Amanda hadn't called him a coward yet, but Kurt knew it was only a matter of time. Just like Kitty and apparently all of his friends and teammates, she wanted him to stop using his image inducer; to show the world what he really looked like, to finish coming out of the mutant closet. And that was okay for Amanda, because she thought he was fuzzy and cute - which he was, of course - but the rest of Bayville would have a different mindset.
He knew. He'd grown up a freak. He hadn't liked it then and he highly doubted he would like it any more now. And if the others thought he was a coward - Well, there was a difference between being a coward and being prudent. He told himself that even as he knew, in his heart, that he was being cowardly and selfish to boot.
"And I thought that was completely out of line," Amanda said, finishing her story, and Kurt nodded in agreement even though he had missed the rest of it. It wasn't that he didn't think her stories weren't important; he thought everything about her was important. She was two steps short of walking on water.
No, he was just too busy scanning the hallways for potential danger. The final bell had rung, and everyone was heading home; the perfect time for trouble. So far, there was no sign of anything, but he was wary all the same.
"Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly coming to a halt in the middle of the hallway and grabbing his arm to make him stop, too. "I totally forgot. I need my English book for the homework tonight. Will you miss your ride if you come with me?"
Kurt glanced at the entrance to the school, which was currently clogged with students exiting en masse. Scott was waiting across the street with the Institute's only working car, and he never liked to sit around for more than a few minutes. "Ah... probably. But it doesn't matter. I have my own transportation built in."
She smiled. "Better than a car any day."
"And way more stylish," he added, grinning and brushing back his hair. She giggled, which always did wonders for his ego, and he offered her his arm as a gentleman should.
"Good," she said, taking his arm and pulling him along down the hallway to her locker. "I feel safer with an escort, you know."
He had to laugh at that. "You're probably safer without me."
She pushed him slightly, making him step sideways but not releasing his arm. "Kurt... don't start. If a couple of people can't accept you for what you are, then they're morons."
By "a couple of people", she meant the football team. Out of the entire school population, they seemed the most inclined to cause problems. Everyone else was just kind of steering clear. But some of the football players had grafitti'd the Institute two nights before, Duncan had attacked Scott twice yesterday, and, Kurt had learned at lunch, another pack of them had tried to corner Rogue earlier in the day.
"Yes, but they're morons who bench-press over two hundred pounds on a regular basis," he countered.
She smiled briefly, then cleared her throat. "You know, in sixth grade, I got picked on all year by the girl's basketball team."
He looked at her askance. "Why?"
"Because my dad is black and my mom isn't." At his somewhat blank look she rolled her eyes. "I'm mixed, Kurt. Biracial. Whatever. It's not a popular thing to be. The fact that I'm smart and pretty and don't care about what people think - none of that helps."
They reached her locker and she paused in front of it, twisting a strand of hair around one finger like she did when she was nervous. "So they picked on me, but they weren't the first ones and I'm positive they won't be the last. So I know how you feel."
That was news to him. After growing up blue and with a tail, superficial differences like ethnicity tended to lose their importance. Besides, his parents had always said that everyone was a child of God and equally precious in His eyes; Kurt had never been sure that extended to mutants, but he had no problem applying it to humans. "I guess..."
"But you can't hide because some people are narrow-minded," she said firmly. She turned to open the lock, spinning the numbers of her combination into place, and Kurt idly glanced around the hallway. And spotted trouble.
Amara was standing at her locker a few yards away, surrounded by a group of normal girls. The girls were talking with her about something, and Amara looked happy enough, but she'd only been in the real world for a short time, and the backstabbing ways of high-school girls weren't part of her education. Yet.
"Amanda!" he hissed, grabbing her arm and making her jump.
"What?" she asked, more than a little annoyed, and also a little alarmed.
He ducked behind her locker door, crowding her shamelessly - she was his girlfriend, after all - and pointed. "Over there."
She looked. "Okay. I'm looking at -?"
He stepped from behind the locker door just enough to allow Amanda a clear view of the girls and his hapless teammate. "Those girls - they're talking to Amara!"
A wave of laughter swept the group, and Amara beamed.
Like a lamb to the slaughter, Kurt thought. She was so clueless, and those girls - they might as well have been wearing devils' horns.
Amanda didn't even watch them long enough to notice. She looked back at Kurt, a puzzled frown on her face, and whispered, "Why are we whispering?"
He resisted the urge to smack his forehead and exclaim "Duh!" Instead, he went for the more neutral, "Because I don't want them to hear."
"Okay," she said again, but in a far different tone.
"Look," he said, "Amara doesn't know about... people. Someone needs to go save her."
Amanda slammed the locker shut suddenly, nearly catching Kurt's ear in the process. "Kurt! Stop projecting!"
"Projecting?" he repeated, raising his eyebrows. The first thing that came to mind was his inducer, and for an angry moment he got ready to argue, again, why he wasn't turning it off. But just as quickly he realized that wasn't what Amanda meant. "Oh, right. Intro to Psych rears its ugly head."
"You know I'm right." She stabbed a finger into his chest for emphasis. "Just because people treated you badly, you're assuming those girls are going to do the same thing to Amara. That's every bit as bad as hating someone for their skin color. Or - or their genes. Prejudice goes both ways."
Kurt opened his mouth to protest, then shut it and blinked at her. She was right. And because he was man enough to admit when he was wrong, he hung his head, sighed, and said, "You're right."
"Well, duh." Amanda took his arm again, all traces of anger gone, and gave him a big, dazzling smile that sent his heart soaring. "So take me somewhere where I can see that cute blue face of yours, Kurt."
He grinned. And they walked out of the school without a backwards glance at Amara. Not because he was selfish, and not because he was a coward, but because there were people in the world who weren't out for mutant blood. Maybe they were hard to spot, but they were there. Sometimes you just had to have faith.
But he still wasn't turning off his inducer.
