Endera

Carabao held that look again—the one that asserted moral superiority and good intentions and other bull I’m sure he regarded with heroic splendor.

It was marvelously irritating.

“What happened to you, Etta?”

I stirred my paper cup of paper-tasting coffee and sighed. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me for the millionth time?”

“Come on, don’t do that. You know I only keep asking because you keep avoiding it. Look. I’m only worried about you, that’s all.”

Here he goes again.

 “Will you just drink your damn coffee and humor me with idle chatter? Like a normal person? Thank you.”

“Rosetta,” he said, capping his cup but of course proceeding to patronize me further. “Really. When’s the last time you saved a civilian? Charged into a burning building? Locked up a villain? Hell, even helped a cat down a tree?”

“I don’t know, okay?” I tossed my hands up in defeat. 

I hated him. I hated his righteous, never-fear-I-am-here grin, his giant ego and his slicked back black hair that stayed perfectly still beneath a two-horned, sickle-shaped headpiece. I hated that he was right. Here I was in a coffee shop dressed in everyday wear, hunched over a nasty beverage across a hero I both admired and abhorred. I was no longer Endera, no longer revered and remembered—I was simply lost.

“Why are you even here? We aren’t close. Calling us friends is pushing it.” I displayed a little more hurt than I would’ve liked, but asked, “Did you want to get coffee just to criticize me?”

“Of course not,” Carabao said, offering me a blinding but wholly earnest grin. “I respect you. I just wanted to remind you of how much potential you have. You used to be an amazing hero! Really. I miss seeing the Dazzling Endera making headlines.”

I gripped the cup tightly. I could easily squash it; oh how I wanted to.

“Endera’s dead at this point,” I muttered.

“She isn’t tho.” Carabao leaned back in the wooden seat, which looked comically tiny for such a burly guy. He extended his tan arms out with dramatic flair. “She’s right here. Sitting right in front of me. Looking as beautiful as ever.”

“Flattery will get you dead,” I said matter-of-factly. But my heart swelled at the compliment. “Anyway. It doesn’t matter. I’m done playing hero. I’ve been in the biz for a brutal ten years, and I’m happy I’ve finally thrown the white flag. I gave up a while ago, you know. I gave up before I even knew I wanted it to be over.”

“Well. You don’t deserve that power then.”

I opened my mouth, but no words could deny him.

“It’s ironic,” he said, and finally I saw the vexation clenched in his fists. “You have unlimited endurance, and yet your mentality is fantastically listless.”

“Thanks. Needed that.”

“Seriously,” he said, that grin of his now strained, faltering. “Why did you hang up the cape, Etta?”

I couldn’t look at him.

Why. Why. I hadn’t thought about why in months.

I downed half my coffee, taking my sweet, sweet time. Then, staring at the cup and its colorful design with mild interest: “I didn’t see the point. I didn’t see how saving people would help in the long run. I mean. It only hurt. To see the ones I couldn’t save. To watch them suffer under the hand of some villain I wasn’t strong enough to defeat.” I was attacking my cuticles again, a nervous habit I could’ve sworn I’d long since left behind. Guess not. 

“And then I thought, I’m risking my life for these people. But who’s ever going to save me? Who can possibly save me from the guilt, the turmoil, of watching people die?” I paused. “It’s selfish, isn’t it. It’s selfish. Because then you feel like—you feel like it’s all your fault. And then you come to hate yourself. More and more each day, each death. You hate everything about being a hero. Because you don’t feel like one. You feel like…” It was then that the cuticle peeling turned to senseless plucking, plucking, plucking—bleeding—

A hand pressed gently atop my own. I finally glanced up at him—Emilio. His expression was grim, yet meshed with something like compassion and understanding. The kind of understanding only heroes could relate to, because no one’s done or seen what heroes had. No one.

I let out a shaky sigh. “How do you do it? How the hell do you go on being such a happy, invincible hero? Person? Despite that screwed-up reality?”

Emilio was silent for a moment. Staring at our hands. Finally he said, slowly, “You can’t save everyone. So you have to be grateful for the ones you do save. You have to keep pushing forward.” He looked at me, trying to catch my gaze. He could not. “If you just stop being a hero, stop saving anyone, even if it’s one person—then the villains will always win. People will still die. You just won’t see it. You don’t see it now.”

I pressed my lips tight against each other as needles pricked my eyes. A pained, breathless whisper: “I can’t… I can’t be Endera again. I can’t stomach it. Not after letting all those people—” I had to stop myself or I would collapse into pitiful tears. And like hell I was going to do that in some coffee shop, in front of everyone’s favorite hero no less (I didn’t even mention the autographs he’d scrawled on countless receipts and coffee cups and handbags when we first walked in).

“You know,” he said softly, “I remember that story on the news. You saved twenty people single handedly, leaping and coasting over ground zero in tenacious strides, knocking down goons along the way like they were nothing. You—enduring. As one with your power should. And did. Yet you gave up on being that hero.” Emilio let out a breath of disbelief. “You know, I was so annoying about you coming back to the super world because of acts like that. Acts of valiance. Surprisingly, not many so-called heroes pull that off.”

I drew my hands from his and shoved them in my lap. A humorless chuckle escaped me. “You have a way with words, you know that?”

“Well, It'd be a damn shame if I didn’t. Nothing like spouting motivation on talk shows and sounding holy and encouraging and wise 24/7.”

I smiled a bit, for the first time in a very, very long time. “Somewhere along the way I forgot what it meant to be a hero. A part of me still forgets. Still dreads donning the mask. But…” I downed the rest of my coffee and stood up. Paused. For a moment I debated, then thought screw it and leaned over and pressed a split-second kiss on his cheek. His eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise. “Thanks, Carabao guy.” I was about to turn but asked, “What even is that? A bull?”

He snorted. “It’s a buffalo. They’re from home. The Philippines, I mean. And you’re welcome. I hope you really do think about what I said. Maybe try on the mask, hm?” 

“We’ll see.”

He sighed. “Well, after that kiss, will you at least finally call me Emilio?”

“We haven’t quite upgraded to friends,” I said with a smirk. “So no. You’re still just some famous hero to me.”

“Ouch.” But he was grinning that wonderful grin again. “Until next time, Endera. And that better be your name when I see you then.”

Again I said, beaming, “We’ll see.”