CHAPTER TEN
❛ mr. miyagi and sydney-san. ❜

DINNER WAS SOON SERVED, WHICH WAS A RELIEF since I would have rather forgotten about my harrowing episode from before (although I couldn't forget it: I had to mark it on a special calendar I kept, like I always did whenever I had an attack.)

Typical, I thought ironically. Sydney gets superpowers and what do I get? A fucking heart condition.

When I arrived downstairs, Liam was scooping spoonfuls of a substance resembling porridge from a distance, into white bowls. Tendrils of steam floated up, carrying with them a confusing aroma of maple syrup, cinnamon, and an abundance of other substances.

"Hey guys!" he chirped, gesturing to the table where he'd laid out cutlery. "Take a seat."

"This looks nice." Sydney remarked as she took a seat at the end of the table. I chose a spot between them two where it wasn't crammed in next to the wall and, the effort, I took the napkin and smoothed it down onto my lap.

My hands still trembled from the aftermath of before, fidgeting neurotically under the table in the hopes of hiding them. I clasped them together and a whistle of air escaped them, like a deflating balloon being flattened. I opened my mouth to speak but the words were caught in my throat, dry and coarse. So instead, I took a silent sip of water, savouring the coolness of it as it trickled along my parched tongue.

     A spoonful of the (hopefully) edible sludge slid into the bowl with an almighty slop. "Syd?" said Liam.

     "Mhm?"

     "I was thinking," he announced thoughtfully, pouring himself a drink. "What if you and Mom... talked? Without being mean?"

     The genuineness of his plea evoked from me a sympathetic sigh, as I watched Sydney sink further into her seat; almost guiltily. Although to be fair, she had every right to feel guilty. I'd hate to be Liam, having to hear those arguments all of the time. And she had the tendency, lately, to sometimes be a bit of... well... a dickhead, really.

     "All day at school and stuff, I try not to say anything bad to anyone. And most of the time, no one says anything bad back to me," he daintily presented a bowl of dinner to each of us, the bafflingly nauseating fumes hitting me even harder. "But it's like you and Mom try and find reasons to get mad at each other."

I side-eyed her, but her attention was on something else now: our meal. "What's this?"

Liam sat and tucked his chair in eagerly. "Well," he watched me as I scooped up a spoonful of it, inspecting its contents (what looked like a block of corn and a crushed meat of some sort.) "It's macaroni, cheese, maple syrup, A1, ham, corn, margarine, cinnamon, fish sticks..."

Sydney and I stared down into the bowl as he started taking small gulps of water from his glass. I knew I could smell cinnamon. She picked at a lump of the stuff, before seemingly giving in to eating it. As she began to raise the spoon upwards, I glared at her like she was insane. Because she was. This was barely edible.

Our chef placed down his glass and took a deep breath. Oh fuck. "Soy sauce, grape jelly, crushed graham crackers, and... something in a jar in the fridge, but I'm not sure what."

Nothing could wipe off the grimace that had gripped both of our faces, as we observed him happily tucking in. I could physically feel the muscles around my lips tightening, and locking them into an expression of disgust.

"The thing is," said Sydney after a few seconds. "I just ate—"

"Try it before it gets cold!"

It seemed we had no choice. Liam's innocent nature was hard to say no to. Although, sometimes on occasions like this... questionable meal, I wondered if he wasn't as youthfully naive as we all made him out to be. He was aware of his surroundings, and he wasn't an idiot. Part of me thought he knew exactly what he was doing — and if that was the case, what a legend he was!

His cooking, on the other hand, had room for improvement.

Giving in, the two of us took our first bite in synchronisation. I don't know how Sydney managed to chew thoughtfully with a straight face, but the moment it hit my taste buds I felt the urge to gag. My toes curled underneath the table as I did everything in my power to stay stoic for him, and when I finally swallowed I suppressed a shudder.

But to my utter shock, Syd was in favour of it as she told him, "This is actually good. Like, crazy good."

Okay, she's definitely insane, I thought to myself. Want mine? I've got plenty.

"I call it Liam's Loaded Lasagne." he said.

I chuckled, subtly fishing out chunks of sweet corn that I'd rather not eat. "That's one word for it... ow!" I rubbed my shin with my foot under the table, after receiving a harsh kick from Sydney.

"I know it's not lasagne, but I just needed an L-word."

"What about linguine—"

"I've never even seen you cook." I was cut off by Sydney. Right, I'd forgotten my place. No blunt honesty around pure souls like Liam. No one ever wanted my blunt honesty. Mom always says there's a time and a place for it, except the time and the place never seems to be right. Like, ever.

"I know," he admitted. "I was too afraid."

"Of cooking?"

"Yeah. But, you know, then I just figured... that if you just tried it, you wouldn't be afraid anymore?"

I held back another gag reflex and nodded after taking another bite. Sydney's spoon had slipped into the bowl as she appeared to space out, on a completely different planet.

The rest of the meal was eaten (somehow....) and we had friendly conversations throughout. Liam told us about his school day, as did we to him. We laughed, we conversed, we were social. I wasn't used to being so talkative, during and even after a meal. A completely different setting from my usual family dinners: hollow silence, as they either mumbled about their latest workload or wordlessly ate their food. They'd then excuse themselves from the table the moment they'd finished, and that was it. I'd soon gotten into the habit of doing the same thing, and I'd leave before them sometimes.

I don't think they noticed, though.

After we'd finished — and I politely but desperately refused any leftovers — Sydney pulled me aside into the hallway, once Liam had trudged back upstairs to fiddle more with my Nintendo.

"Listen, I've been thinking," she rubbed her forehead frustratedly. "About that whole... testing powers thing."

"Yeah?" I said hesitantly.

"And I just thought that maybe I should just, like, try it? And see how it goes?"

Immediately I tensed up, furrowing my eyebrows at her. "Sydney, no. That's crazy. You have no idea what you're getting into."

"Exactly," she countered. "That's why I think maybe I need... control."

I stared down at my feet, shoving my hands into my pockets. She seemed pretty serious and urgent as she said it, like this was going to be her only way of clarity. If she insisted...

"Are you sure?" I asked.

She simply nodded in response, and I heaved out a sigh.

"So, I'm assuming that means we're gonna visit who I think we're gonna visit?"

Sydney paused, before nodding again; this time more slowly, and stifling a ghost of a smile. Almost jokingly, like she knew how ridiculous it was. But he was quite possibly her only hope.

***

We found Stanley Barber where we thought he might be: at the Beaver Valley Bowl. He was the only one there — unsurprisingly, at this hour, so he must have been working late — and he was clearing up. As we walked in, I took one look at his red work shirt and bit my lip to hide the smile that threatened to surface.

It had reminded me of that awful date with Ryder, and an epiphany I'd had when I saw Stanley wearing that shirt, embroidered with his name above his heart, behind the counter. I'd seen him wearing it once or twice before, usually when he managed to catch me after school to pester me about Sydney or my personal life. But it wasn't until then that I put two and two together, and realised it was his work shirt.

Right, I'd thought. Because of course he just has a wardrobe of personalised 'Stanley' shirts.

Although somehow that wouldn't have surprised me.

He perked up instantly when he caught sight of us, his skinny arms straining as he held a bowling ball in each hand. "Sorry, we're closed." he sighed.

"I was hoping you could make an exception." Sydney replied.

"That depends," he shrugged. "Are you a good bowler?"

I shook my head, and she replied, "No."

"Then what are you doin' here?" he asked, clunking the balls into the compartment where they belonged... apologies, omniscient reader, for my lack of bowling terminology. It's not exactly my priority to learn.

Sydney squirmed uncomfortably next to me, rocking back and forth in her Doc Martens. "Gotta..." she punched the air awkwardly, "try to make the lasagne."

"That sounds," Stanley narrowed his eyes, taking a step towards us, "Vaguely sexual—"

"It's not, it's really not." I interjected swiftly. There was no way we were going down that route again: not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. He replied with a soft smile, which was mischievous but there was this underlying glint of adoration that I couldn't ignore.

Clearing my throat, I looked to Sydney and back to him. "We came because we need your... help."

"Yeah," she continued. "I thought maybe... I could hear some of those dumb theories of yours."

He was tapping his foot now, but not impatiently; excitedly. Like he was about to explode. He drummed his fingers enthusiastically on his thighs, bobbing up and down on his feet before he shot off to the corner of the room and disappeared behind the counter.

The two of us wandered over to a bench and took a seat. "I think that was a resounding yes, don't you?" I joked, and Sydney rolled her eyes. I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, or what Stanley had gone to get. But I just had to be open, and calm, and accepting. This was new, and I had to go into it with a blank slate—

A pile of magazines fell from Stanley's hands and flopped onto the bench opposite us. I peered over at them, frowning as I took the first one off the pile and presented the superhero comic cover to him. "Comics. You're joking, right?" I asked. A rhetorical question, really.

"Yeah," added Sydney, unimpressed. "When you said research, I though you meant... y'know... research."

"Okay, so the people who wrote these things— d'you think they came up with these characters and their powers out of thin air?" he proposed.

"Yes."

"Or— or—" he ignored her un-enthusiasm with wild hand gestures, "Is it possible that they researched carefully and grounded these superhero abilities in modern science and parapsychology?"

Sydney scoffed. "No, it's not possible. At all."

"Exactly. I mean, just take a look at this —" I flicked to a page in the comic, where Spider-Man was heroically saving the day again and using abilities which probably didn't obey the laws of physics. "— that's unrealistic. And you know why? Because it's fiction. How the hell are we supposed to 'control' her powers with no real source of information? No, absolutely not. We can't do this."

"What?" Stanley stared at me, defeated. "Why? We haven't even started yet!"

I angrily chucked the comic to the side and folded my arms across my chest. "I knew this was a bad idea. If you're looking to fulfil some kind of Peter-Parker's-sidekick destiny, this is not it. You know what fiction means? It means it's not real. None of this is real."

"And until Saturday night, we thought having kinetic powers wasn't real either, but here we are." he argued.

I clenched my jaw, still defensive as I glared coldly at the illustrations of the superheroes on the front covers. I still couldn't find myself to believe that Syd was one of them. She was so... plain. And normal. And unspectacular. It was brutal but honest. Spider-Man could shoot webs from his fingers, the Hulk had incredible strength. My cousin Sydney couldn't even control her temper enough to keep a lid on these newfound powers, let alone use them for good.

When I looked up again, Stanley had taken a few steps closer to me. "Hallie..." he took a deep breath. "I understand you completely. This is crazy. And, hey, the writers were probably eating acid like candy when they were writing this. But the point is, they know superpowers. It's all we've got."

I said nothing, eventually giving in to making eye contact with him, which felt weirdly intense.

"Just trust me on this one, okay?"

Wordlessly I gave him a curt nod, sitting back down next to Sydney. Stanley sat opposite us, lifting a pile of magazines onto his lap and flicking through one with determination set hard in his face.

"So each of these comics features an unknown visitor," he explained. "A professor, a wise old sage, some form of a mentor figure; you know, who visits the hero, explains their abilities, the mythology behind them, and how they can harness those powers for good."

"What's your point?" asked Sydney.

"Has anyone like this ever visited you?" he queried, his voice rising an octave or two on the last words as he gazed at her hopefully. When he received no response, he nodded sharply. "Okay, totally fine. Maybe I'll just be your mentor figure."

I snorted, and Sydney raised her eyebrows at him.

"Or not!"

He went on to spout various other theories, soon moving onto the origin of her powers. Opening on a page with an illustration of some 'mentor figure' he began to rub his chin.

     "So, have you experienced any of the following..." he a took a moment to scan the page, "Uh, spider bite?"

     "No."

     "Okay. Radioactive goo?"

     "No."

     "Alien gemstones?"

     "Alien what?" I retorted with a half-laugh, half-wheeze.

     Still, Sydney answered, "No."

     "Okay..." he flicked to another page, crossing his legs. He was running out of options. "What about a secret government experiment?"

     "No."

    "Bionic limb transplant?"

     "What?" Sydney laughed.

     Stanley took a deep breath, his patience wearing thin. "Okay, what about your parents?"

     "What about 'em?" she asked.

     "Well, sometimes a person inherits their abilities." he responded.

     That made me fall short. Sure, this was all fictional, as I'd passionately stated before, but... if this was some weird, hereditary thing that came with age, I was a relative of Sydney's too. Depending on who it came from, what did that mean for me? Or Liam, more importantly?

     Don't jump to conclusions, I scolded myself. Your only superpower is that your heart sometimes short circuits and you have no control over it.

     "The only thing I inherited was my pasty skin and my bubbly personality." Sydney said, every syllable oozing sarcasm.

     "And your thigh zits."

     Her eyes widened into a glare at Stanley's sudden remark, and he sucked in a sharp breath through gritted teeth. But he was smiling: again, that mischievous smile that meant well.

     "Ooh, too soon? I thought those were fair game, sorry." he apologised.

     "God, this is a waste of time." She muttered suddenly, springing up from the bench. "C'mon Hallie, let's go home—"

     "No wait! Look, all right. All right. Okay, look..." Stanley had also sprung up and was now facing her, as he struggled to find the words. Verbal diarrhoea. I know the feeling. Except with me, it's more like verbal constipation. All that comes out is the most awkward sentence I could have said, but nothing follows. I can't save myself and I can only hope the silence covers it up.

     "I'm the first to call out how shitty this town is," he said. "And my life... it ain't great, Syd."

     "Yeah, I noticed." Not missing a beat, she pointed to the cut just under his eyebrow; which, now I noticed it again, was surrounded by a large purple bruise.

     Stanley faltered again, seeming uncomfortable the way he did this morning. But nowhere near as shocked as then. Right now, his façade became a little weaker, and there was a flash of what his inner struggle was. With me, however, it had crumbled right before my eyes. I had seen right through him.

     "Okay, but—" he recomposed himself and switched the subject, "But you have something special. And you're here right now because you wanna try to understand it. And that's a big first step, okay? And I know this because I am your mentor figure."

     Sydney smirked, rolling her eyes melodramatically. "Okay, Mr. Miyagi, then tell me. What's the next step?"

     "Yeah," I stood up too, turning to Stanley. I was curious to see what he had in mind myself. "What've you got planned for Sydney-San? Paint the fence? Wax on, wax off?" I joked, but there was an edge of seriousness to it that made no one laugh. My jokes were always like that, so much so that many didn't realise I was joking until I had to tell them.

     "Not quite."

     Five minutes later, we were huddled on either side of Sydney as we stood in front of a row of bowling pins at the end of the alley. Turns out Stanley was taking quite the literal approach, to just ask her to do things and hope that it would work. It seemed pretty hopeless to me. I mean, no one asked her to kill Banana, but here I am having attended my first woodland animal funeral. Admittedly, however, I think we all were mentally asking her to make Brad's nose bleed last week.

"Focus, Syd," Stanley took on an overly sincere tone that made me cringe inside. "I want you to knock down those pins with your mind."

I sighed, my arms crossed as I leaned in closer. I couldn't take this seriously with Bonnie Tyler playing quietly like the world's biggest cliché in the background, specifically Holding Out For A Hero — Stanley had insisted, saying "It'll psych her up! Make her feel epic."

Either way, we stood, and we watched as Sydney stared intensely at the bowling pins. A minute or so passed before she asked him to turn off the music because it was driving her (and me) batty, but even then it seemed to be futile. It was an ultimate anti-climax: like we were waiting patiently for her to perform a magic trick, except there was no magic and she'd lost her tricks.

"This isn't working," I eventually whispered after we'd been waiting for five minutes straight. "We need to try something else."

And then came the pyramid of cans, which Stanley and I took great time and effort in stacking, so she could knock them all down again. That still proved useless, too. So then we moved onto the popcorn machine, in the hopes that she could make the kernels pop on command.

It had been almost half an hour, and still nothing. We were getting nowhere. Eventually, even Stanley seemed fed up.

"Okay," he sighed, glancing at his watch. "Let's take a break."

Sydney rubbed her eyes tiredly and sat on the floor, whilst I headed off to the bathroom to change my pad. No way was I making that mistake again. And just to be sure, after I locked the door I shoved my foot against it to blockade any unwelcome intruders.

     The thing is, I felt guilty. Because I possibly knew things that could help Sydney (and Stanley, for he was searching blindly in the dark for solutions) with her powers. It was clear to me that her powers only ever flared up when she was angered, upset or in any kind of distress. When she was with Brad, she was jealous of him with Dina. When she cracked the wall — I figured that one out for myself — she seemed panicked, too. When she was with Liam and I, she'd been in the basement where her Dad took his life, so that was bound to stir up some turbulent feelings. And as for the other night with the trees... well, I don't know what happened, but it must have been really bad.

     But how did I know all this? Because I read her diary.

     There was no way I was outing myself like that. Hopefully they'd figure it out soon for themselves, right? Otherwise if the situation was dire, I could do some prompting of my own. Surely Sydney was aware of what triggered it by now, though...

     After washing and drying my hands, I left the bathroom and made my way back to the alley. Snippets of a conversation between the two of them floated down the corridor, and I stopped and hovered in the doorway when I saw them.

     They were sitting back-to-back: Stanley facing in my direction, Sydney in the other. They were discussing what I'd just been thinking, coincidentally, but it seemed private. Felt too intimate. So I held back, eavesdropping instead.

     "Like, what— what was your mindset?" he interrogated.

     "I didn't have a mindset."

     He sighed. "Okay, but were you just having fun, and then you just blew down some trees, or...?"

     She took a deep breath, staring down at her feet. "I, um... kinda... kissed someone else. At the party."

     It didn't take much thinking for me to realise who it could have been: Dina. My gut told me it was her, but that was the least of my thoughts at the moment, of who the culprit was. It didn't matter then.

     Because Stanley Barber's heart had just broken right before my eyes.

     A soft sigh slipped past his lips, which he was biting to hold back tears that glistened in his eyes. He didn't know where to look, eyes darting all around the place. I was half expecting to start crying any minute, and it was bizarre, but more than anything saddening. Face falling, he swallowed what must have been a lump in his throat as he finally got the courage to speak again.

"Oh..." he managed to get out, his brittle voice cracking even as he said that. There was a long silence, before he added, "When? Like, be— before or after I asked you to Homecoming?"

Sydney said nothing. She didn't have to. He already knew the answer. "Uh— did you think we were... together?" she asked in a low voice. This was hurting her, too.

A small, bittersweet smile appeared and disappeared from his face as he blinked. "I mean, we did... you know, at my house that one night. I've... never done that before."

"Me neither."

My heart sank a little. I hadn't thought of it that way before. I'd been so repelled by the idea of intercourse that I hadn't thought about the emotions attached to it, and how that connects you with the other person. Of course he was going to feel close to Syd — they'd lost their virginity to each other, and he'd clearly enjoyed it more than she had. But she simply didn't like him like that, or at least as far as I could see. She only had eyes for Dina.

"Right, so..." he took a deep breath. I could already hear him trying to force himself into his usual upbeat self, "This person who you kissed, and I'm not gonna ask who, because I'm above it and I don't care. I'm not even the least bit jealous. But just tell me... does he dress cooler than me?"

I exhaled softly through my nose and smiled, and I heard Sydney giggle. "No one can dress cooler than you, Stan." she told him.

"That's true."

"I actually... kissed someone who didn't wanna be kissed... I felt like an idiot."

Yep. Definitely Dina. Although it was saddening to hear that it was unrequited. I wasn't so sure, though. I could have sworn there was mutual attraction, but the last person I'd trust to observe potential romantic relationships is myself...

"It almost always comes out when I'm angry," Sydney began to explain. Yes! I silently rejoiced. "Or embarrassed. Or— or scared."

I took that as my cue to walk in, on a much lighter note. Acting oblivious, I rejoined them as Stanley gave her a hand and noises her up onto her feet.

"Alright, I'm back," I said obliviously. "So what's the plan?"

Stanley said nothing, just shooting me a look that said "Trust me," before he began talking. "I think I know why they didn't kiss you back..." he started off.

There was a long pause, Sydney furrowing her eyebrows.

"Because you're incredibly ugly," said Stanley. "Repulsive, actually. And I'm not even counting the zits."

She caught on pretty quickly, grinning in amusement. "You know, I— I see what you're doing, Stan."

"And you wanna know what's something even worse than being ugly? Flunking Biology. Which you are most definitely gonna do. I mean, Martin Ganza passed Biology, and he thinks cyborgs staged the moon landing."

"Not to mention he's also an airhead," I added, wanting to get in on the fun. "So losing to an idiot like him would be incredibly embarrassing, wouldn't it?"

She was holding back laughter now, not fazed by anything we were saying. "Okay, so, I'm ugly. I'm dumb. Is that all you got?"

I opened my mouth, but Stanley had already begun again.

"Do you wanna know the scary thing? You're never gonna figure this out."

It worked. Almost instantly, the corners of her smile sunk lower, her eyes drooping in sorrow, in despair.

"You'll never know what the hell's going on inside you —"

She fidgeted in discomfort, now looking forlorn.

"— or what the hell is wrong with you. And that's gonna eat you up inside. You'll never have answers for as long as you live. And that's gonna suck."

Two bowling balls behind Sydney began to tremble in their place, and I was reminded of the tremor of the equipment down in the basement the other day. Like some supercharged chemical reaction that would lose all control any moment. He noticed too, as he licked his lips nervously but with a certain triumph, and went on.

"Yeah, it will," he'd increased the severity of his tone. "But nothing will suck as much as your shitty family."

"Excuse me—"

Cutting me off, he ignored me and continued. "For starters, let's talk about your Dad —" he tensed up as he watched Syd's hands ball into fists by her sides, and the bowling balls behind her began to levitate in the air. "— I hear he didn't even leave a note."

The balls rose even higher, and Sydney's face was slowly turning pink in fury. "Stanley," I murmured, taking another step back now the balls were at the same level as my head. "I think that's enough."

"And do you wanna know something? You'll never know why he killed himself—"

The next thing I knew Stanley was ducking, for the two balls flew straight ahead and almost decapitated him, only to lodge themselves into the wooden wall behind him. Shards of splintered wood crumbled around the dents they left, before the heavy spheres surrendered to gravity and hit the floor with two almighty THUDS.

He turned around, jaw dropped in awe. His eyes twinkled with that cheeky spirit again, as he gasped.

"Holy shit!" he exclaimed, approaching her for a high five. "That was awesome—"

"Fuck you!" Sydney shoved him hard in the chest, still agitated and fired up.

"S— what? Syd, I— I didn't mean any of that. I mean— it worked!"

"I could've killed you!"

She wasn't wrong. Had he not ducked, Stanley would have been lucky to still be telling the tale now. And that was exactly my fear: like I'd thought before, if she could kill a hedgehog, there was no saying she couldn't kill a human. Tonight, she almost did.

Sydney ran a hand through her hair, flustered and visibly upset. "We're through, I'm done."

"What? No, I—"

We watched helplessly as she stormed out, swinging the door open and leaving it to slowly creak shut, and leaving him and I in an awkward silence. The aftermath, if you will. A couple of moments passed, before I let out a heavy sigh.

"Well," I leaned against the bench. "I think that went very well, don't y—"

I jumped out of my skin as an avalanche of empty soda cans cascaded onto the floor, after being swiped clean off the counter by a discontented Stanley. After a few beats, where he scanned the mess he'd now made that surrounded him, he whimpered weakly. "Aw," he mumbled. "Now I gotta clean this up."

Shaking my head slowly, I let out a gentle chuckle as I knelt down with him on the floor and began scooping up the cans.

"I really pissed her off this time, didn't I?" he leant his elbow on his knee.

I wrinkled my nose carelessly. "She'll come around, don't worry. Even if it takes a day or two."

"Or a week. Or a month."

"However long it takes."

I placed an armful of cans carefully back onto the counter, getting back on my knees to retrieve more.

"I'm sorry, by the way."

What was he talking about? I raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. "What for?"

"Y'know, what I said to her," he explained, but I still wasn't catching where he was going. "He was your Uncle, too."

That hit me where I didn't expect it to, and I was rendered speechless for a few moments.

"Yeah. He was," I finally said. "I know you didn't mean it though. Besides, that's not even the worst part. I guess you think I'm just her shitty family, huh?" I joked.

Again, my deadpan nature defeated the punchline, for the look that crossed his face was worry. The kind of panic that sets in when you think you've deeply offended someone. He had another outflow of verbal diarrhoea as he began apologising, but before he could go completely off track I stopped him.

"Stanley," I told him. "I'm messing with you."

"Oh," he breathed in relief, comically pretending to wipe sweat from his forehead with his hand. But it did make me wonder. And I wanted to ask him, but I didn't want to sound too... direct. That was the whole point, after all. That's how I didn't want to sound.

     In the end I couldn't contain myself.

     "Stanley?"

     "Uh huh?"

     "Am I too... blunt?"

     My question appeared to completely throw him, as he stopped what he was doing and just stared at me. Like, really stared. As if he was trying to figure me out. I think that's the way I sometimes looked at people, and being on the receiving end felt pretty jarring.

     "What I mean is," I elaborated. "Do I come across as too insensitive, or straightforward? 'Cause sometimes I just feel like... compared to other people, anyway... like a robot, or something. But I'm not like that, or at least I don't want to be."

     "You're not like that," he reassured me firmly. "You're just more of a takes-no-bullshit type, that's all. Besides... that's kind of what I like about you. I know my place when I'm with you."

     "And that's a good thing?"

     "Better to know where you stand than to just float mindlessly."

     Right then, we both reached for one of the last cans simultaneously. My hand grabbed it first, but his came soon after and brushed delicately against the top of mine. As if it were static, an electric shock, we jerked our hands away with an awkward chuckle. And with that, we stacked the remaining five or six cans and our work was done.

     Stanley grabbed his jacket and slapped his hand against the light switches, and I watched as the bowling alley was plunged into the darkness of the night.

     As we stepped out, the autumnal air was surprisingly mild: cool for sure, but not enough to make you shiver. It was a comforting breeze that kissed my skin like a gentle whisper.

     "Beautiful evening, isn't it?" he announced gleefully.

"Mmm, yeah." I was otherwise distracted, as I realised the walk home would be pretty treacherous. Especially in the dark. I looked to Stanley, feeling rather selfish for asking him this favour, but it couldn't be too much of a nuisance if I was now on his way home, right?

"Hey, uh..." I kicked the sidewalk with my Converse. "Would it be okay if you gave me a lift home? It's just... I dunno, it's getting late, and—"

"I was just about to ask you that, actually. Of course." he gave me a thumbs up, and I trailed behind him as we found our way to his car. It was parked not too far away from the bowling alley, and its normally orangey-yellow coat of paint looked more like an off-pale brown when caught in the orange streetlights.

He unlocked the car, and I was just about to open the door and get in when he said my name.

"Yeah?" I peered over the roof, where he'd leaned his shoulders on to look across at me from.

Stanley drummed his fingers on the roof, staring down at his feet before looking back at me through the dim street lamp glow that we were basking in.

"D'you wanna just... drive around, for a while?" he finally asked.

There was a part of me that wanted to go home, to stay in my comfort zone. My day had been long enough, with the arguments and the gruelling meal, and how can we forget to mention my latest SVT episode? But right there, next to Stanley Barber's car, I felt a sudden but overwhelming urge to break free. Even if just for ten minutes. I needed amnesia treatment for my rough week, my rough year in fact. And I never took chances like this very often, but as disgustingly cheesy as it sounds, there was something in the air that made me change my mind.

So, it was a resounding yes.

________________________

A/N:

you guys... we're officially halfway through the book now. 😱 I'M EMOTIONAL

also, i have a little announcement to make, which is that i've now joined spotify! my username is @/brightlybyers and on there, you can now listen to the soundtrack for 'there she goes' which consists of all the chapter songs included in the book. and not only that, i've also added a playlist dedicated to hallie, as well as stanley & hallie's mix...

and i could have tried to add spotify covers but i honestly can't be bothered to download a desktop version just for that right now, so here is what i'd planned to be the playlist covers (all made by me):

song of the chapter: 'holding out for a hero' - bonnie tyler
(our favourite trio test out syd's powers)

published: 7th may, 2020