Chapter 2
“Okay, you have got to calm down,” Alex tells her, mostly kind but a little bit sharp. “You’re buzzing, Kara.”
She is. She knows she is—she can feel her hands shaking, thank you a lot—but she isn’t sure how to stop it from happening this time. Grounding herself is hard, harder today than most days.
“Okay, okay,” Alex grumbles at a look from their mother, and she reaches out and takes both of Kara’s hands. She presses them flat together, like they’re praying together, and she moves them so they both sink down to the floor. “Close your eyes, Kara,” she says, voice so much more gentle now that she’s close and can feel her buzzing, can see the way her eyes won’t settle. Her voice is firm but soft and it doesn’t stop and start. When she talks, she talks with purpose and it gives direction for Kara to follow. “We have school today and you’ve already taken three sick days this term. You don’t get many more before people start being suspicious, so if you can manage it, we’re going in today. Nod if you understand.”
Kara lets the words float around in her head for a moment, and then she nods.
“Good. I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen today. This morning, you have English for your first class. You’re studying Hamlet. You finished your homework assignment this weekend, and it’s in your blue folder. When you get into class, Miss Henley is going to ask for it, so you’ll take it from your folder and put it in her hands. Nod if you understand.” It’s easier this time and there’s barely a pause before Kara is nodding. “Good, that’s really good. Can you tell me what your second class is?”
Kara licks her lips, opens her mouth but the buzzing isn’t just in her hands and her teeth are chattering and clicking too much for her to say anything. She bows her head low, drags her feet up to her chest. Her heels dig grooves into the floorboard and when she sees what she’s done, she flinches and curls around her knees, tries to bring her hands to her face.
“Shh, shush, it’s alright Kara.” Alex is kneeling next to her now and this is familiar too, the hesitation. But then her sister is hugging her and she’s pulling her jacket over both their heads and it’s a little darker. Easier to manage. She can still hear everything, the jacket does very little to dampen that, but it’s something and Kara lowers her head to her knees and does her best to loosen her shoulders. And maybe even to control the buzzing, if she can. “It’s alright, just listen to me. You can block out all those other sounds, I know you can. We’re going to go to school today. Mom will drop us off. What’s your first class?” She waits for a moment, then says a little more quietly, “What’s your first class, Kara?”
“E-English.”
“Good. And what’s your second?”
She knows this, and she fights through the billion layers of distraction and sounds to get to the answer. Ten streets away, Mr. Nguyen slams his car door and Kara jumps. “History!” she spits out. “American History.”
“And what’s going on there?”
“Lessons?” she tells Alex, hesitant.
“What are you learning right now,” Alex says, and Kara recognises it as a clarification.
“I’m, we are—I don’t know.” Alex’s arms tighten around her, and one hand smooths down her back, and Kara nods. “It’s a—he’s—it’s a new section. Partners.”
“What about partners?”
“Getting one. Project. End of term.”
“Good, Kara, that’s really good.” Alex continues to stroke up and down her back, in firm, continuous lines, and Kara lets out a shaky breath and focuses on that. Just that.
It takes some time, but Alex runs her through the rest of her day and eventually, Kara stops shaking and she’s left numb and weak but that’s better than being afraid that she’s out of control. That she’ll hurt someone.
“You don’t have to go,” Alex says to her, so gently, and Kara bites back tears. It’s taken them a long time to get to this point—where Alex talks to her and treats her like a real sister, where she’ll help instead of staring down at her like she hopes this time Kara doesn’t uncurl—and she’s not going to ruin that by crying. She knows it’s not right. Alex cries, but only in their room when she’s alone or at the very least when she thinks Kara is asleep and with her covers pulled over her head. And at night. Eliza does the same. So Kara knows that it’s not right for her to do it here and now and she swallows hard, three times, until the backs of her eyes and throat don’t burn so much. “Kara? Did you hear me?”
“Yes. I know.”
“Well,” Alex says, and Kara hears her smile. “Let’s go then. You’ll only be a few minutes late for first period.”
She’s thirteen minutes late, actually, and when she hands in her assignment, she gets handed a detention slip in return.
“I don’t suffer tardiness, Miss Danvers,” Miss Henley tells her, and Kara cocks her head to the side, turns that statement over in her head, and nods once to her teacher. She takes her customary seat, pulls out her notebook and a pen, and takes very careful notes throughout the entire class.
“Kara,” Miss Henley calls to her when the bell rings. Kara stops in front of her desk, holds her notebook in front of her stomach and tries not to tremble. Alex hadn’t covered this in their schedule—she’s supposed to go straight to her next class, Alex hadn’t said anything about Miss Henley wanting to talk to her. “Kara, can you tell me why you were late to my class this morning?”
Miss Henley isn’t a cruel woman. Kara would even hazard people would call her warm. She’s not particularly tall or slim and Kara has noticed that the students don’t pay a lot of attention to her. Her voice is mostly quiet and careful, and she tells jokes that make the class laugh if they’re listening. Kara doesn’t usually get the jokes, but she smiles at them anyway. She’s not a cruel woman, but she walks around her desk and sits on the edge of it and holds Kara’s gaze with her own, and she repeats herself.
“Kara, tell me why you were late to my class this morning.”
It’s been seven weeks and three days since she’s spoken out loud at school, almost the entire school term.
“If you tell me why, you don’t have to go to detention,” she offers, and Kara’s hands stop trembling. Her spine straightens, and she meets Miss Henley’s gaze straight on. There’s the slightest widening of her eyes in return, and then some strange look. Like anticipation, like glee, but the faintest trace of it, and Kara knows she’s doing the right thing when she turns her back on her teacher and walks away.
When her third morning class is over, Kara runs from the classroom. Almost suspiciously fast.
She crosses over to the seniors lockers area and loiters, impatient, at Alex’s locker.
“Hey,” her sister calls out, and then Alex’s arms are around her. “You’re shaking again,” Alex says very quietly. “You want me to call mom? Jesus, Kara, you should have texted me.”
Kara shakes her head very quickly and steps out of her arms, glancing around. Most of the other students are Alex’s friends, and they just nod to her. One even smiles, but Kara doesn’t notice. She’s searching for anyone who wants to make fun of them and, when she doesn’t find anyone, she relaxes just a fraction.
She knows her high school life isn’t going to be great, but that doesn’t mean she wants to ruin this part of Alex’s life too.
She's done enough of that already.
“Kara? What’s wrong?” Alex frowns when she’s presented with the detention slip and she sighs. “Oh shit. I’m sorry, I didn’t say this would happen. Miss Henley doesn’t ever give detentions.” Kara points to it and Alex leans against her locker door and grins. “Yeah obviously, Kara, this is an exception.”
Kara sighs, hangs her head. She points to her chest.
“Meaning what?” Alex asks her, a sharp edge slipping into her tone. “Are you okay?”
Kara nods. Alex doesn’t seem convinced.
“What did she say to you?”
There are too many people around for Kara to say it out loud, but Alex is already ripping a page from her book and a pen from her pocket.
Tell me why you were late to my class this morning. If you tell me why, you don’t have to go to detention.
Alex purses her lips and reads the note. Twice. She folds it up neatly and slips it into the pocket of her jeans. “What did you do?”
Kara flushes spottily. She feels uneven and chilly from nerves and she knows her blush is going to be spotty and ugly, can feel it around her neck and her chest. Walked away, she mouths, and Alex stares at her for a moment before she throws her head back and laughs.
“Good. I hate that they try and make you speak when you don’t want to, it’s such an asshole move. What a nasty bitch,” Alex says with relish, and she winks when Kara crinkles her nose. “Sorry. But seriously, all the teachers are assholes and you don’t have to tell them shit. Got it?” Kara nods slowly. “Good.” Alex slings an arm around her shoulders and tugs her forward. Kara tenses and Alex hesitates a moment before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s cool, Kara. You’re my sister.”
“They’ll be mean to you,” she says, very quietly, and relaxes when her sister pulls one of Kara’s hands up and wraps it around her waist. “I don’t—”
“You’re not gonna hurt me, Kara. It’s cool. And they won’t be mean to me. They wouldn’t fucking dare.”
“Soap.”
“Eliza isn’t here. And you aren’t gonna tell her,” Alex grumbles. Kara nods into her shoulder. “That’s not a rule,” Alex says quietly. “You know that, right?” Kara nods again. It's not a rule, not like 1. Don't tell people you're not from earth, or 2. Don't run with scissors in the house or 3. Don't talk about Jeremiah, are rules.
The third one she learned on her own. No one had to tell her that one.
But this? This is a different kind of rule, a deductive one, not instructive. All the television she’s binged and all the books she’s read have told her there’s an underlying command for siblings. Some rivalries, some very close friendships, but throughout the vast majority there is a deep connection that means they take care of one another. It’s the same on Krypton, of course, with the blood bonds between them and all that they mean. But this is Alex, a girl she’s forced her way into her life, and a human. And Kara feels it, the connection, and she thinks Alex might too. Sometimes.
“Lunch is nearly over,” Alex says into her hair. She rubs her back, pulls away a little to look down at her. “You alright to go back to class? I can get myself in trouble if you want, join you for detention?” She’s already laughing before Kara can finish shaking her head, very sternly, and she pats Kara’s shoulder, turns her around and nudges her in the direction of her next class. “Go on then. See you later.”
She doesn’t tell Alex that in history, no one wanted to partner up with her. Or that in maths, her teacher called on her four times and was only barely, barely satisfied with the fact that she shoved out of her seat and wrote the answer on the board. These are things she can deal with on her own.
“Hey Danvers! Danvers, wait up,” Kara hears from just behind her. She keeps walking, because she has Spanish class to get to and Alex hadn’t said anything about her stopping to make small talk with bullies. Even if he’s making an effort to sound… nice? “I’m talking to you, Danvers. Hold up a second, won’t you please?”
She wishes she could just run. Properly run. Because if she did, then the long-legged boys in Johnny’s little group wouldn’t be able to easily step ahead of her and block her path.
Kara ducks her head and curls her hands around the straps of her backpack. She turns, slowly, to face Johnny.
“It’s not very polite to ignore people, Danvers. Did you know that? We just wanna talk, Jesus.”
Kara shifts her weight from one foot to the other and, for a brief moment, lets herself think about jumping right over him. Maybe even stepping on his head and using that as a stepping stone. Then to the roof. And then, wherever she wants.
“Are you listening, Danvers?” It’s Johnny’s best friend who’s talking now and he’s got a voice that always shakes Kara. It’s loud, too loud to ever ignore, and she hates it. “Jesus, I knew you couldn’t talk but I thought you could at least hear, you little freak.”
She knows what that means. It’s not the worst she’s heard, but it’s still not very nice. She wonders if it doesn’t hurt all that much because she’s immune, or whether the words just don’t have the same kind of weight as a Kryptonian insult might.
But if they don’t mean a lot to her, she knows they do mean a lot to people like Johnny. And she’s having a really bad day so Kara lifts her head and narrows her eyes at him and considers her arsenal of really terribly rotten words that Alex has taught her.
“Hey, that’s enough Bryan. Listen, Kara, we just want to talk,” he says, and he steps in closer to her. When Kara frowns and steps back, rough hands shove her forward, towards him, and he leans down over her. Kara flinches—doesn’t mean to, but people don’t really come all that close to her, and she doesn’t like feeling small. He smiles. “You know, we got off on the wrong foot. And I regret that.”
Kara glances down at her watch. She only has a minute before the warning bell is going to go off.
“No, I really do. Honest.” She’s never heard anything less honest. He makes her skin crawl and she feels like she’s been dunked into an oil slick—his voice is silky and slippery and she feels it by association. Feels bad. “So look, I want to do something for you. I want to give you some advice. Just listen,” he says softly, and Kara turns away from him, only to have his hand gently take hers. “I know you think Cat Grant is your friend, and that’s fine. She’s clever and cool and really pretty. But I just thought you should know,” he hesitates. “She’s not what she seems.”
She's more, Kara knows, but that’s not where he’s going with this. She knows that too.
“She left her last school because of some trouble. No one wanted her around.” She hates that he sounds honest. “She ran this, this school newspaper thing and she had friends but then,” he sighs. “She published all their dark little secrets and she didn’t have any friends left. And if you think that’s cruel,” he tells her, hand tightening on her wrist, “Can you imagine? Letting someone get close to you because you think she’s your friend, and then she tells everyone?” Johnny crouches down a little and lifts a hand, tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. “That’s what she’s after. Your little secret.”
His hand rests on her shoulder for a minute. Then he squeezes it and pats once before he stands upright. “Just thought you should know, Danvers.”
And then he’s gone, and the warning bell is ringing, and Kara puts the whole interaction out of her head because Alex hadn’t warned her about that at all and she has class. Two more classes, and then detention, and then she can go home.
And maybe tomorrow will go to plan.
“Detention, Kara? I know I suggested you act more like a human teenager but that’s not really what I meant,” Eliza laughs while she’s making them dinner. Kara looks up from her homework, and over to Alex. They’re sitting at the kitchen island to keep their mother company and Alex flicks a pencil at her and nods to Eliza, who turns to watch them. “What happened?” she asks her youngest. “Back talk your teacher?”
Kara frowns, shakes her head. She doesn’t talk at school. Eliza knows that.
“You know you’ll have to talk to them eventually, dear, a lot of your grades will include oral examinations.”
“Teeth?”
“Spoken word.”
“Oh.” Kara fixes her eyes on her book again and nods. “Yes, Eliza.”
“It really is very important. I know you’re nervous, a lot of kids your age are. Maybe if you joined the debate team—”
“Mom!” Alex bites out. She glares over at her mom and shifts to the chair next to Kara. “Leave her alone.”
“I’m not being mean, Alex, I’m just saying that it’s important.”
“She knows. Leave her alone.”
Eliza stares at the two of them more a moment longer before she turns back to the stove. “You’re right, you’re right. When you’re ready, sweetie,” she says to Kara, who gives her a small smile. It grows a little more genuine when she feels a clumsy hand fumble to find herself under the table and Alex gives her a squeeze.
“Can you help me?” she asks her sister quietly, and she points down to her chemistry book.
“Course I can. Let’s have a look.”
They disappear upstairs after dinner, again, and Kara hesitates on every step and tugs gently at Alex’s sleeve.
“Should we help—”
“Mom,” Alex yells. “Do you want help with the dishes?”
Kara clamps her hands over her ears and scowls at Alex, who grins.
“No, thank you. Go ahead and pretend to do your homework, sweetie. Bed by eleven.”
Alex nods, rolls her eyes to Kara, and yanks her up the stairs again. “Don’t listen to her, you do this shit in your own time. Okay?” She lets go of Kara to throw herself onto her own bed, bounces a little. She yanks her pillow under her chest, rests her chin on it and stares over at Kara, who settles herself a little more gently on her bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.” She grins when Kara crinkles her nose. “Yeah, it’s kind of a swear. But not a bad one, not really.”
“Oh, okay.” She pulls out her notebook and jots down a few words.
“Do you have, like, a grading system of swears?” She laughs when Kara shrugs. “Can I see?”
“You taught me most of them.”
“But not all. What have you heard when I’m not around?” She takes the book Kara offers, and nods when Kara tells her that they’re on the page the book is open to, and the next two. And her nod tells Kara that she understands, and she won’t look any further than she’s been given permission to look. “I know I didn’t say this one.” She jabs her finger at the word and Kara flushes just looking at it.
“Max.”
“God, he’s such an ass. Don’t ever use that, it’s really bad.” Kara nods and Alex makes the appropriate symbol next to it. “So, are you going to tell me?”
Kara sighs and lays comfortably on her bed, on her back. She takes off her glasses and slowly opens her eyes, lets her sight take her far beyond the ceiling of her bedroom.
“Johnny,” she says, and Alex slams the book closed. When Kara flinches, Alex apologises.
“What did he say?”
Kara shrugs one shoulder. She scratches at her temple, where she can feel phantom fingers brush over her skin again. “What do you think of Cat?”
“Not a lot. Haven’t really spoken to her.”
Kara nods. She suspected as much. It wasn’t that helpful, not to have another opinion. All she had to weigh her own opinion against was Johnny’s—but, he was awful, and a liar, and a bully, and she likes Cat. She thinks. Or, she feels important in some way. And dangerous too, because her eyes are quick and sharp and she asks a lot of questions. And Kara isn’t sure she fully likes the way Cat stares at her, because it makes her skin feel hot and she finds it hard to look away, and when Cat asks her many questions, Kara wants to answer them.
“Kara?”
“Mhm.”
“Don’t listen to whatever Johnny said. He’s a sad sasquatch of a boy and you,” Alex’s voice goes hushed and a bit crooked, like she’s sad and happy about what she’s saying, and Kara turns onto her side to see her sister’s face. “You can touch the stars,” she whispers, with wide honest eyes that make Kara ache because there’s something in them that isn’t happy, not at all. “You’re so far above any of those people who want to hurt you. You got that?” Kara nods, and Alex gives her a proud smile. “Good.”
Kara turns back to stare up through the ceiling again. She watches them as Alex clicks on her lamp and scrawls a few short answers to as many questions as she can be bothered to, and when she's done she sucks in a breath, tells herself to be brave, and says, “Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you—you are my sister. If I,” she’s never been good at adjusting quotes, never wholly sure she’s translating the context right, but this one will do, she thinks. “If I can touch the stars, it is because I stand on the shoulders of, of,”
“Giants.”
“Yes but, metaphorically they’re your shoulders,” she tells her sister, and smiles when Alex laughs.
It’s not true, exactly. She can fly. She knows that’s what Alex means. But she doesn’t think that Alex can see what she sees either—not with her x-ray vision, obviously, but also Alex can’t see the strength she has in her own shoulders, the tenderness, the care in her hands, the incredible brain she has. She can’t see the humour, can’t see the way a sly joke, a teasing nudge lifts Kara’s spirits. Can’t see that without her, without Alex, Kara would be grievously lost.
“I got it.” She nods, and when she looks over at Kara, she can only see warmth in those eyes. “Thanks.”
hello cat—hello. there is something that i would like to talk to you about.—hi cat—hello. can we talk about something?
Kara scowls down at her paper and fights the urge to groan. Planning a conversation is nerve-wracking. Far more so than she had expected.
It gets about a hundred times worse when a hand plucks the sheet out from in front of her and she’s met with a thrilled—and very unpleasant—grin when she looks up.
“Looks like someone wants to say something,” Bryan laughs. “Hey! Hey Cat!” Kara closes her eyes very slowly and wishes one of her powers was the ability to sink into the earth. “Kara wants to talk to you.”
“I didn’t know she could talk,” Kara hears from all the way across the courtyard, from someone she’s never met before, and her face bursts into colour. She holds her hand out for Bryan to return the sheet, and he steps back.
“I’m just trying to help, Danvers. Looks like you were having trouble. Here, you want me to read it out for you?” He clears his throat. “Hello Cat,” he says, in a grotesque impression of a voice. “That’s what you sound like, right? That’s why you don’t talk?”
Kara whips her hand back and stands. She hides her shaking hands in her pockets and walks quickly away. So quickly, that she misses a blonde girl rage her way over to Bryan, rip the page from his hands, and race to catch up with her.
“Kara! Kara, wait.”
At cat’s voice, she chokes back a sob and, though she knows it’s a bad idea, when she rounds the corner she sprints away faster than anyone could possibly see, and hides herself in a bathroom stall.
She tucks her feet up underneath her and hangs her head, drops it into her hands.
Dumb dumb dumb. Dumb.
The bathroom door opens.
Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb she shouldn’t have written anything she shouldn’t have let her guard down she shouldn’t have stayed in the courtyard she should’ve gone to her tree she shouldn’t have stayed Rao she’s making mistakes
“You’re a fast runner, Danvers,” Cat says, and Kara lowers her glasses and sees her there, leaning against the wall. She’s silent for a long time and Kara waits. She doesn’t know a lot about Cat, not really, but she’s pretty sure she’s only quiet when she’s plotting what to say next. “I'm free after school today. You want to come to mine?”
Kara chews on the inside of her cheek.
“Knock once for yes and twice for no,” Cat suggests, with a little lilt to her voice that Kara thinks is happy. Amused, maybe.
She knocks twice.
“Okay. How about tomorrow?” Cat waits a little longer and then she laughs. “I warned you that I’m persistent, remember? Always on the hunt for stories.” She had told her that. At the time, it hadn’t seemed all that scary. A reason to be careful, obviously, but not scary. Because Cat never seemed like the kind of person to tell secrets. Just voracious. Kara read once, about people with unusual tastes. For hair, for paper, and once a man who ate an entire airplane. She imagines Cat's writing bold and inky and red lips closing around them and swallowing them whole. “Come on, Kara,” she murmurs. “Meet me tomorrow. I won’t take no for an answer. Come on.”
Kara is still considering it when she taps—just once—on the wall.