I had been here a couple of months ago. Grams had been diagnosed with cancer shortly after my break up. And while she hadn’t chosen sides initially, I had cut her off for not siding with me.

  Cancer changed that.

  Now I visited once a month, once every other month if I could help it.

  The tall three story house was huge. I remembered loving this place and coming here almost every weekend to play hide and seek with Nick and Kayla.

  I remembered many Christmases, many Thanksgivings, and one memorial. Overall this was a place of joy in my head.

  But now it was the opposite.

  I grumbled and walked up the steps.

  Mochi followed behind me.

  I raised my cane and knocked on the stained oak door with my handle.

  They took a moment, about seven seconds to come and open the door.

  “Hello, oh-”

  I walked inside, avoiding the false surprise on my mother's face.

  “Bur- Burton?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I- well- it’s just-It’s been so long and I-”

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you,” I cut in.

  Then I went down the hall, glaring at any kid that tried to touch Mochi, and went straight to the living room.

  There grandma sat. She looked the same, but different. Cancer treatment has gone a lot further than plain old chemo nowadays. There were target nanites, organ replacement, and even genetic reconstruction.

  But age was age, and the older you got the more your body withered. You could replace your lungs and even your heart and eyes. But the older you got, the more everything broke down.

  My grandmother, Meredith Savannah Greens was one hundred and twenty years old, and she had a tumor in her head.

  “Hey Nana, how are you?” I said to her.

  “Oh I’m fine boy, a lot better than you are with that stick of yours,” she smiled.

  Faces don’t age, not if you see them enough. You just don’t notice things like a few new wrinkles or slightly sagier skin.

  But I hadn’t been seeing Nana every day, only once a few months. And now I was starting to deeply regret that.

  “Burton,” someone said with a touch of my shoulder.

  I instantly pulled away.

  It was my mom again. This time there was visible pain.

  “Burton I- we wanted to talk to you.”

  I frowned.

  “What about?”

  You’d think I’m nasty huh? Staring my own mother in the face while she tears up in pain and feeling nothing but annoyance.

  But honestly, I was being kinder than she deserved.

  There was a culture around superheroes and powered individuals. They saved people. They stopped villains. They got what they wanted.

  Hero worship in the most literal sense.

  But if it had started and ended there, then maybe I could accept it. I’d at least be willing to talk to my family once in a while.

  But that wasn’t it. In hindsight, Kayla and Nick were the straw that broke the camel's back, or the brick in their case.

  But I wasn’t here to deal with bad parents or spoiled siblings, bad friends, or cheating girlfriends.

  I wasn’t here to make up and I certainly wasn’t here to forgive.

  I was here to mourn.

  “About… everything honey. We wanted to apologize and come together-”

  “No,” I cut in.

  “But-”

  “Leave him alone Annie,” Nana cut in. “I told ya he wasn’t here for that.”

  “But-”

  Nana gave my mother one of those deathly glares my mother had raised me with. My mother nodded and turned away.

  The truth was, my parents weren’t the worst. There hadn’t been any beatings or horrible words, only neglect and blatant favoritism. My siblings frowned at me from a ways off. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, and CEO.

  They all looked good. My father had forced them to be active in their younger years, instilling good habits in each of them from a young age. Me, not so much. He let me stay home and play video games all day. They’d gone fishing, camping, hunting, all without me.

  Eventually, my grandparents noticed it, and that was when Grampa got involved. He made me hang out at his shop all day, picking me up and teaching me about cars even when I didn’t want to. He’d made me get a mechanic’s license even when I didn’t want to, and he had even paid me to study.

  And then he had left me the shop. He hoped I would use it and start my own business, but it was also an expensive piece of property. He taught me how to sell it and how to invest. And more than anyone else in the world, Grampa had cared about me.

  His giving me the shop had pissed off half the family, but he had made Nana promise to go along with it, and she had.

  After getting smarter, I realized more things than I cared to think about. But I couldn’t ignore my past now, not when it was standing right in front of me.

  I walked over to the couch and sat down, right next to Nana. Mochi zipped over and sat next to me.

  I leaned back and breathed for a second. I was tired. I could fly around in my exosuit for hours without trouble, but give me five minutes with people and I was drained.

  Mochi leaned against me and sighed. I put my hand on her back and pet her. She looked over to a hallway and barked.

  I looked in the same direction and rolled my eyes.

  “He doesn’t bite, does he?” Someone asked me.

  A cousin of mine, someone I barely know.

  “No, she just doesn’t like it when groups of people hide in the hallway for no reason,” I replied.

  The house quieted down at my comment, and my cousin looked a bit nervous.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  “So, Burton, where have you been lately? We haven’t seen each other-”

  “Shut up Andrew. I don’t want to talk.”

  Not everyone knew Nick and Kayla’s secret. Only my parents and my grandparents knew about their superhero identities, but our fallout was known to the rest of the family, even if the specifics were vague.

  “Hey man, I’m just trying to make conversation.”

  “Oh yeah? With who?” I asked glaring down at his phone. He had a text chat open and was furiously typing stuff out.

  “Oh, what? This? Nah man I’m just talking to a friend of mine-”

  “The contact lliterally says Kayla,” I cut in.

  Andrew went still. If he were white, I’m pretty sure I would have seen him go red as well.

  “Nah, it ain’t that Kayla man. It's somebody else, a girl-”

  “I don’t care Andrew. Just leave me alone.”

  He seemed to finally get the hint, typed back a short message on his phone, and walked away. I leaned back and closed my eyes.

  First my mom, now a cousin who I shouldn’t have held anything against. They were treating me like a child, approaching me with people they thought I would forgive or not be offended by.

  That sounded exactly like Kayla. I heard a short argument, then footsteps. Heels from the sound of it.

  “Burton-”

  “Go away, Kayla.”

  I didn’t bother opening my eyes. I wouldn’t cry if I saw her, I knew that.

  “Burton, we need to talk.”

  “No.”

  “Burton we’re sorry-”

  Mochi barked.

  “Good dog,” I commented.

  “At least hear us out, man.”

  This voice wasn’t Kayla’s.

  I opened my eyes and looked at the two people standing in front of me, Nick and Kayla.

  I knew they’d do this. This is exactly why I didn’t want to come. It had been less than ten minutes since I’d been here, less than ten minutes, and yet here they were.

  Kayla looked sad and guilty, Nick looked defensive. They both looked good, looked happy and I didn’t miss Kayla’s left ring finger being covered up by her right hand.

  “We heard about your leg, if you want we can pay for”

  “I’d rather cut off both my legs than let you guys fix one Nick. Now leave me alone.”

  “Come on Burt, we said we’re sorry. We’re willing to do anything to fix this. What do we have to do to get over this? You don’t have to love us, you don’t even have to talk to us, but at least talk to your parents sometimes. What if your mother gets cancer next time? Or your father? Is that what it’ll take for a visit.”

  “I wouldn’t bother for them.”

  There was a collective sigh in the room as aunts, uncles, cousins tagalong friends, and significant others gave a small look of shock.

  “Burton,” Kayla looked to be on the verge of tears, real hurt tears. And I could see water in my mother’s eyes as well.

  “There’s nothing you can do. I don’t want to forgive. I’ll never forgive, and I don’t care about your marriage or your upcoming baby-”

  Another collective gasp went through the room. The proposal would have been known immediately but I guess they hadn’t announced the baby yet. But Kayla wasn’t the emotional type and she was wearing form-hiding clothes, stuff that made the belly look skinny.

  It was a shot in a dimly lit room but I had hit my target from their reaction.

  “-Or anything else you might have going on. I want you out of my life, for now and forever. I don’t want to fix this. I don’t want to be the bigger man and I don’t want to let it go. You are owed nothing.”

  Kayla started crying. Nick looked like he wanted to sock me in the face and Nana just sighed from her chair.

  “Baby?” My mother asked.

  “I- we meant to tell you if everything went well here,” Nick commented. “How did you know?”

  “Kayla texted me in private.”

  Watching Nick’s face turn to Kayla’s in worry and Kayla’s face go from sadness to shock almost made me burst out laughing.

  “Burton!” Nana yelled.

  “It’s obvious,” I muttered. “Now go away.”

  “Burton-”

  “Leave him be,” Nana cut in. “And it is obvious that you’re pregnant, a few of us already had guesses.”

  A moment later the family scattered. I sat down, put on my glasses, and started scrolling through social media.

  I looked at the ceiling and my AR glasses projected footage onto its plane grey walls. The voice of an anchorwoman overlayed with aerial shots of the warehouse district.

  “A week ago, there was trouble down in the warehouse district, just a mile in from the pier. Airborn and Tank were on site along with vigilante villain, Cobra. As of now the cause of the fight and its consequences aren’t widely known, but the Hero Union has confirmed the arrest of multiple powered individuals, along with absolute secrecy of the affair.”

  Damn. Were they keeping everything silent? That meant that my footage wouldn’t be sold off. It was possible to earn royalties from old footage. If HeroWatch bought the footage from the Hero’s Union then I’d get a small slice of that pie.

  “Locals say that while this isn’t the first time something like this has happened, the silence of the authorities has got them a bit worried.”

  It then flashed over to a warehouse worker being interviewed during midday under the dreary skies.

  “Well, you know stuff like this happens here, but everybody knows that. You get some weird shipments, some big packages, whatever. But we don’t know what happened that night ya know, so everybody’s just clutching their coat a bit more, waiting to see what’s happening.”

  Then the news logo flashed on the screen and the clip cut out.

  Nothing new. I rewatched the clip several times before looking back at everybody around me. The house was large, and while everyone did want to focus on Nana, most people were still just arriving, saying their greetings, and settling down with whatever food they’d brought.

  So in this area, there was only me, Nana, and a few random cousins scrolling on their phones. Everyone else was too busy congratulating Nick and Kayla on their marriage and their baby.

  “How old is that dog now?” Nana asked.

  “About five,” I answered.

  Mochi barked.

  “A little over five, actually,” I corrected.

  “She looks well-trained,” Nana commented.

  “She’s a registered service dog, Nana, of course, she’s well trained.”

  Mochi barked proudly. The collar didn’t prevent her from speaking, it just choked her a bit if she started to form words.

  I didn’t like it much, but Mochi was still a child. She yelled and spoke when she got emotional. And the collar had been designed by her from the bottom up. It would give her an uncomfortable sensation the moment before a word could leave her lips.

  Nothing violent. But her helmet had a neural reader in there and if there was anything she wanted to say, she could send that to me through my headphones or AR glasses.

  Like she was doing now.

  When do we eat?

  “Nana, when do we eat?”

  A couple hours in, I’d had a handful of conversations with Grandma and had gotten weird glares when I’d made a plate for Mochi. Mochi was full, I was as well, and the night was just starting to clear out.

  I had seen my dad from a distance, but he hadn’t said anything. Only a few cousins whom I hadn’t seen since childhood even bothered to say high. Since this would be Grandma’s final Thanksgiving everyone was here, and everyone wanted to talk to her. Friends, family, family of friends.

  Nick and Kayla had enough sense to avoid me, and I kept quiet the rest of the evening. All in all, the worst part was done, though I had noticed an annoying amount of glares from Kayla.

  But I just ignored her.

  That was the best medicine for healing. Time away from them and time spent doing something else.

  “Burt, we need to talk.”

  I looked up and saw Kayla again.

  “No,” I replied.

  “But I- we had something we wanted to say-”

  “And I wanted loyal friends. We don’t all get what we want.”

  “I know we hurt you and I understand that there’s nothing we can say to undo it-”

  “THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING?”

  I couldn’t help it. My mind kept thinking, kept putting two and two together. I tried not to think about them, to think about the Wolf or the thing with Cobra, but the longer I was here the more sense it all made.

  “I get it. You went to Nana and planned out this whole thing, probably saying something like ‘We just want to be a family one last time before you go.’ And fine, Nana relented and that’s okay but why won’t you accept failure? I’m not dumb anymore Kayla. I saw you guys watch my car and I saw Andrew and I even saw the way Nick didn’t want to talk to me. You want something Kayla, and I think I know what.”

  Her face froze up.

  It had been five years, and as much as I had avoided most of my family, Kayla and Nick had made it extremely easy. A baby and a marriage were one thing, but doing all of this, coordinating to talk to me.

  I hated to admit it, but I kept up with all the powered businesses within the city, and they were a part of it. Heroes had certain things that they were allowed and certain funds for growth. They could get grants from the Union for weapons or armored suits, or in their case, even secret hideouts.

  Secret hideouts were a part of hero culture and were pivotal to increasing output. A personalized private space within the city meant a place for you to grow in both power and ability. You could train there, build there. You could get a Union-sanctioned healing pod and recuperate after a long battle.

  And best of all, that hideout would attract other heroes into joining you. A person with a secret hideout got certain rights as well. Government papers came in along with a false business front. You could earn money by being a transport hub for the Union or use the base to attract and build your very own team of heroes.

  “I’m not selling the warehouse,”

  Kayla’s mouth opened. Nana spat out some juice.

  “What? Kayla? Is that what all of this was about?” Nana asked.

  “Go away, Kayla. Go away and never talk to me ever again.”

  I kissed my angry grandmother on the cheek and went out to my car with Mochi.