Smile Back: Part Five
by Minisinoo
THE LAST WISH OF A DYING MAN
Storm:
The cold water hits me harder than the shallow lake bottom, and breathless but laughing, I roll over to lean back on my arms, face to the sky, eyes closed. I can hear Hank's footsteps on the wooden steps of the pier. "Oh my *God*! I can't believe I was too scared to experiment with these powers before I met the professor. Riding air currents is better than riding a Harley Fatboy. You have *got* to try this!"
"Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass until you perfect that landing technique -- if you don't mind."
His humor -- so like Scott's sometimes -- makes me smile and I push myself up, wade through the calf-deep water to the edge of the lake and let Henry pull me out, wrapping his black jacket around me. He's warm and he's solid, and his hands are very gentle. I'm always amazed by his hands. They look clumsy but his fine motor control is better than my own. Better than any of ours. A gentle man and a gentleman. "Besides," he goes on now, 'I thought I was supposed to be helping you review for this algebra exam you were so worried about last night."
But that's Henry's fixation, not mine. I was worried about the test, true, but mostly because it's the first written exam I've ever taken in my life. Hank doesn't know that, and I don't want him to know. It's still my little secret; one Scott has kept faithfully from everyone -- except the professor, of course. Xavier knew from the outset about my inability to read; it wasn't something I could hide from a telepath. But I'd thought him more interested in making me a super-hero than a student. Then a week ago, he called me into his office and said it was time to put my new literary skills to the test. He was giving me an exam on the simple algebra that Scott had been showing me before we'd gone to Tokyo. Scott picks math and science material because he likes it, and I'd just read whatever he put in front of me. "How'd you know what he makes me read?" I'd asked the professor.
Xavier had given me that *look*, and it had caused me to wonder all over again just how much he'd set up Scott and me: my field leader, my teacher, my lover? He'd planned for Cyclops to become all those things to me. But I hadn't run to Scott to review for the test he didn't know Xavier was giving me. I'd asked Henry to help me instead.
This afternoon, though, with a blue sky and perfect weather and the prospect of a picnic, studying for a math test isn't high on my list. "Who can tell a cosine from a hypotenuse when coming down off an adrenaline rush?" I ask Hank now, but it's mostly a smoke screen. And it's not just the lake water that's given me cold feet. If I let Henry tutor me, he'll figure out how badly I read. I can, however, come up with a way to get his mind off of it, I think. I've spent half my life perfecting the distraction of men. "Can't we just cuddle and make out for a while?" I ask, grinning and snaking an arm around his back. He's so wide, I can't even reach the other side of his waist -- so different from slender Scott, who carries his breadth across chest and shoulders.
Don't think of Scott.
Hank's speaking in any case. "Are you sure you're really comfortable with this, Ororo?"
Perplexed, I just blink at him. Comfortable with what? Not being able to reach around his waist? Seeing my confusion, he continues, "I mean, this whole dating-the-fat-guy-thing isn't just some elaborate prank the others put you up to for a laugh, is it?"
The question is so unexpected, and so wrong -- and yet so close to my guilt, if not to the reason for it -- that all I can say is, "Come again?"
"I'm sorry." Flushing, he looks away. "It's just that the only other time a girl was interested in me, the rest of the class had begged her to ask me out. When I showed up for our first date, all the other kids in the school were waiting outside the theater to hit me with eggs, telling me how ugly I was and how I looked like a gorilla."
This . . . . I don't need to hear this. It makes me feel all the worse, and my heart spasms for that young boy outside a movie theater. "Are you serious?" I ask him softly, though I don't really doubt it. People are cruel.
We've reached our picnic blanket, spread out with food. He did all this while I was playing in the sky. And he ate a little, too, I see, but I don't mind. His mutation requires more calories in his system than the rest of us need. He keeps making jokes about being the fat kid, but he's not fat. Most of it is muscle. He's just so big and thick, and round, it's easy to mistake. Now, I settle down on the pink picnic blanket and turn to face him, my legs tucked under me. He sits cross-legged beside me.
"The fact that someone who looks like you would even want to kiss me just absolutely blows my mind," he says. He still isn't looking at me.
And how do I reply to that? 'I'm sorry, Henry, but yeah, I sorta, kinda went out with you because I didn't know how to say 'no' and now I'm stuck, but it's not your body I dream about at night when I touch myself'?
And that bothers me. It bothers me a lot. But what bothers me almost as much is his . . . fixation . . . on my looks. I wonder sometimes if I'm a person to him, or just a trophy? I'm flattered that he thinks I'm pretty, but -- "I break wind and forget to floss some days just like everyone else, y'know? Chill out."
I wouldn't have needed to tell Scott that, and the difference strikes me sharply. But I'm still a bit traumatized by the thought of gentle, funny, clever Henry being the butt of a school-wide joke. It infuriates me, and if he wanted to take me back to his school to show me off, I'd be happy to play his little trophy girl for an afternoon, just to see the look on that bitch's face.
"I've done a lot of stupid things over the years," I tell him now, "insane things like you wouldn't believe." I pick up the math books and fling them aside with the force of my indignation. "But going out with you has been the most fun I've ever had without getting myself arrested, Henry McCoy." And I kiss him.
Maybe I'm just digging myself in deeper, but Hank's a good kisser. And I think that I could learn to like this. If I could just forget Scott.
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