Chapter 10

Swimming and Secrets

The others were all starring at me in horror except for Kitty who had recovered from her head ache and was giving me a knowing look.

She looked me in the eyes and thought directly to me. She knew that the only way to for me to hear any ones thoughts when I had my blocks up was to look me in the eye.

You liar. You do to know how it feels to like, like someone. You may have never felt it yourself but you have felt it through other people.

I looked down and opened a telepathic link with her.

Yeah but they don't know that, and in truth I don't know if I like, like him. I don't know how it feels first hand.

Well. Tell me what you think of him. Like everything.

I frowned in thought. I really hadn't thought about it before. After a minute I started projecting my thoughts to her again.

Well. I think he's good looking. And I mean not only that but something about him just makes me want to touch him all the time. And he's kind of an enigma to me. I always want to know what he thinks. Especially if it has to do with me.

I've had to force my self not to enter his mind and read his thoughts so many times sense I started hanging out with you guys.

I looked back up to see that she was starring at me with a happy grin. I rose an eyebrow.

You like, like him. Now the only thing is does he like, like you back.

I glared at her.

"No."

She pouted.

"You did it earlier."

I tensed.

"Different circumstances."

"You still did it."

"I don't care I am not reading Warren's emotions! If he like, likes me he can tell me himself. I am not reading him. I feel like shit for reading Ethan's earlier to find out if he likes you. Kitty you know I don't like reading people. You know I think it's an invasion of privacy. I don't even read you. I open telepathic links with you but I have NEVER read you. I refuse to do it!"

Everyone was silent staring at me in shock. Probably from a mixture of what I just said and the fact that I yelled. They are so used to my soft voice and have never heard me raise my voice.

Kitty looked horrified. Her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were huge.

"You do realize you said that out loud don't you?"

I nodded and hung my head. I could feel Warren tense behind me. His hands had froze. I bit my lip and didn't realize how hard I was biting it until I tasted blood.

I jumped when the metallic taste hit my tongue. Layla was the first to notice thus breaking the oppressing silence.

"Oh. Jesse, your bleeding."

That seemed to grab everyone's attention and they started asking if I was okay. I looked up at them and once again had to resist the temptation to read their minds and find out what they were thinking.

"Oh, Jess. You haven't done that sense we were at the institute. When…"

She trailed off but I finished her sentence for her.

"When the others in our class signed a petition to had us kicked out because you were a demon and I was the next Phoenix in training."

Kitty frowned looking down. Even without my empathy I could tell that she was sad.

"Is that why you don't want everyone to know about your true powers. Because you don't want them to be afraid of you?"

I looked up at Layla. God you gotta love her she is just so understanding.

"Kind of. I don't want them to be afraid of me. I don't want them to see me at all. I just want to be the quiet sidekick. It's not that other people are afraid of my powers that really bugs me. It's that I'm afraid of my powers. I'm afraid that I'll lose control of my powers and end up hurting someone I care about. That's why I never let people close enough for me to grow attached I don't want to care."

The others were all silent thinking about what I said. I was surprised when Warren pulled me back to lean against him. Zack was the one to brake the silence this time.

"Jesse. We wouldn't care if you were blue we'd still be your friend."

Everyone agreed except for Kitty who was silent and looking down at the water. I couldn't help it, I started laughing. Not chuckling but actually laugh my ass off, laugh out loud, laughing. I hadn't laughed like that sense I left the Institute.

"You wouldn't care if I was blue?"

Zack shook his head.

"Na man you are friend. We all different powers but we still friends. Who cares what color you are or power you got. We aren't into stereotypes you know that."

He got multiple forms of agreement. I was still laughing.

"What if Kitty was blue?"

Ethan seemed to have really gotten into what Zack was saying.

"Who cares! Hell I think blue and furry would be sexy. Major turn on."

I tried, I tried really hard not to laugh at that but with in seconds I was laughing so hard I would have doubled over and drowned my self if it weren't for Warren holding me up. Will seemed confused beyond belief.

"How is that funny?"

"Oh the Irony!"

Was all I managed to get out before bursting out into laughter again. Maj seemed to find the whole sexy blue fur thing amusing and was chuckling about it.

After a minute I managed to calm down enough to talk, though I couldn't lose the giant grin on my face.

"So Kitty, you going to use Ethan's blue fur fetish to your advantage?"

She glared at me but you could see her blush even threw the image inducer. With a sigh see glanced around at everyone before pushing a sequence of buttons on her watch.

The hologram that covered her true appearance disappeared and I saw just how bad she was blushing. Her cheeks, neck and chest were all a dark purple.

Everyone looked at her with wide eyes before Will broke the silence by stating the obvious.

"Holy shit. Your blue!"

She glared at him and her tail rose out of the water and, with a flick, splashed him. Maj seemed to be the one to pacify her.

"You have a tail. That is awesome."

Then Ethan managed to get us all laughing when he walked over to her and threw an arm over her shoulder.

"So… a tail wasn't in the job description but I think we can work around that."

Everyone laughed, even Kitty who was still blushing. However the fun was short lived when we heard a yell come from inside the house.

"Jesse! We're home!"

I laughed as all the couples separated faster then you could say super speed. I headed towards the edge and Warren let me go staying were he was.

"Out Back!"

My mom came out back with a smile on her face but jumped when she saw everyone in the pool. For a minute she starred at Kitty before smiling.

"Wow Cat. I was wondering when I would finally get to see your true appearance. Logan told us about it before we signed the adoption papers."

My dad came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He seemed surprised when he saw everyone in the pool.

"So girls who are your friends?"

Kitty grinned at them and answered.

"Hey mom. These are our friends that we go to school with. This is Layla, Ethan, Will, Maj, Zack, and Warren. Actually me and Jess were wondering if they could all stay the night tonight. It's kind of a weekend thing we always do. We stay at one of our houses every Saturday. And now that Jess is hanging out with us we were going to stay here tonight and um…Is that okay with you guys?"

My mom and dad shared a look before they answered.

"Well kids. I'm Helen and this is Vincent. Just call us mom and dad. We're used to it. We don't mind you all staying the night if you all stay in the living room and leave the door open. So how about pizza for dinner?"

That got many shouts of agreement. Helen smiled.

"Well then, how does a medium veggie lover, two large cheese, a large pepperoni, and a large meat lover sound to you."

Their answer was more shouts and a surprised look from Layla was the answer. Mom saw the look on Layla's face.

"I'm a vegetarian. I believe Kitty mentioned you were at one point or another."

Layla nodded.

"Yeah I've been a vegetarian sense I was a kid. My mom's power is to speak to animals and apparently they don't like being eaten so there isn't any meat at my house."

Mom smiled and chuckled as she and dad went back inside. All of us kids as they so wonderfully put it shared a look and started laughing.

After that we seemed closer some how. We started playing around and goofing off. I felt a lot more open and relaxed around them now that they knew my true power.

With in minutes we were all in on a game of water tag. And we were all cheating in what ever way we could, including using powers.

It felt good to laugh and play with out worrying about what the people around me would think if they knew about my powers. Warren was it having been tagged by Will.

Warren turned and looked straight at me before diving under and heading straight for me. I bit my lip in indecision before getting on idea. I pulled back as he came up looking at me with a grin. I grinned back and using my telekinesis to lift up the water behind him. The large wave crashed down on Warren and he quickly figured out that it was me doing it when waves started hitting him from all sides.

He got frustrated at the water beating and flamed up with an exaggerated roar getting laughs and giggles from everyone.

The waves started evaporating before they hit him. He grinned at me and I sheepishly smiled back giving up on making waves and turning tail to run.

He caught up to me and grabbed me around my waist swinging me around and falling backwards into the water still holding me.

For a minute I almost panicked when the water covered my head, but I calmed my self down with the knowledge that I could swim now and Warren wouldn't let me drown.

Once we were under the water he let me go and instead of going up for air I turned around and reached out. I met his eyes and projected a thought.

are you ticklish?

He froze and I reached out and started tickling his sides. He tried not to but soon he started laughing under the water and grabbed my shoulders as he went up.

He stood there gasping for air and glaring at me. His hair was pasted to the sides of his face from the water and he let me go to push it out of his way.

As soon as he let me go I took off heading to hide behind someone else. They however all ran because I was it. I frowned at them and pouted. I was saved from the evils of catching someone when my dad came out back.

"Here's some towels kids. The pizza's here. Dry off then come inside and eat."

We reluctantly did so. However we all went and changed before going into the kitchen. When we all got to the kitchen mom smiled at us.

"So are all of you going to be Sophomores?" Everyone nodded, and my dad was giving Warren an odd look.

"You look older."

Warren shrugged. Will saw that he wasn't planning on answering so he answered for his best friend.

"Warren was held back his freshmen year for missing to much school."

My parents shared a look but didn't say anything about it.

After dinner we had all gotten ready for bed and went into the living room to watch movies. We started out watching Herbie fully loaded.

Then we watched Monster High, a movie about a school for super villains and a kid who goes there without any powers but gets them and defeats the good guy that was trying to take over the school and turn everyone into babies to raise them to be good heroes.