Chapter Forty-Four
"I know about everything."
That was the first thing that left out of my mouth when I told my parents to gather Marcel and his family as well as the Titan Club guys, Lita, and Diane for a meeting. After waking up from the dream, I knew that I needed to say what I felt like I needed to say and let them know where I know stand.
"I know about the injections, Maldonado and Telfair going from former female Outcasts to male Titan Club members, me being engaged to Marcel- I remember everything," I replied, my voice thick with emotion yet calm as the sea. "And I know that I'm still a Titan."
Dad huffed. "I knew it," he said gruffly. "I take it that you're ready to fight against us again."
"No, Dad, I'm not. I said that I know everything, but what I was also going to say that I understand now. I understand that if I continued or resumed my anti-change campaign and try to go against my destiny, I was going to hurt myself even more and miss out on everything," I responded. "If not for pity, I would only be facing a grim and lonely end."
"How do you know that?" Andrew wanted to know.
"Kevarix showed me in my dream last night. He said that I needed to see what might've happened if I didn't come to town and met you guys."
"And how did it all end?" my fiance asked me.
I took a deep breath. "Not well at all," I replied. "I saw myself working at a dead-end job with my hopes of making it big all but an impossible dream while I was still holding on to bitterness towards everyone- even my own parents. I saw myself dead and alone with only a headstone telling my life story in two lines: gone, forgotten, bitter, and alone; I had gotten no more or less than what I deserved."
"Damn," Lincoln breathed.
"Tell me about it," I replied. "Honestly, I was afraid. Afraid that if I did go along with this from the start, I would lose myself even more and end up being someone whom I totally hated. I wanted to be realistic and cynical of the fast-lane life while holding onto the ideals of frugality and settling for less. But all that got me were fellow haters. And if I stayed that way-"
"You'd be losing everything without giving yourself a chance," Dad intoned, nodding. "So, what are you going to do now?"
Inhaling sharply, I faced the man who started it all. "For starters, I want to make this clear. I'm no longer the bratty and arrogant change-hating teenager who wanted to be his own kind of man," I said. "I'm fully accepting my new life as an all-American superhuman teenager with a family that cares for me and friends who want me to come out of my shell. I'm no longer fighting fate, but fully accepting it the way that I accepted Kevarix as my other half. As for this pending wedding, it'll go forward as planned. All in all, I'm no longer this jaded nerd who was always looking at life with scorn and acting too cool for everyone."
I took a deep breath. "And since I know all about the serums, I want to take whatever's left and make sure that the manifesto remains clear as day: Haters are the past. Titans are the future," I continued. "If this means turning back on the people who wanted me to leave town and start over somewhere else while becoming an enemy in their eyes, then so be it. The one thing that I regret is that I didn't accept this sooner, me going through what Dad wanted in the first place. It was so easy to rebel yet difficult to accept that-"
"You just accepted the ideals of what you've been taught," Mom finished for me. "Oh, Kyle."
"All water under the bridge now, but I can't help but think about how this will affect Grandma, Grandpa, Khadijah, and Khandi, not to mention Tamarious, Kelante and his crew, and even Tiffany and her family."
"Leave everything to us, Kyle," Dad assured me as Phillip and Marcel came with the needle-tipped syringe and the serums. "All you can do now is embrace your new life with open arms. I know that you mean every single word that you say. But it's up to you to decide if you believe it yourself."
Did I, readers?
If I backed out now, my speech would've been hollow words. But if I did follow through with everything...then nothing will ever be the same as I said goodbye to the old me forever.
There was no turning back now. Taking a deep breath, I only nodded once before letting Marcel inject me with the first of the final doses of the serum that would seal my fate. "Haters are the past. Titans are the future," I said, my voice firm as I led the chant.
"Haters are the past. Titans are the future," everyone echoed in unison.
And as we continued with the chants while I took in the nanbot-laced serum that would seal my fate as a super-powered jock, all I could do was let go and embrace.
So it is. So it goes.
Oh...shit.
Looks like Kyle's now going to be a superhuman jock out of his own volition and become an enemy of the story. And this only means that shit is getting more real.
Coming up next, Tamarious is formally adopted into the Tillman-Parrish family before they're warned to leave Berkeley from a councilman and learn of what happened with Kyle. You can't afford to not read what's going down as things start winding down, my fine friends! And I guarantee you that what'll happen next will change everything!
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