I eat lunch alone now. I don't go to the dining room. I can't take sitting there and having no one talk to me, or sit by me. I can't take Ororo's accusing glances and sad sighs.

You can laugh and say that the weather goddess has never looked more serene, but you don't know her like I do, and you can't read the emotions she tries to keep invisible. She loves him too, and she's angry that I drove him away.

When Scott discovered his family was still alive and well in Alaska, I was thrilled. It was something he'd always wished for, and I was happy that he'd finally gotten something good, after all the bad he's suffered without complaint.

I love Scott. I wouldn't have spent seven years of my life with him if I didn't. But I was feeling stifled. I don't know if the seven-year itch is real, but I was definitely itching. So, I told him I wasn't going with him. No reason I should. Well, except that I'm his fiancée -- or I was -- and my future in-laws would no doubt be extremely interested in meeting me. But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't go and pretend like everything was the same as it ever was. Because it wasn't.

Logan still flirted with me, but now I flirted back more aggressively. I let the teasing glances we'd always shared become smoldering looks. Because I needed to know what it would feel like to be with him. I began fantasizing about him, to the point where I was afraid I was going to call out the wrong name when Scott and I made love.

Scott knows me, better than anyone. He knew what would happen if he left and I stayed behind. But not going wasn't an option for him. His need to see his family was strong, and my need to sleep with Logan was stronger. So I told him I wasn't going with him.

I don't excuse myself. I knew exactly what I was doing. Scott knew it, Logan knew it, everyone knew it. No one was supposed to talk about it, though. It was supposed to be a big secret that I was sleeping with Logan while Scott was away. I'd like to say I couldn't help it, but I could have. He didn't change the way he behaved with me -- I'm the one who went to his room, I'm the one who started it. I knew I didn't love him, but God, I wanted to fuck him.

You don't think I use those words? Perfect Jean Grey with her perfect little life. That's what Rogue called me. She has no idea how much I used to be like her, hiding from people -- she's actually much more social than I was once my telepathy kicked in and I couldn't control it. But Charles helped me learn control. He was the first man I ever truly loved. Nothing came of it, of course. I was sixteen and a student.

So I understand Rogue's possessiveness of Logan. He's her very own personal Jesus. And I've been in Logan's shoes as well. I'm seven years older than Scott. I was already in medical school when we met. He says he knew immediately, when he met me, that we'd be spending our lives together. He was sixteen. He was a beautiful boy, even when he was scared, thin and ragged. He told me, when I left after summer vacation, that we'd be together. I almost laughed, but I didn't. I told him I was flattered, and that he should probably date girls his own age.

When I came back for Thanksgiving, I learned he'd cut a swath through the neighborhood, breaking hearts by the dozen.

"I've been around, and I've decided that you're the one for me," he said the night before I left for school. He kissed me, and I let him, a foolish twenty-three-year-old who didn't believe in fate or love at first sight.

We went on our first date the night he graduated from high school. We had sex the last night of summer vacation that year, before he went off to Yale and I to Stanford. We agreed to see other people when we were apart. I didn't think that his love for me would survive all the beautiful girls he'd meet in college. And I certainly didn't believe that I'd miss my little summer fling so much that I'd wind up calling him almost every night that first month apart.

Finally, after medical school for me and college for him, we just moved in together. There was no big fanfare. He asked me to marry him and I said yes. That was seven years ago.

Four years ago, Logan and Rogue came to us, and I suddenly started to wonder about sex with another man again. I'd been attracted to other men, but never tempted. Logan was like a siren, and Scott's absence made his song that much harder to resist.

Scott and I didn't make love the night before he left. We fought. I'm sure everyone in the mansion heard us. It ended with him telling me to do what I felt was necessary, and that he'd always love me, regardless. He told me that I was free to do whatever I wanted while he was away, since he knew I would anyway. That hurt. Because as much as I wanted to argue with him, I knew it was true.

A week later, I went to Logan. And it was good. So very good. So different from Scott's smooth, sculpted hairlessness and gentle, loving touches. It was wild and carefree and hard and frequent. Logan didn't care if there were classes to be taught or if the kids could hear us.

Until the day in the weight room. I don't know what I was thinking -- I knew the door wasn't locked. It doesn't lock. The risk of getting caught made me hot. I just never thought it would actually happen. And by the one person to whom it would actually matter.

We pretended it didn't happen, and had a great three months, until school was out and Rogue came home. I knew it was only a matter of time then, before Logan realized that he loved her, not me.

I never had any illusions about that, despite what people may think. I knew that he loved her, and she him, even though I tried to brush it off as a childish infatuation on her part, and a sibling-like affection on his. You only had to watch them together to feel it -- but I chose to close my eyes and hold onto my fantasy for as long as I could.

When she left, it killed him. He spent four months living the lie with me, and I let him. I had nothing else. I know Logan expected me to go crawling back to Scott, but for all I knew, he had found comfort with Rogue. They'd always been close, and wouldn't that be a kick in the pants to me and Logan -- the loves of our lives moving on without us, as a couple. I don't know if Logan thought of that. I do know he watched for her constantly, waited for her patiently. And the passion between us died quickly.

He left, and so I'm alone again. I don't know what's going to happen now. Charles just told me that his sources have found a secret laboratory up in Canada, where experimentation on mutants is taking place. He's sending Hank and Ororo out to Alaska to pick up Scott and Logan -- they're going to try to rescue the people being held there, and bring them home.

We will be working together as a team for the first time in almost a year. And I'm scared. Scared that Scott won't make it back. Scared that he will, but that he won't want me anymore. Scared that his love for me will have died while I was fucking Logan.

Whatever happens, I know that I won't be alone anymore, but I'm not so sure that will be a good thing.

End