Running for Home - 81. May 2, 2022

May 2, 2022

We had another incident with a student today. This time it was with one of the seniors, Callie Betto, otherwise known as Dryad. She was outside, just like Gerard was, and she had a complete breakdown. She was a little more responsive than Gerard, begging and pleading with us to make the voices stop. We asked her what the voices were, what they were saying, but she couldn’t really tell us, just told us there were too many, they were too loud, that she couldn’t think. We ended up sedating her, just like Gerard. Her powers allow her to communicate with plant life and control their growth, so we are wondering if her powers have grown, suddenly, and she just wasn’t able to control them anymore.

Speaking of Gerard, he has recovered. All he’s been able to tell us is that suddenly he was able to see everything. Like, see every last thing down to the atoms and molecules surrounding him for miles upon miles all together, all at once, with no focus. Just… everything. It started out small, but then it grew to be overwhelming and he couldn’t stop it, just couldn’t make it stop and he just shut down. So this powers-out-of-control thing… maybe it’s a pattern? I mean, we are in a school for mutants, and these kids always seem to be getting better and leveling up their powers as they learn better control. Sometimes they have breakthroughs, right? And secondary mutations are a thing too, right?

But Gerard couldn’t access that level of power again. Everything was just back to normal, just like it had been before the incident went down.

Emma is still away. Something has come up with the Hellfire Club and her vast business conglomerate, something that she needed to take care of herself. I’m not privy to the details, just that it was big. Cecilia is going to be briefing her on this when Emma gets back, but she’s not too worried yet. Twice in three days is a strange coincidence, but it isn’t a pattern. Not yet. Besides that, all her tests have come back negative. She’s leaving the bacterial and fungal culture plates from the swabs of Gerard to grow a few more days, but at this point the source of the problem is a big mystery and it may indeed just be an evolution of these kids’ powers.

I don’t know. I have this sinking feeling. Bobby thinks I’m being irrational. He’s probably right. He’s done this job for a lot longer than I have, even if he had a long break recently. I guess he would know better than I would how often this sort of shit happens.

You know, I never really thought that I would have room in my heart to care for so many kids, to care about so many people and a place like this school. I don’t know. When I was younger, I was always pretty tight with my affections - well, maybe not when I was very young. I remember trying to be friends with everyone during my first few years of elementary school, although as time went on a lot of the kids seemed more and more distant. Maybe I got used to that, having people at a distance. Or at least feeling like they were. I think I got so used to it, and with my trust issues from what my parents did to me, I just built up a wall in my mind to protect myself from the people on the outside.

I cared about my friends at Xavier’s, sure, but I never really believed they cared about me. Not enough to miss me after I left. Not to grieve for me if I’d died. Except for Bobby. Bobby got in, and got deep under my skin, straight to my heart. I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help but love him, even if I thought he was completely the opposite kind of person I wanted to be best friends with at first. But we were roommates, so I didn’t have much choice but to get to know him better.

Those old walls, I held onto them for a long time. They started to fall away bit by bit with Dom and Mystique and Destiny. Now that I’m here… At the outset of this job, I thought it would all be the same. I’d keep to myself, keep everyone at arms length, so when I left after the year I could part with no risks. But fuck, I was so fucking vulnerable when I arrived here, I didn’t stand a chance. My friends here, they slipped in under my defenses. Gave me a sense of community, of stability, of belonging that I hadn’t realized was missing from my life.

But the fallout of the operation to shut down the Purifiers, that has me scared. Scared of what I now stand to lose. From an artistic perspective, this is beauty in it’s finest form. Complex, multilayered, wreaking havoc on my emotions. I need to be thankful for what I have now, be ready to celebrate it when it’s gone, and continue to feel the love long after.

But it’s not just my friends, it’s these kids. I see in them everything that I had such a hard time seeing for myself at their age. I see their hurts, their joys, their quotidien pains and pleasures, I see the beauty of their lives as they are and I see the potential for what they could be, for how they could shape and change this world for the better.

This job has changed me, I think. For the better.

Sure, my writing about mutant-human relations was making a contribution for the betterment of society and my novels were entertaining people, but those have been largely selfish, ego-fueled ventures, haven't they?

This is bigger than me. Bigger than my feelings, my opinions, my insights.

My writing can create ripples in the pond, expanding ever outward, but my teaching? I feel like my teaching is like the planting of a garden of many wonders, a place where many different and beautiful things will grow if I can just nurture them just right. And each of those things that grow, they will spawn seeds of their own that can be planted to grow things anew.

It’s like… I feel like I’m connected to a higher cycle of life now. Like I’m connected to society’s circadian rhythm, not just the current pulse.

I guess these incidents with Gerard and Callie are making me worry.

I don’t want this taken away from me.