Pete texts while I’m still changing out of my uniform, so I reply, telling him I’ll meet him at the party. Once I get to the house, I quickly realize this is much more than a little, start-of-the-new-school-year party. I should’ve known since it’s Cheryl’s senior year. There are some freshmen and sophomores, but most of the party-goers are juniors and seniors. She lives at the end of a street, and cars are littered in the driveway, in her front yard, and off on the road. Squeezing by a couple of seniors, who’re holding red cups with beer in them, I walk into her living room. I scan the area, trying to find Pete, but get interrupted by Maria.

“Robbie, where have you been?” she shouts over the music.

“Um, nowhere?” I look at her sideways. Was I supposed to get to this party at a certain time? “Have you seen Pete?”

“He’s around here somewhere. I saw him a few minutes ago.”

“Okay cool. I’m just—”

“Wait.” She grabs my arm. She doesn’t have a drink in her hand, but something’s off. “Um … Jasmin’s here.”

“Yeah, she told me she was gonna be here,” I reply, still scanning the room. She stands there, staring at me. “What?”

“You know …” She gives me a coy smirk.

“No. I don’t know.” Was I supposed to meet Jasmin here? Did Pete say something? I have no idea what’s going on.

I scan the room again, looking for Pete, or anyone else I might recognize, but it’s a blur of faces, talking, and music. Turning my attention back to Maria, I catch her mouthing something, but her eyes find mine and quickly stop. Then she awkwardly plays with her hair, looking around as if she just got caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.

“What’s going on with you? You see a guy here you like or something?”

I turn around to look at whoever she was talking to, but my head quickly snaps back to her when I feel cold liquid splash on my shirt.

“Hey!” I pull at my now soaked, blue T-shirt. “What the hell, Maria?”

“Oops,” she says with no sorrow in her voice. If anything, she’s holding back a laugh. Then she glances over at some guy, who’s scowling at her. “Sorry, I’ll get you another drink in a minute.”

“Are you serious?” I ask, smelling my shirt. “It’s beer. If my mom smells this when I get home, she’s gonna go ballistic. What’s wrong with you?”

Ignoring me, she points at a staircase. “You should just go upstairs and wring it out in the bathroom with some water. I’m sure it’ll help.”

“Oh, you clean up a lot of beer-soaked shirts?” I ask sarcastically.

“I’m trying to help you,” she defends herself.

“Right. After you threw some guy’s beer all over me? Whatever. Where’s the bathroom?”

“Upstairs. Go left, and it’s the last door on the right.”

Walking up the stairs, I approach a couple making out. “Excuse me,” I say as the guy looks up, giving me an annoyed gaze.

Disregarding me, the girl pulls his face back to hers and then begins making out again. Rolling my eyes, I squeeze by against the handrail and get to the second floor, eyeing the door Maria told me.

After pulling off my shirt, I reach for the door handle and push it open. Scanning the room, I let out a groan.

“Maria.”

It’s not a bathroom, but rather a master bedroom. I venture inside, hoping there might be a personal restroom inside, and smell my shirt again, cringing. “Lovely.”

Thankfully there is a bathroom, so I walk over to the sink and start rinsing out my shirt. “If I get grounded because of this I’m going to teleport Maria to the other side of the country,” I mutter quietly to myself.

I drench the shirt, wring it out, and hold it up. Smelling it again, I decide it’s not horrible, but now I have to wear a wet T-shirt for the rest of the night. Grabbing a hand towel, I wet it and wipe down my chest, hoping to take off the alcohol smell, when I hear the door open.

“Someone’s in here. I’ll be done in a minute,” I call out, and the door shuts. I start to put the wet shirt on when I hear footsteps.

“I said I’d be done in a min—” When I turn around and see Jasmin standing there, I lose my words. “Uh … h-hey,” I stammer, one arm through the shirt and the other arm stuck in it, and my head poking out from the top. It’s covering half of my chest but leaves my stomach open.

“Looks like someone’s been working out over the summer,” she says, smiling. It’s not a flirtatious smile, but the one I always see her with. A smile that never fails to melt me.

“Jasmin. What, uh … what are you doing here?”

The entire room seems to stand still. She’s in a light blue dress, and her wavy brown hair with the silver streaks looks perfect, as always, falling over her shoulders. She’s wearing a perfume that smells like roses, and a light pink lipstick, that makes her lips shine under the light.

“Oh, sorry. Maria said you were up here. Did you want me to leave?” she asks, and begins to turn around.

“No!” I say a little too anxiously, and she smiles again. “I mean … you can stay if you want.”

“What are you doing up here?”

“Oh, Maria told you where I was but didn’t tell you what she did?” I ask, pulling down my shirt. “She spilled beer all over me.”

“She told me she wasn’t drinking.” She looks at me, concerned.

“It wasn’t her beer,” I explain, rolling my eyes again.

“Oh,” she giggles, looking at my wet shirt. 

We have the awkward silence again. As she stands in front of me, I wonder why I can’t just tell this girl I like her. That I’ve liked her for a long time. Instead, I’m a blundering idiot, standing in a wet shirt, with a blank stare across my face.

“So …” she says.

“So …”

Again, silence. She bites her lip, averting her eyes for a moment, before meeting my gaze. I give her an awkward grin, nodding.

She finally breaks it. “I guess we should get back to the party.”

She takes a step to leave, and I can feel the distance growing between us. If I don’t take the chance to say something—anything—I might never get this opportunity again. I think of all of the things I can do and how I’m a sidekick, but none of that matters. If I don’t say something now, when will I ever get this chance again? 

I take a step toward her. “So, um, how was your first week of school?” I immediately fight the urge to roll my eyes at myself. Of all of the things I could say to her, I ask her about the first week of school? Smooth. But to my surprise, she answers it genuinely.

“It was good. I like my classes. You?”

“Yeah, it was good. Hey, what do you think about that Worm sidekick everyone is talking about?”

My mouth snaps shut, and I shake my head. It’s the last thing I want to think about. No, it’s the second to last. The last thing I want to think about is how lame she probably thinks he is. That would be the nail in the coffin of the small ego I’ve developed over the summer from being a sidekick. 

Normally, I might start daydreaming even with her standing in front of me, and how great she looks. But all I feel is dread, waiting for her answer.

“Hmm.” She pauses, putting a finger to her chin. She must be searching for the exact right word of how stupid he is. I am. “You know, I actually think he’s kind of cool.”

What? “What?”

“Yeah,” she continues. “I mean, I know everyone is saying he teleported away from the fight, but that’s what I think is cool.”

“You think it’s cool that he ran away?” I ask, grimacing.

“No, not that. I mean, who knows why he teleported away. And there was that massive explosion right next to him. But what I mean is, he teleported. There aren’t many teleporters out there, so it’s kind of cool. I’ve always thought that was a cool superpower.”

A huge wave of relief washes over me. Jasmin thinks I’m cool. Well, not me, Robbie, but me, Worm. I can’t savor the compliment though, as another tinge of despair grabs my stomach. My code name.

Just like before, I’m unable to stop myself. “What about what they’re saying his name is, though? Worm, or something like that.” I internally scream at myself again.

“Well, it’s not horrible.”

“It’s not?” I ask in complete shock.

“No,” she laughs. “I’m mean, okay, it’s a little funny. But if you think about it, what do we know about teleporting? That to do it, the person has to be able to see and travel through a wormhole. So, I guess it makes sense.”

I release a sigh of relief, letting a smile slide across my face. She turns her head to the side, giving me a confused stare.

“Why are we talking about this?”

“O-oh,” I stutter. “No reason. I mean, just thought I’d ask. You know, since everyone was talking about it this week.”

“Okay,” she says but gives me an unconvinced glance.

I need to change the subject fast, because now knowing that she thinks Worm is cool, I might just end up telling her my secret identity right here. “You know, I’ve liked you since the fifth grade.”

Wait, what?

If I could, I’d let Hydro hit me with a hundred tons of water and drown me out of my misery. 

She doesn’t say a word. For a split-second, I think I’ve screwed everything up, but then a smile hits her lips. She stares at me with those beautiful hazel eyes. “I know,” she says, looking away, letting out a giggle.

My brow furrows in confusion. “Huh? You know? How do you know?”

“Pete told me two weeks ago,” she answers, blushing.

“Pete? He told you?”

“Well, he didn’t tell me tell me, he just said a couple things. It’s not his fault. We saw him at the mall, and I asked him if you got a girlfriend this summer because you guys are usually always hanging out, but this year you weren’t. He let out this huge laugh like I was crazy or something.” 

For the last couple of years, we did hang out a lot. The mall, the movies, all kinds of stuff. I still feel crappy for bailing on him so much this summer due to my training.

“I asked him why my question was so funny, and he just started going on and on about the girl-next-door-syndrome and how people never see it until it’s too late. It was like he was in a play or something.” She laughs.

“Well, that’s Pete, the over-actor,” I say, and she takes a small step closer to me.

Only a foot away, I move toward her, my mind racing with what she could be thinking. Her eyes dart between my eyes and lips. I take one final step, putting an arm around her. Then, we kiss. I wrap my other arm around her waist, and she runs her fingers through my hair. I take in a deep breath of that rose-scented perfume again and feel like every cell in my body is electric.

“I have a secret, too,” she says, breaking away, but still close enough I can feel her breath.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve liked you for a while.”

“Really?”

“Not since fifth grade, but … yeah.”

I smile and kiss her again. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I’m floating, but that’s not my superpower. Instead, I take this moment in and savor everything about it. Unfortunately, it comes to an end much too soon, as we hear a commotion in the back yard.

I pull the curtains away from the bedroom window and look down. Pete stands near a pool, seemingly frozen. Craig, the senior, and what looks like two of his friends, face him, with the party-goers all surrounding them. 

“I’ve got to get down there,” I tell Jasmin, and slide open the window, stepping onto the roof. Jumping down from the second story, I look around nervously, forgetting where I’m at and hope I didn’t draw too much attention to myself. But no one’s paying attention to me. All eyes are focused on Craig and Pete.

“What were you lookin’ at, you stupid freshman?” Craig yells at Pete, towering over him. One of his buddies pushes Pete in the shoulder.

“No, nothing. I wasn’t looking at anything,” Pete pleads.

“Then why’d you bump into us?” The friend pushes him again. All three of them have to be at least six feet tall, but Craig still towers over both of them.

“I didn’t mean to … someone else nudged me, and I accidentally hit you.”

“Whatever, I saw you—” one starts, but I cut him off, casually walking in front of Pete.

“Hey, what’s up Pete?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder at him.

“Get the hell out of here. This ain’t none of your business,” Craig yells.

“Well, I mean, it kind of is,” I answer back. I’m not sure if it’s the fight earlier with Hydro or the kiss with Jasmin, but I feel untouchable. “See, he’s my best friend.”

“Oh, how sweet,” one says sarcastically. “Maybe you two can get married.”

“Maybe, you never know. If we do, though, we need to have a huge wedding reception at a house like this. I mean, look at this pool.” I point at it. “It’s terrific. Isn’t it terrific?” I ask Craig, who’s obviously confused.

“Here, try it out.” I rush at Craig, pushing him into the pool, inducing a round of gasps from the onlookers. Both of his friends lunge at me, but I calmly sidestep them, and then run my shoulder into them, sending them into the pool, too. More gasps and now some cheers from everyone watching.

“You’re dead, you hear me? You’re dead!” Craig screams.

I turn to Pete. “Pete, I think it’s time we go.” Grabbing him by the wrist, I don’t wait for an answer, and dart off toward the backyard exit.

As we rush out, I look up at the bedroom window and see Jasmin with a huge smile on her face. I mouth the words ‘I’ll text you’ to her, and she nods okay, still laughing.