“She irritates me,” he ground out.
Thanks for the clarifying revelation, jackass,I thought.
“Do me a favor.” I shoved my hands in my pockets; desperate to fidget, to run, to do anything but say the words that were bubbling up inside.
Control and restriction was what the VIA did. Making assumptions about Variants, deciding they weredangerous,had always done more harm than good. A coil of shame buried inside me, and still, I couldn’t stop myself.
Leo glanced up, and I could have sworn his eyes glistened. “Anything.”
I cleared my throat, and the words felt wrong. “Stay away from Alex. Until you can control your ability, or until you can control your temper. I know… I know you’re not a bad guy. But right now, the most dangerous thing she could face in the field is you.”
Something flashed across his face before it melted back into steel again. “No problem.”
ONE
ALEX
“Alright, Alex, let’s begin,”Minnie mused as she flipped open her leather-bound notebook. “How have you been feeling?”
I couldn’t tell her that I’d downed three bottles of wine this week—it was only Wednesday. I couldn’t tell her how often I spent daydreaming, or that I had five missed calls from the hospital to request more contract work. I couldn’t tell her that the guilt of slacking off was eating me alive, or that I’d fix it all next week.
Instead, I avoided her all-seeing eyes and focused on the pattern of her white cardigan. I pondered whether it was cashmere or cotton. White was definitely Minnie’s color—it made her flawless complexion pop, warm and golden. Her dark curls were pulled back today, and I could see the small scar on the side of her neck, the same one as mine, that marked us as Variants.
In elementary school, they claimed that nine percent of the world’s population had the Variant gene. In middle school, I’d learned that the gene only started manifesting as strange abilities about a century ago. By high school, studies showed thatnearly thirty percent of the world’s population were Variants, and ninety-eight percent of them had developed abilities.
Every day, more Variants popped up, and it had become normal to see us on the streets. Some with hidden abilities, like Minnie and me, and others with physical ones, that contorted their features and made them appear less than human. There was a stigma, of course. But we were people—therapists, teachers, business owners, Heroes.
And some of us became Villains.
It was a joke at first; a strange attempt by governments to normalize the anomalies that popped up on every continent. It was easier for the public to digest things they’d read about in comic books and watched on TV shows. But the names stuck, and the world learned that Variants needed to be watched, to be tracked, to bechipped.Now, babies were tested for the gene right after birth, and were given their chip the moment it was found.
My own neck began to itch, and I scratched at the soft skin beneath my ear, feeling the miniature computer that had sat there for twenty-eight-years. It didn’t bother me until three years ago. Now it was something nagging, something I desperately wanted to claw out of my skin and?—
“—Alex?”
“Great,” I squeaked as I jolted, my spine going rigid as I attempted to focus. “I’m doing great. I’ve been doing more work at the hospital. It’s been mostly geriatric lately, which is…comforting.”
A lump formed in my throat; there was nothing comforting about death, even when it was beyond someone's time. But I was the one that made it easier on them; I was the one they relied on to pass peacefully. It was better than children, at least. Those were the ones that followed me home at night, the ones that made everything else worse.
Minnie smiled, that I’m-not-as-stupid-as-you-think-I-am smile. “I’m glad you’redoinggreat. But I asked how you werefeeling.”
My knee bounced, and I chewed the inside of my cheek; there was no lying to Minnie. She was one of the best therapists in the city who specialized in Variants, and her ability allowed her to detect deception. I thought that was cheating, but after almost three years of appointments, she didn’t need an ability to figure me out.
“I’m feeling…” I trailed off as my heart started to race, and my stomach churned. “Heavy, I guess. I’ve been feeling heavy.”
She leaned back and nodded silently. I knew she’d wait for me to dig it out of myself, to spill everything that was building inside. Minnie was easy to talk to; she was familiar, but June made me want to choke. It made the air thinner, and the ground more fragile. Usually, we had monthly appointments. Every June, we switched to weekly.
I’d been doing good, only a week ago, and even considered cancelling this session. But that was last week, and last week was still April.
Minnie found her mercy because she prompted the response from me. “Have you been thinking about Joon?”
NotJune,butJoon, with a ‘ch’ sound that people always managed to miss.
I’d been thinking about both. Constantly, obsessively, and the thoughts festered. Wine helped, at least. I could be stone-cold sober eleven months out of the year; but June was for drinking. It was for numbing and waiting it out, hunkering down for the storm to pass.
I rolled my neck and forced myself to exhale. “Yeah, a lot. It, um…I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention, but I started to think about him more and… well, then I realized what month it was,soit makes sense.”
She nodded again. “Anniversaries are always the hardest. Sometimes our bodies remember before our brains do. How has the daydreaming been?”
