This is what happens, when I come to tell Logan that I learned control over my skin:

He is in his room, watching some hockey-game while lying on his bed. I pause in his door frame, hesitant. The familiar mix of insecurity and longing rises again in my throat as I watch him, his hair tousled, his white shirt hugging his toned upper body, the muscles of his broad shoulders flexing as he reaches for a beer. Of course he has already notized me. Without turning his head away from the screen, he pads the bedspread next to him, mumbling “Sit down, kid,” around the beerbottle on his lips. I gather up all my courage and crawl over, stopping on my knees right next to him. And then I look at him, at his soft hair that my fingers long to touch, at his lips, parted slightly in concentration, the muscles of his neck, working as he swallows another sip of beer, and suddenly all fear leaves me and everything is very easy. I just close in on him, heart pounding in my ears, butterflies in my stomach, and I put my lips softly on the spot where his shoulder meet his neck, resting there for a moment and feeling his pulse quicken beneath my touch, then gently sliding my mouth over the soft skin, telling him without words that I’ve become touchable at last. Telling him that my lethal skin isn’t keeping him from me anymore.

He doesn’t move at all. He just sits there, and if it weren’t for his breathing, that has become heavier, and his muscles, that tense under my caress, you wouldn’t think I’done anthing unusual. Slowly my lips work their way up his neck, nuzzling at his ear, at which he draws in a sharp breath, clenching his beerbottle so hard a crack appears in the green glass. And then, finally, my mouth finds his, and in the moment I feel his soft lips under mine, I am sure this is as good as it’s gonna get in this life, because nothing could possibly be any better.

But then, when I’m already thinking I went too far, overstept my boundaries, ready to draw back and leave this room and house and country, his arms suddenly come up and close around me, sweeping me in a tight embrace that is taking my breath away and he kisses me back, fiercely, hungrily. His mouth is devouring me and making my bones and my heart and everything about me melt in a little puddle at his feet, everything I have always wished for has become true and bliss is overwhelming me like a wave crushing the shore and washing away everything that was bitter and wanting, leaving only feverish happiness. He pulls me on top of him so I’m sitting on his lap, straddling him with my legs, and then he tears my blouse open and starts kissing my neck, my breasts, my mouth, my ears, every place he can reach, and then I stop thinking as the world around me just vanishes and I live only in the hot wetness of his lips and tongue.


That’s not how it happens.

It’s like this: I bump on him on the stairs and he catches me when I stagger from the impact. He looks at me, concerned, asking: “You’re alright, kid?” That’s when he realizes, I don’t wear any gloves and his bare hands are touching my bare skin. He looks at his hands on my arms, then at my eyes, then again on his hands. Realization dawns in his eyes and also something else, something that sends shivers down my spine and then he smiles at me, a wide, open smile, that goes straight to my heart and does all kinds of funny things with it. Suddenly he is very close to me, his one hand sliding up my arm to cup my face, the other one behind my back, and then he pulls me gently closer, slowly lowering his lips on mine and kisses me. He kisses me! I feel like I’m going to collapse in his arms any second because his touch is just beyond good.

Although, actually, it doesn’t happen on the stairs, but in the library. In the kitchen. In the gardens, under the old oak tree. And I don’t bump into him, I stumble over him. Stand in front of him. Sit next to him. I tell him I gained control over my skin. Someone else has told him and he actually comes to seek me out. No word is said and I just lay my gloveless hand on his shoulder, his chest, his hand, his face. Or does he touch me? Does he kiss me hard or gently, stripping me of my clothes right there right now or just holding me for a long time close to him, both of us savouring the touch of bare skin that we have been denied for so long?


This is what really happened:

I found him next to Jean’s grave, where he was standing alone, a quiet dark form against the white-blooming Jasmine bushes Storm had planted there. The warm light of the early evening gilded his face, deeply lost in thought, while a light breeze stirred his disheveled hair on its way to rustling through branches and leaves. I stopped to look at him from the shadows of the trees. His face, so familiar to me like my own, or even more. His shaded eyes, surrounded by dark smudges that spoke of tiredness and mourning. I looked at him and my heart felt like it would break. I never loved him more than in this moment.

Quietly I stepped next to him. He took in a deep ragged breath, turning his head up and around to face me, a smile on his lips. But I had seen his jaw clench, his eyes shut tight. I had seen the pain in his eyes and my heart sank in my chest.

“Hey, Logan.” I put up my warmest smile to greet him.

“Hi there, kid,” he replied gruffly, running his hand through his hair in a vain attempt to smoothen it. “What’s up?”

“Just takin’ a walk, when Ah saw you standing there,” I drawled, trying to sound as casually as possible. But actually by now my heart was hammering in my chest so hard the sound seemed to blank out everything else, butterflies swirling in my body and my hands cold as ice. This was my point of no return, the point at which would be decided, if he loved me or not, and just held back because of my skin, afraid to hurt me by hurting himself, if he wanted me or not. If I had been clinging to a last, desperate hope or not.

He looked at me concerned, his brow furrowed. Of course I could count on his enhacened senses to pick up my nervousness when I needed it the least. “Somethin’ wrong?”

I swallowed hard, then blurting out in one rush: “Ah learned how to control my powers, Ah can touch now, Logan!”

For a moment there was surprised silence, a silene which sent me quivering, expecting. Then he smiled at me. He smiled at me, a warm smile, a smile a big brother would give his litte sister. A father to his daughter. Not a man to a woman he wants.

He started rambling about how great this was for me, how I’d managed to do it, asking who helped me with it and being all happy for me. But all the time I saw, his thoughts were not with me, not with my being touchable, not with me being finally available to him. His thoughts were still on the grave in our backs and the person that rested there, and I was just a kid.

I managed to answer his questions, to smile and laugh at the appropriate places how I should given my great news. But all the while it was like watching a stranger, like watching someone standing next to me. My head felt light, dizzy, and my chest like it would burst soon from everything that was welling up there, from the pain, the disappointment, the loneliness. Then finally someone from the mansion called him, and he went and left me alone at Jean’s grave. I watched him while he walked back to the house, his back straight, his pace powerful and steady and something between us, the bond we were sharing, was stretching with him as he increased the distance between us, further and further. And then it finally snapped and I just collapsed on my knees, too weary to stand any longer all of a sudden. I put my head back, trying to hold back the tears that were burning in the corners of my eyes, looking at the endless blue sky above me. For a moment my head was very light, and I imagined to be lifted by the winds now and be blown around in the wide open blue, like a feather. A leaf. A shroud of a cloud. Just having the breeze blow through me and carry everything away that burdened me.

But I was fixed to the earth, heavy with pain, just sitting there and staring into the sky and concentrating on breathing, which seemed to have become incredibly hard with this weight pressing on my lungs, stinging in my throat. All the time one single thought was whirling through my mind, blocking out everything else.

It had never been about my skin. But hadn't I known that all along?