Super Jaded (7/23)

Chapter 7: Downtrend

Me and Fern didn’t really talk as I flew the both of us home. I didn’t blame her, I wasn’t exactly sure what to say about what had just transpired and another argument with my girlfriend was not something I wanted to get into.

We arrived back at the house and spent a few moments just… staring at each other. I couldn’t tell what was going on inside Fern’s head, but I had a feeling she'd be disappointed if she could see into mine.

Despite everything that had happened, the fact that I may had just killed a man back at the Waffle House, I couldn’t help but just focus on how drop-dead gorgeous my girlfriend was.

The frantic flight back to the house had caused a single strand of her perfectly conditioned hair to deviate from the bun she had tied it in. It weaved down between her soulful eyes and curved around her small, flush nose to stop at its destination, her perfectly plush lips that glistened with a mixture of the subtle lip gloss she always applied in the mornings and patches of sweat.

Even slightly disheveled, Fern Chang was still the most beautiful woman in the world to me and I was still finding new ways to express my love for her. Why wasn’t I giving that same kind of attention to the man I had just mortally wounded?

Without words, Fern’s eyes deviated from mine while still staring directly forward. The shocked expression of hers that I had been hyper-fixating on remained as she stiffly made a full 180 turn with her body and retreated to our room, shutting the door behind her.

My breathing began to increase dramatically, as did my heart rate. This wasn’t good. My pessimistic brain was all too quick to craft worse-case-scenarios about this situation, yet all of them involved Fern leaving me. I knew I needed to talk to her, but I was scared.

Imagine that. The most powerful human in the world, scared of talking to her girlfriend.

I hesitated to make the choice, although the universe seemed to make the choice for me.

Riiiiiiing, rii-.

I zipped over and yanked the landline out of the receiver. I didn’t care who was calling me or for what reason because at this point, I needed anything to distract me.

“Hiya there, doll.” It was Brenda, her voice just as sickly sweet as it was yesterday.

Well, I just had to say ‘anything.’

“Hi there, Brenda.” I said, doing my best impression of a normal speaking voice. I had a feeling though that even if my tone was totally depraved, she wouldn’t really care.

“How’s my favorite supergirl doing?” She responded, putting extra, sickly sweet emphasis on the last word.

“Why are you calling me, Brenda? We don’t have another photoshoot scheduled for at least three more days.” My voice was practically monotone at this point.

“Well okay then, rush me more, why don’tcha! I’m only calling because one of our clients called...”

Your clients. Just say your clients. I thought, anger building up from my throat.

“...and they said they took a cursory glance at social media and are probably, definitely gonna pull the appointment!”

On noooo. God forbid I lose an opportunity to be sexuallized in front of millions for a pittance to whatever charity is more important that week.

She waited for my response, but when I didn’t say anything she just continued as if nothing happened.

“Look, Nina, I know you and I care a lot about these here opportunities! Think about the children and stuff, y’know?”

The phone was so close to becoming another piece of scrap within my fingertips.

“Well, look, because I’m so nice, I took a look on twitter t’ see what all the fuss was about, yeah? And let me tell ya, not all publicity is good publicity! I mean, I’m all in support of the LGBT’s and what have ya, but I know that some people ain’t too receptive to that kinda stuff, if y’know what I’m sayi—“

Two phones destroyed in two days. A new record up from zero phones destroyed ever.

Part of me was hoping Brenda would find some new way to call me, purely so that I could give myself the satisfaction of firing her ass personally.

Fuck the money. Fuck the fame. A man was potentially dead because of me yet people only seemed to care about what I did with another woman within the privacy of my own home.

I continued to clench my fist around the crushed plastic and bent metal within my fingertips, feeling how malleable it was to me and only me. I hadn’t met a single object during my career as a superhero that didn’t feel that way after applying a bit of force on my end.

I wonder if human bones felt any different? They were supposedly as strong as steel, right? Plus all the gooey flesh and muscle around it… That’d really make for an interesting squeeze.

No. No. This isn’t me. Grandpa wouldn’t have wanted me to become this.

I needed connection with a human again.

I needed Fern.

I slowly walked over to the room we shared, leaving a trail of crunched grey giblets after untensing my hand and letting gravity do its work on what remained of the phone. Reaching forward, I gripped the door handle as gently as possible. I could hear Fern’s breathing inside the room with my super hearing. I turned the handle, but it wouldn’t budge.

Fern had locked the door on me.

A simple door lock meant nothing to my physical strength, but it was impenetrable to my emotional strength knowing Fern was behind it. If it had been any other human, I would have assumed they were scared of me. But I knew Fern better. She had done this before, needing time to recharge her social battery or to think things through.

I took my hand off the door. I may have needed Fern’s guidance, her touch, her love; but I could wait until she was ready to give it.

“Heeeelp! Somebody help me!”

My eyebrows perked up as my super-hearing detected a woman’s voice in distress—and a somewhat familiar one at that. It was one I had not heard in a long time, yet one I distinctly remembered.

Wasting no time, I jumped out the nearest window and flew towards the sound of the voice. It took me to a surprisingly wealthy area in the suburbs. That was strange. I didn’t hear any fires or police sirens. What kind of crime usually happens here?

Another yelp allowed me to hone in on the exact location. A white McMansion—the second floor, left bedroom. Breaking through the window without a second thought, the scene before me surprised me in a number of ways.

To the left of me was a face I hadn’t seen in six years. It was the interviewer woman from the mineshaft incident. She was my sexual awakening as it were, which is probably why I remembered her voice in the back of my head all this time.

To the right of me was the chief of police, a man I had encountered and trusted more times than I could count, wielding a knife.

“What the hell is going on here!?” I shouted.

“Please help me! My husband is trying to kill me!”

That certainly looked to be the case, judging by the bruises and gashes along her body.

“Leave us be, Nina. This isn’t your ballpark. I’m simply teaching this bitch a lesson in respect for the last time.”

The chief of police had always been a bit of a hardass, but emotional manipulation and spousal abuse? Maybe I should have paid more attention to the red flags.

Maybe if they caught me on a good day, I may have asked what was going on and promptly arrested the chief of police. But I hadn’t had a good day in a while.

In a split second, I honed my laser vision to strike his knife, reducing the pointy blade into molten steel which coated his hand. The resulting scream that escaped his mouth definitely alerted the entire neighborhood.

The police chief clutched his arm in pain, half of his hand a radiant silver. Even his wife, who had been so thoroughly abused by him, seemed to be shocked by the level of cruelty enacted upon him.

But I wasn’t finished with this bastard. He may have been a large muscular man, but I lifted him up into the air all the same. Flying out of his house the same way I came, I landed on his driveway and dropped his sorry ass on the pavement. He groaned after hitting the asphalt, I just rolled my eyes.

“Honestly, a big man like you should’ve already grown a pair. But I’m going to tell you to grow a pair anyways.”

I put my foot down on his chest while I waited for the police to arrive. Sure, I could have just flown him to the police station, but I saw the opportunity to humiliate him in front of his neighbors and I wasn’t about to miss out on that chance.

It wasn’t long before a large crowd began to form around the two of us. The police chief had stopped squirming and began to accept his fate. Although even he couldn’t have begun to expect what happened next.

The crowd began to boo me.

My jaw slowly dropped in disbelief, although I really shouldn’t have been that surprised.

“What’s that dyke doing with the police chief?”

“She’s destroying our foundations! Just like those men on Facebook said she would!”

“I heard she killed that reporter because he exposed her sinful secret!”

Oh, so they had heard about that fat fuck I effortlessly disposed of. But they only seemed to care that a lesbian was the one to put him out of his misery.

I snorted angrily before bending down, turning my gaze to the police chief. He flinched in fear as my face approached his, stopping mere inches away. “Listen up, fucker,” I whispered, making sure only he could hear my next words. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you. If I so much as hear you talking smack to your wife, you’ll get off a lot worse than just a gilded hand. Understand?”

He nodded pathetically, but that was good enough for me.

I took flight once more, determinedly soaring through the sky back to my apartment. I didn’t want to be seen in public right now, especially if the average person was going to pester and boo me.

I didn’t immediately see Fern. She must’ve still been inside our room.

With a deep breath I grabbed the door handle, expecting to feel some resistance. There was none.

The door was unlocked. Fern was ready to see me now.