Psyren

Any normal teen would have hated my job. Trapped inside an office building all summer cleaning, watching the world walk past the window. I wasn’t a normal teen though and every minute spent outside of the Institute for Gifted Youth, or The Compound as the residents liked to call it, was rejuvenating. Pyre, real name Braden Shaw, a fellow member of the institute clearly didn’t share my admiration of the stillness inside of the closed building. Just the hum of the vacuum, the coolness of the air conditioner, and the silence that only the absence of people could bring to my mind.  

Pyre threw his rag and cleaner back onto the trolley with a huff. “Can we go yet? I’ve been done for like an hour.”

“Just because you’ve been on your phone for an hour doesn’t mean we are done,” I answered from the floor where I was bent over looking for paper towels. “We just have to finish restocking the bathrooms though then we are done. Unless you want to do the windows tonight too.”

“Ugh, no they can wait till next time. We have training in the morning which means we will only have an hour recreation time tonight before lockdown and I am not spending it here.”

“Suit yourself,” I said with a shrug, levitating a stack of toilet paper towards him. “Now go stock the men’s room.”

Pyre grabbed them out of the air and threw them back at me, “first one to let something hit the floor has to do both restrooms.”

I stopped the first two easily but just managed to keep the third one from hitting the ground. “Oh you are on.”

I fired back with another round of rolls, letting the third one soar up high above Pyre’s head. He ran back a few steps, grabbing the falling rolls before having to dive for the next set. He rolled onto his back and sent them back soaring through the air, the edges of the last one slightly singed with the outline of his hand. The evaluator ding behind us stopped our fight in an instant. The opening of the door made me lose all control of the toilet paper though, as it exploded across the room like a firework.

“Excuse me, I didn’t know anyone was still supposed to be here,” the woman said as she tucked some paperwork into her purse and stepping over the warzone with a sneer.

“We got a little behind today, we are just finishing up now,” I answered smoothing down the apron tied to my waist and bending down to gather the little scraps of white two-ply shrapnel.

“I’m sure if you weren’t fooling around so much you would be out on time,” she said, gracing them with a familiar disapproving look.

“Sorry ma’am that was my fault. River is so serious and responsible but she can’t always keep me out of trouble. We’ll get out of your way now,” Pyre said taking me gently by the elbow and leading me around the corner and down the hallway. He pulled me down passed the rows of darkened cubicles and nudged me into the enclave housing the vending machines.  

Pyre cradled my face in his hands, wiping away the dampness that I didn’t even know I had let fall from my eyes. “Do you know her?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I reply in a whisper.

“You can bullshit everyone else but you can’t hide from me Psyren. I can’t read minds but I know when you are hurting. Who was that?” Pyre let me go so I could compose myself a bit, sensing I needed space. It’s true he wasn’t an empath like me or rather a mind reader but he did always seem to know what I needed even when my façade was firmly in place.

“Did you notice anything about her?” I asked after a pause.

“She looked like you…” Pyre answered in more of a question than a statement.

“Yeah, that’s my mother,” I said looking down at the carpet.

“But then…..why?”

“Why didn’t she recognize me? “ I said meeting his confused gaze. “When I was little my powers started to emerge like most mutants do. Momma was at her wits end trying to keep the ‘demons’ inside me hidden away from everyone else. We spent holidays in isolating, declined all visits, and told everyone I was too sick to play. She wouldn’t even let me into the backyard.”

My knees began to sink until the tile had come to meet the back pockets of my pants. Pyre stayed silent but joined me on the floor waiting for the rest of the story. I had hoped he would interrupt to change the subject but no salvation came. “She tried so hard to love me as I was but she missed the little girl who didn’t throw the couch across the room when I was fitting or locked the door with her mind when she stepped out to check the mail.”  

“You couldn’t help it,” Pyre said knowingly.

“No, I couldn’t. Not then. But I could help momma. So when I was seven years old and she stopped eating, leaving her bed, and eventually talking dad made me a promise. If I could erase myself from her mind and give him back the woman he loved, I could go somewhere that would help me…Now she doesn’t know who I am and I live on the Compound,” I said busying my hands with adjusting my ponytail and stilling the horses that races through my mind so I wouldn’t invade Pyre’s thoughts. He would tell me what he was thinking on his own without me getting into his head.

“That’s why you never have anyone there on family days….” Pyre said with a frown. He pushed himself up from the floor and offered me a hand up. As he pulled me to my feet, an arm snaked around my shoulders. “Well not anymore. From now on you’re with me kid.”

For my Nannie, who I think would have loved this.