I’m not a superhero. On my sixteenth birthday, my palms didn’t suddenly burst with light nor did I discover that my father is a Greek god. And though I wish it were possible, I never teleported from high school hallways. Ironically, if that had happened, my life would make a lot more sense.
Because there is something about me that makes my father fearful. Sometimes he stares at me: careful but curious like I’m an anomaly, an aberration, a freak. Stay average, he urges. Hold back, Braden. Don’t garner attention, Son. It’s safer. But safer for whom, me or the rest of the world?
It scares me, really, what I’m capable of. Instincts, suppressed and hidden, well up inside of me, threatening to drown any sense of my humanity, drown anything that is normal about me. Until I meet Jewel. Because Jewel changes everything. She is the catalyst to unlocking all my secrets, piecing me together until we realize some secrets shouldn't be freed.