Rule #15: Keep your sister (or any siblings/family members) out of your secret lair. It's your private space, dude, protect it with your life. Once you start letting them in, as innocent as it seems, things just go downhill. They start coming in all the time and using your bathroom and eating your food and it just gets entirely out of hand. But if you try to cut it off then, everyone gets upset. So set your boundaries early. They still might be annoyed but they're your family so they'll forget about it eventually. I promise, things will be better off in the long run when you're able to dance around in your underwear without them randomly showing up. Not that I do that, I just have a friend that does. Stop asking so many questions!

A few days later, after class one day, Faye called after me and pulled me aside. Naturally, this gesture freaked me the fuck out. For one thing, she never came up to me. At least, not before Ike and Lena made fun of the heroes and definitely not before I saved her. Also, she had been practically stalking me the last few days but had left me alone all day today, which was doubly weird. But now she was walking up to be all out of the blue? It was weird, especially since she definitely looked guilty. Had she told someone about my being a superhero? What the hell was wrong?

"Hey," I said, ready to run if necessary.

"Hey." Now she looked even more nervous. WHAT WAS THIS.

"What's up?" Please don't tell me that you betrayed my secret. Maybe just ask what the homework was and just walk away.

"Uh... Well, this is embarrassing..."

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit.

"It's just, uh-" she said. "Would you maybe want to go out on a date with me?"

"What?"

The word was out of my mouth before I could stop it and her face flushed even more. Great, now I was that asshole. Here she was, asking me out on a date (even if it was only a pity date) and I was acting like I had the social skills of a kindergartener. No, a kindergartener would know to be more polite, I was practically an infant. No wonder Ike was my only friend. (Damn it, I realized then that I was one of those friendless kids teachers and parents worried about and pitied all the time. I mean, I technically had Dan and Rachel but I don't think a grown man and my sister were really what people thought of when they thought of friends.)

"Nevermind, if you don't want to then don't worry about it."

Her face was bright red, she looked like a cute tiny little tomato, and she started to turn away. I panicked, trying to get her attention but not knowing what to say, and ended up basically grabbing her shoulder and wrenching her around to look at me. Even better, now I was the guy that hurt girls. That would be an easy one to explain to the superhero council.

"No!" I was finally able to say. "No, I do want to."

"You do?" She looked so surprised (hopefully pleasantly surprised) that I felt like the biggest asshole in the world. Could she really not tell that I had been drooling over her for the past million years? That seemed unlikely, I was kind of a bumbling idiot.

Truth was, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. On the one hand, I wanted to say yes just because she hadn't told anyone my secret. Like it wouldn't be a pity yes but it would be a "I'm not sure about this in general but you're sweet and have shown that you're a good person by keeping my secret" sort of thing.

But on the other hand, after she had kissed me I was feeling it a lot yes. Maybe I had built her up too much in my head so I was disappointed or something, but it wasn't what I wanted.

But on another hand (I had many hands in this scenario), I had liked her for so long for a reason and she was still pretty/nice/sweet/cute and all that so I would be lucky to pay for her movie ticket.

And finally, on yet another hand, as much as I was surprised she was the "independent woman who had no problem asking out a guy" type (let me just say in advance, there's nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home mom for a working mom or anything in between but Faye always struck me as the stay-at-home mom who supports her daughters' feminist qualities but isn't sure where she lands on feminism herself), I really admired her for it. I mean, I had been too chicken to ask her out for years and her she was asking like she did it everyday. So what if she was a bad kisser? We could work on that. Bad kissing didn't have to outweigh niceness and a beautiful smile and confidence. So as conflicted as I was, saying yes seemed like the only right choice. Just because we went on one date didn't mean we had to get married or something.

"Yes," I finally said.

"Really?" She was smiling now and I felt even better about this decision."

"Yeah, definitely. I'd love to go out with you. When are you free?"

"Um..." She blushed again. "Well today is a Friday and I'm free tonight..."

"Tonight? Like today tonight?"

"Yes." She looked worried again. "Is that too soon? I don't want to force you into anything."

"No it sounds great!" God, now I sounded too eager. This dating stuff was exhausting and we hadn't even been on the date yet. "I mean, yeah I'm free so why not?"

She smiled. "Great! I'll text you when I get home and we can figure out the details."

"Sounds good."

"Bye Matt." Then, taking me entirely off guard, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek before rushing away, leaving me to figure out what the hell just happened.

Surprisingly, the date didn't take much effort to plan. Within a few texts (and a lot of individual planning on Faye's part, which I loved), we had agreed to go to see a movie that night. I was a little afraid that she'd want to see a super annoying looking chick flick (even though I would have gone just because she asked me too), but instead she suggested a movie musical thing that had just come out. I think she expected me to reject the idea but I actually like musicals (or at least some of them) and said yes.

Once that was decided I just had to tell her what time I would pick her up and warn her that I'd be in my mom's minivan. I considered suggesting we fly (there had to be some perks in this situation), but I figured that the risk was too bad and it would probably ruin her hair anyway. It seemed to be a little selfish to insist on flying so I could look cool but ruin the effort she would most likely put into her outfit for tonight.

So we went to the movies and it was okay. I mean, I had a good enough time. The movie was pretty good, Faye looked nice, and I had no real reason to complain. But thing just felt off, you know? Not in a "something's wrong and Lena is secretly forcing Faye to do all of this" type of way, but in a "something's missing and I can't put my finger on it" type of way. I felt like a jerk for feeling like that but I did.

For instance, I paid for her movie ticket and the popcorn. Maybe we should have gone dutch because she had asked and because she offered but I paid. I mean, I had the money and I felt like that was what I was supposed to do. That was the problem. I didn't have a problem with it, per say, but the main reason I did it was because I felt like I had to. I paid because I felt like I should, I put my arm around her because I felt like I should, and I felt like a jerk when I almost didn't do those things. Was this what dating was like, feeling underwhelmed and like you were always doing something because you SHOULD?

But I think the worst thing was that Faye seemed to have a really good time. She laughed a lot and had smiled when I put my arm around her, like she liked me even more now. What could I do in response to that? Just blow her off? Instead it made me want to fake more. I may not have feelings for her like that but I did like her, she was a nice girl and I didn't want to hurt her. But I also couldn't fake forever, I couldn't imagine what would happen if she found out I had been faking in a way, and I had to do something before things got out of hand. I was a shitty person.

And I got even shittier after the movie ended.

You see, as we walked out of the movie, my arm still around Faye, I started to notice something. Because Faye looked like she did and because she had this aura that drew people to her, people looked at her differently. She totally had that whole "supermodel quality" thing down. People didn't look at her in a creepy way, although I'm sure some creeps did at times, they just looked at her because she was something amazing to look at. Like they couldn't resist. I could relate to that feeling.

Even standing next to her the people looking sort of got to you. It was like a combination of being near someone like her and knowing that people wanted to look at you, even if it was just because Faye was next to me. It was like we were in this special bubble, like no one could touch us.

That's why I was such a shitty person. That special bubble feeling made me want to stay next to Faye forever, even though I wasn't sure how I felt about her. I wanted to keep that feeling at any cost, even if I had to fake it and lie. I knew, rationally, that this was wrong. And if I hadn't had any logical reason to be near here I would have dropped it and left her alone like I should have.

But I didn't.

You see, that's where the evil part of my brain took over. It, like the guilty part of my brain, reminded me of how much time I had liked Faye. How she was practically everything I had imagined and I was about to throw that all away. Being with her had been the only thing I had wanted for years, why was I about to give up so easily? Giving up would be idiotic. I could learn to love her like I thought I would, I could teach her to kiss better. It would only take time.

So instead of breaking things off like I should have, like I wish I had, I kept walking and kept my arm around her. I knew it couldn't last forever but I didn't care. I just wanted to stay in that special bubble, that bubble she created, for as long as I could.