One (One Universe)

He’s lucky I’m feeling slightly optimistic this morning, or I might mess his up right back. It looks flawless for work at the Hub, as usual.
    I don’t answer.
    “Well,” he says, “you look beautiful.”
    I humor him with a shake of my head and a smile.
    All my features are slight, like my stature: a pixie nose, near-translucent skin with not even a freckle to decorate my cheeks, sparse eyebrows.
    But my hair is the worst. The longer I let it grow, the more it tapers from thick brunette into dull, baby-fine ends, so I keep it short, at my shoulders. At least it waves instead of lying stick-straight. It’s as wispy as the clouds on a clear day.
    “I know Mom gave you a new lock. Did you clear out your smartcuff from last year?”
    I roll my eyes and push up my sleeve to show him that, yes, the three-inch-wide, flexible tablet that holds all the information I need to get through the day (besides acting as a phone, GPS, and universal ID) has been wiped clean of all the stuff I needed at Superior. I don’t tell him that I spent days hacking it to change the ID status from “Merrin Grey: One” to “Merrin Grey: Normal.”
    I pop the handle open and crack the door before we’re even fully stopped. The football field, which peeks out from behind the school, has a fresh frame of bright white lines and a state-of-the-art looking scoreboard. I imagine the classrooms and locker rooms feature an according disparity. Great.
    “Three-thirty, Dad. Okay?” I scoot myself out of the seat and onto the sidewalk. I let the door fall shut before he can answer. Not because I’m trying to be rude, but because I think if I hear Dad’s voice now, I might cry and mess up the first mascara I’ve worn for about 10 months.
    I’m not really upset about transferring from Superior High to Nelson.
    I’m not. I’m not.
     
    No one really says it out loud, but everyone knows Supers and Normals hate each other — too much decades-old bad blood. Supers say the Normals were jealous of them, and that’s what caused tensions in the first place. Normals say they didn’t know anything about Supers or whether they could be trusted.
    I can see that. The way the Supers treated me — a sad, powerless kid — at SHS, I figure maybe the Supers scared the crap out of Normals sixty years ago. Super-strength or teleporting or being able to shoot fire could be terrifying if it was used as a threat.
    Being a One is the worst — we’re caught exactly in between Super and Normal, between stuck-up and terrified. Supers assume we’re jealous, and Normals assume we’re full of ourselves.
    But here, I’m the new kid. No one knows anything about me. And no one has to. I take a deep breath through my nose, trying to ease the pit in my stomach.
    I’m feeling a little too light this morning.
    The wind feels like it might blow me away today. My loose, tissue-thin shirt hangs off my bony shoulders, blows against the curve of my back, and I know that everyone can tell how thin I am in the tank top underneath. My cuffed denim shorts go down to my knees, and because Mom picked them up in the girl’s department, they fit snugly to my legs. That’s fine since I learned that baggy pants only made me look ridiculous and even tinier.
    I look down at the ground and take a deep breath. Heavy. Be heavy. My eye catches the one thing that can make me smile: my blue plaid Chucks. My brothers, Michael and Max, gave them to me for my sixteenth birthday last month. They thought I would like them, and they were absolutely right. Awesome kids, no matter how jealous I am of their insanely rare water-walking skills.
    With any luck, this year will just be the boring prelude to where I really belong: occupying one of the spots in the Biotech Hub’s summer internship program. I can do anything if it leads to that. I breathe deeply, hoping the air pressure in my lungs will make me heavier, and take my first steps toward a normal year at Nelson High.
     
    I’m guessing there are 300 students in the whole school, which means everyone here knows everyone else. I let out a slow sigh of relief when I realize none of the students milling through the halls look at me. Either no one notices me, or no one cares. Or, since it’s the first day and I’m new, I’ll pass for a freshman.
    I find the administrative office easily enough. I have to pound on the ancient touchscreen installed there to get my schedule, and when I finally manage to download it onto my cuff, it takes