Page 14 of Switch!

“I need a haircut,” I reply.

“That’s fine, but you’re not wearing a hat at the table.” When she sees me looking at her cigarette pointedly, she stubs it out. “I mean it.”

I take off the baseball cap, trying to smooth my bangs over the injury before she notices, but of course she does anyway, reaching over to brush my hair aside.

“Whoa!” Raymond says. “Did you get the number of the truck that hit you?”

I gingerly touch the worst spot and wince at how swollen and sore it has become.

“What happened?” my mother says, her face pale. “Are you being bullied again?”

“I’m fine,” I insist. “Really.”

“What happened?” she repeats, her voice trembling. I know she can’t stand to see me hurt. “I’ll march down to that school first thing Monday if I have to. This isn’t okay!”

I agree, but the last time she talked to the school—back in middle school—they called me and the two bullies to the office, where the principal made us shake hands and promise to be friends. That was humiliating. Afterwards the two guys were just as mean. They only made sure not to get caught.

“I wasn’t getting picked on,” I mutter. “It was a fight.”

She stares at me with an open mouth. “A fight?”

“They started it.”

“They? As in more than one boy?”

I nod, unsure what to say.

“A man’s gotta fight back sometimes,” Raymond says in my defense. “Bullies only go after easy targets.” He looks at me and winks. “Ain’t that right?”

“Right,” I echo. Huh. Maybe he’s not so bad after all. “They’ll leave me alone from now on.”

“They better,” my mother says, shaking her head. “Put your hat back on. I can’t stand to look at it.”

She keeps shooting me concerned glances until Raymond steers the conversation in another direction. I begin to relax for the first time since I got home. Another weekend is here. After that, two more weeks until summer. I’ll get a job, save up for a cheap car, and enroll in a different school next year, because screw it. Even with my superpowers, I don’t intend to subject myself to more close calls.

— — —

I’m in my bedroom reading when I hear a light knock on the door. It’s almost midnight. I’m surprised that my mother is still up. She usually goes to bed around ten or eleven. I rise to open the door, puzzled when I find Raymond standing there. I didn’t realize he was spending the night here. I try not to think about the implications. So gross.

“Got a minute?” he asks.

“Sure,” I reply.

He nods past me to my room. “Do you mind?”

“Oh.” I stand aside so he can enter.

Raymond shuts the door behind him. When he turns around and sees my confused expression, he smiles reassuringly. “Your mother wanted me to talk to you about everything.”

“The fight?”

“And the bullying. She told me what you’ve been through.”

My mother doesn’t know the half of it, but that’s fine. It’ll make this conversation go quicker.

“Why don’t you start by showing me some of your moves?” Raymond holds up his palms.

It takes me a second to realize that I’m supposed to punch them. I don’t.