I WAS RELIEVED TO HAVE 3D TO MYSELF FOR THE REST of the night. As I lounged on the large couch where Monica and I had watched the Travis concert, I tried desperately to focus on the action movie playing on the gigantic screen in front of me, but I couldn’t shake the questions that clouded my mind. How could she have found me? If I wasn’t really her son, whose son was I? Back in the junkyard Howie said he had something he wanted to tell me but he didn’t because he didn’t want to “overwhelm me.” I wondered if he knew something about my past that he wasn’t saying.
He did seem awfully calm when he discovered everything that I could do. Was this because he already knew? The more I thought about it, the more my paranoia took hold of me. Before long, I started to question whether or not I could truly trust Howie or Jason. Sure, we had formed a team, but what would happen if one of us got caught by the authorities? Could I count on them to protect my secret if they were facing prison time? I was the one taking the real risk. If I ever got caught and the wrong people found out what I could do, I would be looking at something far worse than simply being thrown in prison.
As I sank deeper into that depressive state, my mind wandered to the only thing that could lift my spirits. I grabbed the nearby phone and thought about dialing Monica’s number. I hadn’t spoken with her since the night that I saved her after she fell from the roof of the gym. Even though it had only been a couple of days since I last saw her, I could already feel the darkness within threatening to consume me. She was my last line of defense against the monster that I could someday become, but what if she knew? I asked myself as I clutched the phone. What would happen if she knew that I had the power to save her father and didn’t?
“Then I would truly be alone,” I muttered answering my thoughts aloud.
Yet I had to try. I had to do something to counteract the rage that fumed inside of me before I found myself rampaging through another city like the night before. Maybe I won’t ask to see her, I thought as I punched in her phone number. Just hearing her voice should be enough to lift my spirits. My hopes were dreadfully dashed as I heard her voice mail greeting. Instantly furious, I abruptly hung up the phone and dialed again. Then again, and again, and again, until I had called her over twenty times. I finally let the phone fall to the floor and sank deeper into the massive couch. I had never felt so alone in my life before that point. As the gravity of my seemingly perpetual despair bore down on me, I buried my face in my arms and drifted off to sleep.