Jean looked out the window at the bright early June sky as sat on the window sill, trying to get her lesson plans for tomorrow done. More than anything, she wished tomorrow would never come, for her at least. Living never held the same meaning after that night.
She was still trying to piece reality together. How could something so simple be so complex at the same time?
Love. They'd had it. They'd both admitted to it, but now it was impossible to live it, though impossible even more still to forget.
Before Scott had come to the Institute, Jean Grey had always had her eye on another teen. This one had blond hair, a killer smile, and white wings that any other person regarded as abnormal. Jean thought they were beautiful.
The summer before their senior year, Ororo had gone back to Africa and Hank to Illinois, but Jean and Warren had been left behind at the Institute by people they called 'family'. Professor Xavier had taken off to D.C. for the day to visit with some important people.
That summer, Charles had tasked the four students to figure out a codename for themselves. Ororo had chosen hers before she left, deciding upon 'Storm'. Hank said he would throw the thought around in his mind over the summer, and come back with one. Neither Jean nor Warren had found one they liked yet.
"Why are you still here?" Warren Worthington III asked the young redhead, purposefully sitting in her light. They were hanging out by a cliff which overlooked the beach below.
"My family took a cruise and didn't invite me along," she replied, putting her book down. "What about you?"
Warren shrugged, "It was either stay here where I can spread my wings and fly, or live three months with the degrading stares of my father everytime he sees me."
Jean shook her head, "I could never understand why he hates your wings. They're amazing."
He looked away, "No, they're not. They're ugly and abnormal."
"Define normal for me, will you."
He was silent.
"Did you know the dictionary definition of the adjective 'normal' is 'serving to establish a standard?" Jean recited from memory. "Who's to say that your wings and my mental abilities won't become standard?"
"The rest of society."
"Exactly!" Jean exclaimed. "Society says they're abnormal. Do you know why? Because they don't have them. They're jealous that they don't have them and that jealously leads to anger when they realize that others do. 'I don't have it so why should they'? That type of double standard has whipped American society, most societies on Earth, actually, into being the way it is since society was society."
"If you say society again, I'm going to slap you."
Jean glared at him, "Only if you can reach me."
She ran away from the young man as fast as she could, struggling not to laugh. The bright summer sun came out from behind a cloud just then, and blinded her, just as she was stopping at the cliff's edge. Unfortunately, in blinding her, it also upset her timing and depth perception. Jean was too close to the edge, and having the horrible balance she did, she tipped over.
The young woman had the awful sensation of falling and not being able to stop. Her weak telekinetic abilities wouldn't even put a dent in it. She watched the ocean come closer and closer, and was sudden hit in the side with such a force she lost all of the breath in her lungs. The shocking part, to her at least, was she wasn't falling anymore.
When she looked over to her side, she saw Warren, who was holding her bridal style while he flew her back to the cliff.
Warren set Jean back beside her book and was about to tell her off when he saw her green eyes gazing at him with absolute adoration in their jade depths, "What?"
"You really are an angel."
He laughed and she quickly joined in, realizing how stupid she must have sounded, "Angel? No."
"You certainly just saved my life," she pointed out.
"Whatever. You're just-"
His words were cut off as her lips met his in a kiss that left them both wanting more. The kiss started out simple and sweet, but grew into something passionate and hot, something neither wanted to stop.
The rest of that summer, they spent holding, kissing, and just plain being near each other, though never "officially" calling themselves anything close to girlfriend and boyfriend.
When September came back around, it brought Scott to the Xavier Institute, but also dragged Warren away from Jean and back into that horrid gaze of his father's. No one except the two of them ever knew anything about their short lived relationship.
Three years later, Warren was the one who brought it up in conversation.
"Look, Jean, I know...I know that...God! Why isn't this easy?" Warren said, raking a hand through his hair in frustration.
Jean crossed her arms over her chest, "Because it isn't an easy thing."
"I...I loved you, I love you, and a part of me probably always will love you, but..."
"But we can't be together," Jean finished for him.
He nodded, "Exactly. There's too many other people involved now. You're with Scott, and I'm single...again."
Knowing fighting with him was both pointless and petty, though they both clearly wanted to argue the matter, she simply nodded with him.
"Goodbye Jean," he said, sending her a lazy salute as he walked out the door and out of her life.
"Goodbye Warren."
Now, as Jean Grey sat on the window sill, watching seagulls flying around lazily in the warm sunlight of another day, she saw the car of her boyfriend of now seven years pulling in the drive below, and silently asked herself and anyone else who might give her an answer why life and love never seem to fit together.
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