"You ready?" her dad asked.

"Are you kidding?" she replied. "Of course I'm not ready."

"Honey, it's just going to school," he told her. "Let me remind you that you wanted this.

"Just because I did doesn't mean that I do," she protested.

"Well, you're going either way."

"I'm in a wheelchair and you're making me go to school!" she said. "You do realize that teenagers are kind of jerks, right?"

He laughed. "You'll be fine. You have other friends."

"Whatever," she scoffed. "I'll see you later, then."

"Goodbye, sweetie." He kissed her forehead before grabbing his briefcase and walking out.

Mia had been moved into her own home a few days ago. Her dad was worried about the fact that he wasn't able to be there all the time so he decided to take her home. She'd been upset but gave in.

The doorbell rang and Mia saw Tori rush over to get it. Mia hadn't talked to Blake about the kiss yet and her worry about Tori mentioning it had been increasing by the second.

Mia wheeled herself over to the door. "Hey, Blake," she greeted awkwardly. It wouldn't be that awkward if it weren't for the wheelchair, but with him looming over her like that, it was awkward.

"Hey, Mia." He smiled at her. Mia saw Tori looking between the two weirdly.

"Awkward," Tori said randomly with a surprisingly high-pitched tone.

"Can we just go?" Mia asked.

"Yeah, this is really weird. Let's just go," Tori suggested.

Blake and Tori walked over to the car with Mia wheeling behind. When they got to where it was parked, Blake helped her get in and put the wheelchair in the back. "He is so totally into you," she whispered.

"No, he's not," Mia retorted.

Just as Tori was about to make another comment, Blake got in the car, shutting her up. Blake started up the car and they were on their way.

Mia had a feeling that when they got there people would stare. She was right. As soon as Blake helped her get on the wheelchair she could feel the penetrating stares of the random strangers at Austin High.

"Oh, boy. Today is just going to be so much fun," Mia grumbled quietly.

Blake snickered. "This is why you shouldn't purposefully put yourself in life-threatening situations."

"Hey! I saved your butt!" she argued.

"Psh, no way! I would have been totally fine without you."

Mia decided to let the argument drop, hoping to avoid any mention of the kiss. Although it had already been about a week, neither of them had brought it up.

"Can we just go inside? Everyone is staring at me and I hate it," Mia asked, wishing she could crawl inside her shirt.

"Sure," Blake agreed as Mia watched Tori rush over to meet her friends. Blake had offered to wheel her over but no way was she going to accept that offer. It was bad enough that she couldn't walk, but to have someone else wheel her over? No way!

With Blake by her side, Mia wheeled her way over to the ramp to get inside. She was starting to realize how tired her arms were going to get doing that all day.

As soon as Mia set foot in the school she saw Bella running over. "OH! MY! GOSH!" she yelled. "WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED!?" She had reached them at this point and was now staring down at Mia with wide eyes and an open mouth. Needless to say, she looked shocked.

Mia laughed nervously. "It's really a funny story," she started. Luckily, they had thought of what they would say before-hand so she wasn't completely in the dark but it was still awkward.

"Go on," she urged.

"You know about that fire thingy down at the Golden Gate Bridge?" she asked.

"I do," she told them. Bella gasped.

Mia's eyes widened and she tensed up in fear of what Bella was going to say next. "You were there!" Mia let out a sigh of relief and saw Blake do the same in her peripheral vision. "Woah! Was it terrifying? How did you get there? Was the fire monster thing as big as it looked!?" she asked frantically.

"Wait for a second," Mia told her, thinking of her answers. "Okay, yes, it was terrifying, Blake was driving me home and we got caught up in it, and the fire monster was as big as it looked," she responded.

"So that's why you were gone for like a month?" she asked.

"Yep," Mia agreed. "If you haven't noticed, I got a few injuries."

"And, sorry if this is rude, but, what happened to your face?" she asked.

"I skidded across the pavement from the blow," Mia explained, obviously lying.

"I'm so sorry to hear that," Bella told them, frowning slightly. "I was literally so worried. I mean, seriously! You have no idea how terrifying it was to not know what the heck happened."

"I will make sure to be more informative next time," Mia promised, laughing slightly before grimacing at the movement.

Blake seemed to notice. "Hey, you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she promised. "We should probably get to class now. I can't be late after missing like a month."

"Do you want me to walk you?" he asked.

"I'll be fine, Blake. You don't have to worry about me so much." Mia laughed, making sure her movements were small so as not to irritate her many wounds.

Blake still looked worried and unconvinced. "Seriously! I'll be fine! I'm a big girl now," Mia joked.

"Fine, call me if you need anything," he told her, still looking unconvinced.

He shot her one more worried glance before turning around and walking in the direction of his class.

"Okay, what the heck was that?" Bella asked.

"It's nothing. We're just friends now."

"That looked like a lot more than 'just friends'!" she argued.

"Seriously, it was nothing." Mia shrugged it off, hoping Bella would do the same.

Apparently, she didn't know her friend very well. "Nuh-uh! You are not getting away with that! We are going to talk! Right here, right now!" she argued.

"I have class," she said. Mia was working hard coming up with excuses. "Gotta go. Bye," she dismissed herself.

"This is not over!" she yelled as Mia wheeled herself away as quickly as was possible, so not very fast. "You and I are going to have a little chat during lunch!" she called after her.

"Bye!" Mia ignored her friend as she made her way to her literature class as quickly as possible.

Mia's mind was literally running at like four thousand miles an hour as she thought about... well, everything.

In the past... four months? Had it really been four months? Time went by fast. Anyway, in the past four months, she'd moved from Seattle to San Francisco, found out she had superpowers, started training said superpowers, fought two evil monster things, and kissed her crush. It was a bit to take in.

Mia found herself staring at the door to her lit class wondering how the heck she'd gotten there. She must've had one heck of a memory if she was able to get there without looking.

Mia struggled to open the door for a while before finally succeeding and walking into the classroom. Instantly, everyone's eyes were on her.

Mia was late. Even with going as fast as was possible in the wheelchair, she was still too slow and now everyone was staring at her.

Mia felt her breath quicken and her eyes widen. Fudge! she mentally screamed at herself.

"Glad to see you made it, Miss Patterson," Mr. Guffrey said. He wasn't talking in an unkind way, more like he was actually just happy to see her.

Had she been more confident, she most likely would have told him that she was happy to see him as well. However, due to her anxiety and everything, she just kept her head down and made her way to her desk.

Mia struggled to push the chair aside but no one came to help. She knew that if Blake was there, he would be the first one to her aid. Since Blake wasn't there, she just did it by herself, grimacing as the screech of the wooden chair being moved against the hard floor could be heard throughout the classroom. Some people looked at her with pity, but mostly, they just glared at her or rolled their eyes.

She could feel her throat start to close up and prayed that she wouldn't start hyperventilating in the middle of class. Eventually, after many failed attempts and shaky breaths, she was able to move the chair and park her wheelchair behind the desk.

Mia took a deep breath as the lesson on The Scarlet Pimpernel went on. She loved the book but she simply couldn't focus after what had just happened

Rather than listening to the lesson that she could probably teach, Mia focused on her breathing, trying desperately to calm herself down. She would only get more stares if she kept hyperventilating.

The rest of the class passed slowly. Mia couldn't focus throughout the entire lesson. Her breathing was still, an hour later, shaky and uneven.

"Miss Patterson?" Mia heard a faint voice call her name over the pounding of her heart against her chest.

"Mia?" the voice asked again.

She looked up shakily and saw Mr. Guffrey looking at her with worry. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Mia tried for a smile. "I'm fine," she assured him. "I just really hate people staring at me and it kind of seems like that's all that they want to do now that I'm in a freaking wheelchair. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be in a wheelchair!? I mean, I was late and it wasn't even my fault!" She had started ranting and kind of expected her teacher to intervene but he didn't. "Also, why does everyone suddenly care about my life so much!? It's like, you have your own lives to ruin! Why do you have to ruin mine!?" she continued ranting. "And don't even get me started on Blake!"

"Ooh! Who's Blake?" he asked with a weird grin. He rested his elbows on the desk with his chin in his hands.

"He's this boy. I don't know. I mean, we kind of kissed but neither one of us has talked about it and I don't know what to do!" she explained, placing her forehead in the palm of her hand.

"Honestly, I think you need to talk to him about it. I mean, if you want anything to happen, you're not going to get anywhere by just ignoring that fact," he pointed out.

"You know, you're pretty cool," she informed him. "Anyway, I need to go to my next class. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Mia wheeled herself out of the classroom after exchanging farewells with her new favorite teacher.

Mia went straight to class, not caring that she still had five minutes to get there and it was only a two-minute walk. (I know that the timing is probably very wrong considering the talk but give me a break! It's a book! Let! It! Go!) She needed as much extra time as possible because she was not going to be late this time.

Mia ended up walking into the room about a minute before the bell rang. She had just enough time to scoot into her desk before the rest of the students had walked in.

Although not quite as many as when she was late, Mia still got quite a few stares. She could yet again feel her throat close up, her breathing quicken, and her palms start to sweat.

Mia closed her eyes tightly, shutting herself off from the rest of the world. Despite the fact that this tactic had worked in her past, this time, her mind only brought her more terrors. Flashes of light shot across her vision as the screams of unidentifiable people tore through her. She knew she should have opened her eyes right then but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She couldn't open them because she deserved it. She deserved to feel the pain of the people she had hurt. She deserved this.

The screams were deafening as she watched blue and red sparks fall from the sky in front of her and it was no longer just flashes of images, now she was there. She watched as her hands flew everywhere and destroyed buildings and lives. She watched a child-sized body fly across the ground. Tears fell down her face in sadness, shame, and extreme guilt. The smell of smoke was taking over her whole being and Mia could taste blood in her mouth and knew she must have been biting her lip. She heard screams and felt pain fly across her whole body before darkness took over.

When all she could see was darkness, Mia suspected that she had passed out and was therefore extremely surprised when she found herself in a small room with bright fluorescent lights. She was seated on a small, cold, metal chair as she looked around the room. In front of her was a metal table with lab equipment spread all across it. The room smelled sterile as if they had bleached everything.

The more she looked around, the more confused she got. The room was large and looked surprisingly familiar, but when had she ever been in a lab except...

Mia heard a door creak open and turned behind her where she saw dark perfect curls and familiar rosy cheeks. The lady was slim and beautiful but that did nothing to stop Mia's fear. Mia tried to tell herself that it couldn't be her. She was all the way across the country. It was just someone who looked exactly like her, but the name on the lab coat told her otherwise.

Clarissa Patterson.

Mia's mother.