`I was still reeling, steadying myself against the lockers where minutes ago my whole world had come crashing down around me, well, on me. I was going over every second, dissecting and analyzing each and every word, a movement, a touch, looking for some deeper meaning, some hidden code. I had been thinking about this same girl for weeks now, and I had hoped that actually talking to, actually interacting would make her fade a little, just like any other girl, a challenge. Unfortunately, the minute she'd opened her mouth, I had become even more fascinated, dying to know just a little bit more, uncover just a little bit more about her. I was thinking about that first awful nickname she had given me, Ava-Lance. It really had been terrible, but for some reason I couldn't get it out of my head. I was playing the way she had spat at it me again when Pete and Griff came up.
"Yo, Lance. Earth to Lance?" Pete waved a hand in front of my face and I pulled out of my head to focus on my friends.
"What's with the space case act, dude?" Griff gave me a shove. "You hooked on some chick or something?"
"Yeah, right. Lance?" Pete chuckled. "He hasn't met a single babe that he couldn't bag."
"What do you guys want," I growled. "I'm headed to class."
"Class? Screw that. We're thinking the roof," Griff shared a look with Pete and then they looked back at me. We hung out at the roof of the school a lot, but usually between classes or during lunch or something. We had an in with the janitors, who bummed smokes off us, so they always left the roof access door just ever so slightly ajar, the alarm cut off.
"Nah, man. I already cut first period, I should go," I started to push up off the locker and turn.
"You're screwing with us right?" Pete's hand was on my shoulder and I turned.
"I'll catch ya there for lunch," I shrugged."I'm not in the mood."
"C'mon Lance, we got something that'll cheer ya up," Griff moved past me and towards the stairs, not even bothering to look back or question whether I'd come or not. Pete looked at me for a bit, his eyebrows knit together like he was looking at some homework or something, before following. With a sigh, I joined them, and together we climbed up to the roof. Once there, I saw what they were so excited about going to see: girl's gym class.
"Don't you guys ever get sick of gawking at…" but I finished that sentence, unable to remember what I had been about to say as my eyes caught a small girl with her ponytail bouncing as she ran onto the field.
"Look at how flexible that one is," I vaguely remembering hearing Pete as he nudged me and Griff, but I never looked over to see who he was talking about. I kept my eyes on her, Kitty, as she lined up for the long jump. She always looked so graceful on the dance floor, but even now, just watching her set up, I could tell she wasn't all that athletic. She took off, and just before she could jump, she tripped, falling face first into the sand.
"Ouch," I winced as she picked herself up and moved aside. Even from up here, I could tell she was humiliated, and Riley was taking a lot of pleasure in it. As Riley lined up, something inside me snapped and I felt my fist tighten. Just as Riley lept into the air, her form absolutely perfect, I forced the ground to rise up and meet her, sand pelting her and pushing her on her back. As people looked around in panic and Riley screamed, I felt a pair of eyes fall on my face. I waved to Kitty, feeling the corners of my mouth tug up in triumph. I guess she didn't see it that way though, because she headed for the school, running as fast as she had last night.
"I'm… gonna go. I'll see ya," I ignored Pete and Griff as I made my way down from the roof. I didn't know where she'd go, but I knew she looked upset and that I had to do something about it. I raced through the halls, heading towards the gym until suddenly I smacked straight into someone. I reached out and grabbed, trying to keep whoever it was from falling back before I even realized it was her.
"I told you I'd be helping you out again," but just as the words left my mouth I had noticed the tears falling down her face. "Kitty? What's wrong?"
"I… then Riley… and then you… and now she's… I want her out of my head!" she choked out between sobs. Out of some kind of instinct, I pulled her closer to me, trying to focus on what she had said and soothing her more than how it felt that she was curling into me.
"What do you mean she's in your head?" I whispered, doing my best not to let my body relax against hers. In some ways, it wasn't too hard seeing as some of the things she was saying were unsettling, but there was something so right about the way she clung to me.
"That girl, Jean, she's a telepath," she looked up and I tried my best to keep my eyebrows from rising. A telepath? "She knows… she knows what I can do and she knows what I'm thinking and…"
"Who's Jean?" I smoothed her hair back away from her face, where the tears were pooling. I couldn't wrap my head around the whole telepath thing, someone being able to know what you're thinking, but the name I could focus on.
"She followed me in. I was coming to yell at…" she trailed off, her eyes moving from my face and falling down to where her hands were gripping my shirt.
"Kitty?" I searched her, wondering what had caused her to derail.
"You!" she shoved her hands against my chest, pushing herself out of my arms. "I was coming to yell at you! To tell you to leave me alone!"
"Whoa, calm down. I'm trying to help you, remember?" I reached out for her, only wanting to feel her against me again, but she kept swatting me away.
"You're not helping! Riley thinks I did that! She accused me of starting the quakes last night, too!" she shoved a finger into my chest to punctuate her words, but I hardly noticed. "If anything, you made it worse!"
"Wait, Riley thinks you did that? Why?" I tried to wrack my brain for times I had used my powers when both Riley and Kitty would have been around, giving Riley any reason to think these things.
"Because that's what Ross told her," she snapped.
"I'm going to kill that bastard," I shook my head, feeling the anger seethe within me as I thought about that jerk. Of course he wouldn't say I had done it, even though that's what he knew, because he knew I could take care of myself. But some poor, girl who was already picked on enough, Ross could blame everything on.
"No, you won't. I'll just get blamed for that, too," she resigned with a sigh. "Plus, how many times do I have to tell you that I don't need a bodyguard?"
"Hm," I looked her over, noticing the tears were long gone and that snappy wit I found so intriguing was back in full force. "How about when you can take care of yourself, Kitten?"
"Kitty!" she dug her finger deeper into my ribs, making me remember it was there in the first place. "Why can't you get it right?"
"Because you're so cute when you're angry," I grabbed the wrist of the finger pushing into me and without a second thought, bent down to kiss her. I was shocked that she only tensed for a second before her hands were on my face and her body pressed into me as she kissed me back, but I was more shocked by the sudden presence of someone else. I jerked back, staring in confusion at this random girl that stood in the hallway watching us. She was real tall, with long red locks, her green eyes piercing me with a steady glare.
"Lance?" I heard Kitty say to me, but I couldn't form the words to a response. I felt like someone was tearing into my head, ripping through my thoughts, and I had this odd feeling that it had something to do with this strange girl. I focused on shoving her out of my head as I tightened my grip on Kitty's wrist, trying to ground myself by the sensation of her skin on mine.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," the strange girl blushed, "but I need to talk to you Katherine."
"How do you know my name? Get out of my head!" I watched helplessly as Kitty screamed while I tried to process. Katherine? So Kitty was a nickname. And she was in Kitty's head? Wait, she was in mine. She's the telepath. So this is Jean.
"I'm not reading your mind. Look, I just want to talk," the girl, Jean, spoke evenly despite Kitty's raised tone and the anger I could feel bubbling up inside of me.
"About what? How I'm a freak?" Kitty spat, and this is when I turned to look at her. Her eyes were welling with tears, her voice unsteady. She thought she was a freak? My heart went out to her. I knew exactly how she felt, but out of all the many names I had for her, freak wasn't one of them.
"You're not a freak. I'm here with the professor of a school that can help you with your gift. We talked with your parents and they seem to think it'd be a good idea for you to come with us and learn control over it," Jean explained. I could feel my chest pounding and my breathing catch. She wanted Kitty to go? To some mutant school? Away from me?
"Go? To some mutant school?" I found myself voicing my thoughts. "Ship her off like she has some kind of disease?"
"Why would I need to go with you to some special school?" Kitty asked, and I realized that the girls were completely ignoring my comments. Just discussing this like it was no big deal.
"To learn everything there is to know about your ability. Why you have it, how to control it, when and where to use it…" Jean started to tick off the reasons on her fingers.
"I didn't need some fancy school to learn control," I huffed.
"Lance," Kitty elbowed me, but I rolled my eyes. This girl was probing into our heads and I was supposed to be polite? Screw that.
"Excuse me?" Jean looked at us expectantly, waiting for an explanation.
"He um, has an… ability, too," Kitty offered up after I stayed silent.
"Well, you would be welcome to come, too," Jean smiled politely. I could tell from how forced it was, how thin her lips pulled tight, that the last thing she wanted was for me to agree. I know where I'm not wanted, and I certainly was in no rush to be sent off to some freak school anyways. Hell, I'd been doing my best to avoid that for about a year now.
"Who said I wanted to go?" I snorted. Though, if I wasn't careful with the show of powers, I'd be shipped off in no time.
"Lance!" Kitty elbowed me again, and this time I felt the need to explain. After all, her powers were new and scary to her, she obviously didn't know anything about mutants and how the world saw things.
"I've heard of these types of places, Kitty. Your parents send you away to try to fix you, not help you," I bent my head low, whispering in her ear. Being so close to her, all I wanted was to bring my lips down on hers again. She tasted somewhat of bubblegum, like she was always chewing a piece. It seemed odd considering I'd never seen her chew gum in all the time I'd watched her. Man, I was starting to sound creepy to myself as I thought about it. I had practically stalked this girl for weeks.
"Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. I mean, aren't you scared of what you can do?" she replied, biting her lip. I dropped her wrist, feeling hurt by her words. I had scared her with my ability when she was already so obviously freaked out by her own.
"We're not like that," Kitty and I both turned as Jean folded her arms over her chest.
"Yeah, right," I scoffed, remembering all that my Dad had told me, even though it was obvious that he had held back the worst stuff. He had fought to keep me home, keeping me from being just another research subject in someone's lab.
"No, really…" she started to move towards us.
"I've heard enough. I'm out of here," I cut her off with a wave of my hand and turned to leave.
"Lance!" I heard Kitty yell after me, but I didn't turn back. All of this talk was bringing up bad memories, watching my dad, a large and generally intimidating guy, cry as he told me what they would do to me. I turned a corner, debating whether or not I was going to actually go to class or run outside to grab another smoke, which I was kind of jonesing for suddenly. Deciding that class was already well in to session, I started to push on the door that led outside, but I heard something.
"Lance!" I paused, turning to find Kitty catching up to me. "Hey, can we talk about this?"
"Talk about what?" I shrugged, holding open the door and then following her out where we walked around the school together.
"Well, for one, the mutant school thing. It really set you off, and I just, I don't know much about this stuff," she started.
"Kitty, I… I can't talk about this," I shook my head, really wanting that cigarette now but afraid of pulling it out to smoke in front of her. I could tell she needed to know why, but I just couldn't get in to it with her. "It brings up some other stuff that I don't want to talk about."
"Oh," she bit her lip like she was holding back something. "Well, then maybe we could talk about something else. Like… you kissing me?"
"Uh," I stopped walking, feeling flustered. I turned to lean against the bricks of the school, trying to look at her without blushing. "About that…"
"Yeah, it was um," she paused and I watched her long lashes flutter nervously. "Well, you kind of caught me off guard."
"I, well, I…" I trailed off as I noticed she was rubbing the wrist I had been holding earlier. Damn, it looked red. Had I grabbed her too hard? "Did I hurt you?"
"What?" she looked at me confused and then followed my gaze to her wrist. "Oh, no. I'm fine, I just…"
"Sorry," I watched her arm drop so I could now clearly see the imprints I had left on her skin. "Here, let me see."
"Lance?" I heard her ask as I turned over her wrist, studying the marks I'd left.
"Hm?" I think I might have responded as I brought her wrist to my mouth, brushing a light kiss over the skin. It was some weird gut reaction like a mother kissing her child's boo boo that he got from falling on the playground.
"Um," and at this noise I looked up at her. Before she could say anything, I pulled her to me and crushed my mouth to hers. She wrapped her arms around my neck as I settled mine on her hips, and we both pressed ourselves into the other. My back had been resting firmly on the wall, but suddenly this weird tingle shot through my body from where my lips met hers and then we had fallen through, landing with a thud on the floor.
"Ow!" I groaned along with a few choice words.
"Did we just…?" Kitty's voice trailed off hesitantly.
"Fall through the wall?" I answered as the tingling sensation disappeared. "Yes. And now I see why it freaks you out so much. It definitely feels weird. And you're crushing me again."
"Oh, sorry," she rolled off me and swiftly stood up. I joined her, allowing my gaze to float over the room, noticing the familiar paint job, the oversized desk with the large swivel chair and the bookcase. The principal's office, a room of the school I knew well from skipping too many classes.
"Huh," I moved around, studying the random bobbles on the bookshelves. "I've never been in here without getting yelled at."
"You get in trouble a lot I take it," she eyed me as I picked up a random book from the shelf, some self-help book, and then put it back. "Not surprised."
"Oh and let me guess, you've never been in here?" I rolled my eyes, but moving closer to her.
"Sure I have," an electric shock ran through me as she playfully hit me. I narrowed my eyes at her, not believing for a second that she had ever found herself in the principal's office. "But not because I'm in trouble."
"Figures," I laughed. "So, I guess nobody knows you're not exactly little miss perfect. Well, except for me."
"You don't know anything," she shook her head, her face flushing.
"Oh, I think I know quite a lot," I took her challenge, thinking over all the things I had seen from her, thinking about all the ways she had acted, so innocent and then suddenly sultry. Thinking about how she seemed to be one person most of the time, submissive and accepting, but she could be a real spit fire when she opened up. Mostly, I thought about her face, each time her powers manifested, the way she had called herself a freak just after I had kissed her the first time. I had been thinking about her for so long, studying her, and now the words just popped out of my mouth. "You're not this little goody-goody you pretend to be all day. You prefer to let loose, but you're scared of how it feels or what people will think. And you're freaked out by this ability you have because it means you're not perfect and you can't hide that fact anymore. Sound about right?"
"Oh yeah? And what about you?" she argued, stepping up to me. Her eyes glared with defiance, but I could see a hint of something, fear maybe, or maybe it was relief, that someone had seen through her. "You're not such the tough guy you pretend to be all the time. You don't talk to anyone about anything, at least not anything important or real or tough. And you hate yourself for your ability, but you refuse to admit. So what do you think about that?"
"I think we can skip a lot of talking to get know each other and go back to making out," I forced a smile, trying to push her words out of my head. I told myself she was wrong, told myself that she didn't know anything she was talking about, but somehow I couldn't fool myself.
"I think you hide behind your little jokes," she crossed her arms over her chest, and at this I knew she saw through me as clearly as I saw her.
"What makes you think I was joking?" I moved closer, there was a fire in her eyes, and I felt it consume me as I looked down on her. "Pretty Kitty."
"ARGH! I said…!" but before she could finish telling me not to call her any nickname, I clamped my mouth over hers, drowning in the taste of bubblegum and the tingling sensation she sent all over my body. But I didn't slip through a wall this time, I just fell down a rabbit hole, my heart leaping out of my chest and straight into her delicate hands.
