Several days had passed since Mark ditched the autumn festival. Mark had left Amber's messages sleeping in the depths of his screen. He'd sent back only one reply: "Sorry, couldn't make it"—and that was it. No response from Amber since. Not even a read receipt. Whether she was ignoring him or just hadn't seen it, the situation was the worst either way. Monday morning. The hallways of Upland High School drifted with that particular air of a new week. The sound of lockers opening and closing, voices calling out to friends, someone laughing somewhere. Mark walked slowly through it all, searching for Amber. He found her. At the corner of the hallway, just before the stairs to the third floor. The moment her reddish-blonde wavy hair caught his eye, Mark quickened his pace. Amber was walking briskly, her arms full of printouts and a large file. Her bright green eyes were fixed straight ahead, not looking his way. "[serious]Amber, wait a second" At the sound of his voice, Amber's footsteps faltered slightly. She glanced back for just a moment. Her face wasn't angry, wasn't sad. It was just... distant somehow. "[cold]I have committee prep today" With only that, she disappeared around the corner. Mark's hand, raised to call after her, hung suspended in the air. Classmates nearby glanced over, then quickly looked away. Mark casually leaned against the wall and pulled out his phone—but the screen showed nothing. No messages from Amber. Zero. Just like every day since that night at the festival. (She answered when I called. But she didn't stop.) He wasn't dull enough not to understand what that meant. --- Lunch came, and Mark pulled out his phone to type a message. "Can you come to the roof?" He regretted it the moment he hit send. He had no idea if this was the right way to do things. But he didn't think he could talk properly while passing each other in the hallway. The message was read. After a brief pause, "Okay" came back. The lock on the roof door had been broken for a while. It was still broken today, which he was grateful for. The sky was that thin autumn blue, and the wind was blowing steadily. Not strong enough to blow papers away, but enough to make your skin prickle if you stood still. Mark leaned against the railing near the door and waited. He heard footsteps. Amber emerged. She wasn't carrying the file. Both hands were in her pockets, and she stood a little distance away. About two meters. Not close. Mark bowed his head. "[sad]I'm really sorry about the other day. Please let me make it up to you" Silence. The wind made the metal of the roof fence ring faintly. Amber stood with her arms crossed, looking at Mark with tired eyes. Not anger—something heavier than that lay beneath her expression. "[cold]Mark, you're always like this, aren't you?" "[serious]Huh?" "You think if you say sorry, you'll be forgiven" Those words struck straight into his chest. There are words you can't argue against. They come at you head-on so you can't dodge them, and they're not off-base so you can't deny them. Amber's words were like that. If he said sorry and bowed his head, he'd think there would be a next time—the denial of being thought of that way produced nothing. Because it was all true. "[serious]...I'll really change this time" The words came out strained, and Amber looked into his eyes for a while. He wanted to look away because he was afraid of what answer would come back. But if he looked away, it felt like it would be over. So he kept his eyes on Amber. Amber let out a soft breath. "[gentle]...Do you have time this weekend?" "[excited]Yes! I do!!" He'd suddenly switched to formal speech. Amber raised her eyebrows slightly. "[surprised]Why are you suddenly being so formal?" "[serious]...I don't know" The air loosened just a little. Only a little. For just a moment, Amber's expression seemed to soften slightly. But she quickly returned to her usual face. Not believing, not disbelieving—that kind of face. She turned toward the roof door. "I'm trusting you, so..." She left that incomplete sentence—without a period, like she'd cut herself off—and walked out of the roof. Mark stayed gripping the railing, unable to move for a while. "I'm trusting you, so..."—what word was supposed to come after that "so"? He couldn't stop thinking about it. --- After school. Mark went around the back of the gymnasium and responded to a transmission from the small receiver embedded deep in his ear. GDA—Global Defense Agency, the government's direct metahuman management organization—had sent a weekly deployment standby confirmation. A routine check. Nothing particularly urgent. "[cold]Maintain deployment readiness. That's all" "[serious]Understood" He cut the transmission and pressed his back against the gymnasium wall. The sunlight cut off at the corner of the school building, leaving this spot in shadow. That's when he heard voices. The cafeteria window just beyond was slightly open, and the conversation of girls inside leaked out. He wasn't eavesdropping. He just... heard it. "Amber and Mark haven't been getting along lately, right?" "She doesn't cry though. She's holding a lot in" "She looked pale at committee yesterday too. No smile at all" Mark froze, still gripping the communication device. He understood it with his head. He'd known for a long time that Amber was hurting because of him. But there's a difference between "knowing" and "hearing it said aloud by someone else." Words that came out of another person's mouth and made the air vibrate were so much more real, so much heavier than anything his imagination could conjure. (She doesn't cry, but she's holding it in.) Mark knew that about Amber. She thought crying was weakness, so she never let her pain show on her face. She smiled and tried to move forward. That's why, from the outside, she looked fine. But that also meant she wasn't fine at all. The GDA communication device crackled faintly again. Mark stared toward the cafeteria window for a long time, unable to move. He flew to protect people. That was true. But right now, the person he wanted most to protect was being hurt because of him. That contradiction appeared before him for the first time with clear, sharp edges. --- Night. Lying on his bed, Mark stared at the ceiling. White ceiling. The water stain from a leak last year was still there, unchanged. He thought of his father. A Viltrumite—his father's species—and a great hero. Always flying to protect someone. Never flinching before any enemy. The man who smiled at citizens and passed down the name "Invincible" to him. But he never told his mother anything. Because he wanted to protect her—or so Mark learned later. The families of heroes are targeted. So keeping it secret was safer. He loved her, so he kept his distance. As a result, the family fell apart. Mark closed his eyes. (I'm doing the same thing right now.) Hiding to protect. He understood that feeling. But "hiding to protect" somehow becomes "staying silent to hurt." His father never noticed that moment. He hadn't noticed it either, for a long time. But tonight, he noticed a little. He pulled out his phone and started typing a message to Amber. "I want to tell you everything"—he typed that much, then his fingers stopped. The conditions of the Metahuman Registration Act flashed through his mind. Disclosing a hero's identity to a civilian was strongly discouraged, and if the civilian was targeted by a villain afterward, the responsibility fell on the hero. It would put Amber in danger. He absolutely didn't want that. But. Staying silent felt more terrifying now. He turned off the screen and stared at the ceiling. The answer wouldn't come easily. But at least tonight, something had shifted slightly. The resolve to tell her everything was no longer zero. Just barely, but it wasn't zero. Then. A transmission came through his ear. An emergency line late at night. It wasn't normal for it to ring at this hour. Mark sat up in bed. "[cold]Invincible" It was Cecil Stedman, the GDA director. "[cold]We've received a cooperation request from the Guardians of the Globe. A large-scale villain attack is predicted in Chicago this weekend. Standby from Saturday. You have no choice in this" Mark's breath caught for a moment. This weekend. Saturday. The words Amber had spoken on the roof that afternoon came back to him. "Do you have time this weekend?"—and Mark had answered "Yes." In formal speech, pathetically earnest, he'd answered. "[serious]...Understood" The transmission cut off. Mark gripped his phone, staring at the wall of his room. On the very night he'd almost resolved to tell her everything, another reason to break his promise had appeared. He'd have to say "sorry" again. Amber's eyes would take on that distant look again. "You think if you say sorry, you'll be forgiven" Amber's voice looped in his head. Mark pressed his fist into the bed sheets. A low, voiceless breath escaped him. Outside the window, the autumn night wind rustled the leaves. The quiet sounds of a residential neighborhood. The sounds of an ordinary night. Only he was living through a different night.