Sorry about the long break, I was busy graduating college. That seemed more productive.
Thorny ch.8
Although Jean was in the room- Laura could smell her perfume- she said nothing. Laura punched the wall hard enough to dent it a little and stormed off.
Laura stood in the greenhouse in front of her ugly rosebush. The moon was atypically bright tonight, and lit the room well enough that turning on lights hadn't been necessary. It was approximately one thirty in the morning, and she hadn't moved for nearly an hour. Neither had the plant.
Although her face was calm and emotionless, inside Laura was raging. The emotions she felt about being rejected by the mansion girls were unfamiliar, and she did not know how to cope with them, which only angered and frustrated her further.
"You're much easier to understand than humans," she finally said to her plant, standing perfectly still. "There is nothing complicated about you. Fertilizer, water, sunlight, and you never judge. You are not a difficult plant at all. The book was wrong."
As a distant clock toned the quarter of the hour, Laura blinked a few times and turned, studying the other plants with the same intensity and lack of expression that she had just been focusing on her rose.
"I don't understand them. I'm not like them." She fretted, and frowned. "I thought Jean was supposed to help me. Xavier sent her so that she could protect everyone from me. Did Ororo know that?"
Many of the pots that had previously only shown soil had small stalks rising from them. They were clustered together. Laura remembered all the people at the mall, separate like the stalks but still part of the same pot. Living their boring lives, handling all the stuff they found important, having families, concerned about each other. Buying things for each other. The mansion girls running around in pairs, laughing and yelling and sharing everything with each other. Laura on the outside. And then later, gossiping and talking, sharing their purchases and telling each other stories. Talking about her. Laura on the outside.
"I won't ever be like that, there's no point," she said suddenly, startling herself. It seemed so futile. Ororo's efforts to reform her, to forge some sort of connection. Jean, lifting the wheelbarrow and being nice at her. They were the only ones who had attempted to do so. Laura didn't know for sure what Ororo wanted out of her, but Jean had just been following orders. When she wasn't around they did nothing. No one else would even come near her. She had never received a hug, or even an invitation to anything, from any of the other teens, but they gave those to each other all the time.
"I hate all of them!" Laura shouted, then blinked, and looked around. Most of the plants were shredded. Shards of ceramic pottery were scattered like hail across the floor, and soil was drifting down through the air like rain. The room had been devastated.
"Not now," Laura gasped a little, her eyes wide. She hadn't lost her temper like that in over a month. All the work of the last several weeks was completely undone. She turned sharply to see her rosebush, and it was not there. As she urgently stepped over the debris she saw it in several large pieces on the floor among shards of the large pot it had been in. Laura kneeled down next to it, staring. For a moment her eyes were damp, but it passed quickly as Laura regained control over herself.
There were footsteps in the hall below, and Ororo's voice calling out. With her enhanced hearing, Laura heard Logan sprinting out of his room to back Ororo. Laura rapidly opened one of the glass panels, leaping gracefully onto the roof and running, just making it out of sight as Ororo and Logan burst into the attic.
As she sprinted along the roof, she heard Ororo gasp at the destruction. She tried not to listen, but couldn't help hearing what sounded like a sob in the attic behind her. Something oozed on her hand. Laura looked down, and noticed that she had been grasping one of her rose stems so tightly the thorns had cut into her palm. She hurled it into the darkness, ducked into her favorite rooftop eave and cried softly, but only for a few minutes.
A violent storm rolled in, and once there was enough lightning flashing to light the way, Laura ducked in a window to grab something and then carefully walked back along the drenched roof towards the greenhouse. She hadn't slept; the remainder of the night had been spent thinking very hard.
Ororo was kneeling on the floor, sweeping soil from under a table with a hand brush and pan. Laura quietly opened one of the glass panels and slipped a piece of paper in, shutting the panel securely and sliding off the roof onto a balcony as the paper fluttered down to Ororo.
Laura peered through the glass balcony doors into Professor Xavier's study, where he, Logan and Hank were deep in conversation. She sighed miserably, knocked on the glass quietly to get their attention, and entered.