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Too strong. I’m going numb.
It's been a long time since I've felt nothing.
I press the call button, over and over until the nurse bursts in, shoving her way past the crowd of suits to reach the bed. Cliff slips away from the others, approaching.
“Whatever this is,” I say, motioning to the IV bags, “I need taken off of it.”
“The morphine?” the nurse asks with confusion, setting her hand on my shoulder. “Honey, you’re going to want that. You’ll be hurting without it.”
“I can handle the pain,” I say. “Not so sure about the drugs.”
She looks even more confused now, so Cliff chimes in. “Mr. Cunning is in recovery, so anything feel-good is problematic, if you get my drift.”
“Oh, well, I’ll speak to the doctor,” she says. “We’ll see what we can do.”
I close my eyes as she rushes away. Regret hits me, gripping tight, a voice in my mind saying tell her you've made a mistake, but that's the addict in me screaming out, the pathetic son of a bitch that gets off on the numbness. That gets off on forgetting. But goddamn, the sensation feels good.
Maybe I’ll enjoy it for just a little while.
I open my eyes again when Cliff nudges me, holding his Blackberry out, and I glance at the screen, reading the headline of a news article.
When Fiction Meets Reality
Superhero-Actor Saves Girl
I don’t read any further.
“You’ll be down for awhile,” Cliff says. “They’ll rearrange the shoots, do what they can do without you there. Production hopes to pick back up with you sometime before summer.”
Summer. It's barely Spring right now. “What am I supposed to do until then?”
“Go easy on this superhero nonsense, for starters. Take a vacation. Go sit on a beach somewhere surrounded by beautiful women. The point is to rest. Relax. Recover. When’s the last time you even had any fun?”
“Fun.” I consider that. “Does jumping in front of a car count?”
There isn’t much fun to be found at Fulton Edge—unless your idea of fun is politics. But once a week, on Friday afternoons, they have club meetings, which suck slightly less than sitting in classes.
Drama club. That’s where you always go. They gather in the school auditorium, a mere two-dozen people in a room meant for hundreds.
The meeting has already started today when you stroll in. Not that it matters, since they’re doing nothing but arguing. You stall in the aisle, staring at them scattered along the stage. The debate is what production to put on this year—Macbeth or Julius Caesar.
You turn away from them, about to leave, when you catch sight of someone lurking in the back of the auditorium. It’s her. The new girl. She’s not paying attention to the meeting. Instead, she’s reading.
You’re a few weeks into the school year, but this is the first time she’s appeared in the auditorium. Curious, you stroll over, sliding into a nearby seat, leaving the one between you empty. She’s reading a comic book. That takes you by surprise. Around Fulton Edge, you sort of expect to see copies of Atlas Shrugged.
“Haven’t seen you in here before,” you say. “Hastings recruit you so he has enough people for his annual Shakespearean wank?”
She laughs, looking at you. You can probably count on your fingers the number of times you’ve seen the girl smile. Laughter has been even more rare. She shows up every day, keeps her head down, and she does whatever is necessary, always the first one here and the last one gone. But you can tell she’s not happy, maybe even unhappier than you are, when you hate being here so much that if there’s a chance for you not to be here, you take it and run.
You’ve already missed six days of school in a little over a month. They fine your father for your truancy, but otherwise, they let you slide.
“I’ve tried all the others,” she says. “I suck at chess. Debate team was a disaster, book club was reading something written by a fascist, and it turns out ‘writing club’ is writing letters to Congress, so…”
“So here you are.”
“Here I am,” she says, holding up her comic. “Making my own club.”
“Ah, the good old ‘fuck your clubs’ club,” you say. “I’m tempted to start that one every year when these idiots start bickering.”
“You’re welcome to join me,” she says. “Might not be much fun, but it can’t really be any worse, can it?”
“No, it can’t,” you say, motioning to the stage. “If this whole acting thing doesn’t work out, I might take you up on that. Always need a fallback plan.”
The Drama Club settles on Julius Caesar… for the fourth year in a row… and the argument shifts to who gets which role. Hastings, the self-appointed leader of the club, insists on being Caesar. He’s a typical rich kid, the dark-haired, blue-eyed grandson of a Watergate attorney. He wants to be the hero. He scowls as some of the others disagree, instead suggesting you do it.
