I don’t want to paint too awful of a portrait of myself, but don’t forget that I was still with Bobby the whole time I was attempting to spend my every waking hour with my best bud.
I always ran it by Bobby first and he’d say it was fine, of course. What was he going to do? It was Bobby. He had pride and integrity. He knew being with Logan made me happy so he let it go. If he’d really loved me, he wouldn’t have stayed in the background. I found comfort in that. It made my absolute lack of awareness toward him a little less heinous.
Bobby was with me out of a sense of obligation, to be honest. First I was the new girl he wanted to welcome, then I was the untouchable girl he wanted to make feel normal. Lots of our classmates gave him a hard time for dating me. I’d found evidence of more than one drawing from Peter Rasputin. Jubilee had actually shown a few of them to me when she was first dating him, I guess to impress me with the great Colossus’s sensitive side. It had been at lunch, with Bobby sitting right beside me. She’d failed to notice, or care, that it was us being depicted in some of those drawings. If there was anyone more selfish than I in this world it was Jubilation Lee – God love her.
“He’s talented,” was all Bobby had said, his hand resting over one showing him being electrocuted by my kiss. He’d been trying to shield me the way he did whenever he told me he wasn’t afraid of my skin. He really should have been. If he’d been wary, maybe what had happened that day at the pool would’ve become such a huge deal. Not that I’m blaming him. You can’t blame someone with pure motives.
It was the last week of August, the end of summer vacation. Some of the kids had gone home for the duration and those left weren’t hanging around the pool despite it being warm and bright out. There was some sort of X-Men meeting going on, but Bobby and I decided our attendance wasn’t necessary.
He wanted to spend time with me, and I wanted to break in my new bathing suit and get a tan. I was tired of being pasty white. I didn’t much care that it was dangerous for me to be walking around with so much bare skin showing. My wardrobe was pretty risqué back then. I’d wear the long gloves, but I’d also wear sleeveless shirts with plunging necklines. I’d chosen that bikini specifically because it had the least amount of actual fabric per any two-piece in the store. I swear Bobby had the self-control of a monk in a brothel. I was a tease, no matter how innocent I thought myself at the time. I just figured it didn’t matter. Regardless of how sexy I looked, nothing was ever going to happen. My mutation was the chastity belt that would not quit. Any other eighteen year-old boy would’ve been running around behind my back constantly. Not Bobby. He made do with our five-second kisses and my ever-more revealing choice of attire.
“It’ll be weird next semester,” I remarked to him as we treaded water in the pool, just to make conversation. “I mean, we’re in college but we’re still in the same place with the same teachers. Usually when you think of college, you think of going away from home. It’s worse than if I’d gone to Community back in Meridian.”
“We could’ve applied to other schools,” Bobby pointed out.
“Please. Our transcripts are from Mutant High. Who’d accept us?”
“Katie Fischer is going to Brown and – what’s his name? The kid in our physics class. We call him Alchemy, but what’s his real name? Tony?”
“Tommy.”
“Right. Tommy. Anyway, he’s going to Harvard. Probably paying in gold rocks or chair legs or something.”
“That would be a useful power.”
“I wouldn’t mind having it,” Bobby agreed, flipping over to float on his back. “Except, that ‘Midas Touch’ song would get annoying. John used to call him Goldmember.”
“Oh, God,” I laughed, remembering how literally Jubilee had taken that remark.
“I don’t know,” Bobby said. “I think I’d rather stay here. It’s home. And we do have our own rooms now.”
“True.”
“Then there’s the X-Men to consider. We’re probably going to have to get serious about that pretty soon. Stop skipping meetings.”
I sighed good-humouredly. “I suppose so.”
Grinning, Bobby sank down in the water so that only his eyes were showing. They were mischievous as came toward me slowly. My gut tightened.
“I think I’m going to lay out now,” I said, pretending not to catch what he was doing. He didn’t like it when I stopped him from kissing me, but he was a good sport about it. I was tired of hurting him. My mind was fairly brimming with the emotions he felt when we kissed – desire, disappointment, and pain. There was so much Bobby in me that I could barely feel Logan anymore.
“Hey, we left the towels inside,” Bobby noted, climbing the ladder behind me.
“That’s all right. I’m going to air dry,” I replied, settling myself on one of the pool chairs. When I closed my eyes, I could feel him hovering over me.
“I’ll go get them,” he offered after a minute of staring at me.
“Okay,” I murmured, already getting drowsy.
“Right back,” he said, and leaned over to kiss me quickly before he left.
That was nice, I thought, smiling to myself. Short, sweet, and no one got hurt.
The towels must have been hard to find because Bobby was gone a fairly long time. Long enough for me to fall asleep and some of the younger boys to get up enough courage to bother me.
It was Flea who initiated the dare. He was always underfoot, doing his best to make everyone’s life miserable. The point of their game, I gathered later, was to be the one to touch me the longest without a: dying or b: getting caught. The three boys with Flea were his usual partners in crime, Streak and Artie, and along with them was a boy named Rett. I don’t know what they said to Rett to convince him to go first. I just remember waking up knowing someone was about to touch my face.
Instinctively – I think I thought I was wearing gloves – I reached out and grabbed Rett’s wrist. “What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, sitting up.
My grip was firm. By the time I noticed the dark blue, telltale veins discoloring the smooth brown of his skin it was too late. My control was lost in the flow of power into me. It was an agonizing rush, as always. I wanted to let go but couldn’t. His emotions overwhelmed mine. He was sorry. He hadn’t wanted to hassle me. He was new and he wanted to make a good impression, have some friends for once. His name was Everett Thomas. He was only thirteen years old, and he was scared.
Abruptly, the flow of power turned. I hit the concrete hard as I fell from the chair to my knees. I let go of his hand, but his stayed clamped on my wrist. My flesh burned under his fingers. This is what it felt like, I realized. Rett was using my power against me and this was what it felt like. I was going to die. He wouldn’t be able let go and I didn’t have the strength to fight it –
I was jerked from behind, my wrist torn from Rett’s grip. I could feel Bobby’s arms around my bare waist. His skin was soft and slightly cool.
“Let go,” I wheezed, limp in his grasp.
“You’re not hurting me.” Bobby was exhilarated by that fact. His breath was erratic against my ear. He hugged me to him more tightly.
My much-abused skin reacted slowly. I didn’t have the energy to even pretend to resist the absorption of Bobby’s strength. My body was using him to replace what Rett had taken and more.
Eventually, Bobby crumbled to the ground, twitching. I had taken too much. I was too powerful, too cold. To release the pressure, I froze the ground and the pool water. I staggered away from Bobby and Rett, away from the other boys’ shocked, accusing stares.
It’s not my fault, I thought wildly.
I lost my footing on the icy edge of the pool and careened backward. The ice broke under my weight, the back of my head getting the full impact. It hurt at first, but the arctic water numbed the pain for me. I drifted toward the bottom almost serenely. Two figures made a picturesque silhouette where they knelt at the edge of the pool. It didn’t bother me at all that the water was turning pinkish or that I was drowning. It was the most natural thing in the world to be still and wait for the third boy to come back with Logan to save me.
How would he save me? I wondered. Knowing him, he’d just jump in and grab me, not caring that he’d then end up worse off than Bobby and Rett. That’s why the other two boys weren’t jumping in to try and help. They were scared to touch me. Logan wouldn’t be scared, like Bobby wasn’t scared, and he’d get hurt. Possibly drown right along with me. The only way he could get me out of the water safely is if I was dead.
My eyes closed at the thought. That sounded like an okay plan to me. I could sleep. No more hurting, no more annoying gloves, no more pity. Just absolute tranquility…
I’d been here before, I realized. Standing on the platform at the train station at night, ticket to nowhere in hand. It would’ve been so easy, I’d thought, to step in front of the train. It’d be so quick and painless. Painless for me, anyway. My parents would be shocked to see pieces of their little girl on the six o’clock news. They’d feel bad for giving up on me so quick. David would feel bad for telling everyone that it was me who’d almost killed him. All I had to do was step out at the exact right second and everything would be okay…
Fear welled up inside of me. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to die, so I was going to have to save myself.
Lungs burning, senses dulled, I pushed up from the bottom of the pool, reaching for the melting hole I’d made in the ice. I bobbed out like an otter, gasping in that first lungful of air every bit like my life depended on it. I started sinking again. My legs and arms were dead weight. It hurt to move them, it hurt to push the ice away, but I managed to make it to the edge.
I had to drag myself out. My forearms slipped on the melting ice and scraped across the raised concrete. It took a few tries, and I earned myself a lot of bruises before I finally made it up. I coughed awhile to get the water out of my lungs, then fell over on my side. I could feel the blood flow freely from the cut on the back of my head.
I fought oblivion for as long as I could.