This is good. Finally everything is as it’s supposed to be. Open road expanding in front of me. Kilometer after kilometer asphalt and green firs guarding me from both sides. No noisy brats. No Ororo. No memories. Just the truck and me. Good cigar.
Can’t help wondering from where it all went to hell. It started innocently enough. Just a kid in need of a hero. Well, I’m no hero. Not by a long shot. But we made it through. We made it through just fine. Jean? A woman in need of… Did she even need anything? Not likely. I was the needy one. Still am. Selfish asshole. Yeah. I fucked it all up from the beginning. And what do I have left? Couple of new nightmares. Scent of blood and feel of it permanently imprinted to my memory, along with two streaks of white against dark brown cascade of hair. Two people that were probably the most precious to me, bonds to them ruined. One I killed. The other… I didn’t run her through with my claws, but might as well have done that too while I was at it. Look in her eyes when she stormed out from my room last night… Shit. Better not go there. Just keep on driving, bub.
Who the fuck am I trying to fool? This isn’t about Jean anymore. This gnawing feeling inside of me. It has nothing to do with her, but everything to do with Marie. I let her down. Betrayed my promise to her. I sure as hell don’t love her. Not like I loved Jean. It isn’t her fault. I shouldn’t have taken it out on her. Because she isn’t nobody. She’s somebody. Maybe even a friend. Don’t have too many of those running around.
Everything isn’t as it’s supposed to be. Not even close. I don’t go running around making promises and breaking them. I do not make promises. I made exactly one promise, one wow that I thought would be easy to keep. How badly you can fuck up when you’re dealing with a kid? Then she went and grew up. Grew up to be a smart young woman. Too smart for her own good. Why couldn’t she stay immature twit as the rest of her friends? None of this wouldn’t have happened if she had spend her time running around malls and shopping with those chicks she sometimes hangs around instead of trying to fix something that can’t be fixed. Won’t be fixed.
I guess I have more in common with Phoenix that I care to admit.
Was it really Jean I was after all that time? Just Jean? Redheaded, mild-mannered telepath very in love with her husband? Or was it the animal in me recognizing a kindred spirit? And why the fuck should I even care?
Had I kept my dick in my pants instead of taking every possibility to try to slip it in to her, none of this would have happened. It’s as simple as that. Had I not taken a sudden interest in playing a hero to a teenage runaway, I wouldn’t even have met Jean in the first place.
Teaches me to try to be something I’m not.
It’s late. I’m far from home. Yeah. Home. Pathetic? I haven’t even gotten out of the state yet, and I already miss them. All of them. I want to turn this truck around and go back. I want it so bad I better stop to some motel before I actually do it, because I can’t go back. I’ll only end up hurting her some more.
I may not love her, but I’m not so fucked up that I would enjoy that torn look on her face. She deserves so much better than what I have to offer. She doesn’t need leftovers of a dead woman. She doesn’t need a freak that clings to a memory of another woman.
I can just hope it wasn’t all bad for her. That she got some nice memories out of this. Even I got few. The way she smiles. That’s one thing I will take with me to my grave. If I ever actually end up in there. Way she always seems to know what buttons to push. In good and bad. She fucking knows me from inside out. Quite literally.
Christ. Shouldn’t go thinking these things at three in the morning… Who’s at the door?
“Hi.” Marie?
“Uhh… Hi?“ How the hell did she even found me?
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah…” I guess.
“Looks like your taste hasn’t improved…”
“If you prefer outside…”
“Actually, this time I do. I think I saw a roach or a rat crawling under that bed.”
“I’ll just get my coat.” Can’t sleep anyway. Might as well get going as soon as she has said what she came to say.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to come home, Logan.”
“Why?”
“Does there always have to be a reason? I just want you to.”
“You sucker for punishment or something?” Because she can’t be this stupid or naïve. She can’t possibly think I will somehow magically change and stop beating her up every fucking time she tries to approach me.
“No. But you don’t belong here. Nobody should be alone and cold all the time.”
“I don’t mind…”
“Maybe you don’t, but I do!” Touchy, are we?
“Look… I’m not expecting anything from you. I do not expect you to forget Jean and start loving me, because that’s not how it works. But I’m asking you as a friend to do this for me. Just a small favor. Come home. Please.” As a friend? She’s able to think of me as a friend after all I have put her through?
“Come here, kid…” I really need a hug from her. Right now.
“So… Are you coming?” Small serious face tilted upwards.
“Yeah. Where’s your car?”
“I parked it over there.”
“I’ll follow you. Just wait couple of minutes, have to go and pay for the room…”
Time to start keeping my promise. Earning that trust and faith she’s putting in to me.
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