Towering by Alex Flinn

said last night, because I wasn’t from around here.
    Mrs. Greenwood looked her up and down, then turned back to me. “Sometimes, I think you can tell yourself there isn’t a problem because you don’t want there to be. Or because you don’t think you’re strong enough to deal with it if there is one.”
    Exactly. “If you’re not a hero, does that make you a villain?”
    Mrs. Greenwood pursed her lips, and I knew she was thinking about Danielle like I was thinking about Tyler. Probably, she thought about Danielle every day. Any mother would. “I don’t think so. That would make just about everyone a villain then. The real villains are the ones who are actually commanding the evil robots to destroy the hero.”
    The waitress had walked away. “I think I’d like to be the hero. I mean, it’s not my nature to be the hero, to be the person who recognizes the problem and takes charge, but I think if you know that about yourself, you can change it too.”
    She didn’t answer, and I wondered if I’d hurt her feelings because she hadn’t done that with Danielle. I thought about how it was probably different with parents and kids. Probably parents just had a blind spot where their kids were concerned, preferring to see them as the perfect little babies they were before they got messed up. Or maybe you could just get so close to someone you stopped looking.
    “Mrs. Greenwood, I didn’t mean . . .”
    She shook her head. “I never got to have any grandchildren. I always thought about that with Danielle.”
    “Well, I’ve learned a lot from you so far. I never knew my own grandmother.”
    “I know. That Lina Hill was a stubborn woman.”
    Lina was my grandmother. I didn’t know her. She and my mom hadn’t gotten along. She’d never forgiven my mother for getting pregnant with me, I guessed. After my grandmother died, my grandfather contacted my mother. He moved in with us, helped us out, and was the closest thing to a father I ever had.
    I wondered if Danielle had been pregnant, if that was why she’d run away from home. Maybe she was still out there. But of course, Mrs. G. wouldn’t know about that, and I for sure wasn’t going to tell her.
    Her hand was on the table, and I gave it a little pat, which was awkward, but it seemed right.
    When I got home, I realized I’d forgotten to check my texts when I had service. I had two, though, both from Astrid (who lived in town and apparently had service), one reiterating the skiing invitation, one saying what a nice time she’d had New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t answer them, but I decided I’d call her tomorrow. When I went out. It probably wasn’t good to be alone all the time.
    I smiled and listened to the wind howl as I drifted to sleep.
    In the middle of it, like a harmony, I heard that same voice, singing.
    I would check it out tomorrow.

Wyatt
    The next morning, I woke from a dream of being chased by evil robots. I felt surprisingly refreshed. I looked down at the snow, which was patchy, indicating a warmer day. I decided to go to Josh’s and try to retrace my steps from New Year’s Eve, solve the mystery of the bizarre singing once and for all, even if it was just a dream.
    I told Mrs. Greenwood, “I’m going to town to get those hinges and also, um, to return some calls I got.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Is there a girl involved?”
    I shrugged. “Maybe.” I wasn’t sure if Astrid was someone I was really interested in. But maybe there was another girl. Maybe.
    “It’s complicated?”
    “Not that. Just, I’m not sure yet, you know.”
    “The course of true love never did run smooth.” I thought that was Shakespeare. Maybe.
    I laughed. “Okay, yeah. I met this girl, Astrid. She’s a friend of Josh’s. I thought I’d call and see if we could hang out sometime.”
    “Hang out? Do you know when I was a girl, people didn’t hang out. People actually courted. They went out on dates.”
    “We do that now too. We just call it hanging