Lucky Me

Chapter 063


Two weeks since prom and I still felt like dirt (but only dirt so I was getting better).

During those two weeks I had been thinking (which was always dangerous for me) and I began to wonder if he felt this bad or was it just a 'girl thing'?

Though I had to admit I had never been doing better in school. According to the report card (the one I got a few weeks before prom, but decided not to mention it because it was just a bad memory waiting for a moment like this to be drudged up) I got, I was still failing Bobby-Jerk's class, passing P.E. (big deal! Anyone could!), and doing average (Bs) in the rest of my classes. And now?

I was like a girl possessed. I was trying to get my grades up for the finals and final report card. Why might one be so dedicated to the boring and useless facts of life?

"Don't let your training time interfere with your schoolwork. Education is important." Of course that was the cropped-to-just-the-thesis-statement version of the speech (not). That was all Scott said when I finally got around to actually giving up my report card (about a week ago).

And I still had that image of Scott, after I tried to hurt Julie (mostly her pride I think, while I got badly banged up due to Wolverine), and that look of complete let down.

Did he have any idea what that's like?

So I had been bugging Adam at every turn trying, to get him to tutor me. As it stood, he helped navigate me through the basic science lessons (which the lazy teacher tests us over but never actually taught us), Western Civilization was just a bunch of dead guys doing a bunch of outdated stuff, and so on. He was so patient with an idiot.

This meant a lot more late nights, like staying up until one and then getting up around six. I had to study since we only had about a month of school left (thank you!). It was now Sunday, two weeks and two days since I kissed Chris and totally blew it with him.

What about everyone else I plowed through when I was on my seek-and-destroy mission? They were all fine, kind of annoyed about being pushed around, but okay. Some of them said it was a common occurrence when there were teenagers in the mansion. Age made for an irreplaceable excuse!

As for Chris and me, he hadn't said two words together to me since we started our 'flight lessons'. I stopped trying to crawl through the roof every time he moved in the cockpit and I actually got to play 'pilot' for a few sessions.

I was currently stuck in my room with my Business Math book opened and notes from Alexis and Adam explaining everything to me in the book. I checked the clock and almost screamed with joy as in about ten minutes I would have a valid excuse for quitting for a while.

Those pesky flying lessons were never so loved!


"Check your gages," Chris, who actually was talking to me, pointed out for the millionth time in eight minutes.

"I know."

"What about the fuel? Is there enough?" We were in a simulator! It's not like if we didn't have enough we'd fall out of the sky or anything! This was our first time without Mrs. Summers or one of the other seniors telling us what to do. We had to 'play' fly for about an hour without any assistance.

They moved fast in the X-Men.

"Yes. There is." I was getting irritated with him treating me like an idiot.

"What about altitude? We don't want to get too low." Chris paused, not looking over at me, "You do know what the altitude is, don't you?"

"Yes. I. Know," I bit out, glaring from the corner of my eye at him. Was he trying to pick a fight?

"Why so touchy?"

I held back a smart aleck reply, though it was a really, really good one, but I was too busy being pushed out of my comfort zone with his 'touch' statement. Bobby-Jerk came on the radio-communicator thing to say they were going to cut the radio link so we'd be 'dead' in the 'air'.

For the first ten minutes, there was nothing but an uneasy silence.

Then Shockwav sighed as if exhaling his last breath. "We have got to stop acting like this."

I was playing innocent though I knew exactly what he was talking about (or wanting to talk about).

"Acting like what? Fake pilots?" I shrugged. "If we did that then our fake plane would crash."

Chris rolled his eyes and actually looked over at me.

"You know what I mean. Acting like we are two junior high kids."

Technically, I was a Junior and in a 'high' (high school, but he wasn't being very specific). No matter what I wanted to say or think, my dumb face started to turn this lovely bright red.

"Then can we just ignore each other?" My voice came out a bit smaller than I would have liked.

He faced forward again. "We work on the same team, go to the same school, and live right next to each other. Ignoring is out of the question."

"Who said anything about questions? I think it'll make a wonderful answer."

He shot me one of those 'oh-just-shut-up' looks. "We can deal with this."

What's with all the we talk? There was no we, there was Chris and there was Kookie. I had a choice to make at this point of the conversation, either let him control it and take it into what might be unpleasant waters or get the Cyclops in me to come out and be useful. I made my face a mask of stern 'you-better-agree-with-me' and didn't bother to give him a sideways glance.

"I'm glad you agree that whatever happened Prom night shouldn't interfere with our work or school." That just sounded wrong. "I, for one, would be more than willing to forget everything which occurred that night considering we did not act out on our own will, but that of a manipulated one."

You think you'd be shocked by my amazing ability to make mini-speeches, you should have seen Chris face go slack (didn't last long though) but he caught himself and tightened his jaw.

Freedom from the cramped simulator came about twenty minutes later and I leapt out of the room to allow Daisy and Adrian their turn. I thought this was just going to be left behind me and since I had more studying to do, I didn't want to waste time.

"Kerry, wait!" Oh goody, it was Chris. I guessed my final statement wasn't so final. I stopped, and letting him know I was clearly not in the mood to talk to anyone (I put on my Cyclops expression in other words). "I- come on, let's go in here." Obviously, he didn't want an audience as he held open the door to the War Room and ushered me in.

Oh man, it was empty. I was hoping there would be at least one other person in there. Being alone with Chris was starting to get too familiar and no less uneasy.

"You cannot just cut something like that out by some a one-sided decision."

"Sure I can, we're X-Men in training, and cutting off people with speeches is what we do. Bad guys monologue, we speech."

"Shove your sarcasm," Chris snapped, "I'm doing the chick thing by bringing this up but you don't have to take the guy role of denying it." He sighed again (was he having breathing problems?) and dropped down into one of the chairs. "You know—I guess."

And I was more than willing to completely forget or ignore his 'feelings' like it always should have been. Why couldn't he just not like me? I felt too lousy at the moment. There was something I wanted to tell him, but behind the Cyclops attitude, there was nothing I could do.

Chris looked up at me; I was standing about five feet from him, unmoving like the big round console in the middle of the room.

"You're not going to say anything, are you?" I didn't say anything (which was predictable) because Scott always said that if you didn't have anything that would resolve the situation to keep quiet because it could make things worse or more confused. "Fine."

Flinging down his sunglasses on the console, he ran his hands through his hair as he huffed out, "What is with you, Summers?" He laughed, "You have, what, three guys hanging off your every word. Well, I guess K'yo isn't doing that anymore and he was just trying to get into your uniform." There I went blushing. "But you have him and-," he looked over at me, and breathed out in a defeated manner, "and me."

"Why?" My tone wasn't what I would call 'cold' so much as 'curious, yet demanding'.

"How the hell should I know!" Yes! An irate Chris I could deal with no problem! A serious and emotional Chris I didn't understand or knew how handle. "I guess it was because you were the only one that tried to burn me just as much as I burned you when we met at that dumb 'getting to know you' thing we did last year!"

"You have Daisy," I reminded him. It was one of the reasons he asked me to the troublesome prom in the first place! For the sake of jealousy.

Chris look clearly screamed 'idiot' in several languages.

"No I don't. I might have at one point, but apparently it was a dumb move on my part because he took the opportunity to get to you first." What was I? Some type of prize at the finish line of the male ego? He waited a few minutes, and I started to turn toward the door. "Don't you have anything to say, Kerry?" He asked in a dark moody voice.

"Not really, no," I replied and then left.


"Do I ever get time to breathe ever again?" I asked rolling my eyes and falling back on my bed. My schedule was booked. If I wasn't at school then I was constantly studying or being trained. I had Mr. Bishop for field strategy or something, aviation lessons (various instructors), anger management with Mr. Logan (because of the whole Hurt-Julie-Campaign-rampage thing), and now I was being shoved backinto the leadership courses with Adrian.

I didn't ask for it and Cyclops was the only one who talked to me. No more Scott, just Cyclops talking to Blyt. This was starting to have me worried and depressed. Turning onto my side, my wings were grateful for relief from being squashed, and I stared at my little blue friend.

Stitch, man, even he made me feel guilty (he as in Stitch not he as in Jack). Jack started this whole mess, not me, so why should I feel bad? Okay, so denial was still sloshing through my veins.

Then there was the ever faithful knock and the person coming in.

"Jean told me to give you this." Sam smiled and put Jean's 'gift' down by my feet. After I had punched him, he was sore for a while but he said he'd been put through worse and not to worry. He then deposited the 'gift', turned, and left.

I looked down at my feet.

"What are you looking at?" I asked the creature.

"Meow." It licked its furry lips.

Oh heck no, I jumped to my feet and stormed out the door screaming, "Jean!"


This cat was staring at me.

It was licking its lips and staring at me.

I think they said it was a male cat-well, used to be a male cat. Now it was an 'it'. He was nameless; I was supposed to name him. He was mycat. Why did a girl that resembled a raven have a cat in her room?

Because the dumb psychiatrist said I needed something that gave me unconditional love. I wouldn't mind a puppy, but she said they were emotionally shallow and would love to anyone. Cats, normally, required that you earn their love. Mrs. Summers and Scott bought into Dr. Frese's hokey junk and now I was a cat owner.

A bird that owned a cat.

Great.

"Mew."

I glared down at the thing that sat at the edge of my feet again. "Dream on."

It licked its lips again.

"No," I commanded.

He started to purr and gave me an 'I'm-eating-well-tonight' whisker twitch. I kid not. He was talking through whisker movement.

This cat was going to eat me while I slept! I just knew it!


"What's wrong with you girl?" Alexis poked me awake in Home Ec., I guess I fell asleep reading the history book again. "You look tired."

"I look like a trainee." I yawned and stretched (my wings attempted to, but I didn't feel like explaining why Alexis would go sailing across the room).

"A trainee? Girl, don't tell me you're working at a fast food joint." If I should be as lucky to only be working at one of those places.

"No, I just am—training to get into college?" I tried to cover it up, Chris snorted. He still wasn't happy with me. For the past week he'd been a pig-headed little boy who didn't listen to anyone and treated everyone like they were a bug to be squashed. Sadly, I couldn't help but think that man was it good to have the old Chris back!

No one really bugged me too much in any of my classes (except when I kept falling asleep) and as far as I knew, I was doing better in them than I had been previously.

Without the stress of having anyone to look after as a leader (the cat was a different matter), without any romantic interludes (though I still felt bad), and so on, I finally could focus on my schoolwork.

Whoppee.

After most of the day passed away and it was seventh period, I waited patiently (yeah, right) in my desk for Bobby-Jerk to start the tutoring. He had 'stepped out' for the last few minutes of class for the 'nature calls' or whatever and had yet to return. What, he went to frolic in the darn nature?

"What are you doing in here, Miss Summers?" Apparently the frolicking was over.

"What I'm always doing here," I countered in a small voice, "Relearning everything."

"Why?" He asked as he fell down into his seat and looked me in the eye. "You don't have to be here anymore."

"What? Why not?"

He gave a good-natured smile which surprised me, "Because you passed last week's test with a perfect A, that's why."

I didn't know what to feel (or whether I should believe him). "Really?"

"Do you want to see? I'm sure Jean and Scott would be proud."

I felt sick.

"Just show me the test, please."

He flipped through the stack of papers (he no longer gave the tests back after recording the grades since I totally wrecked his grade-book before Christmas). Mr. Drake threw the paper at me, and to my surprise, he was telling the truth! I finally had beaten the business math junk into submission! I was now their mistress! Okay, so that's a bit extreme, but try to understand that I rarely fought numbers so hard. I couldn't stop smiling and being surprised.

"I can't believe-"

"I can't believe you're still hanging around here. Why not go to the gym or somewhere that's more interesting?" He shrugged nonchalantly and pulled out his phone.

I gave back the test, hesitated for a moment, but gathered my things and left.


"You look happier, is the cat working out? What's his name?" I was back at Dr. Frese's office (imagine my joy). How I could look happy when I was sending off toxic-unhappy waves, I'd never know (or ask, because it'll require talking). She sighed, "Kookie, this is understandable the first few visits, but this is your fourth. You need to at least acknowledge you understand what I'm asking."

Sorry-I.Q.-dropping-(with a wicked smile).

She was getting mad; her pen was tapping faster on her clip board. "Kookie, talk to me."

What I had to say, she probably didn't really want to hear.

"Anything?"

Plenty, but you'd never know.

"Why are you set against me?" You're the 'doctor' I thought you were supposed to tell me things, not for me to tell you things. Get it straight.

Dr. Frese sighed.

"You wouldn't have to attend these sessions if you'd agree to talk openly to someone." I refused to become part of the gossip girls. It's just so far beneath me (or right up my alley, I wasn't too sure yet).

Another silent five minutes, before: "Kookie, I'm tired of not hearing you talk about anything." I swore the woman called me an unpleasant name in the back of her throat. "You are being strong willed. Normally that's admirable, but not here Kookie."

"Then medicate me."

Her eyebrows shot up at the comment. "At least you're talking. Tell me, why are you still using your image manipulator in my office? You have nothing to fear by showing me what you really look like."

Uh-huh. So you could have proof I was a head case freak?

"I think your main problem is that you haven't come to terms with being a mutant. You haven't truly embraced your unique gifts." I wanted to laugh. Once you have your skin fall off, sprout wings and wear clothes too tight for a toddler, you'd 'embraced' mutantism to its fullest. "If you want to prove me wrong, then let me see why you need to manipulate your appearance."

I was tired and fed up with this woman, so I decided that this hour would be my 'play time'. With a sweet smile, I shook my head and used the fakest-believable voice I could muster, "I don't feel right about it now. Maybe next time."

Looking up at the lady, a smile of relief flooded over her face. Oh, she was going to be so much fun to 'play' with./p I just had to ask Adam to fix something up for me for my next 'couch visit'.