Vera

I had decided over the weekend that I was going to find out was up with Javier and Teddy this week. I was tired of feeling like a third wheel. I even tried to call Saturday and one of Teddy’s mom-bots was like “They’re out watching some movie.” So, I guess they’re going to movies without me now so that’s cool. I don’t even care if they’re gay for each other. They just don’t have to be so precious about it.

My dad had made me a sack lunch and left it on the counter for me. I found him in the living room switching from his wheelchair to the couch and setting up his laptop on the coffee table. I thanked him for the lunch and gave him a kiss on his bald head. “Have fun at school, dear. Call me if you’re not coming home right after.” He said as he did every morning.

I finished up my make-up on the bus. Dad was cool about the way I chose to present myself, but I know the excess black clothes and eye shadow all kinda make him think that he’s done something wrong as a parent, and it’s easier just to spare him.

My class was nearer to the cafeteria than Javier or Teddy's so I usually beat them to our spot. As soon as I saw them, I sprang into action “Okay, you losers are going to tell me what’s up with you today! I’m tired of things being weird. And if you’re dating or whatever, that’s fine. Just fucking give me a heads up.” Which I may have said too loud as a couple of guys passing by stopped to snigger at them.

“Fucking chill, Vera. We were gonna do that anyway before you decided to TELL VISCIOUS LIES ABOUT US to everyone in school.” Javi said and yelled at one point to get across to any listeners that they were def not dating.

“Well good, I can’t wait to hear it then.” I said and drew my long black hair behind my ear so that I could watch them closely without my vision obscured.

“So much for our plan to do it at your place, let’s just go to my truck.” Teddy said and I grabbed my sack lunch and gestured for him to lead the way.

We all piled into the cramped cab with me in the middle and not wanting to waste my lunch break, I started in on my sandwich “Show wash sho importan’ we havva talk out here?”

“Remember that camping trip we went on a couple weeks ago?” Teddy asked.

I swallowed a bite of tuna sandwich. “Yeah, that’s when you guys got married.”

“No. Vera.  We found something out in the desert.” Teddy said and Javi added “We found a shard.”

I nearly choked on my food and had to take a drink of water. “You found a… what are you going to do with it… or have you already?” I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I guess I could believe Javi would activate a shard but Teddy; that little mommas’ boy wouldn’t tie his shoes if his parents didn’t sign a release form for it.

“Yeah, we did. Are you going to be cool about it? Like, you can’t tell anyone about this, you know.” Teddy implored and I nodded. Obviously, this was a big deal and I wouldn’t rat out my boys no matter the cause.

“What did you two get?” I asked, intensely curious.

“Teddy maybe you should show her yours, I can’t do much with mine right here.” Javi said.

Teddy then did the single weirdest thing I’d ever seen in my life. He used the fingers on his left hand to extend the fingers on his right until they were each a foot and a half long then with this spidery right hand, pulled up his pant legs and with one hand smooshed his oddly hairless leg until it was as thin as a chicken’s and with the spidery hand pulled the other leg out until it was stretched like taffy and the skin was hanging loose over his shoe.

“I think I’m gonna throw up. Why did you show me that while I was eating a tuna fish sandwich? What kind of power even is that?” I said and held my hand to my mouth unable to look away from the Burton-esque monster sitting in the driver’s seat.

Teddy started putting things back into place which was nearly as interesting as seeing them being taken out of place. But it was Javi who spoke “Teddy can do shapechangey stuff. And I do like electric things, which can be really cool but the only thing I can do here in the school parking lot is charge mobile devices so it wouldn’t be that impressive.”

“We thought since, well, we felt bad about the past couple weeks and we wanted to share this with you.” And Teddy dug through his backpack and opened an inner zipper to bring something out “Like, literally share it with you.” And he held a fucking shard in his hand. I’d seen one on tv before the media blackout but it was so much prettier up close.

“It still has a charge, right? They get 3 and I’m getting the last one?” I asked excitedly.

“Yeah, if you want it. I mean, if you don…”

And I cut him off immediately and took the shard from his hand “Of course I want it.”

“But you have to be inconspicuous about it no matter what you get, okay? It’s been pretty easy for me but Teddy has had some real close calls.” Javier added. “If any of us get caught, we’ll all get caught. It won’t take a genius to figure out where the other charges went.”

“Right, of course, absolutely.” I said turning it over in my hand. But then I looked up at them to see them appealing to me with their eyes. I looked at the two of them in turn and with as much solemnity as I could muster said “I’ll be super low-key. Don’t worry.”

“So, what I just put it in my pocket all day and then that’s it?” I asked.

“Probably better if you put it away until you get home and then leave it under your pillow at night. That way if anything crazy happens, you’ll be in your room by yourself.” Teddy said.

“Yeah, that makes sense. So, what are you guys going to do with yours like long term?”

“I guess I haven’t thought that much about it to be honest” said Javi. “It’s just a cool trick I can do, and if I was ever in a life-threatening situation; I could defend myself. I suppose doing that would have its own consequences though.”

I looked to Teddy to get his answer too. He could do a lot more in full view of the public than Javier’s electricity powers. “I dunno. I mean, I guess it’d be good to hide if I had to, or like disguise myself as a manager at a place with a cash register and embezzle a lot of money. Shit, that’s horrible. I didn’t mean that. I guess I haven’t given it enough thought.”

“So there’s nearly useless and morally bankrupt, surely you guys have thought of other applications?” I looked between them hoping that they could instill in me some hope that the government wasn’t right and that the people who had these powers used them for good and not just personal gain.

“Okay, I guess there’s more to it than that. But I don’t want to talk about it right now.” Teddy finally said. I felt that I had stumbled onto a sensitive issue and decided not to pick at it for the time-being. Besides even if they were lacking in imagination, I’m sure I could come with good uses for whatever I got.

We made our way back into the school after this and the rest of my day was filled with a jittery excitement over what I might soon be able to do. I didn’t really think that using the shard would endanger me that much. They’d probably keep falling from the sky and more people would use them until eventually, the government would have to lighten up. Just had to keep my head down until a new administration could come in and eventually people with powers would just be normal.

That night, I tried not to hope for any certain powers because I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I put the shard under my pillow and ended up reading fifty pages of some garbage lesbian romance before finally falling asleep.

When I woke up, I didn’t feel any different. Everything was exactly as it would have been on any other morning. I looked in the mirror, and found myself just as stunning as usual, aside from the bed head and the blotchy eye makeup I’d forgotten to clean off before bed.

I decided to go about my day as normal and hope that my ability did not manifest in the middle of class. I put on a long black skirt, ankle boots and a black sweater with thumb holes. I’d spent all night wondering what magic I would be able to employ in the morning, but the whole thing was a bit anti-climactic. This day began just the same as any other.

Outside it was sunny as it so often is in this part of the world. And when I walked out into that sunlight to get to the bus stop, I felt a split in my perception. At first it was nearly nauseating, but I became accustomed to it much faster than I would have expected. I was seeing double. My normal vision that I was used to, and another set of eyes some feet behind me and lower to the ground. I looked behind me to try to place where exactly this other set of eyes were and didn’t see anything immediately.

It wasn’t until I really concentrated on perceiving this detached viewer that I noticed that my shadow had disengaged itself from my feet and was now rising up (and my 2^nd view of the world with it) from the ground. I stepped aside and my shadow did not follow. My normal gaze tried to see the definite lines of the thing but from every angle it remained an amorphous darkness.

I must’ve looked a bit touched because Miles, the younger boy with whom I shared this bus stop yelled over to me. “Vera, what are you looking at?” He and I did not talk much but my behavior must have seemed odd; walking in circles around my shadow. Then I understood, he could not see it, and I was relieved as I realized just how fucked I’d be if he too, could see this shadow self floating in the bright desert sun.

The bus pulled up almost immediately before I had a chance to answer the boy. I started walking towards it and watched myself walk towards it from the point of view of the shadow which stood still and unbothered. I didn’t want to leave my duplicate behind and as soon as the thought entered my mind it floated towards and through the walls of the bus to hover in the air bedside where I had seated myself.

On the bus she was fainter, sometimes growing more distinct, sometimes less as the bus turned one way or another and the sun filtered in through the windows or was blocked out. The dual perception should have been more disturbing than it was, but it was as if something in my brain had also changed so that I could perceive both angles simultaneously like a spider with its myriad eyes. But unlike a spider, my shadow could face one direction and myself another and both points of view were equally intelligible.

I spent the bus ride to school wondering what applications this shadow might have. Aside from acting as a mobile spy cam, she didn’t seem to do much. I felt no evil intent or any intent at all really from her. Usually in modern films and stories a shadow self is something evil, something to be overcome but she didn’t seem like that. She was a second set of eyes and at the moment, that felt as natural to me as a second arm.

I arrived at school eager to experiment with whatever this was. But when I entered the building the diffuse light of the florescent bulbs everywhere seemed to cast no shadow, and as I had been in my darkened room when I awakened this morning; neither my shade nor her perspective were present. I felt a bit of a let down then when I spent the first part of the day in much the same way I always had.

At the gazebo, I waited anxiously for Javi and Teddy to tell them what I could do. When they arrived, I sent my shadow in front of them and around them but they didn’t seem to notice. Surely there had to be more to it than just this.

“Hey Vera, did you do it?” Javi asked, obviously trying to keep it quiet and not look too enthused.

“Yeah, I did. But it kinda sucks.” I let a frown run across my face at my disappointment and then launched into a description of the shadow. Teddy suggested that we have this conversation in the truck, but I didn’t think it was that necessary; it was too chilly today for anyone else to venture out to the gazebo. And it wasn’t like my power was particularly flashy anyway.

Towards the end of lunch, I was just listening to them talk about some game while trying to finish eating. As I did so, I directed my shadow across the courtyard and around the boys. At one point, I accidentally let it go through Teddy.