Why can’t you just be normal?

There are so many people who don’t know why they have powers or what they do with them, but there are definitely some out there who know entirely too much about their abilities.

Think about the person who likes to cause accidents on the highway just so they can help others or the one who always causes fires in their neighborhood. You know if you’ve ever encountered someone like that. Someone who loves to make things happen even though it would be better (or safer) if they didn’t?

Why can t you just be normal?

It’s because they can’t, just like me. I’m different. That’s what my parents tell me, anyway. It’s hard to believe that about myself sometimes because it doesn’t help with anything. The only thing knowing that makes me better is how much people who don’t know about me (and probably won’t) think I’m special. I know because whenever something bad happens to them, they come running.

“Oh, it’s you again.” I guess that’s what my life is now, at least one of the people who have run across me says. That kind of makes sense. If there are so many people out there with special abilities, it would be easy for them all to get caught up in something.

Maybe I just think that because of the mess my life is. See, it’s not normal, even though I’ve been told that time and time again. It really starts from the day that these abilities started appearing.

Just a few days ago, I was lying down, watching a movie while I was supposed to be doing homework like a good little girl. I heard the sound of something moving quickly past my window and then there was a crash that made me jump up. It had sounded like it came from right outside my second-story window, which was weird because, as far as I knew, no one had been on our property since we moved in.

It was strange, but I figured it had just been some kind of animal or something running by. I hadn’t even thought about the possibility that somebody might have run into our backyard. That is until my mom walked into my room and started to talk to me about it.

“I don’t think someone ran into our yard,” I said. My voice was still kind of shaky from the initial shock of hearing that noise. She didn’t even acknowledge it, though.

“I heard something in the yard after you came home,” she said. I guess I didn’t want to think about what she meant because she hurried on with her thoughts. “You know this neighborhood is dangerous. There’s too much crime for you to be outside by yourself after school.”

“I’m not alone, there are other people-” I started before she cut me off.

“There are some very strange people in this world,” my mother said with a sigh. “That’s why you need to know that if anything is happening around, I expect you to come get me.”

I was still a little distracted by the noise, but I wanted to tell her that nobody should be afraid in their own home. That’s kind of ridiculous. You might think it’s odd that someone my age would think about this, but my parents have been trying to keep me from going out after school.

We had only moved to this area a few months ago, but it was apparently considered one of the worst in town even though nobody knew why. It’s not like my dad’s job or anything allowed him to live anywhere else, but I still think that there were other places that could have been worse.