Running for Home - 34. December 8, 2021

December 08 2021

Daniel stopped by my office again today. It’s not like it was a surprise to see him; he’s been coming by to talk to me once or twice a week since his fight with Connor. If anything, I think I’d be concerned if he didn’t come around for a meet-up for longer than a week. Things around the house have been getting better for him, like I predicted they would. The whispers died down pretty quick and he isn’t being harassed by anyone. The cynical part of me thinks that it’s only because the students here know they are on a short leash about that sort of thing, even outside of class. He doesn’t really have any of his old friends back, not yet. A couple of them have sent him private semi-apologies via email or made some vague, indirect statements over other social media, but that’s small potatoes at this point. They haven’t made any moves to take him back into their circle or spend time with him outside of the group. They are cowards, yeah, but at the same time they are just teenagers. Everything seems like life-or-death drama at that age. At least, it did to me.

Daniel says he doesn’t care, either way. He doesn’t want their friendship anymore. The old me would have agreed with him. The old me wouldn’t forgive a betrayal like that, ever. I’m not how I used to be, though. Have I softened with age? Well, I don’t know if I would put it like that. I don’t forgive easily, not now and definitely not back then. I’m also not saying that I don’t hold grudges anymore. I do, still. I really do. It’s because of the trust issues my parents gave me. But I’m wise enough to see, now, how your own perspective can cloud your judgment. I’m wise enough to see that if you can check your ego, try to take yourself out of the equation and look at things rationally, you can de-escalate your emotions and put the hurt in check. The cognitive behavioural therapy sessions after Iraq taught me that. It’s part of why I keep this journal – to try and help me get it out of my system. Then later I try to read through it with a cooler head. Often once I’ve written something out and read through it, whatever the problem is, it seems much less do-or-die, much less catastrophic.

That being said, it’s still too soon for Daniel. It’s not in him to be able to forgive them yet. I get that. But I also can see that he does care, that he does want his old friends back. I can see that the apathy and anger towards them is on the surface, a mask to keep him from hurting even more on the inside. I know that feeling, I know what he’s doing. I know it because it’s the same thing I did with Bobby all those years ago. Hell, even over the last few months. That’s changing now, I guess, and it scares me because I don’t really know how else to operate around Bobby anymore. The meetings we had the last couple days were an exercise in trying not to freak out, trying to be civil and even friendly but not let myself be too friendly because I can’t get attached. It’s too dangerous. I’m going to have to pull out the old CBT workbook that I’ve used during some of my bad periods since Iraq. I’m probably going to be using it a lot over the next few months. Fuck, I should have already been doing that, right from when Dom decided to leave. Maybe even before that.

I’m trying to be patient with Daniel. It’s frustrating for me because I can see from the outside all these things, but if I try and tell him to do one thing or another it’s mostly just going to go over his head or piss him off. He needs to make some new friends, ones that will give him the support he needs, but he’s still being a bit of a loner. Some of his teachers have been happy, though, because he’s filled the vacuum in his social life with homework and studying. He’s moved from being a high B student to an A+ student in all of his classes. Emma and I were chatting about it a week ago. She said it’s rather unusual someone going through a major disruption in their life like Daniel has to actually do better in their studies. She tried to tell me that he’s been adjusting in a productive way at least in part because of the support I’ve been giving him. I was a bit dismissive of that. I’m not convinced he’s adjusting well, to be honest. He’s just giving himself a cause to follow, something to pour himself into. He’s using dedication to studies to artificially fill a vacuum. If he didn’t, the hurt and the emptiness would be too hard to ignore. It would consume him.

Emma asked me if I was just projecting my own personal history onto him. It gave me pause, but in the end I’ve concluded that it isn’t just my personal perspective biasing me to see things far too much through the lens of my own history. I didn’t tell Emma about the night last week when I found Daniel sitting in the dark on a couch in the common lounge looking dead to the world. I could tell he’d been crying earlier, though he didn’t want to admit it. I asked him if he wanted to come grab something to eat, but he said he wasn’t hungry. To be honest, I wasn’t either, but I thought I’d ask. Sometimes it’s easier to get people to talk over food, since it can get you more into your comfort zone. Instead, I just sat down next to him and turned the on the television.

We were quiet for a long time, and then suddenly I found myself asking him why he’d never asked me about my past. About why I left the school at the end of the Alkali Lake incident, about why I was with the Brotherhood for all those years. Daniel looked down at his feet, fiddling with the worn hem of his shirt sleeves. He asked me if it mattered. I told him I supposed it didn’t, but I was curious about his past and it just occurred to me that he had never asked that of me. Daniel said he didn’t care about the past, and just wanted it to all be left there. To be locked away, left behind, or even better, outright destroyed. The present and the future were all that mattered. I challenged him about that, and he admitted that even if he thought it was true, he couldn’t get past what had happened to him, both when his stepfather found out he was a mutant and when Connor outed Daniel to the School.

Oh yeah, I guess I never mentioned that Daniel and I have bonded over shitty parenting. About when he was told never to come back after his stepfather caught him fooling around with his powers during Daniel’s first summer back from Xavier’s. This was his mother’s third husband. She was a shrew and generally ignored Daniel anyway, since as he got older he kept reminding her more and more of his asshole biological father who dropped off the face of the earth when he found out Daniel’s mother was pregnant with him. At least, that's the story she keeps shoving down his throat. Daniel's not sure he completely believes her anymore. He floated the idea once of someday seeking out his real father but didn't really like the idea of having to deal with a bad reaction or denial if things didn't go well. I can understand that - better to live in ignorance than in hurt, if the question itself doesn't hurt too much.

Anyway, I told him a bit about my own parents, about foster care, about being the troublemaker while I was a student here, about Stryker’s attack and leaving with Magneto. He asked me if I ever regretted that decision. I told him I don’t regret getting into the helicopter, because it kept me from drowning in the flood, but I do have days when I regret that I stayed with him after we escaped. I was incredibly vulnerable at the time and Magneto took full advantage of it. I told Daniel how fucked up I became because of all the ideas Magneto was feeding me. My perspective, my entire paradigm for life was warped. I’d felt rejected, like I didn’t have a place in the world but Magneto told me that I was a living god and had a destiny of great glory if I joined his war. I was radicalized, just like so many of those young men who’ve converted to dangerous fundamentalist sects of Christianity and Islam and turn to terrorism to leave their mark on the world. Daniel told me he was glad he had people like me around to keep him from falling onto a path like that. I told him I was glad that he was smart enough that it wouldn’t ever happen in the first place.

I’m not sure what broke inside him when I said that, but he snuggled up close against my side and leant against me, tears quietly streaming down his face. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and pulled him tight against me. He didn’t cry for long, but we stayed like that for a long while, until I realized he had fallen asleep. I didn’t want to move. I had this strange feeling inside me, the need to protect him. It’s hard to describe it, and I don’t really know what to do about it. All I know is that I don’t think it’s a bad thing. If anything, I feel closer to this kid than I ever did before.

Coming back to the events of this afternoon, I guess my conversation with Daniel was focused enough that neither of us noticed Bobby come into the room. He just stood there, leaning against the doorframe, listening in as if he had a right to. When I finally noticed him there my first reaction was to be pissed off, but the look on his face silenced any rebuke that had bubbled up in my mind. It was respectful and caring, and even… proud? Huh. Well, my conversation with Daniel had been pretty much over at that point, anyway, so I sent Daniel off. Bobby pushed off the door frame as Daniel walked by him, and flashed me a sort of smile that I didn’t really understand. It made me feel warm and fluttery inside.

Bobby commented that Daniel seemed to really trust me now. I shrugged noncommittally and mumbled something about it being his funeral if he was a shitty judge of character. Bobby chuckled quietly, shaking his head. He said I didn’t realize how important I was to Daniel. I shook my head and told him that, no, I was quite aware of it but it scared the hell out of me just the same. I am not reliable. I am not a good role model. I am not-

Bobby sighed, shaking his head at me. He said he wasn’t going to try to argue with me about self-perceived flaws that others don’t believe are there, but I just needed to decide how far I was willing to go for that kid when push comes to shove. That I needed to start taking that into consideration when I interact with him. Bobby said he doesn’t think I need to have an answer to that right now, but it’s important to think about. He murmured that he didn’t want me to repeat some of his own mistakes, then gave me a pointed look. I frowned at him, not entirely sure where he was going with that. He sighed again, then pasted a smile on his face. I could see he was troubled by whatever memories it had brought up, though. Looking back on it now, I keep having these moments where I want that pointed look he gave me have some meaning that his ‘mistakes’ somehow involved me, back when we were teenagers.

I’m such a self-centered jackass. I’m sure he just had something happen to him over his years teaching here where he wanted to be there for a student but couldn’t, or didn’t realize how much a student needed him until it was too late. Maybe another student ran away like I did, or started committing crimes, or maybe there was a suicide. Jesus, I hope it wasn’t that, but who knows? Regardless, I know something like that would have dealt a big blow to Bobby if he’d felt responsible in any way. I know Bobby. I know guilt is not something he deals with well. No, not at all.

I got so caught up with Daniel that I had actually forgot I was scheduled to meet with Bobby to work on the Big Gay Talk. He hadn’t just been casually eavesdropping, he had a valid reason to be at my door. Not that he should need one, necessarily, but… No, I’m not going there. Safe distance, safe thoughts. Not going there. Not thinking about it.

Anyway, Bobby found a few more resources he wanted me to have a look over. I’m supposed to be reading through them tonight, once I get through marking a pile of essays. Ugh. I told him we needed to stop gathering more material and just work with what we have. I felt like a bit of a jackass, though, since I’d been pushing us to get more transgender and intersex-related materials because that’s the area where I have the largest knowledge gap. Bobby, strangely enough, seemed to have more insight there than I would have thought.

It turns out he dated someone very briefly a few years ago who identified her/himself as genderqueer. Their name was Cloud, I guess. A mutant with the ability to change into various forms and shapes of vapour, but also change their body to one extent or another - including their sex. Apparently Cloud changed gender whenever they felt like it. When Cloud told Bobby about it, it fucked with his head a bit. They hadn’t been dating seriously, though, so Bobby wasn’t too surprised when Cloud broke up with him at the end of the conversation. He said Cloud could see he was very uncomfortable with the situation, and I guess didn’t want to even bother having him try to understand. Bobby admitted to me that he didn’t think he could have handled a relationship with a person whose gender was that fluid, not back then. Maybe not even now, but he’d at least give it a try. It had been a bit of a blow to his self-esteem to be rejected before even trying, but didn’t hold anything against Cloud for not giving him a chance to keep an open mind and decide for himself. He’d read up on things afterwards to try and understand Cloud’s reality and maybe salvage some form of assurance that he’d not done anything wrong to poison the air between them other than being confused. He said he had trouble coming to any real conclusions about what he could or couldn’t have done differently, but imagined that it was probably a bunch of little things showing his cis-gender privilege and lack of awareness.

We decided that his experience with Cloud was probably not a good one to use as a real-life example during our presentation. Not positive enough, demonstrative of acceptance and understanding, nor a negative enough one to provide a something that would generate strong sympathy. We need to find something good, though. It’s an important topic. I wonder if we can manage to get a trans or genderqueer person to come and help with that section. If not, then maybe we can at least find a good short video clip to show the students.

We called it a day after not too long. I was sorting out a few things on my desk, shuffling papers around and putting a few things into folders to bring upstairs to mark later, when I looked up and saw Bobby biting his lip and looking at me as if he didn’t know whether to say something or not. I raised an eyebrow. He shook his head, chuckling softly to himself and then asked me if I was interested in going out for a beer. He kind of stumbled over his words for a moment, then added quickly that we could invite some of the others along if I wanted. I joked that we’d better, because with our record we’d definitely get into some trouble if left alone together with alcohol in our systems. Bobby laughed, a little bit uncomfortably, scratching the back of his head as he looked away from me. His cheeks actually flushed a little.

Was he embarrassed being reminded of all the shit we used to get up to back in high school? Somehow I doubt that. I’m now certain that life has truly worn on Bobby in the time since I left with Magneto, but given everything I’ve seen over the past few months I doubt his sense of mischief has become something he’s ashamed of.

Hmm.