The door handle felt like frigid waters beneath my hand as I gripped it and opened the door. The silver metal burst like frozen pinpricks on my recently dried fingers. Behind me I heard it slip to a close.

Rain sloshed in the bottom of my shoes, it felt like I had been walking in a puddle. But I had done nothing to fix the issue.

“Hi honey,” Grandma’s crackling voice mused as I placed my shoes onto the plastic mat. I could still smell lingering cigarette smoke. Giving her a short smile I tried to focus on my surroundings.

There was a large flower puzzle laid out across the dinner table where she sat. It was only half done at this point, fractions of poinsettias and orchids were filled in. The small puzzle pieces were in a scrambled pile around the perimeter of the puzzle. My mind whirred like a sputtering car, fumes curling out of my ears as I stood silently and motionless.

Ducking her head past the wide door frame of the living room, Evelyn didn’t say a single thing as she wrapped me in a tight hug. I could feel her hot skin against mine and willed myself not to move. The world felt wrapped in fog, and I knew why.

Nausea gripped me like an iron rod. I saw the images that I had pushed beneath the surface begin to bob and rise. I could feel it all slipping from beneath me and felt my lips tremble.

Evelyn’s eyebrows were fraught with tension, “Mom said that you’re all good. No bruises or broken bones. You’re sure you’re okay?”

Sometimes I wonder if they forget how far from humans my biology is. I do not bruise or break in the same ways. We may look similar but beneath my skin there are a multitude of differences they cannot grasp. I want to smile at her words, her forgetting our differences threatens to thaw the frozen state I am in, but the smile doesn’t appear. Not even the ends of my lips can quirk upwards.

My gaze flitted to the staircase and back to her. There was a small wet stain left behind on her shirt from the hug, “I’m fine, I’m just going to change. You know…the waters cold and all.”

Turning away from Evie I heard her quiet voice rasp behind me, “Yeah…of course. Holler if you need something.”

Making my way up the creaking and echoing stairs I didn’t look back as I entered the washroom. My toothbrush was just as I left it. The counter was just as clean as when I left the bathroom this morning, except for now Evie’s hairbrush sat on the white countertop.

And like the whirring finally kicked on into full gear. Like a shock to the system, I couldn’t hold it together anymore. I rubbed my hands against my face, pulling the skin as I exhaled acutely. My palms cupped and held the bottom of my face, only wide eyes staying outside the confines of my ever trembling and shaking hands.

Everything around me felt cacophonous and shrill. From the overwhelming heartbeats of my family downstairs to the sounds that my clothes made as they rubbed against each other. Whispers surrounded me, taunted me like they knew I was the only one who could hear them clear as day.

Exhaustion was beginning to worm its way into my psyche, making my legs feel like iron and lead.

Thick water dripped from my nostrils making me close my eyes in annoyance, “Shit.” Keeping one hand beneath my bloody nose I stood over the porcelain sink. Blue liquid gushed against the white, splattering and separating into tiny droplets before running down the silver drain.

The blood made my words come out more nasally than I’d expected them to, “I knew this was going to happen. Fuck.”

After years of refusing to use my powers at any kind of strength like I'd done today was not doing good things to my body. Curling iron was as easy as tearing paper and despite how technically easy it had been to wiggle my way out of the steel trap of the car, my body wasn’t used to it.

My family didn’t know that I had used my powers, though to be quite honest they did not know the extent to what I could do. Strength and speed. That’s what they knew, and that’s what I wanted to keep it as.

My wavering hands kneaded my stomach and skin where the car had hit me and pinned me to the river floor. There was not mark or cut, not even a bruise.

“They wanted a kid, a human, a red blooded-kid. Not you.” I murmured to myself in the quiet bathroom. The mirror above the sink was slightly marred with water droplets and toothpaste residue. Looking up, at myself, blue blood still dripping down my nose and over my coral lips I tried to imagine that it was red blood instead.

I turned on the tap and watched as the blue blood became more translucent as it ran around the sink and left behind only tiny beads.

This was exactly why I shouldn’t use my powers, if it had taken an extra ten minutes to get home I would’ve been bleeding in front of them. Using my powers would only make my inevitably slip up, revealing my true nature. I don’t want to lose everything and if this, hiding my powers, is what it takes, I’m more than fine with it.

On a hefty exhale, my frost breath began to trickle out. The almost smoke-like frozen and snowy clouds began to take a crack at the mirror before I stepped back. Fists clenching, I tried to keep my breath controlled and stable despite my quivering lips.

I look into the mirror, blue still slips from my nostrils. The fluorescent light above flickers and hums a yellow song on my blotchy skin. With a sigh, I buried my hands into my hair.

I hate this moment. I hate the way I feel and I hate the way I know exactly why.

I wish I was like them. The humans. No blue blood or strength like that of machines or speed like that of jets.

This is why they came to my planet. My blue blood and my abilities. Our differences were too much to bear for the invaders and now I must bear them alone on this solitary earth.

The glimpses were seared into my brain. The moments before they came what my world had once been and what it looked like when I left. Tears mixed with blood at that moment.

Peeling off my half-dried clothing I stepped into the shower. My steps felt exhausting, my power usage had drained me from my lack of usage. It had been years since I last used any actual power.

I am warmed by the water. I let it trickle down my body, I watch as the shaking in my hands ceases with the steam as it rises. The water is something like a warm touch, light dancing fingertips running over my frozen skin.

But the tears do not cease for the entirety in which I stand beneath the steaming waters. I do not blubber or even cry. And yet the pearly teardrops run down my cheeks like a flowing tap.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, am I not alive, with a full stomach and a roof above my head?

I imagine the shower filling with water. It stops just beneath my eyes, leaving me to stare at nothing but my own reflection and the grout between the beige tiles.

By the time I’d returned back downstairs they’d cleaned off the puzzle from the table. Though I could still see a few runaway pieces scattered across the vinyl tile floor. Grandma was still sitting at the table, completely unmoved, though she had donned a light green knit sweater. She was twiddling her thumbs impatiently as people set the table around her.

Grabbing a couple cups, I walked over to the fridge.

Huffing, Evelyn planted her feet to my left as the cold water filled frosty glasses. “You’re sure that you’re okay? I know you’re not…quite like us, but I just want to make sure.”

I focused on the water as it brimmed the cups, the drops echoing on the waters edge like skipping rocks. Shifting from side to side on the edges of my feet, I tried to keep my face from wrinkling and my teeth from biting at my lips. Instead, I “I’m right as rain. You don’t worry about me.”

Sometimes, I have this dream. I know its dumb, but it doesn’t seem to want to go away. The dream or daydream quite often as it appears is that I sit down at the table, half prepared to begin eating. But instead, the room goes quiet and the Curie’s tell me that my time here in Bedlam is up. That I need to go.

They tell me that they’ve seen too much and that they can’t look at me without seeing the differences between us. In the dream I don’t eat my dinner, I watch as the steam dissipates and goes cold as I pack my clothing and leave.

I don’t want to leave.

Perhaps it is selfish to say such a thing but I don’t want to leave.

I broke away from Evelyn and placed the drinks on the table with a couple clinks and no spills.

“Sorry about that, I needed to change out of my clothes.” I slid into the chair and fiddled with the food on my plate. I mixed my chicken, mashed potatoes and peas together furiously. Beginning to scarf down my foot like a hungry bear I barely noticed the silence until most of the food had disappeared.

As soon as I looked up, the rest of them looked back down at their plates.