You’re just like me.
“I’m not!” Miles said, aloud, his voice muffled by the mask. Not that anyone would’ve heard him anyway because he was gliding through the sky on Teflon Tencel above Brooklyn. “I’m not!” he repeated, cutting the web and landing on the rooftop of a school, the momentum forcing him into a forward roll. Once to his feet, he snatched his mask from his face, his chest heaving, then peeked over the ledge as boys hung around outside the front door of the school, tall, sweaty, passing a basketball back and forth like a live grenade. They all wore practice jerseys of the school’s team. A school not far from Miles’s house. He hadn’t been paying much attention while gliding around, but it seemed like his mind autopiloted him home. Or at least close to home. So he took the hint and decided to continue on to his house.
Miles was shocked he even thought about heading that way, because home didn’t seem like a place Miles would want to go. Not after everything that had happened earlier in the day, especially since he didn’t know if the news of the broken desk would be waiting for him there. But he had so much on his mind, so much he needed to figure out, that he’d rather be in the company of his upset parents in the comfort of his own home than in his stinky dorm room bombarded with the annoying chimes and dings of Super Mario Bros.
So, with the day beginning to dim, Miles slunk down the back wall of the school and decided to walk the rest of the way to his house in camouflage. Dogs being taken for walks would get excited when they passed him, their owners scolding them, unaware of Miles standing right in front of them making faces. A white cat scoped him out, backpedaling into attack mode, arching itself into an n, and hissing before dashing off under a car. But this car wasn’t just any car. Actually, it was more of a house than a car. Bodega coffee cups lined the dashboard, along with random pieces of paper and trash. Garbage bags were stacked on the front seats. The sky-blue paint of the car was splotched with rust. This car was as much a part of the neighborhood as anything else. And though Miles never knew the guy’s name, everyone knew that there was a man who slept in the backseat. No one bothered him. Kids spent minutes each day trying to work up the nerve to peek in at him. Today, Miles, nosy and invisible, decided to take his shot. Finally put his curiosity to rest. He peered in the back window. A tousled, striped blanket lay there alone, like a sleeping ghost. The door wasn’t totally closed, and the overhead light was on. But the man wasn’t there. So Miles bumped the door closed and continued on.
His block was quiet. No cars. No people. Not even Fat Tony and his boys, which was weird because they were always outside, unless cops were around. But as Miles moved farther up the street, he realized that was exactly what was going on. Police officers escorted Neek from his house. Neek, bushy-bearded and balding, looked confused, like he didn’t know why he was being arrested. His face was a fireball, his mouth spouting flames.
“Let me go! Let me go!” he yelled hoarsely. “Don’t let them capture me!” For a moment Miles forgot no one could see him and thought Neek was talking to him. But he wasn’t. He was just yelling out. Breaking the code that had been upheld by the young man whose shoes were almost stolen. Miles figured Neek was probably having a flashback, a symptom of his PTSD. A white cat—most likely the same white cat from before—brushed its body against Neek’s bottom step as the cops stuffed Neek in the backseat of the squad car and drove off.
Once they were gone, Miles climbed up the wall, over the roof, and down the backside of the house to his bedroom window. He always left it unlocked for these moments. He raised the rickety pane and slipped into his room with the grace of a ballerina. Miles could hear his parents talking in the living room and listened to them gripe, but was at least comforted by the fact that there was no new bad news.
Stealthily he dug through his dresser for clothes, slipping on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt over his spider suit, along with a BVA hoodie from freshman year. Each garment changed colors as he got dressed, everything blending into the wood of both his dresser and his floor. Then he climbed back out the window, back across the rooftop and down the face of the house, looking in all directions before letting the blue come back into his jeans, and the brown return to his skin.
He hit the buzzer.
“Who is it?” Miles’s father’s voice came crackling through the speaker.
“Um…it’s me.” Miles leaned into the talk-box.
Nothing for a second.
“Miles?”
“Yeah.”
The door clicked, and Miles pushed it open and headed upstairs. His mother opened the apartment door at the exact moment he got to it.
“Miles?”
“Hi, Ma. Sorry, I forgot my key,” he said, closing the door behind him. His father was just sitting back on the living room couch, bills spread out across the coffee table as if his parents were spending a cozy night alone doing a jigsaw puzzle. And in a sense, they were—trying to figure out which pieces go where. A puzzled portrait of bills.
“Almost didn’t let you in. What you doing here?” Miles’s father asked, cold. Miles immediately braced himself for We just got a call from the school. You smashed a desk?
But instead he got “You supposed to be in school, son” from his mother. Miles never thought that would sound so sweet.
“Not only are you supposed to be there, I, for one, don’t want you to be nowhere else. I want you to be at school so much that you feel like a damn textbook.”
“Jeff.” Miles’s mother sat on the arm of the couch, looking at him quizzically, yet still motherly.
“I just…” Miles started, but the words caught in his throat like a fishhook. He glanced over at the coffee table. The papers. So many of them. Numbers printed in black ink. DUE. PAST DUE. FINAL NOTICE. White envelopes stacked up at the far corner of the table. URGENT. A pencil and pad and calculator, blurring as Miles tried to speak. “I just came to say…sorry. I’m so sorry,” Miles said, his voice cracking, his eyes now back on his mother.
“I know,” she said with a sigh. “And now you’ve said it. We know you’re sorry. But what we don’t know is what’s going on with you.” Her eyes glassed as she stared at Miles.
My uncle’s death.
My school.
My teacher.
My newfound incarcerated cousin.
My superpowers.
“Nothing,” Miles said. “Well, I mean, I guess I just feel so much pressure. But I’m…fine.”
“You sure?” his mother leaned in, her eyes lasering through the layers of him. Through the mask.
Miles looked away, back to the coffee table. Back to his father, who was also looking on. “Yeah.” Miles nodded. “I’m sure.” He gave his mother a hug. “I’ll figure out how to make this okay.”
“No.” She pulled away. “You figure out school. Your grades. That’s it. Your father and I will figure all this out.”