Smith and The Avenger are the topic of today's lesson at Oceanview high school, where I'm sitting quietly in my World History classroom. Everyone in the class is trying to pretend that they're not looking at the kid with the dead mother. Me.

            Seeing if I'll cry

            Or if I'll get angry

            Or run out of the classroom like John Ramirez did last year.

            Anything that you'd expect a teenager to do when they have to sit through a history lesson about the event that claimed their parent's life. I didn't have to deal with this attention that much during most days, so sometimes I forgot about the prying eyes that would soon greet me when Super day came around.

            Super day is to celebrate the anniversary of the Great battle twelve years ago. The battle that consequently took my parents away from me all those years ago. I, of course, was too young to remember every detail, but that didn't mean that I didn't know every detail now.

            Super Day happened to be Saturday, tomorrow, but today we were going to do the Super Day lessons instead. We usually learn all about Super Day the day before Super Day, because if Super Day fell on a school day, we had school off. It was considered a national holiday.

            Smith and The Avenger's battle had lasted over four hours and destroyed almost a quarter of Empire City. The fight also rolled over into Iris City for some time as well. Iris City was adjacent to Empire City, connected to each other by a bridge that went over the river Styx, named after the one from Greek mythology.

             Every citizen who had heard of the battle going on was hiding in their house, trying to avoid being in the crossfire of the raging battle. Some say that the battle was necessary, others say that we would have been better off without either super.

            Near the end of the battle, when both supers were losing energy and blood, The Avenger made a rash decision. He flew into the air, and Smith controlled a gust of wind to follow him. They flew so far into the atmosphere that it was almost impossible to see them anymore.

            Soon after they disappeared into the sky, there was a big solar flare, the largest solar flare ever recorded in the history of the earth. Scientists immediately assumed that The Avenger had thrown Smith into the Sun and the strange DNA that made him superhuman had caused the solar flare. Of course, it was one of many explanations to the end of the great battle, but the one that made the most sense in the scheme of things.

            A couple minutes after the solar flare, an asteroid was seen falling to the earth. It landed somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, causing a small tidal wave. Scientists never found the asteroid, but it was assumed that it had been the body of The Avenger falling back to the earth, dead.

            After all, no one, not even a super, could survive a fall like that, right?

            I tried to ignore the stares of my fellow students as I listened to the lesson that we all knew by heart. Every year they gave us the same lesson over and over again. It was required for the teachers to involve Super day to their lesson in some way, which was stupid in my opinion.

            In math, we'd calculate the flying speed of The Avenger, or how much money the Great Battle had cost the city. In history we'd get a lecture on the importance of the Great Battle and learn what happened inside and out. In science we'd pause our lesson to study the different possibilities of different theories as to how the battle ended. In English we'd all write a prompt that had something to do with the importance of Super Day, or it's significance to our daily life's. It was the same every super day, it never changes.

            I would have to go through the whole day listening to teacher after teacher explaining why they thought Super Day was important, and then suffer from the sorrowful looks of the other students and teachers when the death toll from that day was talked about, or when someone even mentioned either super.

            Today I would be talked about in hushed whispers behind my back. Soft, but still loud enough for my ears to catch what they say. Many students would come up to me and try to say something, anything to make me feel better.

            But what do you say to the girl who is reminded of her mother's death year after year?

            What do tell the girl with a broken heart that gets a new crack every time she sees the looks of pity on the faces of her fellow friends?  

            Most of the day went by quickly, in a blur of excited and sorrowful faces and conversations. I was left alone in most of my classes, if you excluded when Caine tried to apologize for his article. He was probably feeling guilty, seeing as everyone was feeling sorry for me today.

            So I found myself in AP physics with a face like stone. I hated the looks Lacey gave me all throughout theater today. She knew better than anyone how I hated the apologies from everyone else.

            The, "I'm so sorry for your loss," or, "I know how hard it must be for you," or the worst of them all, "I can imagine how you feel."

            No, you can't imagine this pain. Being reminded of the loss you had to endure at such a young age on the anniversary of the event every year was awful. It was horrible, nothing that could be imagined by anyone else at this school, except for the few others. They were the only other ones being given these looks as well.

            As far as I could tell, most of the kids whose parents, or sibling, or relatives died during the Great Battle moved away a long time ago. They didn't want to be reminded of the place that took the life of a loved one.

            I looked up at the clock, glad that I would only be here for another minute or so. I stole a glance at my table partner, Archer. He was still taking the notes with his nice handwriting, much nicer than mine. I had finished the notes and was waiting patiently for the bell to ring, and what better way to pass the time than to stare at your cru- I mean boyfriend.

            He was my boyfriend now, could you believe it?

            "You know, you could take a picture. It would most definitely last longer." Archer gave me a smirk. He had noticed my staring, this was bad.

            "Oh . . . umm."

            "It's okay, I don't mind." He smirks again, as if he knows how handsome and charming he was.

            Somehow he had been able to cheer me up with that smile and his hypnotizing voice. Somehow Archer had made the pain of the day go away.

            I giggled and then the bell rang, figures.

            I gathered up my stuff and left out the hallway. I was almost to my locker when I bumped into someone. I sighed in frustration and lent down to pick up my things, only to bump my head with the person I had originally bumped into.

            "You have a hard head." The guy said. It was the guy who was playing the Beast in the musical, my co-star. But for the life of me, I couldn't remember his name.

            "Sorry, I guess I wasn't looking where I was going. I do that a lot, I'm very clumsy." I say in apology.

            "No problem, Arabella, I'm very clumsy as well." He straightened up and lent out his hand to help me up in return.

            "Thanks."

            "So, you going to the Super Day festival tomorrow?" He asked, trying to start a conversation.

            "Yeah, actually I am. I'm going with my boyfriend, Archer. I never really went to these festivals before, so this will be a new experience for me." I say.

            "Yeah, I never usually go either. Too many people in one place for me." He smiles.

            "Well, I better get going, I guess I'll see you at practice next time." I smiled and waved. He, in return, waved back.

            I watched him walk away, down the hall and around a corner. If he was going to be my co-star, I would most definitely have to get to know him as a friend, he seemed nice.

            I walked back to my locker and put away my things that I didn't need to take home and I stared at the picture of the Marvel that Lacey had long ago put in my locker against my will with superglue, and wondered who really was the man under the mask.