So this is the thing.

[x-skin.livejournal.com]

I don't remember ever feeling really safe, back in LA. I must have done, once, I guess, but not since I was too little to remember. Just the way things were, and I got into the gang stuff as a way to try and change that - to get myself what counted as respect, and some kind of security, back there.

Didn't work. Yeah, it made me tough, and safer in some ways, but it just made me "not safe" in a whole different way. And then it all went to hell when I manifested. For those who don't know, my best friends in the world damn near killed me for being a mutant before I got away, and then I hid out on the streets and discovered whole new and exciting areas of unsafeness.

And then Scott brought me here. And I found... what felt like the first really safe place of my life.

I don't feel like I have that anymore.

Maybe I'll get it back. I don't know. I hope so, but I don't know if, or when, I can do that. I just... I wish I'd been told what had happened, however small the chance of it happening again was, before I came here and got ties to this place.

When I offered to teach the kids to defend themselves any way I know how, I was mad as hell and I wanted to make the kids feel safer in some way, 'cause this is the one place where they should, and not all of them do. I never said guns, or weapons of any kind, had to be involved.

I'm not mad at you all anymore - or not as mad, anyway, and I'll get over the rest of it soon enough. I'm scared as all hell, and I still want to help the kids feel safer if I can, but I'm willing to talk it over. If you have reasons why I shouldn't that aren't "we're older than you, so we must know best", I'll listen and change the plans 'til they suit everybody - and if that means scrapping them, fine, as long as something's being done. And I think I can trust you that far - I know you care about this place a whole hell of a lot too.

I just want my safe place back, but I'll settle for "safer", if that's all there is.

Comments

Re:

[x-skin.livejournal.com]

See, that's all I wanted to hear. You got good reasons why there shouldn't be regular gun lessons at the school, so there won't be. Simple as that. You wanna get through to me, you only have to be civil and talk to me like I'm not the same age as Miles.

Helps if you don't just dismiss me as a "bad apple", too, or compare me to Magneto. Yeah, I was angry, still am (though mostly not at the faculty anymore), but I wasn't exactly suggestin' that the kids go out and shoot every human they see, and I never would have done. Just the opposite, actually.