Westbrook Academy for Metahumans: Forums

(This is my first fan fic on the Westbrook boards. I enjoy writing about my characters -- and yours!-- and I'm happy to have a new forum to do that in. As always with anything I write, comments are welcome.)



Point South is called that because it’s on the river, just before you cross into South Carolina. You’d think because it’s on the river, it would be pretty – a nice place to go on a Saturday – but it’s not. It’s an old mill town with the mills all closed and sitting empty – big, ugly buildings, bricks turned blood-red by age and weather, with windows only up at the very top so that the generations of people who worked in them couldn’t look outside and see the world. And really, that’s what Point South is like: like you can live there your whole life and not look out and see the world.

It’s the kind of town that produces men like my dad. I could tell you how I feel about him – and how he makes me feel about myself – but it would just turn into an angst-fest, and that’s not what I’m about. Let’s just say that some people should never be parents and let it go at that. I like to think that if my mom had never met him, that maybe if she had been raised just twenty miles east of Point South, in Matthews or Mint Hill or Pineville that she would have met a better man and I would have had a better dad. But then, I wouldn’t be me now, would I?

I make excuses for my dad and how he is, but I’m not going to make them for myself. I don’t know why I am what I am now. At first I tried to ignore it, and so did my mom. My dad wouldn’t let us, and he probably made things worse by always trying to goad me and make me mad. I’d get so tense that I’d squeeze my drinking glass too hard and break it in my hand. Or I’d slam the front door and it would bust out of the frame. I learned to control my temper quick because if I ever lost it enough to take a swing at him, then…

It was easier to hide it at school. J.A. Dunlap Middle School was like, my whole world. I wasn’t one of the cool kids. I wasn’t a star pupil. I was just a face in the crowd, but that’s what I wanted. I liked my teachers, and they seemed to like me, but it wasn’t like they expected that much from me, and straight B’s means you don’t have to go up onstage on awards day. I had friends and we sat all at the same table at lunch and some of them were girls which was awesome in sixth-grade, even though it had been yucky in fifth. Middle-school was awesome. I sort of cruised through without anyone finding out that I was different.

I wish high school had been like that.

The thing that sucks about being a freshman is that it’s like starting all over again at the bottom of the food chain. If I wanted to be a face in the crowd before, then now I just wanted to fade into the background. I got almost crazy about trying to not be noticed – by anybody. The only good thing about ninth grade was that, even though I did my best to be a piece of the furniture, girls started to notice me.

Me and girls. I think I could have had a girlfriend – maybe girlfriends – but every time I get close to a girl, we become friends. I’m not good at being smooth. I can’t think of any lines to say to make a girl go all weak-kneed and swoony. I get all trip-tongued and goofy when I try to tell a girl I like her. So what happens with me and girls is that they talk to me because they think I’m nice and I listen. I listen to them talk about their parents and their friends and their boyfriends and ex-boyfriends and I do it because I like girls. I just wish I was braver and could work up the nerve to ask a girl out. I think a lot of people assumed I was gay or something because I was always hanging out with girls. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay.)

Anyway, a couple of weeks after the start of my first year at Point South High, I became good friends with a girl on the cheerleading squad. Her name was Dina Tillman, and of course she dated the captain of the football team, whose name was Ricky Wayne Dalrymple. Dina and I got to know each other because we both had evening jobs at Gatt’s Fish Camp. (If you want to know what a “fish camp” is, just ask me and I’ll tell you.) I had no illusions about a popular junior girl falling for a nobody freshman boy, but there was a connection there, I’m sure of that. She might not have been in love with me, but dang, I loved her. I know I did. I was happy just to be close enough to her that we were breathing the same air.

Ricky Wayne treated her like crap. I know this because she told me. He kind of forced himself on her the first time they went out, and then made her feel guilty about it. But since she was a cheerleader and he was the senior star of the Varsity team, she kept going out with him and they wound up going steady, because in a town like Point South, that’s just the way things are done.

Dina kept trying to get me to come to games so I could see her cheer. (Sometimes when we were around back of the fish camp, taking a break, she would do a cheer for me. Gosh, she was pretty in that white waitress uniform, with her red hair bouncing as she kicked her legs and chanted my name like I was the star of the team.) I kept putting her off using my busboy job as an excuse. But then she talked to Mr. Gatt and got me a Friday night off, so I had to go.

Worse danged mistake I ever made. It would lead to a whole lot of other mistakes, more serious, yeah, but not as bad. Not for me.

I went to the game and sat up in the stands, up at the top, in the back, right in front of where Dina and her squad did their routines. I didn’t go to watch the game. I didn’t notice that it was a close one. I didn’t notice that we lost on the final play. I was there for only one reason, one person. I didn’t notice a lot of things.

Like I didn’t notice that between plays, Ricky Wayne was looking at me, up there by myself on that back bleacher, looking at Dina.

It was after the game, over at the concession stand, when things went bad. I had known better than to think that Dina and I would get together and go to the bonfire that we always had, win or lose. I stopped to get a Sun Drop to drink on the walk home. I know it sounds weird, me spending two hours looking at a girl I’d never ever get so much as a kiss from, but I was feeling pretty much what you’d call euphoric. Right then, I didn’t care if I never got any more from her than her smile.

So there I was in my post-game euphoria, all happy and completely ignorant in my bliss when something slammed into me from behind. I was sent hurling into the trash cans beside the concession stand, knocking them over and flipping head over heels with the cans flipping end over end. When I stopped falling and flipping and flailing, I sat up. I was covered in whatever hotdogs, drinks, popcorn, candy, and, yeah, vomit that those trash cans contained. Of course a crowd had gathered.

It didn’t bother me so much, everybody pointing and laughing, not even when some of those laughing were teachers. What bothered me was looking up and seeing Ricky Wayne standing there, decked out in his full uniform, pads, and helmet, looming over me like he was just begging me to get up and do something about it. When I didn’t he went into this little end zone dance, grabbed a drink out of somebody’s hand, and spiked it in my face.

I counted to ten. Then I counted to ten again.

“Stay away from her.”

He didn’t say it loud. I’m pretty sure with all the giggling and chuckling and all that was going on, nobody else heard him. But I did.

I think I glared at him. I’m not sure. I know I was embarrassed as all heck. I’m pretty sure between that and me being mad, I was probably as red as a pickled beet.

Probably, right then, the best thing for me to do would have been to stay down and just let him finish what he was trying to do, let him prove his point, let him win.

But I couldn’t.

I got my feet under me and stood up.

Now it was Ricky Wayne’s turn to get red-faced – except his was all anger.

He punched me square in the face and knocked me back a step or two. When I didn’t fall down, he started looking nervous.

“Is that the best you got?”

I wish I hadn’t said that, but I did. It made me feel like a bully. Like Ricky Wayne.

But I said it, and right after I came around with my forearm to his chest, like they do in wrestling, because if you punch someone with your fist, you’re going to really hurt them, but a forearm spreads the impact out and doesn’t really hurt anybody. Well, unless that forearm belongs to somebody like me.

It was Ricky Wayne’s t urn to go flying now, and he went flying through the brick wall of the concession stand. If he wasn’t still wearing his pads and helmet, I might have killed him. As it was, they had to call him an ambulance. He had three cracked ribs and a broken arm.

I stood there after he went crashing through that wall. Just stood there like there was nothing else I could do. And there wasn’t. I had done enough. I couldn’t take it back. Couldn’t ask for a do-over where I held my temper and Ricky Wayne walked away unhurt.

I just stood there while a couple of teachers started moving bricks off of Ricky Wayne. I was still frozen when Dina came up and saw.

“What happened?”

I opened my mouth to answer her, but nothing came out. She looked at me then and that look hurt me worse than anything Ricky Wayne could do. Then she went to him.

I didn’t start the fight, and Ricky Wayne didn’t die, so I didn’t get charged with a crime. My parents didn’t have anything worth suing for, so nothing came of the whole thing except I got expelled for two weeks for fighting.

Dina never talked to me again.

I said that nothing came of that whole thing with Ricky Wayne, but that’s not really true. A whole lot of things came of it, just not directly. Most important was the breakup of my parents and my short and not-sweet criminal career.

It’s kind of complicated. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe complicated ain’t the right word at all. Stupid is the right word. I was stupid. That’s the long and short and whole danged in-between of it. Stupid. Let me say it one more time – stupid.

There was this car club in Point South called the Rollin’ Rollers. They got their name from that old Limp Bizkit song, “Rollin’”. I guess the club was probably about as old as that song because some of the guys in it were a good bit older than me. But they had nice cars, and that’s what drew me to hang around with them – that and the fact that nobody at school wanted to be around me anymore.

I didn’t have a car – or a driver’s license even. But I wanted both someday, and the Rollers had the hottest cars in town. Normally, if you didn’t have a set of primo wheels under you, they wouldn’t give you the time of day, but since I put the high school football star in the hospital, I had a reputation as the town bad-boy. I wasn’t the bad-boy – not at all – but the Rollers thought I was, so it was enough to get me in good with them.

My mom didn’t like me running with such a fast crowd (I always laughed when she called them that), but school was unbearable and home was worse, with her and dad fighting all the time. It got where I would even spend the night in the garage that the Rollers used for a clubhouse just to avoid all the bad stuff at home.

I thought the club was awesome. Especially Johnny Stillwell. They called him Johnny Steel. Five years older than me, he was like the older brother I’d never had. He was fearless and I loved riding shotgun in his tricked out Honda. A hundred and twenty miles an hour through downtown Charlotte, going through red lights like they weren’t even there, and then outrunning the law when they chased us – it was great!

Johnny was the first person after my mom and dad (and Ricky Wayne Dalrymple, I suppose) to figure out that I was hard to hurt. How it came about… I’m still not sure if it was on purpose or by accident. I hope it was by accident.

It happened at Johnny’s house – well, his gramma’s house. Gramma Stillwell was cooking supper and Johnny was sitting at the table cleaning a Browning hand gun. (Don’t ask me what caliber or model or anything, because I don’t know that much about guns – I only know that it was a Browning because that’s what Johnny said it was.) The kitchen in that house opened up into the living room, with the two rooms divided by what Gramma Stillwell called an island, but Johnny called a bar. That’s where I was, in the living room, sitting in the floor playing Johnny’s X-box. I was really focused on the game action, concentrating really hard on not getting killed.

All of a sudden, I felt something hit my head, and at that very same time as my brain said, Someone’s throwing rocks, I heard a bang. I snapped my head around toward where Johnny and his gramma were, afraid that one of them got shot, but they were both looking at me. His gramma was white as a sheet and so was Johnny at first. After a moment, he sort of grinned at me and then looked down at the floor behind my back. I followed his gaze to see why he was doing that and there it was – the bullet that had bounced off of my skull.

I was bullet proof.

I was afraid that would make the Rollers treat me like a freak, but no. They treated me the same as ever, except now it was like I really was one of them, like I was in the inner circle of the club. After that, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the Rollin’ Rollers weren’t so much a club as they were a gang.

I hadn’t had any idea of the kinds of things they were into: crack cocaine, crystal meth, and heroin; automatic weapons and illegal ammo; girls. Serious stuff. The kind of stuff you call organized crime. You’d think I would have had the sense to get out then, to leave them and never look back, but that’s where the stupid comes in. I didn’t quit. I didn’t partake of the drugs – or the girls either – but I didn’t quit. I guess that makes me just as much a criminal as any of them.

Like I said, I didn’t partake in any of the really bad things they did, and they never tried to force it on me. Sometimes they would offer me a girl, but dang, I knew some of the girls they were using. I went to middle-school with them before they quit school and disappeared from the world I had lived in. But here I was in their world, up to my neck. One of them, a girl named Jennifer, I’d had a crush on back in sixth grade.

But there were some good times. Like when Johnny would get me to show off my powers – I kind of liked that. It was the first time anybody made me feel like it was all right if I cut loose. I’d bust stacks of cinder blocks, rip doors off of junk cars, bust inflated tires by squeezing them, and now and then Johnny would call my name and I’d get ready because a bullet was going to fly my way. Or a brick. Or a knife. It scared me every time, but I never let on.

It wasn’t much longer before the Rollers decided that it was time for them to get ambitious, to make their reputation bigger. They talked about ways to do that. Drive-by shootings was mentioned, and I found myself silently praying they wouldn’t go that way, and was thankful when they didn’t. Then they talked about cop-killing, and that was as bad – or worse – and I was praying again.

Johnny was the one who came up with the idea for a big heist. There was a jewelry store in downtown Charlotte that advertised itself as the biggest diamond broker in the southeast. The way he figured it, a few of us could go into that store, empty the vault, and be out and gone before the police had a chance to respond. The trick was going to be opening the vault really quick. You know who he had in mind for that part.

The date was set for the job. Three days, we all agreed. It would be long enough for us to get all our ducks in a row, but not so long that we would think about it too long and lose our nerve. Two cars were all we would take – Mark Rhinehardt’s PT Cruiser and Tim Albright’s Acura – so that meant our crew at the store would be eight. Another two cars would be in the downtown area, playing bumper tag with civilian vehicles, and otherwise making mischief before heading out onto the freeway. That way they would draw the police away from downtown and the jewelry store. After that six of the crew of eight would rush inside the store and I would open the vault, and three of us would empty it while the other three would control the civilians in the store. I would take point on exit just in case there was trouble, me being bullet-proof and all.

The day after the plan was set, Johnny drove me and Jennifer to Charlotte so that we could do a little reconnaissance. Jennifer was supposed to be Johnny’s girlfriend, and I was supposed to be her brother, and we were supposed to be shopping for an engagement ring. It struck me then how much older than me she looked. She looked Johnny’s age. Life had taken her youth away. She wasn’t going to be no prom queen. She wasn’t going to be nobody’s high school sweetheart. It hurt me just to look at her.

She didn’t feel the same way about me, and while we were in that store she kept giving me the eye. I could tell that she was getting pumped from being part of it. Heck, it was giving me a rush too, knowing we would be back in a couple of days to rob the place. We looked through the cases and Jennifer kept getting shoulder-to-shoulder with me, pointing at rings and bracelets and earrings, getting close to tell me which ones she liked, getting close enough so that her lips tickled my ears when she whispered.

We walked around the store, saying, “just looking,” when the staff would ask if they could help. To keep them from getting too suspicious, Johnny grabbed Jennifer away from me and took her over to the engagement rings and wedding bands and had the lady behind the counter take some out to show. While they did that, I moved to where I could see into the back section of the store, where the vault was. The door was heavy and thick, but not as heavy and thick as a bank vault. It was black steel with gold trim instead of the shiny steel that bank vaults were made out of. On the front of it were a big combination lock dial and a wheel. My guess was that the vault door was old. My guess was that I could open it, one way or the other.

Johnny looked at me and I gave him a nod, then he said, “We’ve seen enough. Let us think about it,” to which the lady behind the counter said, “We’ll be here!” Then we went out and got in Johnny’s car.

Jennifer was supposed to get in the front like she was with Johnny, but instead she got in the back with me. I told her that she was going to mess us up acting like that, but she just giggled, and as Johnny made a left that would take us back out to the freeway, she slid over put her legs across my lap. I wanted to shove her away, but I can’t just shove people, not with my strength. The way I felt, if had pushed her, she might have gone through the door and out onto the street.

I said, “Stop,” but she didn’t. She started pulling at my clothes and trying to kiss me.

Up front Johnny was laughing. He said, “Relax, li’l bro’. Sit back and enjoy it.”

“Stop,” I said louder.

She laughed and kept trying to put her lips on mine.

I felt like jumping out of the car. I yelled, “I mean it! Stop or I’m not gonna do the job!”

Johnny hit the brakes hard and Jennifer slammed into the back of the front passenger’s seat, wound up wedged between my knees. Her lip was bleeding and she was looking up at me, hurt, I think, more from my rejection than from hitting the seat.

“All right, Wyatt, drive.” Johnny threw open his door and slammed it as he got out. I climbed over Jennifer and into the driver’s seat while he got in back with her.

I had never driven before, but I got us back on the freeway and headed for Point South. Traffic was heavy, but moving fast and steady, and I was glad because that kept my focus in front of me. I didn’t want to hear what was going on behind me.

I didn’t talk to Johnny or Jennifer much after that. Johnny took it like I was focusing on the job, but that wasn’t it. What it was is that I had finally taken a good look at my situation and the people I had surrounded myself with, and I didn’t much like it. Heck, I didn’t much like me. In fact, after the thing with Jennifer, I downright hated me.

Why was it that every girl I had ever liked always wound up hating me? Why was it that I felt ashamed now every time Jennifer glanced at me then looked away? Was I responsible for what she was now? Was this going to be my life – doing things I was ashamed of and being with people I was ashamed to be with?

But what else was there? Being ashamed of being me was nothing new. My dad had worked on that my whole life. My mom and I were both well-aware that we were weights around his neck, dragging him down, that he would be able to – insert your selfish indulgence here – if it weren’t for us. He didn’t beat us down with his fists, but with his words and his attitude, and sometimes with his actions.

Like, the night before the heist, he and my mom got into it again – over me. She’d gotten to where she would try to back him down as far as I was concerned. (I always wished she wouldn’t because all it did was make me feel guilty and it didn’t make him treat me any better or hate me any less.) He went through the house grabbing up every photograph of me, and anything that belonged to me and threw it into a pile in the back yard and set it on fire. All my comic books and paperbacks; my clothes; the yearbooks from every year I was in school; the family photo albums, anything that was mine or about me or had me in it. Up in smoke. The only thing that was spared was the Yamaha guitar I’d gotten for Christmas the year before, and that was only because he knew he could sell it and get back most of what my mom had paid for it.

Of course, I didn't find out about that until later because I was staying with the Rollers. But stuff like that was why I wasn’t going to just quit and go back home. With them, at least I was somebody, even if it was somebody I didn’t like.

The day of the heist, everybody in the gang was nervous, even the ones who weren’t directly involved. There wasn’t any joking and cutting up, no lighting one up and passing it around. Nobody got drunk and wound up wrestling on the garage floor. Everybody was extra alert, serious and sober. We all spent the day looking at the clock, and when it was time, Johnny said, “Let’s roll.”

We drove around downtown, keeping the speed-limit and generally behaving like Boy Scouts while the two bait cars were going around raising heck on the streets. Nobody was talking and in the car you could have cut the tension with a knife. When the call came out on the police band radio for an all-units, we were ready. Mark and Tim had positioned us close to the store and with Charlotte-Metro cars zipping past us heading for the freeway with their blue lights on, the two cars with us, the robbery crew, pulled up in front of the jewelry store.

The six of us filed into the store quickly, trucker hats pulled low and allergy masks covering our faces, and by the time the staff there realized something was up and triggered the alarm, guns were drawn and Johnny, Mitch Haffner, and I had jumped the counter and were at the vault. I spread my arms wide and grabbed the black steel door by both edges and pulled hard. It didn’t budge but as I strained, my body flattened against it.

Johnny said, “Are you breaking into it, or making love to it?” to which Mitch laughed and said, “He’s going to lose his virginity to a store safe.” I know my face turned red.

Seconds were ticking by, each one increasing the odds that we were going to get caught. I took a deep breath and planted my feet, this time spreading them out and bending my knees before grasping the door again. The vault door groaned for me and I pulled harder. I could feel my muscles bunch and ripple in my arms and legs. I could feel the door giving, bending, stretching beneath my strength. Then suddenly, with a final loud, metallic moan, the door was off!

I had barely opened it and already Johnny and Mitch were inside the vault. Maybe twenty seconds into the job, and they were almost finished filling up their bags with diamonds and gold. Up front, the other three Rollers were looking back our way as they held their guns on the handful of store employees and customers.

I had a bag to fill also, but somehow, I could not step into that vault. I just couldn’t do it. The employees and customers looked scared out of their minds when we came in and that was my fault. They would live with that fear in their hearts the rest of their lives, and I had done that to them.

That was something I couldn't live with.

The vault door was still in my hands and I put it more or less back where I had gotten it, leaning it so that it completely blocked Johnny and Mitch from getting out of the vault. Then I was over the counter and up front. The three Rollers up there had the civilians sitting on the floor with their hands holding their ankles.

One of my cohorts looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Wyatt? What the (eff) are you doing?”

I can’t remember which one of them said it, but I remember my answer: “For once – the right thing.”

I grabbed the nearest display case and swung it like a baseball bat, over the heads of the people on the floor, taking out all three of my fellow gang members with one swipe.

Maybe five seconds later the police showed up and arrested all six of us.

“Son, do you understand how serious your situation is?”

I looked across the big desk at the judge sitting on the other side. I was out on bail while the courts decided how to treat my case. That burden fell to the man sitting opposite me, watching me, considering me, sizing me up. He wasn't looking down his nose at me like Mr. Radford, the principal at the high school did, and he wasn't talking at me, preaching about how much better I could do if I would just put forth some effort. This was my first interview with the Court. I was deep in some serious stuff and this judge was treating it as such. He was taking it seriously. He was taking me seriously.

“I know it's bad, Your Honor.” I think I probably stuttered when I said it, because – I ain't ashamed to admit – I was afraid.

“Due to the nature of the crime – and the abilities you displayed in carrying it out – the state is requesting that you be tried as an adult. What do you think about that?”

I didn't know how to answer the question, so I just said my fears out loud: “I don't want to go to prison.”

Judge Hernandez rocked his chair back and swiveled sideways so that he could put his feet up on the corner of the desk. He was an old guy with gray hair and a white goatee, but no mustache. He had brown eyes and brown skin and wore brown-rimmed glasses. My mom said he was a Mexican and she was afraid that because we were poor-white-trash-rednecks he was going to come down as hard on me as he could. But that's not the vibe I was getting from him.

He weaved his fingers together behind his head and looked up at the ceiling for a minute before cutting his eyes back to me. “Why did you turn on them, Wyatt?”

I shrugged.

“That kind of ambivalence will land you in a maximum security penitentiary. Answer my question.”

I took a deep breath and said, “I was ashamed of the things we were doing.”

“Look at me and say that.”

I raised up my eyes and said it again. “I was ashamed. It wasn't right what we were doing.”

“Then why were you doing it?”

“It was a way to make a name for ourselves...”

“No – why were you doing it? Why did you agree to participate?”

That was a hard one to answer. Do I tell him about my home life? Do I tell him I feel like a freak and a misfit at school? Do I tell him I'm afraid of the things I can do? What could I say that would explain it all?

“They were – I thought they were – my friends.”

“Loyalty.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Most people consider loyalty to be a virtue. Do you consider loyalty to be a virtue, Wyatt?”

It seemed like a trick question, but without thinking I said, “Yes, sir.”

He looked at me like he was waiting for more.

“No, sir...?”

“Confusing, isn't it?” He smiled.

“Yes, sir.”

“So, you wanted to be loyal to your friends, but you were ashamed of what you were doing with them. You must have had quite the internal conflict going.”

I nodded.

Judge Hernandez sucked in a breath then let it whistle out between his teeth. “We can't just ignore what you did, can we?”

“No, sir.”

“And I mean both the crime you took part in, and the fact that you stopped it.”

I wasn't sure what he was getting at, or what I was supposed to say. I just tried to keep my head up and not say anything stupid.

“How are your parents dealing with this?”

Well, my mom moved out and went to live with my aunt and uncle, and my dad busted my guitar across my chest and then broke his hand on my jaw.

“They're doing all right, I reckon.”

Judge Hernandez took his feet off of his desk, swiveled toward me, and asked outright: “They aren't dealing with it well, are they? They aren't dealing with you well.”

There was a huge lump in my throat and even though I couldn't remember the last time I'd done it, I started crying. Right there in front of him. You would have done the same thing.

The Judge pushed a box of Kleenex to within my reach and sat quiet until I'd gotten a hold of my emotions again, then he said, “Which of them to do you trust the most to do what's right by you?”

“My mom,” I said. It was a no-brainer.

Judge Hernandez nodded, then pressed his fingers together into a steeple. I waited while he closed his eyes and creased his brow and thought things over. I waited a long time.

“Is your mother here?” he asked.

“She's outside, in the lobby.”

“Wyatt, I want you to go out there and wait while I talk to her.”

I went out and told my mom the judge wanted to talk to her, then I took her spot on the wooden bench outside the judge's chambers. A court bailiff stood beside the door that opened out into the hallway. He was a tall man with thin, red hair and a slender build. He wore a sheriff's uniform with a pistol in a holster on his belt. I wondered if he knew about me, what I had done, and if he had, if he was afraid of me.

He caught me looking at him and his face changed into a look that I’ve wished a million times that my dad would show me. Then he said, “It'll be all right, son. You'll make it through this.”

Four things I have to do.

1. Keep a journal of my time in Paragon City.
2. Wear a court-approved “heroic” costume when I’m using my powers.
3. Keep my grades to a “B” average or above.
4. Keep my butt out of trouble.

That’s the list of things that Judge Hernandez gave me. He gave my mom a list too, but I’m not sure what was on it. And my dad. His list had only two things on it: Stay away from my mom. Stay away from me.

Things happened real quick after that first meeting with Judge Hernandez. He made some calls and pulled some strings and talked with the D.A. and before I knew what was happening, I was on three years special probation and being sent to a prestigious boarding school up north – Westbrook Academy for Metahumans.

My mom was all broke up about it at first, but I wasn’t. I didn’t have a friend left in the whole county back home. A new place would mean a new start. I would be with people like me – people with powers. And I’d get training and be able to use my powers for good. I was actually looking forward to it. By the time all the preparations were made and we were boarding the plane for Rhode Island, I was so excited I could have just about burst. Even my mom was getting excited for me – when she wasn’t crying.

And even though she sometimes cried about it – me moving so far away – my mom was doing great handling everything. She went through all the literature that the school sent and pointed out some of the really cool things Westbrook had to offer. She sent for a Rhode Island Vacation pack that included a brochure about Paragon City and showed it to me saying, “Look, Wy – flying people.”

The pictures didn’t hold a candle to the real thing though. Before we knew it, we were flying past the walls of Paragon City and landing at the airport outside them. The taxi from the airport went through a long tunnel under under the wall. When we came out of the tunnel, the world was dazzling bright and colorful and totally surreal.

It was like waking up into a dream. There were people in the sky – lots of them, flying! And more people running so fast that they were just a blur shooting past the taxi. There were bird people and cat people and big shiny robot people… And there was this huge statue of this man holding the whole world on his shoulders. That statue was so huge that it was beyond any huge I could ever imagine.

We were running early – Mom didn’t have to meet with Mr. Herrera for a while yet – so the taxi driver offered to take us on a quick tour of the city. He said it was on him, that it was his lunch hour and he would turn off the meter. Mom tried to turn him down, saying that that was too much and that he was being too kind, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. (I think it didn’t hurt that my mom is kind of pretty.)

Mom kept shouting, “Look! Over there!” and I’d be saying, “Look! Over here!” and our eyes were so full of wonder after wonder that it made me dizzy just to keep up with it all. Then my mom said, “Wyatt? You know you’re going to be one of these people, don’t you? One of these heroes.”

When she said that, in the middle of all that amazement and spectacle, I had to stop and look at her. I think before that moment, I had never really appreciated how hard it had been for her to try to make a normal life with a not-normal son. She had been trying to fit her polygonal kid into a little square town. Now, she finally had found the right-shaped place for me. She looked happy; happy for me, happy for herself. Right then, I was happy for us too.

“I love you, Mom,” I said. “I’m going to make you proud.”

She hugged me and she kissed my cheek and said, “I know you will. I know you’ll do well and go far. Just on your way there… remember that I love you, and don’t forget where you come from.”