The sea breeze felt nice against Anna's sun-abused skin. The heat of the day had since passed, yet the long claws of the summer were still clung sunk deep into the broiling air around the mansion. The cliff face overlooking the ocean, just over a football field's length away from the rear door, offered the only solace from the day's unusually high humidity. It was there she found Kitty sat cross-legged atop a flat weathered rock which was surrounded by pillars of precariously stacked stones. Kitty's backpack rested atop the patchy grass behind her, half its contents split out from the open zipper. Forearms resting on her knees, Kitty stared out into the gently rocking waves beyond the cliff's edge. Pinched between the index and middle fingers of her right hand was an unlit cigarette whose precarious position was kept in place by the weight of her relaxed fingers.
"How did you find me?" It startled Anna when Kitty spoke. For a moment, she forgot the other girl was even alive and not just some statue silently sat there suspended in time.
Anna stopped in her tracks, her right hand wrapped tight around the strap of her backpack. "I spotted you walking over here from the attic."
"Oh yeah?" Anna could hear Kitty snicker just once before glancing down at the cigarette wedged between her fingers. She flicked it with the back of her thumb. "You tell the adults about my nasty little secret yet?" She pinched the cigarette between her lips, lit it with a plastic lighter - sure to shield the flame against the wind - and took a drag.
Anna's lips pressed together. "No."
"Ain't that sweet of you," Kitty said in a mock southern accent. "I'm sure Xavier will organize a raid of our room soon enough to find any contraband. He can read freaking minds after all."
"I didn't tell Xavier… I didn't tell anyone here about what I found."
"Why not? What do you care, it's not your life. Besides, you'd only benefit. You'd get me kicked out then you'd get a room to yourself."
Anna let out a sigh. "Kitty, I don't want you to get kicked out -"
Kitty stood and faced Anna for the first time since she arrived. "Don't lie to me! Of course, you do! You and everyone else here! All of you hate me! I see how you look at me, Anna. Like I'm some sort of - sort of gunk you stepped in! You've had that same look since the day we met!"
Anna raised her hands to her chest. "I don't think of you like that. I think you can be a little much -"
"'A little much.' Such a nice way to put it. I'll admit, I've heard it put much more plainly than that. A loudmouth is one. I'm sure it's what you all say about me behind my back. So why don't you just say it, Anna? Call me a loudmouth! Call me a waste of space! Call me a coward! Or are you too much of one to say it to my face?"
"Jesus, Kitty 'Ah' -"
"No - No - No! Don't 'Jesus' me! You don't get to say I'm overreacting! You don't get to say I'm being hysterical!" Kitty stood from her rock and aimed a pointed finger at her. "I've been nothing but pleasant to all of you - all of you! And in return all my supposed 'family' does is talk smack about me behind my back! All they can talk about is how much they secretly hate me!" Anna could see tears welling up in the other girl's eyes. "Well, let me ask you this. Why is it that I'm the only one who has an issue with any of this? With the violence. With fighting other people. Not just people but people like us! Like, shouldn't we all be on the same side? Why does it all have to come down to throwing fists and shooting guns? Why are we all just freely co-signing to a world like this? Why is it bad that I have an issue with all this fighting? Doesn't that just make me human - or mutant - or what the heck ever?"
Anna's lips parted as absorbed the radiating pain from the other girl. They were all questions Anna had asked. Some she asked publicly. The others she kept private in a secluded section of her heart where the rest of the painful injustices of the world lived. She watched as Kitty fell to her knees, tears freely falling down her cheeks.
"What is this world? Why are we here? Why is it like this? Nothing is right, and we are all just supposed to be okay with that? Can you honestly tell me you're fine with all of this? All this… this hatred?" She hung her head low, her curly ponytail tickling her jaw. "All… I've ever wanted was to make people… happy. To make friends. To make people laugh. I… I couldn't do it at home and I can't do it here… and now I -" She shook her head and pounded her fists into the ground, crumpling the half ashened cigarette in her right hand. "It's not fair!" She shouted, pounding her fists again. She drew a sharp inhale, "I want to be brave! I want to stand for something bigger than me! I do!" She seemed to sink further into the ground, looking almost half her size the way she crumpled. "But I'm not like you guys. I'm too weak."
"Kitty-" Anna walked over, dropped her bag, and sat in front of the other girl. "Dude, you are… I think you're being way too hard on yourself. This shit were in - man - its fucking nuts." This close Anna could see Kitty's shoulder's trembling and her whole body shaking. She stretched out a cautious hand to rest on the other Kitty's shoulder, but when her hand was meant to make contact, Anna watched as her fingers slipped right through her like Kitty was made of mist.
"I'm not too hard on myself, I'm not hard enough!" Kitty shoved her hands into the earth and clamped down hard. "I'm a coward! I'm a complete coward! Every time we have to fight, I freeze! I never know what to do and you guys could die because of me! I can't do what you all do!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Anna snorted. "I watched you take on a five-ton, fifty-story robot all by yourself the other day - and you fucking murdered it!"
"That doesn't count." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
"The hell it doesn't! None of us could have done that!"
"It doesn't count! The Danger Room isn't real. Everything is safe in there. Xavier, or whoever can stop it whenever they want. None of us can get hurt. Not really."
"Real or not, you still really jumped off a building, wrested a giant robot, and made it plead for mercy. That's actually insane, and apparently, you've done other crazy stuff in there that I don't even know about."
"Like I said," She sniffed. "It's all a simulation. Real life is different. In real life, real people get hurt. Real people could die."
"Maybe, but, still - I have a hard time calling you a coward."
"Says you. You don't give an F."
Anna blinked. "A what?"
"You heard me. You're this kick-butt person who doesn't care about anything. You'll run into any situation to save the day. Like with that big Blob guy and Kurt in the hallway at school. That guy could have broken you in half, but you fought him anyway. Then with the robot, you only had a little gun but you still faced him basically without powers."
Kitty shut her eyes tight, a fresh well of tears streaming down her rutty cheeks. "I wish I… could do any of that. I wish I could even face him."
Anna narrowed her eyes. "Him?"
Kitty shook her head. "You're going to think I'm insane."
"We live in a pretty insane world, Kitty.."
Kitty inhaled sharply and blinked her eyes open. "One of the Brotherhood guys… the thin one with the messy hair, goes my Lance? He's from my hometown."
"What? From Illinois?"
"Deerfield, yeah." She shook her head again, this time more quickly and erratically. "I don't know why he's here, I didn't even know he was a mutant, but he is and it really freaks me out. It almost feels like he's just here to mess with me."
"How did you know each other?"
"Well, home isn't exactly big. Our parents would take us to the same parks when we were little and movies… heck our families went to the same Synagogue. Which was admittedly the only one in town but-"
"Were you two friends or something?"
"No - never. Just knew of each other. But to know of someone you're whole life, then suddenly be made to fight them out of nowhere… it's -" She trailed off.
"That… really - really sucks, Kitty. I'm sorry."
Kitty didn't answer. She stared at her dirt-caked hands. Tears leaked gently down her cheeks, along her jaw, and gathered at her chin. "I just want to have friends…"
Anna sat a little closer. "Hey, I think you're really selling yourself short. I can't think of anyone in this house that wouldn't take a bullet for you. Sure - not everyone in our little group sees eye to eye all the time - but… family is like that sometimes, right?"
Kitty looked up at her, her eyes bloodshot. She looked between Anna's eyes and snickered. "You're starting to sound like Kurt."
"Maybe I've been hanging around him too much. Probably soon enough I'll start turning blue."
Kitty gave a little laugh that almost seem to pain her. She looked back down. "I saw the moment when that white-haired jerk kicked him in the face. I was hidden behind a car, cowering."
"And I used to unironically like EDM music."
Kitty looked up at her. "What?"
"We all did things that don't make sense or did the wrong thing. It doesn't matter. What matters now is moving on and learning from what you messed up."
Kitty smiled. "Okay, now you're starting to sound like Ororo."
"So what? I hang out with her a lot too! I sit on a roof with her and we stare at the sun in the evenings. It's great!"
Kitty dabbed at her nose. "I think you and I have different definitions of a good time."
"Yeah, maybe." Anna smiled, then her lips quickly drew to a line. "Uh… dude, you're going to have to stop, you know."
"Stop what?" Kitty rose her hand out of the dirt and examined the ruined cigarette. "Oh. Yeah, I know, it's pretty trash. I've just been so stressed out. I actually really hate doing it and hate the smell even worse - I just needed an out, you know?"
"I'm not talking about smoking. I'm talking about the other thing."
Kitty looked back at her and blinked. "The… other thing?"
Anna tisked, "Come on man, you know what I'm talking about. We talked about it when I first walked up."
"Uh - yeah, the smoking! I asked if you told any adults about my smoking! You know how much trouble I'd get in if Xavier found out I was smoking menthols?"
Anna felt her eyes widen then rubbed her brow. "No, Kitty, I -" She sighed then looked at her. "Kitty, I found the razor-blade in the bathroom."
Kitty grinned as if anticipating the punchline to a joke. "Alright. Good job, you found a razor in a girl's bathroom. We don't just roll out of bed this hairless, girlfriend."
"No - no, not a 'razor.' A razor-blade. A blade free from any handle or anything. It was caked with white stuff."
Kitty straightened up. "You found a razor-blade with white stuff on it?"
"God, yes! Razor-blade, white stuff. Anyway, like I said, I didn't tell any of the adults about it, but you still need to get off that crap. It's really not -" Anna was cut short by a flurry of shaking hands.
"Whoa - Whoa -Whoa. Listen, I've been stressed out, yes - I've maybe been acting a little weird, yes - I've been smoking, yes - But, Anna, I do not do cocaine."
"Look, it's okay. I'm not going to bust you-"
"No, you look! That stuff creeps me the hell out! I saw in school what drugs and STDs can do to you. No thanks! Ew! Seriously, you think I'd do cocaine? You think I need more problems in my life?"
Anna felt her mouth take a strange shape. "Wait… for real it's not you?"
"How many times and in how many languages do I need to say no!"
"Then…" Anna felt her shoulders go slack. "Who the hell -"
"Well," Kitty shrugged with one hand, "Who else uses the girl's bathroom other than us?"
"Jean and Ororo."
"I guess Ororo, but to be honest I've never actually seen her anywhere near it. I think we just think that because she's a girl."
"I mean," Anna scratched her cheek. "Her room is close by."
"Might have a private bath." Kitty's lip gathered to one side of her face. "If I'm being real, I seriously don't see Ororo having a coke habit. She's so hippy-dippy all the time, I don't see her wanting to use an upper."
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking." Anna met Kitty's eyes. "Then… that would leave…
"…Jean…"