Vin lifts him easily with a grunt and rolls his eyes. “That looked all cheek to me.”
“No, man, I’m telling you she digs me,” Ellis protests weakly as Vin turns and takes him back toward the service elevator. Maestro shuffles behind him and presses some security guard’s badge to the panel.
“I’ll call you,” I blurt out after them, the desperate words echoing gently in the ballroom, making them sound incredibly hollow.
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.
