The Two Secrets
It’s been a couple months since the battle. The Battle of Realities as everyone’s been calling it. Now it’s around January.
Currently, Lynee is quietly pacing in the bathroom. It’s the only place where she can be completely alone in a house full of eight superheroes without being asked questions. She has two secrets she’s keeping from her friends. And she hates it. One less scary than the other, which is what she’s about to tell them today. It’s still terrifying, but not as bad and confusing as the other thing.
She pauses her pacing, and grips the sink. Lifting her head and looking into her own dark blue eyes she feels an overwhelming sadness. Her eyes flit to the small white section of hair from the revival. It’s like a scar, one that will never go away and will be a constant reminder of what happened. She takes her hand and runs her fingers through her short dirty blonde hair, and the white streak bounces back without wavering.
“I’m so proud of you.”
“NO!!!!”
“I don’t want to go..”
Lynee shudders from the memory and sighs. Why must that be the one thing she can always remember.
Ever since the revival, she’s been forgetting. A lot. At first it just started with simple stuff. Like what she had for dinner last night, or where the nearby Walmart was. But now, she’s been forgetting the names of her friends and even where they are. Everything always feels like it's slipping away.
It’s getting concerning at this point, but she’s scared that she’s going to sound like she’s going crazy if she tells anyone.
That’s the second secret she’s keeping.
She’s been able to play it off pretty well so far. No one had noticed yet, at least if they did no one’s said anything.
Just in case, she has a brown leather notebook that she found at one of the shops that she's been filling out with information in case she forgets too much. Like the names of her friends, their likes, their dislikes, ... It's honestly a huge fear of hers that one day she'll wake up and not know anything about them.
Whenever they stop at the library, she’s been reading about phoenixes as much as possible to see if she can come to a conclusion about what’s happening. Kyleigh seemed to obtain a lot of phoenix type powers in the flares, and one of the biggest powers that seemed to cause this stuff had been preformed on Lynee.
Obviously, phoenixes aren’t real but the closest thing to one is literally right down the hall. So the best chance Lynee has is to study their powers and see if anything makes sense.
So far, she's discovered that phoenix’s revivals are more like a “rebirth” than just simply coming back to life. So, she’s been thinking that maybe after getting revived it was like a restart on her brain. Just.. super slow and over a long period of time.
But that’s a topic for later. Right now she has to share the first secret. She forced herself to calm down, taking deep breaths and holding on tightly to her sleeves.
Stepping out of the bathroom and padding over to the kitchen, Lynee awkwardly stood waiting for everyone to acknowledge her.
One by one each person looked up and quieted down.
Twisting her hoodie string around her finger anxiously, Lynee started the dreaded conversation.
“Uh hey. I had something I needed to talk to you guys about.”
They waited for her to continue.
“As you know, a few months ago I changed my superhero identity from ‘Theia’ to ‘Theseus’. But I don’t only want to change that. My name. I don’t want to be Lynee anymore.”
A few of their eyes widened a bit in surprise.
“My name is Peter now. I’m trans. I kind of figured I was after getting my hair cut for the first time, it just felt more.. me. Then after thinking about it for awhile it just continued to feel even more right.”
He looked around at the group awaiting their reactions.
“Okay, cool. He/Him pronouns?” Tonie asked.
Peter nodded, visibly relieved.
“We’ll always support you no matter what.” Kyleigh shared.
“Yes. Although I’m sorry if I mess up at all, I’m going to try my best.” Katie said.
“Oh, no it’s okay. I completely get it.” Peter smiled. “I’m just so grateful for how understanding you are. I was so scared.” He stared at the floor to not make eye contact with anyone.
Rynn came over and gave him a quick hug.
“You don’t need to ever be scared of something like that." Kyleigh added.
"Yeah. We’ll always love you no matter what.” Katie said.
Peter smiled, a watery one since he was begining to tear up from the overwelming acceptance.
"Thank you." He whispered.
Everyone in the room smiled back at him.
He finally revealed one of his big secrets, which definitely took a huge weight off his shoulders. He briefly considered revealing the other secret, but he decided against it. Telling everyone that he's been forgetting everything would probably bring down the mood, and sue him. He's finally himself. He wants to not worry about anything else in this moment.
Everyone continued their previous conversation like normal, and Peter went to go grab the box of eggos out of the refrigerator. Oddly, it wasn't there.
He hummed.
"Where's the eggos?" He asked looking around the kitchen.
"We're out, remember? You threw away the box yesterday, and we were planning on going to the shops today to pick up groceries like we do every two weeks." Katie said.
"Oh right!" He laughed nervously, deciding on a granola bar instead and avoiding her eyes. Knowing she was going to try to read his mind, he filled his thoughts with
You're amazing
You're a wonderful friend
Seriously, you're the kindest people I've ever met
I love you
She sighed.
"I love you too. But I know that's not what you were thinking earlier."
"Hm. Maybe I just have so much love for my friends that it's all I think about." Peter replied while unwrapping his breakfast.
Katie gave him an unimpressed stare.
Peter just smiled innocently and took a bite of his granola bar.
