“No one should ever,

Have to look,

At themselves!”

Music blared in the background, and Henry, short for Henrietta Cole, a name she disliked as soon as she was able to recognize what names meant, was busy adding her art to yet another reluctant surface.

Well, society deemed the surface reluctant, but Henry knew, or as far as she cared, that no surface would be unwilling to possess a splash of color. The last time, it was a wall, but now, it was a bus.

She was rapidly moving up in the world. With the last streak of green and red spray paint, Henry removed the mask from her face and marveled at the art she had created. The art was half the therapy.

The fact that her art was present on the school bus was just a bonus ‘fuck you’ to society.

---------------

Henry rode her bike back home. ‘Home’ was not the proper way to describe it… it was more like a temporary abode. The bike ride home took twenty minutes because Henry was not stupid enough to put graffiti anywhere nearby.

That was an easy way to get caught.

Also, she couldn’t drive.

At least, not anymore… not since she had a seizure at the wheel and almost killed a cat. It was a bit unnerving that humans killed humans every day, but she had her license taken away for almost killing a cat.

Not that it was entirely her fault, the cat was laying on the street. Obviously, it was suicidal.

The cold of Reston, a town far removed from the big cities, seeped through the creases of Henry’s coat as she rode home. Reston felt like a perpetual Christmas eve – a forceful peacefulness between family members who didn’t want to ruin the holiday, but there was only so long you could keep up a fake smile.

Shaking her head of the depressing thoughts, Henry rode into the yard of her temporary home, parked the bike at the side, and carefully pushed open the door. She walked inside, heading straight for the kitchen.

Once there, she dug around for a while, snacking on whatever could make her contented, and when she was finished, Henry walked up the stairs to her bedroom. After taking a quick shower, Henry fell into a peaceful slumber.

---------------------

The following morning, Jenna, Henry’s temporary step-sister, was brushing her hair in the mirror. Her dark hair dipped below her shoulders, and her Caucasian descent ensured her skin was kept at a pristine white in Reston’s cold temperatures.

Anyone who didn’t know better would think Jenna was a vampire, but she had brown eyes instead of red. And her beauty, though incredible, lacked a certain self-confidence present in even the slightly vain girls.

For all of Jenna’s advantages, she could not resist the need to be just like everyone else. After Jenna determined everything was in place: her clothing was properly worn, her hair properly done, and her makeup properly applied.

It was time to depart for school.

“Henry, you’re gonna make me late for school again!” Jenna yelled, raising her head to stare at the ceiling in the direction of Henry’s room.

-------------------

In her room, Henry stared up at the ceiling, wondering about the single defining moment when her life went wrong. But she couldn’t find it because everything was wrong with her life, and it was impossible to narrow it down to just a single moment.

Henry took another puff from the weed clenched between her fingers.

‘This is the best thing about my life,’ She thought, grateful that weed could help control her seizures so she could smoke all she wanted and nobody could tell her shit. Pushing herself up and out of the bed, Henry groaned at the start of her day.

-------------------

Henry was down the stairs and inside the bathroom with Jenna. Without bothering to greet her step-sister, Henry reached into the cabinet and pulled out three bottles of pills too complicated to pronounce, and too complicated for Henry to remember what each did.

Basically, they made her ‘better’…

Or so the doctors claimed…

“You take more pills than my grandma,” Jenna sighed, unsure about this new step-sister of hers.

Henry gave Jenna an appraising glance “And you look like mine,” she jabbed back, feeling a bit better after their small playful banter; though, none of them would ever admit it.

---------------

A couple of minutes later, after a long bath and an equally long time to dress, Henry and Jenna walked down the stairs and into the living room. They were greeted by Cleo, Henry’s mother, and Thomas, Jenna’s father.

“Good morning girls,” Cleo chirped, and Thomas nodded his head in acknowledgment, extending his neck a bit so Jenna could give him a quick peck on the cheek.

She had never really grown out of the habit since she was a child.

“Mom,” Henry avoided all the acts of affection in the kitchen.

“I made you scrambled eggs and cream cheese, your favorite,” Cleo quickly added, already having an inkling of what Henry was about to ask.

The same thing she would ask every day since her license had been taken away.

Henry brushed her dark blonde hair behind her ear, and asked: “Can I take my car out after school?”

“Yeah, as soon as I am home from work,”

Henry took a seat around the table. “Can I go alone if I stay close to the house?”

“No—no… not until the doctor says it's okay,” Cleo refused, and quickly placed a bit of breakfast on the table “Can you just please sit down and have a bite of those eggs that I slaved, like, three minutes in the kitchen – you can’t take your pills on an empty stomach.”

“Well, she’s not hungry because she had herself a midnight snack,” Thomas turned to look at Henry, slight blame in his tone. “The snack is still there.”

Henry raised her hands in the air as if she was being searched by the cops… for a brief moment, she thought about lying, going all-in to throw the blame on Jenna. There was no way Thomas would take such an offense in his home.

By the end of the day, Henry knew Thomas would have kicked both herself and her mother out of the house. But, as much as she wanted to leave for another town, Henry knew that wouldn’t be the way to do it.

Wanting to seem less hostile, Henry walked into the living room and recovered the half-eaten snack she had left on the couch from the previous night.

“Do we need to have another talk about wasting?” Thomas questioned, telling everyone that it wasn’t the first time Henry had left food just lying around the house.

“Uh… no,” Henry rolled her eyes and walked from the living room to the hidden shelves of the kitchen. “Because I plan to finish this later.”

The moment Henry appeared near the shelves, Cleo knew something was wrong. “Did you go out last night?” she questioned, a bit suspicious since Henry going out at night was never something good.

“Um… just for some air…”

“In the middle of the night?”

Henry smiled mockingly. “Well, the air is out there all night,”

Cleo and Henry were at an impasse, and as the mature one amongst the both of them, Cleo was the first to sigh and forego the pending argument. They walked back into the kitchen just in time to catch Jenna’s complaining.

“Why do I always have to take her to school?” Jenna complained to her father, not liking the fact that others at school were starting to mentally pair her with Henry in their minds.

“She’s family now,” Thomas justified.

“She’s not family dad!”

Thomas sighed. “Have a heart… help your old man out.”

-----------------

Jenna and Henry were in her car, driving to school with different expressions on their faces.

Henry was reluctant and resigned.

Jenna was a bit excited and slightly nervous.

“I’ll be out of your hair soon, okay?” Henry comforted, seeing it was difficult for Jenna to stomach Henry and her mother in Thomas’s home.

“Okay,” Jenna replied dismissively, not letting the gratefulness in her heart show on her face.

“Just, we never really stay in the same place for longer than six months so.”

“Well, your mom’s already beating my dad’s record so,” Jenna placed both hands on the steering wheel, not liking the awkwardness. “Only a matter of time until it ends, right?”

---------------------

When the car came to a stop in the school’s parking lot, Henry slid out of the car and quickly shifted the headphone around her neck to her ears. She found the giggling noises of teenage girls irritating.

Jenna branched off from Henry’s path, careful to walk far enough so the two of them could not be considered even acquaintances. Henry dipped between cars in the parking lot, avoiding concentrated crowds as much as she could.

It was a Monday, and students hadn’t seen their friends in two days, so there were a lot of hugs and kisses being passed around. And Henry avoided such affection like the plague. Just as she was about to exit the parking lot, Henry paused briefly when she noticed a familiar figure exiting the car ahead – Clay Boone.

It’s been two weeks since she arrived in Reston, and Clay didn’t even wait for her to adjust before he started to hit on her. Needless to say, Henry avoided him as much as she could.

-----------------

Henry walked up to her locker, ignoring the noises echoing off the long hallway. Everyone was near their lockers, packing whatever was necessary for the first session of the day, but unlike Henry, they were also socializing. The moment Henry removed the earphones from her ear, she knew she had made a mistake.

“How’s it going?” Clay questioned, coming for his daily rejection.

“Hi…”

“Hi…”

“You’re not wearing your spirit bracelet,” Clay pointed out, flaring his basketball coat for Henry to see.

“Sorry,” Henry apologized, seeming genuine, but the impression didn’t last. “I kinda left it in the trash.”

“Did you now?” Clay licked his lips flirtatiously. “I was wondering if you wanted to go to the game on Friday?”

“What do you think?”

“Uh…” Clay shrugged his shoulder. “I am thinking that if I keep asking, my chances are bound to go up, right?”

Henry held back a laugh of disdain. “Do you know, like, you’ve struck out ten times already?” she closed her locker and started to back away “You know, for an athlete, your batting average is shit.”

“Well, you know, at least I play with heart,” Clay yelled down the hall as Henry disappeared from sight. “And I’m not even a baseball player, lucky for me!”

It was extremely awkward when Clay realized his friends were watching his courting failure.

-----------------------

During the entire time, everyone was gathered in the stadium, Henry remained inside the bathroom, smoking her daily dose of weed. It wasn’t exactly legal to smoke in school, even if it helped with her medical condition, but Henry had the talent to find all the hidden places around the school.

The cheering from the stadium was so loud that Henry could hear word for word of Clay’s speech, and it almost made her puke.

‘How much teenage angst can they fit into one speech?’ She thought, feeling genuinely disturbed by the cheerfulness of youths.

After several agonizing minutes of listening to the speech and smoking weed, the bell rung and Henry knew it was time for class. Henry walked to class at a leisurely pace, knowing she would be the first to arrive.

That way, she could fall into a peaceful sleep with nobody noticing.

---------------------

It was near the end of class when Henry partially awakened. The Teacher, Mr. Shelly, was distributing the papers he was supposed to grade last semester, but somehow only now had time to give them back, a couple of weeks before exams.

“Katy, keep up the good work,” Shelly encouraged “You got a B+.”

Townes, the only autistic person in the school, started to shift uncomfortably in his seat, searching for something that was missing from his desk.

“Townes, you got an A+ again,” Shelly called aloud, but anyone could tell his tone was less than amiable.

“Townes?” Shelby questioned again when there was no reply.

Townes became fidgety. “Someone took my pen.”

“Oh, come on… not this again, Townes,” Shelby groaned in frustration.

“Who took my blue pen?” Townes questioned, rising from his seat in an uncontrollable burst of nervousness.

The entire class started to giggle at Townes’s plight, and Henry peered from the back of the class and barely managed to see a couple of the students stashing a blue pen in someone’s desk.

“My blue pen was stolen.”

“Townes!” Shelly growled, frustrated that Townes was about to throw another fit inside his classroom.

Actually, Shelly innated disliked the very idea of Townes since he believed that autistic students didn’t belong inside his classroom.

“My blue pen was right here.”

“Sit down!” Shelly yelled, causing Townes and several other students to flinch. “I am sick and tired of you disrupting my class!”

“But someone stole my pen,” Townes argued weakly, slowly sliding back into his seat, avoiding eye contact with anyone. His skin burned with their gazes, and while that wouldn’t be a problem for anyone else, it was a problem for someone autistic.

“Sit your butt on the chair before I tape it,” Shelly growled, towering over Townes confrontationally.

“But my pen.”

“I don’t care about your pen,” Shelly explained, “Look… you have a black pen and you have a red pen! You have two pens!”

Seeing that no one else was about to speak up for Shelly’s bullying of Townes, Henry raised her hand in the air, and her mouth moved with the potent disdain for authority that came naturally to her.

“I have a question for you, Shelly…” Henry said each word mockingly. “Why do we have to call you a ‘Doctor’? You’re not exactly a Ph.D. are you?”

Henry casually used her hand to prop up her chin, endless curiosity on her face. “I actually looked you up, Mr. Gibson… you did your post-grad at the University of Cincinnati, right?”

Shelby paused, his chubby face jiggling as his eyes sharpened. “Young Lady, choose your next words very carefully.”

A faint smile thug at Henry’s lips when she heard the subtle threat. “Well, they publish their doctoral dissertations online.”

“Okay… that’s enough,” Shelly raised his hands authoritatively, gesturing for Henry to be quiet but she refused.

“Your master’s is there… it’s a rambling piece of shit, but it’s there,” Henry grinned mockingly.

“Principal Office Henry!” Shelly ordered.

“But it’s just odd I couldn’t find your dissertation.”

Shelly dodged the student’s desks as he made his way to Henry. “We’re going to the Principal’s Office.”

When Shelly latched onto Henry’s arm, she immediately started to panic.

“Let me go!” She yelled, fighting back as much as she could, but Shelly was larger and hence stronger. But suddenly, Henry gave up all trace of fighting, and under the astonished eyes of everyone in the classroom, she had an episode…

An epileptic episode. Henry dropped to the ground, partially guided by a nervous Shelly who didn’t know what to do.

“Give her some space,” He warned when the students were about to crowd Henry “Someone, get a doctor!”

The desks shook subtly with Henry’s episode, but this phenomenon went unnoticed by everyone but Townes.

-----------------------

At the same time, Henry was experiencing her episode, space twisted in a deserted hall of the school. Everyone was in class so nobody was there to witness the event. The cameras all over the school blacked out.

Then…

BANG

Zeel was ejected from the spatial distortion, crashing into the walls of the hall.