My sunny, look at me
My palm became a fist
And if there's powder
Give me the fire too
That's the way it is
The girl on the radio was singing a very sad song. It was light, like a butterfly's wings, it was quiet, like a whisper in the dark, and it wasn't in English, so I couldn't understand the words. But I could feel them. They made me wanna smile, crying.
I was looking at the raindrops. They appeared from nowhere, going down, crossing their own lifeline and dying in the end of it. I love the weather when it is like this. All your emotions go up from your heart to your head--you can think about them.
I knew he was watching me, lying in our bed, breathing calmly, like he was sleeping. But I knew he wasn't. He knows me better than anyone, better than myself, better than Professor, and it sometimes scares me. It's not like the way the Professor sometimes comes into my head to clear it from negative emotions or give advice. Logan can't see my thoughts, but he can read my emotions like books, feeling the changes inside me earlier than I do.
Professor Xavier cleared my head. At least I suspect he did, because I don't remember clearly any emotion, thought, or event that took place when I was traveling around the country, trying to find shelter. I guess I should thank him for that.
My past came back to me tonight. I woke up and still couldn't go back to bed. Maybe I didn't need to--it was already morning. But I was afraid to fall asleep in the darkness, knowing that my nightmares could come back. Professor can't control everything after all. He told me he hadn't the right to, that he could only help sometimes.
"Logan?" I asked, not turning to him, "did you kill?"
"Whom?" he asked back, quickly, calmly, without hesitation.
"Doesn't matter."
My hands started to shake, because I realized that I started the conversation which would have to be finished here in this room. And I'll have to tell him all I saw, all I felt, and all I did.
"Strange question, Marie. Look at me--I was created to kill."
"I didn't mean your dark past. I'm talking about these 15 years. Did you?"
I could see his hazy reflection in the window. He sat up on the bed, rubbing his eyes. He felt me. Thank God he's not Cyclops. No, Mr. Summers is nice, but he plays a role of the good and right teacher--you give him a question, and he gives you another ten back. Why are you asking? Don't you want to talk about it? What's bothering you? In the end, you've already forgotten what you wanted to know.
"I did."
"Tell me about it."
He took a cigar and met my gaze in the window. "I was a fighter, you know that. Found a strange gift and decided to use it. These cage fighters--you saw them. You know who they are. Let's just say my opponent was very unhappy with my victory, so he came to my van, looking for trouble. Where was my vigilance? I don't know how, but he saw my claws. Maybe at first he decided he was too drunk, but they looked so real to him. So later that night they came back. A guy I was fighting with and a couple of his friends. They had a gun. They said they knew who I was. I was a mutant and there's no law in Canada that forbids the killing of mutants. They said they wanted to open hunting season, because I wasn't a human anyway."
My body started to shake all over, but I wanted more anyway. "What did you feel then?"
"The rage."
He rubbed his forehead tiredly, trying to find other words. But he couldn't.
"I grabbed one of them and lost control. Killed. Destroyed. Interrupted his existence. The other two ran away, rightly so, because I would have killed them too. Then I felt pain. I was alone, scared, thrown into this life like a blind kitten, not knowing anything. All I did was try to exist in this world. So what did those bastards want from me?"
I was already crying. I didn't hear his last words, because he finally gave me the word I needed--the rage. Now I needed to tell him my tale.
"I was traveling from New York up north. I met this guy at the bus stop and he offered me a ride. I was really glad; there's too many people on the bus anyway. I wanted to pay him, but he said he didn't need my money. He wanted something else. The night was dark, and we were on a strange highway with no cars around. Only him, me and the winter sky, so cold and distant. He grabbed me. I was asking, praying, crying. A nice guy suddenly became a monster. He didn't care about anything except his own lust. I was so scared, and then I remembered that I wasn't the person who should be afraid of the physical contact. Then I felt..."
I turned to face him and said quietly, slowly, as if I were tasting the word on my tongue:
"The rage."
And then I was repeating Logan's words.
"I was alone, scared, thrown into this life like a blind kitten. I was trying to live my life. That's all! So I stopped fighting. I felt the taste of his cigarettes on my tongue. I heard the music he was listening in the car before feeling him in my head. The process had begun. It was quick. He was lying on top of me, so we had enough skin contact. Then he was dead. His hysterical last thoughts were screaming in my head for a couple of minutes, and then everything became quiet."
I was so lost in my memories that I didn't hear Logan stand up and approach me. I shuddered when he placed his warm big hands on my shoulders.
"You're not a murderer, Marie." he whispered against my ear.
"I know." I whispered, trying to fight back my tears.
"You're not a murderer." he repeated.
"I know." I burst into tears, hiding my face in my hands.
He turned me around and pressed me against his hard chest.
"The rage is the most honest feeling of them all. It won't fool you. When you feel it, it means you're doing everything right. It means that God and Devil have found an agreement. That's what the rage is."
I was listening to his words, feeling my pain leave me just for a moment. But then I was lying in bed, closing my eyes, and it didn't come back. It was very strange, to be cured from pain so quickly. Especially for a girl who thought that everything from her birthday to the given moment was wrong. The sounds of his labored breathing and rain cradled me, and I had the deepest sleep in my entire life.
Like the Professor says, if we exist, then there's nothing wrong. Is there?
THE END.
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Story Notes:
The lyrics below are by Russian singer and poet Victor Zoi (RIP 1990). I was a little girl, but his songs made me cry. Oh , and big thank you to Marisa , who helped me with the story once again.