The Many Faces of Tully

I stay in my room. I look at myself in the mirror, and my hair is red. Not auburn, not orange, full on red. It’s wavy and parted to the side, and I have side swept bangs. My eyes are green and I have freckles. The only thing I can think of is the little mermaid.

I’m about five seven and I’m fit. You can see the faint line of a six pack and I feel like I can go on a five mile run without breaking a sweat. I sigh and lie down on my bed. I try not to think about him. Some days are harder than others, especially the ones where I am reminded about him constantly.

It takes a few hours before there is a soft knock on my door. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I want to mope. They’re horrible people if they want me to keep doing this. They have no idea the emotional damage I have, and they never will.

“Tully?” Calchas’ voice comes through my door. “Just open the door. I don’t want to have to persuade you,” he says.

I sigh again. I contemplate it for a second. He probably won’t stop bugging me until I let him come in. I sit up to open the door but it’s swinging open on its own accord. Calchas is staring at me on my bed.

“Did you just open the door from over there?” he asks me. I shrug. My powers do whatever they want. He walks in and sits on my bed next to me.

“I think we owe you an apology, and I think you owe us one too. I know none of us really understands what’s going on up there.” He touches my forehead. “But you need to know we aren’t trying to hurt you. We are honestly trying to help you by understanding what goes on with your power so you can control it. I know you want to learn how to control it too.” He’s talking to the wall, not to me.

“I don’t like feeling out of control,” I mumble to the wall too.

“See? We are trying our hardest to help you gain control. You’re safe here. We won’t let you hurt anyone... Seriously,” he says.

I notice he kind of tacked on 'seriously', meaning he honestly doesn’t know if I won’t hurt anyone. “I’m sorry for blowing up on you guys, emotionally, not physically.” I laugh slightly.

“Thank you for blowing up on us, emotionally and physically. We needed you to set us straight and we got some great footage, Tully. I’ll let Jace run it down for you whenever you might want him to. Oh, and don’t worry about him, he doesn’t mean to hurt you. He’s just single minded some times and only focuses on getting information. He’s a bit obsessive.” He stands up. “I’ll see you around Tully.” And he leaves.

I fall asleep early again and wake up at 4:00 like normal. I get up and stretch. I feel like I need to in this body. I do twenty sit-ups, push-ups and squats. I sigh. I can’t put it off any longer, and I go into the kitchen. As soon as I walk in there, I freeze.

There is an overflowing bowl of Captain Crunch already in my seat, and Jace is carefully walking my full mug to the table. He looks up at me and relief colors his face. “Oh thank goodness. I was afraid you weren’t going to come down so early this morning.” Some of the coffee spills. “Damn it. How do you do this?” he asks me, as he sets it down on the table.

I walk forward and sit down as he sits in front of his bowl of cereal. “It’s an acquired skill,” I tell him, smiling. This is really nice of him. I haven’t had someone do nice things for me since Rhode Island.

The thought makes me freeze. I haven’t thought the states’ name since it happened. It was always just “the state”. I start twisting the watch around. I shove the thought back in its box. That box can’t open. I will not let it. I can’t think about it or I’ll break down.

“I’m really sorry about yesterday…” he starts, but I cut him off.

“Calchas came by and explained it to me. Don’t worry about it,” I reassure him.

“Even so, I want to apologize for it. I can be such a jerk sometimes and I don’t even mean to. I’m really sorry. And I also haven’t been around a girl in a while and I forgot how touchy you guys can be. I don’t expect any of the guys to cry, but I should have remembered that you are a girl and are more prone to crying.”

“Thanks for that,” I say sarcastically.

“Sorry,” he says again. We eat our cereal in silence.

I’m rinsing my bowl off when he talks again.

“So, did you want to see the footage of yesterday? I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty cool.” He stands next to me and rinses off his bowl too. I look up at him and he has that excited look in his eyes again.

I think Nash’s power and my power are his favorites. So watching our powers go up against each other was probably like Christmas came early for him. His excitement seeps into me and I become excited to see it too.

“Yeah? Let’s go watch it,” I say.

He smiles and grabs his laptop off of the table and holds the kitchen door open for me. We walk next to each other to the living room. He hooks up his laptop to the TV and starts fiddling around. The door to our right opens when he gets the video up on the TV.

Rozen walks out and looks at the two of us. “What are you two doing?” he asks. I still don’t like him. He makes me feel guilty, like I’m going to get in trouble, though I’ve done nothing wrong.

“We’re going to watch the footage of her and Nash yesterday,” Jace says. He digs out his glasses case from his pocket and puts them on.

“Wait for me. I’m going to go get something to eat real quick,” he says and walks off to the kitchen.

I frown, and Jace notices. “What?” he asks me.

I consider not telling him the truth, but I have a feeling he’d see through me. “He’s supposed to be our leader right?” Jace nods, staring at me through his glasses. He makes me feel like an experiment a lot of the time. “And his power is to lead us. Like we are supposed to want to follow him, right?”

“Yeah. What’s your point?” He crosses his arms over his chest, and his eyes are piercing again.

“I don’t want to follow him,” I say truthfully. It’s a dangerous thing to say. I’m a part of this group, but I don’t want to follow the leader. What does that say about me?

He just stares at me. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have told him. I can’t take it back now though. The longer he stays silent for, the more nervous I get. He’s going to tell them and they’re going to kick me out. I can’t be a part of the group if I don’t want to follow the leader.

“How is that even possible?” he finally says. He cocks his head slightly and the TV reflects off of his glasses.

“I don’t know,” I mumble. “I just don’t like him. Do you?” I ask him.

“Well yeah. Guess I never thought about it though. Whatever he says just feels right, but that’s his power. I don’t really have a choice…” he trails off and his eyebrows furrow. He stares off into space for a little bit. And then his head snaps towards me. “I wonder why his power doesn’t work on you.”

I shrug. I really don’t have time to answer because Rozen is walking up then with four pieces of buttered toast in his hand and a mug of coffee.

“Let’s do this,” he says, and sits down in the arm chair. I sit on the couch next to Jace, and he starts up the video.