Open Your Eyes
Scott has nightmares, not every night but most. He dreams of his parents and that fateful day when Ruby Quartz glasses became mandatory.
My room is right next to his and at night I hear him screaming. He screams like a little boy. He screams like the little boy he was when he lost his parents. I doubt if the others can hear him. I'm special; I'm tuned to his noises. I even find myself listening for them sometimes.
There are times when his cries are so violent that they wake him and I'll walk into his room to find him weeping into his pillow, hurting too much to stop it, but too ashamed to just let it out. I close the door behind me these days. I pull the pillow from him and replace it with my body. He clings to me, treating me like the mother he lost those many years ago.
Those days I sleep with him. I doubt he could bare it if I left him there to be alone again. But I'm always gone in the morning before he wakes. I know that pride is a major part of who Scott is and I would never want him to feel differently around me because at times I get to see the Scott that can't maintain control.
He told me the story one night after I had crashed' several of his nocturnal sessions. He and his parents were driving down a road in his hometown of Anchorage when a drunken idiot in a Mack Truck came careening down the wrong side of the street, and plowed straight through them. Their car was torn into pieces, and Scott, being the lucky' one, was through from the wreckage into a nearby tree. He explained to me that this is why he can not control his optic blasts, the portion of his brain with the capability to do so was damaged during his brief, yet forceful, collision with the tree.
I think it was that day that he started bribing' me for my silence. Since then whenever I would comfort him I would find a freshly cut flower on my bed the following day. They vary in type; sometimes a rose, sometimes a lily, but they're always pink. I asked Ororo about that once, she being the only one here with a green thumb, and she said that it represented thankfulness... That makes sense.
I write this now because I can't sleep and, I won't even deny it, I'm waiting for him, listening to the silence, longing for him to ask for my help. I need to be needed as sick as it sounds. I come from a family of doers. My father is a professor at Bard College, the very same school he struggled to put himself through on the small wages his job at a local coffee shop provided. My mother is an artist. I get my talents from her. She's never had it easy, her mother died when she was little and grandpa disapproved of her career choice. He vowed never to support it and he never did. She too worked her way through school, granted one for the arts.
Now do you see? They're so independent and I need more than that. I need to help. I need to hold and console. I need Scott... And I know it's more than that now, not just my hunger for dependence, but I care for him in ways I'm still not ready to admit to myself.
I hear him... He's calling for help for his mother and father. I have to go to him now. Have to... I wonder when it stopped being choice.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jean quietly entered Scott's room and softly closed the door behind her. She walked to his bed, seeing him toss restlessly, fighting his covers while still pleading for aide. She gently placed her hands on his shoulders and pressed them down lightly, attempting to shake him from his dream. "Scott, it's okay now..." She whispered. "I'm here... Open your eyes..."