It's My Life

"Warren?"

I looked at him, the direct source of all this crap and hated him for it, for becoming involved in my father's plight to somehow correct all the mistakes he made, to somehow correct *me*. "What?"

"Your father is concerned for you."

I smiled, a wiry, bitter smile, and crossed my arms over my chest, slouching in the chair just begging for my posture to be ruined. I was faking comfortable. No chair ever felt comfortable anymore. "Is he?"

"He asked that I talk to you, didn't he?"

"That doesn't imply that he cares," I replied quietly, chewing on my nails. A dirty habit I had picked up from one of the many boarding schools I'd been thrown into against my will. The more angry I became, the more likely I was to chew off my fingers. "It implies he's embarrassed of me."

"How so?"

"He's trying to fix me. He's trying to make me into something I'm not," I muttered, sliding deeper into the chair until it became unbearably uncomfortable. I pushed myself back to an upright position, pulling my knees to my chest. A protective manoeuvre, the Professor had said, but I thought it was just because I was more comfortable that way. Life was annoying enough without discomfort. I didn't need to add onto it. "So how about this? I give you all the money you need for this little session, I leave here and we never talk again."

"Is this what you've done for the other psychiatrists?"

I glared at him from under my hair, biting with more force. "Everyone can be bought. You just have to know the price."

"I have no need for money," he replied, watching me like I was some sort of experiment. I don't know where my father had found this particular doctor. He was hardly older than I was, and he had green hair. Who has green hair? Honestly. "I want to help you."

"Help me with what? I don't need help," I insisted. This is how my day had started, me and this green-haired freak arguing over whether or not my father was justified in sending me here. I was actually the one arguing. His kind never fought back.

"Warren, I'm going to give you a prescription that will help you."

"Fuck you." Eloquent to the end. "I don't need any stupid drugs. I'm fine."

"This is called denial, Warren," he said sharply, raising his voice, angry at me for being stubborn. The others hadn't done that. They'd been as stoic and dead as I felt. "You have a whole life ahead of you, and I've seen people just like you end up in a place you don't want to be. You're just a boy."

I looked at him until I couldn't bear those eyes on me anymore, and I turned away, hugging my legs so tightly they hurt. "So you're telling me I'm fucked up in the head, is that it? None of the others said it quite so bluntly."

"I'm telling you that I'm worried that this is going to get worse for you. I used to be just like you, Warren. I know what living is like for you. I want to give you a chance to see what it can be. That's all. We don't even have to tell your father."

I sighed deeply. "Fine. But if they don't work, I'm not going to take them, all right?"

"It's your choice."

The session ended on a pleasant note and I practically ripped the paper out of his hands, muttering something akin to thank you just for politeness's sake. My nanny had raised me to be a gentleman. It was a hard habit to break.

I walked to the pharmacy and gave them the prescription, paying for it all by cash. I couldn't explain it, but I was embarrassed just being there. I kept my head down, my eyes to the floor, speaking in random mutters and whispers, terrified that someone would recognise me. I didn't want to prove to the world that I was a typical, spoiled, rich brat. It was humiliating.

"Late as usual," Scott said as I approached my friends, if that's what they could be called. I suspected the vast majority of them didn't care for me. Scott, for one, couldn't stand me, but I blamed that on the fact we were after the same girl. Bobby didn't know me, and Hank, well, Hank didn't not like anyone.

I loved Jean. I hadn't told her that. She was too good for me, and I knew it. I was just asking to be hurt.

"Sorry," I said, grinning that charming grin I had mastered. "You know how it is, Scott, all those woman out there vying for a good-looking man like myself. I couldn't ignore them. I'm not that late. Besides, I'm the one with the car, aren't I?"

Scott looked at me sourly and Jean laughed lightly, putting her hand on my shoulder. "He's only teasing, Scott," she said gently, smiling sweetly at him, a look I tried very hard to ignore. I knew what was coming. It was inevitable. "Aren't you, Warren?"

"No," I replied flippantly. "Hank and Bobby aren't here."

"They're even more late than you are," Scott replied, always having to be in control, always holding the reigns of life tightly in his grip. He knew what he wanted with his life and how to get there. What did I know? Not much.

We waited in silence for the errant two to show up, and Jean and Scott talked quietly between themselves. I didn't have the heart to tell them I could hear every word plain as day. It always sounded like people were screaming at me. Voices, annoyingly high-pitched, loud and obnoxious, speaking as if I was deaf I just wanted them all to shut up and give me a little bit of peace.

I made the mistake of looking elsewhere only to notice a group of girls, probably not much younger than me, giggling and whispering. I knew what they were saying, what they were daring the blonde to do, and I waited patiently, trying to look as dashing and sexy as possible.

"Hi," she said quietly, smiling at me then looking back at her friends, grinning.

"Hello," I said, flashing my perfect teeth. Braces were a curse I knew too well, but I had to beautiful, especially when I proved I wasn't anything spectacular in the brains department. I needed something to make me stand out. "I'm Warren."

"Patricia," she replied, biting her lip in a very cute way. "I hope I'm not disturbing you."

She was nervous and as I did a quick survey of her body, the swell of her hips, the fullness of her breasts, I figured I'd play this out and see what it got me. "It's always nice to meet a beautiful girl, Patricia."

She blushed shyly. "Could I have your number?"

"Why don't we do better than that and I ask you to dinner right here?" I grinned, the teeth again, a casual flip of the hair and then that look that reeked sincerity and friendliness. Every time I did the same thing, and they never realised what I was really after. "Tomorrow night, I can pick you up at home, we can grab something to eat and a movie. It'd be a wonderful time."

"I'd like that," she replied, giggling and smiling softly. I gave her a pen to write her address down from me and as soon as she handed the paper back to me, I held it to my heart before putting it in the inside pocket of my bomber jacket. "What if I need to call you?"

"Right," I said, scribbling my number and handing it to her. "Ask for Warren."

"Okay. Thanks."

"And I'll see you later," I said, smiling as I watched her walk back to her friends, the gentle sway of her body, the curviness of her incredible profile. Oh yes. It would be a good night. Very few of them were that forward with me, that eager to be with me. It took a special type of girl.

"That's disgusting," Scott said, watching me with complete disapproval.

"What is?"

"Forget it," Scott muttered, shaking his head as if I wasn't even worth the thought. It was a nice thing to note. People dismissed me so easily, especially him, and he was just too insecure to realise that hating me for Jean wasn't going to change the end. I was not going to win the game we were playing. It was obvious to everyone except him.

"Sorry we're behind the time, my friends, but I made the most wondrous discovery! A true oasis of magnificence and delight! Heaven, I am excited to inform you, is three blocks over!" Hank's voice had a way of booming, and I smiled falsely, forcing myself to ignore the pain his speech caused. We were still a new group. I needed time to get used to that baritone. I had learned how to ignore my father's screaming. If I could do that, I could do anything.

"He found a store that sells old science books. Personally, I thought it smelled like my old gym socks," Bobby said with a grin, shoving Hank playfully though he was pitifully tiny compared to his friend. His *best* friend. I didn't even know what a best friend was save for the fact Cameron Hodge definitely wasn't it. "And the woman who works there? Out of her mind!"

"Louise is a superb companion for science chat," Hank said, flicking Bobby in the ear. Bobby pushed him again, so Hank licked his finger and shoved it in Bobby's ear. I laughed then backed away when Hank threatened something similar, trying to include me. Scott and Jean, Hank and Bobby, and me, always me, always alone.

"Everyone into the car, I have to get home," I said suddenly, "homework."

"The illustrious bird of a feather doing homework? Will wonders never cease to amaze me?" Hank said with a low laugh, grabbing me by the shoulders and squeezing gently. I looked up at him, bemused. "Very well. Into the Worthington Mobile!"

Hank ended up sitting in the front with me, pretty much to save the others from being crushed by him, and we drove in silence, though Bobby froze Hank's shorts three times before we managed to reach home. In the driveway, I parked the car and reached down to grab my coat from Hank's feet. Bobby was already running into the house with Scott shouting at him to behave himself or some other equally asinine comment. Jean just laughed lightly, fawning over Scott like he was the greatest thing in the world.

I opened the door to get out, and Hank cleared his throat. I turned my head to face him and in his hand he held that damn bottle of pills. Fuck it all. He didn't say anything, and I didn't say anything, but he made no move to give them to me.

"It's nothing," I said finally, holding out my hand.

"Anti-depressants are hardly nothing," Hank replied, unmoving. I sat back down, laying my head on the wheel of the car. He put a hand on my shoulder. "Warren, it doesn't mean they're everything either."

"Don't tell anyone else, all right? No one was supposed to know," I said, watching the blades of grass blow in the wind. To me, they were a perfect image. To every one else, they were a complete unit and not thousands of smaller ones. "Hank, just give them back to me."

"Do you plan to tell the Professor?"

I scoffed a bitter snort. "Yeah, right. So he can kick me out of this school, too? We both know the only reason he puts up with me is because of my father. Worthington money can buy anything. It's good that way."

Hank sighed deeply and gave me back the pills, which I promptly shoved into my pocket, but he didn't let go of my shoulder. "Warren, you and I may not be the best of buds, but you can talk to me."

"Yeah," I muttered.

"And he keeps you here because you a have place here, not because of something your father might have given him. The Professor helps people who need him, and you, and me, and Bobby, Scott and Jean, we all need him. It is that simple, Warren."

"Thanks Hank," I said almost genuinely and he nodded, getting out of the car. I watched him disappear before I went into a fit of curse words and beating the shit out of my steering wheel, taking any and all frustration out on something that wouldn't fight back. "Simple."

I locked myself in my room for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, my textbooks open and a pen in my hand, but I wasn't writing anything to do with school. I could flunk out for all I cared. No, what I was writing I could never show anyone. They were pieces of phrases, random words, that when I read over disturbed me so much I burned the paper immediately to escape the terrible reality of what I wrote.

I would scribble for hours, writing until my fingers cramped and my eyes went blurry, until the tears from my cheeks stained the page. I never spoke above a whisper, I never cried too loud that people would hear me, I never screamed from the sheer unfairness of it all, but when the writing became too much, when I just couldn't do it anymore, I listened to music, hard and violent music, music that no one thought I even owned.

I stripped to my waist, letting my beautiful wings free. The Professor has made it my homework assignment to wear that suffocating harness, to grow used to it, to hide myself better in public, but I couldn't do it, not today.

If nothing else, if the world realised that I was a lie, I would always have two things: I would always be beautiful and I would have my wings. If I ever lost them, either of them, I wouldn't be able to live. Not with nothing, not when I had nothing else. Sometimes, the thought of my wings was what kept me living at all.

I picked up the prescription and opened the bottle, swallowing a pill without water then I walked to the mirror, looking at myself. I ran my hands across my chest, down my stomach, breathing deeply as I felt the hard, toned muscle. I lifted my arms over my head, watching it contract and expand, staring at myself.

Then I began to sing with the music, loudly with hate and spite, having long ago memorised the self-destructive words. I watched my body in the mirror, watched it move like liquid mercury. Perfection. It was all I had. I was stupid. I would never amount to anything. I would never marry. I wouldn't live past thirty. But I would always be beautiful. Beautiful.

"Fuck you," I growled, staring at that pretty face. Completely dissociated from real life, my father had said that to me once. Obsessed with the sky, with the birds, aeroplanes, anything that could fly. He had called me stupid, ashamed of me because I didn't have any friends. I couldn't make friends with males. I hated them all. I hated myself. "Fuck you!"

"Warren?"

I turned around, my wings flying up behind me as if they had real power, as if I could somehow protect myself from this invasion with my useless, pretty wings. Bobby stood there in the door, watching me.

"Are you okay?"

"Never better," I replied with a smile, not fake, not forced, a perfect rendition of a perfect smile. Bobby narrowed his eyes, looking at me, staring at my face and moving down my body until his eyes hit the floor. He was embarrassed and I felt bad for him. "It's nothing, Bobby."

"You're crying."

No kidding, dimwit. "It's nothing."

"But you're ..."

"It's nothing," I repeated, hoping this time he would believe me. He was too young to hear what was going on with me. He wouldn't understand, and he didn't need to know that people like me existed in the world.

"I'm not as dumb as you'd like to think I am," Bobby said before turning and leaving, locking the door behind him, and I stood there, watching him go. I didn't move for another hour. I was afraid I'd fall to pieces.

The next day, I prepared for my big dinner with ... Patricia? ... yes, Patricia. As I prepared for my date in the bathroom, shaving with a towel wrapped around my waist, Bobby came in, watching me warily. I stared him down until he disappeared into the stall, probably unable to piss in the urinal with me glaring at him.

When Bobby emerged from the stall and washed his hands in the sink next to me, his eyes drifted up to the mirror and looked at me. He would never grow up to be tall or beautiful or built. Bobby was destined to be only average.

I looked at him, my eyes piercing him like a hawk's predatory gaze, but he faced me without speaking, silently opposing me. We stood there for a long time before, for reasons I couldn't explain, I smiled.

"Ignore me, Bobby, everyone else does," I said with a grin, throwing my wet towel at his head and walking to my neat pile of clothes. I yanked on my briefs then picked up that stupid harness, wrestling my wings into it.

"Is that hard to do?" Bobby asked quietly, watching me with an odd look.

"Yes," I grunted, trying to pull my wings tightly to my body and throw the harness over them before I lost control of the muscles that held them there. I did it, but just barely, and then I fumbled stupidly with the buckles.

"Is it comfortable?"

"Not in the least bit," I muttered, jumping into my pants and trying to get the wings to lie flat against my body. It felt as though I had been squeezed into a vice and if I breathed too deeply, it would pop open and spew me to freedom.

"Then why do you wear it?"

What an odd question. "To be normal, I guess."

Bobby shrugged and grinned, and I looked down as I saw ice begin to spiral about my ankle. He was off and running before I could beat the snot out of him, shouting, "Normal isn't any fun, Flyboy!"

Words of wisdom from a kid. I finished dressing, staring at myself for a long time in the mirror, finicky over how my clothes fit because they always looked wrong with wings tied underneath. If anyone ever found out, my father would kill me.

I knew all the tricks, all the ways to hide them, to escape the touches to my back, to where the wings lay hidden. I could still dance, still neck and kiss, still fuck. I could do it all if I just made it all about them, the world for them. All my love in the backseat of a car where it was dark and I was fully dressed, where I gave them everything and only asked for a single personal release. Give all you can and you get just enough back to make it worth the effort.

I drove to pick Patricia up from her middle class house, driving the Mercedes my father had given me for my eighteenth birthday. It was silver, cold and sleek, and I opened the door, stepping out onto the pavement and walked up to her door, ringing the bell.

The door opened a sliver. "What do you want?"

I raised an eyebrow at the gruff demand. "I'm here to pick up Patricia. We have a date."

Her father, I assumed correctly, opened the door and invited me into the living room to wait, eyeing me as if he could judge me from how I looked. I smiled pleasantly, chatting aimlessly with him until I found out he liked football. I was never one for sports, but Hank was passionate about that one in particular. I knew enough that I had her father wrapped around my finger in five minutes.

"Is that your car?" Her father asked, looking at his driveway.

"Yes, sir," I replied politely, watching the clock and how my life was ticking away. "It was a gift from my father."

He grunted at that admission, nodding his head and stroking his chin. "What did you say your last name was again?"

"Worthington, sir, Warren Worthington the Third," I said, knowing he would recognise the name, and I knew from the look on his face that he had, but I couldn't make out what he was thinking, just that all the hair on my arms stood straight.

"What are you intentions with my daughter?"

I looked at him, confused. "Dinner and a movie, sir."

"Bullshit." My eyes flew wide open. "I know your type, boy! I know what you preppy rich boys do to the daughters of the hard-working middle class. I'll not have you making a mockery of her virtue! I'll not have it!"

"I assure you, my intentions are honourable," I said, standing up and backing away from him, speaking calmly and clearly though I was afraid I would soil myself. "I am not like those other boys, sir. I'm better than that."

"You rich trash are all the same," he growled, speaking in the way my father spoke, that way of forming words to made me feel like I was nothing, like I really was garbage. "You get in that fancy car of yours and get the hell out my neighbourhood."

I saw Patricia and her mother on the stairs, staring at me. "I'm not like that."

"You're all like that. Now get the hell of my property before I phone the police and have them haul your ass off."

"I'm sorry, Warren," Patricia whispered under her breath, so quietly I shouldn't have been able to hear it, but I did. I always heard the whispers. I looked at her, struggling to remain in control of myself. She looked so beautiful and I knew then her father was right about me. I would have slept with her. I would have ruined her.

I left without another word, driving back to the mansion in a state of shock. It was still early evening, they would be up, they would see me come back like a failure. Clutching the bouquet of flowers in my hand, I stepped out of my car and went around to the back of the mansion to sit by the lake and wallow in my sorrow.

Instead, I walked into my nightmare.

Scott and Jean, together at long last, holding hands as they kissed. Reflexively, my fingers tightened around the stem of the roses and I felt the thorns tear into my palm, the warm flow of blood spinning down my fingers.

"Warren," Jean said, breaking the embrace, probably hearing the bizarre squeak of anguish escape my lips and knowing full well why I did such a thing then pretending it wasn't the reason. She knew I loved her. She had to have known. "We were going to tell you. Isn't it wonderful? "

"What are you doing home so early?" Scott asked, eyeing me still as if I was a threat to him, still despite the fact he was obviously better than me.

"Didn't you hear? Rich trash aren't allowed to date middle-class girls. You know how we are, Scott. Fucking whatever girl we can, ruining them because that's what we do to innocent girls. You thought I'd do it to Jean. I probably would have."

"Warren," Jean started quietly, trying to touch me, but I backed away from her, shaking my head. They exchanged looks, *the* look, the one that reeked of accusations and assumptions, the one that pretended they knew what I was feeling. "Warren, we didn't mean ..."

"Yes, you did! It's not like you haven't thought that about me, Jean! You speak behind my back, thinking I can't hear you, but I can! I see and I hear with a sensitivity you don't have. Those senses are painful to me, and I hear you as if it was a scream!"

"That's nonsense," Scott said, holding Jean's hand just to spite me.

"Fuck you." And I ran from them, running blindly to the spot I had discovered the first week of school. It was far, near the end of the property and it was quicker to drive to it, but I ran blindly through the darkening evening night, letting the trees rip my skin and the rocks trip me.

I was gasping and gagging when I finally burst into the small clearing, collapsing to my knees by the river, sobbing. I had never felt so utterly rejected in my life, so utterly torn down from the perch I had put myself on. I had never thought I was better than other people, I just had to pretend that I was at least worth something.

Hand bleeding from the thorns, I ripped off my shirt and tore the harness from my body, throwing it into the water. I beat my fists against the ground, my wings rising over my head. Hoarse sounds escaped my throat, painful whimpers of torment, and I sobbed until I vomited the contents of my stomach, my arms crossed over my chest and my fingernails driven deep into my upper arms, drawing more blood.

"Oh God, please, make this go away," I whispered, shivering as I held myself, curled into a small ball of flesh and sobbing into my thighs, my pants soaked with my tears. And I wanted to die. I wanted to die more than I ever had in my life, and I looked at the water, shallow and cold, but it was peaceful.

I crawled to it, dipping my fingers into it and then I plunged my head in, forcing myself to stay under the water. It was like ice, but I didn't move from it, and the air in my lungs was rapidly disappearing, creating a tightness in my chest. My body jerked and writhed, but my will was stronger than my flesh, and I opened my mouth.

"Warren!"

Hands grabbed my wings and twisted them painfully, and I was coughing, spewing river water from my lips as I clutched my chest, the pain still there and I knew it would never go away. I sat in the grass shivering, my wings pulled tightly around my body, and I stared at Bobby, hating him for following me.

"How could you even think of doing that?"

"You don't understand," I mumbled, hot tears burning my eyes. It felt so ashamed, so wrong, and I knew my father had been right about me. I was a waste of life. I was a waste of flesh. My mother hadn't been able to have children after me. They had to settle for trash. "You don't understand, Bobby."

"IunderstandcuzI'vebeenseeingadoctorsinceIwasten," Bobby confessed, his words coming out in one breath, a rapid expulsion of a sentence I understood quite clearly. I looked at him and blinked. "Because, you know ..."

"I thought you were so ..."

"Happy?" Bobby smiled with a shrug. "He says it's my way of dealing, you know? Making jokes, making other people happy, so maybe it'll make me happy, too. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

"Are you ... taking ...?"

"Medication? Not anymore. It didn't really help a whole lot," Bobby said, sitting down across from me and grabbing my shirt from the ground, throwing it to me with an earnest smile. "It's cold out, Warren."

I held the shirt to my body, bowing my head as a tear slipped from my eye, burning a trail down my cheek. "Jean and Scott ..."

"I know, I saw them," Bobby replied, a seriousness in his voice I hadn't thought possible, and he watched me with dark blue eyes, darker than mine. I realised he wasn't that average. His eyes, they were both beautiful and unsettling. "I know you ..."

"Yeah, well, she wouldn't have been happy with me anyway," I muttered, wiping my nose on my arm in a very ungentlemanly way. "It's not a big deal, you know. I'll get over it. By next week, I'll probably have forgotten I ever loved her."

"No, you won't," Bobby said, "but you'll get over it."

"No, I don't really get over things," I muttered, risking a look at his face, and it was by far the most honest and sympathetic face I had ever seen. "My life, Bobby, I've had some really fucked up things happen to me."

"Like what?"

"That's none of your business," I said abruptly, defensively, but his expression only softened as he looked at me with something other than the pity I was used to seeing.

"You wouldn't have brought it up if it was," he stated simply, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. "That's what my new doctor said the first time I went to him. I wouldn't tell anyone. I'm good with secrets."

I looked at him and blinked, expecting him to laugh and say he'd been joking all along, but all I saw was a sombre face. I fought with myself, afraid to tell him because of the memories it involved, but I also recognised the fact I needed to speak about it. I stood up and perched on a nearby rock, sitting like a bird to be comfortable, calm, more in control.

"I ..." How do I admit to something so terrible?

"I'll tell you my secret, too," Bobby added, a shakiness to his voice as if that was a last minute decision and he didn't really understand what he had just offered to do. "Then we'll be even. I won't tell about you; you won't tell about me."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded.

"I ..." I took a deep breath. "I mean, you know how before Xavier's, I went to a lot of boarding schools? I mean, my parents were so busy and it was just easier to send me away." I was speaking quickly and Bobby was nodding with every word. "And it wasn't too bad, you know, though the kids were cruel to me because I was raised to be a gentleman, you know? Polite, honest, hard-working, but that didn't last for long, and I started getting into trouble."

I paused, aware of how dry and parched my throat was, but I swallowed loudly, my wings drooping behind me as I played with the cuff of my pants, pulling on the loose strings. I rested my chin on my knees and kept speaking.

"My father would scream and yell and, so I tried to change my ways, to be an angel again, you know? I didn't want him to hate me, and for awhile I did it, too. But there was this kid, bigger than the rest, who was beating up all the little kids. I stopped him. I hurt him pretty badly. They were going to kick me out. I couldn't let my dad find out, not again, and the headmaster, he said that if I ..." I swallowed again. "He said that if I ... did things with him, he wouldn't tell."

Bobby's forehead creased and he looked at me, a bleak look on that beautifully average face. He knew what I was going to say, but I said it anyway. I needed to hear it from my own mouth instead of just in my mind where it tormented me.

"He made me ... touch him."

Just to say it left a foul taste in my mouth, and I closed my eyes for a long time before daring to open them again. When I did, Bobby was still looking at me, that bleak look replaced by the threat of tears.

"Did he touch you?"

I blinked. "Yes."

"That's why you flinch when people touch you, isn't it?"

I hadn't thought anyone had noticed that slight twitch whenever a hand rested on me. It was unstoppable, but it was so small, so tiny, I had thought I hid so well. I nodded, murmuring with fingers to my lips, "yes. I don't do it when women touch me."

"I know," Bobby said with a choked whisper, knowing now why I was dirty and unclean. "Warren, I promise you, I won't tell anyone."

"My dad knows," I whispered, closing my eyes. That had been the most humiliating part, having to tell him when it began to get to me, when I began to fail, when I started turning the hate and rage I felt into self-destructive violence. "He blamed it on me."

Bobby watched me, looking so young and innocent, and I knew that naivete, though he hated it and wanted to grow up, was what kept him saner than I. "It wasn't your fault. With things that like, there are only victims."

"My father is sending me to the shrink to fix whatever went wrong in my head. After that, things that just went bad really quickly. I'd be fine one minute, and the next minute, I'd be binging, drinking, fucking." I ripped a thread from my pants. "Drugs. I'm clean now. I got out of that. It almost killed me."

Bobby nodded, listening to me.

"And, I mean, I lost my virginity when I was thirteen," I muttered, bringing my fingers to my mouth so I could chew on the nails. "Tonight, I went out with that girl for the sole reason of sleeping with her, whether or not she really wanted it. You have just got to find the right girl, and they'll do anything. I know it's wrong, and I still do it."

Bobby nodded again, a comforting gesture, and he put his finger in the dirt, drawing strange designs. He sighed deeply, his eyes focussing on the movement of his hand as he sat cross-legged. "I don't like girls, Warren."

"You're ..."

"No," he said quickly, "I just don't like girls."

"Then you're ..."

"No, I'm not," he said again, shaking his head. "I just ... it's hard to explain. I just, it's not that. That's just wrong, and my dad, he raised me right, so it can't be that. He wouldn't have let that happen to me."

"It's not wrong," I said carefully, knowing I was walking dangerous ground, but we had said so much already. I felt no shame about speaking what I thought, forgetting how stupid my father had always said I was. "Bobby, that's like saying being a mutant is wrong."

He looked up at me, suddenly seeming much older than he was, catching my glance with those old eyes. "Who says being a mutant is right?"

"I do," I whispered, my wings caressing my body unconsciously, the softness of the feathers calming my already rattled nerves. They smelled clean, fresh, pure. "Because sometimes, these wings are the only reason I want to live, and that can't be bad."

Bobby said nothing but turned his head to stare at the water, the moonlight reflecting on his wet cheeks. I slid off the rock, landing lightly on my feet, and I kneeled next to him, feeling terrible because I had brought him out here tonight.

"Listen, Bobby, I'm sorry for ... making you ... save my life." It sounded really stupid when I said it, and Bobby laughed abruptly, bringing his hand to his mouth so he wouldn't. I laughed too and remembered how good it felt before I sobered and remembered my miserable life. "Thank you, Bobby. I think this time I might have actually done it."

"Or maybe you wouldn't have," Bobby replied, looking at me, and his eyes were young again, struggling to see everything in a clear and bright light. He was much better at it than I was. I cleared my throat. "What?"

"No one has ever really listened to me before, not without any money involved," I said, trying to smile, trying to stop taking myself so seriously. I swore right then and there that I'd least attempt to get myself back on track.

"Well, you can still give me money," he joked, looking at me warily.

"Bobby, your secret is safe with me."

"I know," he said, flushing immediately as if I had embarrassed him and he thought I had forget already. "I mean, it's not like I don't think I can date girls. I probably will. They're nice enough, and we have a good time, so you know, just because I don't 'like' like them doesn't mean ..."

"It probably means you'll never be happy." It flew out of my mouth, and I felt bad the moment I said it, but he just looked at me and nodded, knowing that I was right. "Have you ever, I mean, have you ever ... kissed a guy?"

Bobby shook his head rapidly, looking mortified I had been so daring to ask. His face went beet red, and I knew I should stop, but I had always had a problem with judging how far things should go. "I've never kissed anybody period."

The confession came laced with such shame and pity, and I pulled my eyes away from him, leaning on the ground with one arm as the other hand brushed my hair from my face. "You can, you know, kiss me ... if you want."

Bobby was silent for a long time before shaking his head, his eyes cast to the ground then raising unsteadily to meet my look. "No, Warren, but thank you for offering."

"But why not?" And the unspoken question -- what's so wrong with me?

"Warren, I wouldn't do that to you. You offered. That's so much already. Thanks," he muttered, icing up and vanishing into the trees, leaving an eerie chill behind in his wake. I spread my wings and darted into the night sky for one last flight around the grounds before bed.

I felt lighter than I had in months.

I woke up the next morning far earlier than I should have, but I had a place to be. I got dressed carefully, using my spare harness because the more comfortable one was floating in its watery grave. I felt all right.

I arrived at Doc Samson's office in a suspiciously good mood, my hands deep in my pocket and a smile on my lips. I sat down, picking up a copy of Newsweek magazine and flipping idly through the pages as I waited to be analysed.

"Hi."

I looked up, finding myself face to face with a vision from heaven. I smiled mutely, admiring the dark hair and the big, brown eyes, following the gentle curves of her face to her smile, which was both smug and enticing. I was enraptured.

"Hi."

"I'm Candy Southern," she said, holding out her hand, and I took it, pressing my lips to the flawless skin. "And you're Warren Worthington. My father is an acquaintance of your father. Isn't it marvellous that we're both stereotypes?"

She laughed lightly, and I found myself chuckling, still holding onto her hand. Yesterday that very idea had made me sob. We talked about anything and everything until the doctor called her in, but she took my hand, writing her number on my palm. She kissed it gently as if to seal it there forever.

"Call me, Warren, and we can talk about how screwed up we are."

Agreeing with a quiet laugh, I sat back and looked at the ceiling. I would call her and I would try to be better with her than I had been with the others. I would try to have a real relationship, with real feelings, with trust and honesty and everything else I had never known before.

And I realised, it's my life. I'm going to start living for me.

It's my life!