She was so. Screwed.
That was the only thing that she could think of to describe the situation she found herself currently in. It was hopeless, agitating, and completely overwhelming her system.
Marie sighed, threading her fingers through her hair and pushing it out of her face. A Trigonometric equation stared up at her, taunting her with its unfathomable answer. “One over sine minus 1, plus one over sine plus 1 equals negative 2 secant squared y.” She threw down her pencil in frustration, feeling a sense of satisfaction in the way it cracked against the wood of her desk. “I hate Trig,” she pouted, slouching in her chair.
Jubes smacked her gum in response, flipping through the pages of the latest US Weekly. “Uh, duh. That’s why I’m not doing it.” She arched an eyebrow over the picture of a pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears. “That’s why I never do it.”
“Jubes,” Marie laughed, spinning in her chair. “That’s why you’re failing.”
“A 72 is not failing,” she shot back, tossing the magazine at Marie’s head. She squealed and ducked, listening to the noises the projectile reading material made as it whizzed past her head and slapped against her Trig homework. Hoisting herself out of her chair, she threw herself onto her bed with a moan. “God save me from school.”
“Um,” Jubilee said, raising an eyebrow and rolling over onto her stomach. “Shut up. You have the hottest history teacher I’ve ever seen in my whole life. And he tutors you. Man, if I were you, I’d so get on that.”
Marie flushed, grumbling out her roommates name in embarrassment. “Shuddup.”
“Oh, please,” her best friend snorted indelicately. “Like you haven’t thought about it. You’re sweatin like a whore in church just thinking about it. You’d bang him in a second if you had the chance.”
“Who?”
Marie groaned, burying her face in her hands at the amused timber of Logan’s voice. Jubilee grinned, hopping up and skipping to the door. Logan raised an eyebrow at her, and then cast an amused glance at Marie. While his back was turned, Jubilee motioned frantically towards the hulking History teacher and mouthed unknown, but clearly obscene instructions to Marie. Logan turned around, sensing the inane motions she was making, and Jubilee merely grinned at him, and with a waggle of her fingers, flounced off.
Marie, flushed, stepped by him and shut her door. Turning around, she leaned against it, moaning, “I’m so sorry. She’s ridiculous, but I love her.”
Logan chuckled, lowering his messenger bag to the ground and leaning over her to give her a kiss. “Ready to talk about the Vietnam War?”
000
Logan smiled down at Marie as she snored softly, face smushed against a crumpled page of her history text book. She had fallen asleep sometime between page 365 and 367, a small puddle of drool developing under her lush mouth. Kissing her on the head, he brushed hair out of her face and smiled.
Never before had a girl, let alone one so young, affected him in this way. Marie took hold of his heartstrings and tugged, pulling him along until he tumbled head over heels for her. He wasn’t a fool though…he knew that her age would prove to be a hurdle in their relationship that they would either jump over smoothly, or stumble and crash into. She was seventeen years old, a high school student, his student. He didn’t even know how old he was, and he was her teacher.
There were too many obstacles for their relationship to work, he thought sadly. But he’d be damned if he let it end without fighting for it.
000
Marie woke up three hours later with a crick in her neck and imprints of a textbook page wedged into her cheek. “Fuck,” she muttered, scrubbing at her eyes with her hand. “What time is it?”
“Like, eleven or something.”
She blinked blearily at Jubilee, who grinned happily at her over a blank sheet of vocabulary for her English class. “I passed the Hunk on his way out. Said you fell asleep in the middle of talking about some war.”
Marie groaned, burying her face in her comforter. “Oh, God,” she whimpered. “That’s so embarrassing. I can’t believe I missed most of tutoring just because I was tired. Logan must be so-”
“Whoa there, chica,” Jubes said, scooting herself towards the edge of her bed. “Logan? First name basis? Girl, you’re so digging him!” She squealed, jumping to Marie’s bed and bouncing the other girl out of place. “How effing GORGEOUS is he? You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed it,” she said gleefully off of Marie’s sour look. “Did you too touch hands or something? Were there…” she sent out sparks of energy through her finger tips and laid her hand carefully on the back of Marie’s knee. “Sparks?”
Marie swatted at her, losing her balance in her struggle to get away from the shocking power of Jubilee’s fingers. She landed on the ground with a muffled thump, and stood, rubbing her butt as she winced. “Shut up, Jubes.”
“Oh, come on! You can’t tell me you don’t want to fu-”
Marie spun around, fixing her best friend with a glare. “Jubilation Lee. Stop it right now.”
Jubilee looked stunned, eyes wide and dark hair falling in her face. She seemed to be inspecting Marie for something, but for what, the other girl didn’t know. Finally, after a few minutes of scrutinization, Jubilee breathed out a small, “Oh.” She stood, and immediately enveloped her room mate in a tight hug. “Oh sweetie. I had no idea…”
Marie stiffened, wondering what she meant. “What?”
Jubes squeezed her tighter and whispered, “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Marie didn’t even need to respond. The tear the Jubilee felt soak the shoulder of her t shirt was answer enough.
000
The next day, Marie felt relief settle into her as she settled into her English bump class. A few days out of every ten day school cycle, she would have a short forty five minute class during her fourth period. Today was English, and she was forced to sit in front of Max Stallworth and his goons.
“Hey freak,” he said, shoving the books off of her desk as he walked by.
She glared at him, and bent down to get her copy of The Great Gatsby. “Mature,” she said, brushing the white hair out of her eyes.
“Alright class,” called Mr. Jonas, their english teacher. “Open your books to chapter nine, and let’s talk.”
Forty minutes later, when Mr. Jonas had deemed their discussion over, he stopped them as they began to pack up their knapsacks. “So, who remembers last week when I told you that there would be a project coming up?” Groans from the students were his only answer. “I see you do! Good. I’m going to assign each of you two partners, and the three of you will be assigned a character from Gatsby to analyze and trace their character developments throughout the book. Okay…Kennedy, Zaharris, and Jones? You three have Daisy. Dosey, Thomas, and Brown, you all have Tom. Bradley, Peters, and Chapin, you three will have Gatsby.”
Marie felt unease settle into her stomach as the list of possible partners grew shorter and shorter. Even all of Stallworth’s mook friends had been paired up at this point, and she didn’t know what she would do with herself if she was stuck with the spawn of Satan.
“Miller, Scholz, Wheeler, you three will have…Jordan. She’ll be a little harder to trace but I think you’ll have a good time working on her character,” Mr. Jonas continued. “Jackson, Ruby, and Robinson, you will be assigned George and Myrtle Wilson. And, finally….D’Ancanto and Stallworth. I saved the best for last. You two will be looking at Nick, and tracing the developments in his character. You two both have exceptional grades in this class, and I know it’s going to be a bit difficult to get his exact pathway of change because he’s the narrator, but I think you two can do it.”
His smile was a stark contrast to the sinking feeling in Marie’s gut, and she turned around to see a similar expression of shock and disgust on Stallworth’s face. “Shit,” she muttered, and dropped her head into her hands.
000
“So how do you want to do this.”
“I don’t care.”
“How can you not care? It’s a huge project.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Max sneered at her. “I just don’t want to be seen working with a freak like you.
Marie felt rage boil through her veins, arms crackling with energy as she briefly lost control of both her temper and her powers. “Watch it,” she warned. He sent her a sharp glare, but didn’t argue any further. Sighing, she tousled her hair and let it fall in a thick curtain down her back. “Listen, I know you and I don’t like each other, but we need to get a good grade on this assignment. In order to do that, we need to-”
“Do you smell that?” he interrupted suddenly, sniffing the air. Marie looked around the small room they sat in at Stallworth’s house. They had agreed to meet there since it was so close to the school, and an easy car ride back to the Mansion for her. “It smells like something’s burning.”
She sniffed, scrunching her nose, and the fumes of smoke burned the nostrils suddenly. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand, gagging on the awful scent. “What the hell is that,” she said, looking around. Suddenly, one of the heavy curtains that had accidentally draped over a small space heater burst into flame, shocking both the teens into scrambling away from the fire.
The licking flames quickly spread up the thick fabric, and Marie swore. “Get back behind me!” Stallworth ordered, shoving her none too gently behind him. “Stay there, Marie!”
“What the hell are you doing?!” she shrieked, grabbing his bicep. “Max-”
“Step back,” he yelled, and thrust out his arms, palms facing the fire. Water spewed from his palms, soaking the curtains and the carpet beneath it, effectively putting an end to the small fire. He lowered his arms, breathing hard, and when he turned to face her, his usually green eyes were a startling and unnatural shade of bright blue, pupils contracted vertically, like a cat’s.
She swallowed, nerves overwhelming her as she sank weakly into a chair. His eyes slowly swirled back to normal, and for the first time ever, he looked at her, ashamed.
Her breath hitched in her chest, and she tightened her grip on the armrest.
“You’re a mutant?”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hello everyone! I'm back and on bed rest! You would not believe what's happened to me...
I was driving home from work one night and a car ran a red light in an intersection and slammed into my car. The next thing i knew, i was waking up in a hospital. I had a few surgeries to fix a punctured lung (i know, i know) and a few badly broken bones in my legs. you wouldn't BELIEVE the pain meds they've given me. this story is officially off hiatus! it may take me a while to get the chapters out though, seeing as i spend most of my time recuperating in bed (ie, sleeping).
thank you so much for being patient!
I was driving home from work one night and a car ran a red light in an intersection and slammed into my car. The next thing i knew, i was waking up in a hospital. I had a few surgeries to fix a punctured lung (i know, i know) and a few badly broken bones in my legs. you wouldn't BELIEVE the pain meds they've given me. this story is officially off hiatus! it may take me a while to get the chapters out though, seeing as i spend most of my time recuperating in bed (ie, sleeping).
thank you so much for being patient!