My Queer Superpower

Chapter Eighteen

"One more, uno mas, please," Faith whispered, barely able to contain herself, "look how peaceful the little pervertido is sleeping."

I detected the bright flash from a cellphone through my eyelids, but wasn't lucid until I heard the click and buzz of Saylor's vintage Polaroid camera. I shielded my eyes with my forearm when the bedroom light flicked on. I was a heavy sleeper after a good cry, but this intrusion seemed carefully orchestrated.

I sat up in Saylor's bed and looked in between my legs. Sure enough, in the darkness, I'd grabbed more than a couple pairs of his floor underwear to curl up with. This did not paint me in the brightest of whites and those two had no intention of letting me off easy. I grabbed handfuls of dirty clothes and started throwing them at faces, more so at Faith's. It seemed unproductive to throw them at Saylor.

Our fight grew louder and more intense until it wasn't about clothes anymore. One extremely short minute, we were laughing. The next extremely long one, we were rolling around, crushing frames and knocking things around that already appeared to be knocked over. Saylor was suffering in silence. To Faith and me, it was one big mess, a literal cluster fuck of photography smut. We didn't realize: it was his mess and there was a method to his madness.

Until, we did.

Saylor screamed bloody murder as he pulled Faith up by the back of her collar. Good thing, she had me pinned down. She had Nala'd me; Lion King.

"You two can't be serious! How inconsiderate can you honestly be? Both of you!"

I winced as I tried to stand up. I was pretty sure a shard of glass was lodged somewhere in the small of my back. I rolled off of the pile of broken things. It was stupid how splintered wood and glass could work together to make the 'I'm broken' sound twice. Once, when you fell on it and again when you tried to sneak off of it. I saw the pain in Saylor's face. He looked more wounded than he ever had for his smashed toe. "I-I'm so sorry S—."

"You need to go! You both need to leave. Now!" he shouted.

I'd never seen him so furious. His sadness had instantly turned to rage. I scrambled to my feet. Faith was already on her way out.

"B-but, I don't have anywhere else to go." I pleaded. I assumed Cynthia had told him everything. Perhaps, she hadn't. If she did, he didn't care. He was shoving me out of his room. "I-If you kick me out, I'll sleep on a park bench, Sadie."

It was a low blow, two low blows. I took advantage of how much he cared about me and sought pity by using a childhood nickname I no longer called him. Neither worked.

He was in rare form.

He kept shoving until I was downstairs and outside of his front door. He slammed it shut. I tried the handle, but it was locked. Cynthia had been nowhere in sight, nor Waldo. They must've left for work already, so I was on my own without a phone. It was still under my bed and I had no intention of going back to my place to retrieve it. I didn't have my go-bag either. It was hidden somewhere among the mounds in Saylor's Hoarders episode of a bedroom.

I walked around his house—Mrs. Miller in reverse—to see if Faith's car was still in the driveway. It wasn't. Of course, it wasn't. This day couldn't get any worse. Where the hell were my flecks and spires to get me out of this one? I was so upset that I couldn't cry.

I had nothing, no place to go, no friends, not even tears. I didn't know what to do. I paced around way too long before I realized Mom had driven my car home, clearly her way of saying my gayness had cost me both a car and a home.

The thing about Theresa was that she always had to have the last word. Since I had left on my own, denying her the chance to kick me out, taking the car seemed fitting. My body shuddered in a way that could've preceded a laugh, a cry or post-vodka shot vomiting, but I had nothing left to give. I walked back around to the connected community backyard, then to the woods beyond them, into darkness.

I suppose rock bottom would be the anticlimactic moment of my journey.

Like box wine and saltine crackers, my pathetic journey paired surprisingly well with the world's dumbest superpower.