us can hang out some other time," I tell him with a gentle smile, but I don't actually want to be their third wheel.