Deception | NaNoWriMo2023

Chapter Two: As Many Chances As You Need

"Why do you think everyone hates you?"

What? Tearing my gaze from the calendar on the wall I swivel in my chair to face Dr. Egret, my therapist and the only person that makes me dissect my emotions and thoughts more than Titular or Edison does. "I don't think everyone hates me." Heat fills my mouth along with a defensive prickle under my skin. We were talking about my relationship with Edison deepening at the speed of a glacier, not what I think of everyone else.

"Do you?" His gaze is steady, patient, just like it always is when he's prodding me to think deeper instead of knee-jerk answering. His weathered old hands are tucked under his chin, and, paired with the large streaks of dull gray in his naturally metallic silver hair, it gives him the appearance of a wise bird perched just so to hear your woes and offer counsel.

"I—" I scowl at him and bite down on another sour gummy—my favorite—from the jar on his table. The sour part of the candy fades as I think, turning into a balm of sweetness that has no effect on my mood. Sometimes this whole 'examine yourself' thing in therapy is cumbersome and annoying, especially right now—mostly because I find stuff I don't like and because he's almost always right.

Stifling a sigh, I turn inward and peel back the layers of annoyance and defiance with reason. I don't think everyone hates me because Edison doesn't hate me and David...probably doesn't. Edison has plainly said he doesn't (but what if he's lying? Or down in there somewhere he does and doesn't acknowledge it?) and David is simply too nice at heart to hate me for long (but he probably hates me right now because I lied to him so many times). And then the other heroes in Storm Cell... Shoot. "Edison doesn't hate me."

Dr. Egret nods. "But?"

"But maybe he does? I've done some pretty nasty things to him and sometimes he gets this look and—it's not the 'you're not the brother I lost' look—it's the one that sees me as the villain. Maybe he hates me then..."

"And David?"

"Megabytes, Dr. Egret, you know how he is. I don't think he can bring himself to hate me—for long—but I've hurt him. I'm not his friend, not the villain, not even Edison's real brother and he doesn't know what to make of me now, I guess."

He gives me the, 'and?' look and I slide my eyes to the table. There goes the trail off plan.

I sigh. "Aben definitely still hates me. He's so prickly and cold and...gah. Galah is smiles to everyone so really she could hate me under there and I wouldn't know. And she—all of them, really—has reason to hate me because I stole their new Team Leader and sort of forced them into a hardcore vacation? I can't read Titular at all so she probably despises my guts or something and..."

I've just proved I think everyone hates me. Why on earth does Dr. Egret have to be right all the time?

"Go on."

Shaking my head, I run a hand through my curls, pulling out tangles as I do. "Okay, fine. I do think everyone hates me. But that's because I am a villain and people hate them." I hold up a hand before he can interject. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm not a villain and all that stuff. But people think I am and treat me as such."

It's in the look in their eyes, the guarded mistrust in their body language, the careful stepping around possibly inflammatory conversation topics until every mundane conversation is so substanceless I want to blank things. Which would only prove their need to be cautious around me and— the rest of my sentence dissolves into a frustrated explosion of sparkles and fizzles. I am getting nowhere and it's not for lack of trying. Why can't people just see me as me, not me as the ex-villain?

"Why?" With my free hand I shove a handful of the sour gummies in my mouth—chewing with more force than necessary—and draw a frazzled loop in the air as if making a buffering circle would help translate my thoughts into words. "Why won't this Villain label come off? For that matter, why does it even exist?"