Got something to say.

I've got something to say and this is where I'm saying it.

The night my parents died, I was thinking about talking to my friend CynJen. I'd recently won a medal at a local gymnastics meet and I wanted to tell her all about it. I didn't know it was going to be the last time I saw them. I guess that's not unsual though, most people don't know when they'll last see someone they love. Guess that's what makes it so hard to let go when we do lose someone.

They died in front of me. I ain't going to go into details, mostly cause I don't wanna give people nightmares. Surfice to say that at the age of 8, I ended the night covered in my parent's blood and brains. I can still see my father reaching for me, like he could keep me safe. It was just like him, he was always trying to save someone. I think I shut down that night. I think the only way I could figure that I was still alive was because of some mistake. I wasn't supposed to have lived. And every day since I keep waiting for someone to realise that. I spent time not talking at all, and then I spent time pretending to be the perfect daughter to the folks that adopted me. Then I turned out to be a mutant and they threw me back. I guess a teenager who sets fire to her own bedding at night because of uncontrollable nightmares isn't much of a daughter.

I'm trying not to be dramatic here. I don't want it to seem like I'm trying for a sympathy vote. But I don't want to hide things anymore and I guess the only way I can do that is by being completely honest about my past. It's not as bad as some have had it but it's my past and it hurt and I'll try not to whine too much. I remember how people looked at me right after. I don't think I can ever really forget. It was like...If you've ever been in a major accident, like a plane crash or something like that. And say the person beside you died, but you didn't. It's that look. The 'Thank God it was you and not me' look. An I don't blame 'em, cause I think anyone could feel that. But it's not what an 8 year old wants to see. I think I knew then that I was on my own. I was the 'there but for the grace of God' girl.

I think some of what I had was called 'survivor's guilt'. I suppose if I'd let them help me, they might have seen that. But I couldn't let them help me. They'd give me these tests, ask me questions. But it was always the same questions, just changed around like I was too stupid to know that that was what they were doing. I mean, I may have been 8 but I've never been dumb. (Yeah, surprise, surprise. Much as it might shock, I was an A grade student at one time.)

Okay, okay Carls. I know I promised I wasn't gonna do the self-deprecation thing. Here's me, not gettin' down on myself, really. (Good Jubes, didn't want to have to get tough on you. I do know where all your ticklish spots are, you know.)

Anyway, it did a number on me. Here I was, thinking that maybe I could still have a normal life, even if they weren't my parents and then whamo, I'm a mutant. I had to leave my school, all my friends. And there I was back in the orphanage. They got me another foster home, though. People willing to overlook the facts of my genetics. I wasn't unhappy. I wasn't anything. It was just another place, and it'd be gone as well soon enough. I think it was finding out that I was a mutant that finally made me realise that I was a joke. That for whatever reason, no one would ever be close to me. I kept coming back to the fact that I shouldn't have survived. It seemed a reasonable explanation for why things kept happening to me whenever I decided to be happy.

I decided that if I was going to have to keep on living, then I'd refuse to be happy or sad or anything. So, I stopped paying attention to how I was feeling. It helped when the beatings started. You can't hurt someone who doesn't feel anything. I say I decided not to feel anything. That's a lie, really. I still felt angry. It was allowed because anger and hate, they didn't remind me of everything that I'd lost. Anger, have you any idea how good it feels just to yell at someone? Do you know what it's like seeing that gap in someone's armor and going after it like a rabid beast? When I was angry, I didn't think about how I wasn't supposed to be alive. It was freedom.

Only it's not. I learnt that here, you know? I learnt that I hadn't stopped feeling at all, I'd just drowned everything else that I could have been feeling with hatred. I hated myself. I hated that I couldn't save my parents. If I'd just become a mutant earlier, those men never would've been able to...It's hard to think of having so much power inside of you and realising that it doesn't solve all your problems. In fact, it doesn't solve any of them. I could level whole city blocks if I got going. I'm not bragging. Or at least, not too much. But it doesn't help me deal with life. I can't go around blowing up everything that makes me realise that I'm being childish when I say I shouldn't have lived. Because I should have. My parents died protecting me. If I went on hating myself. If I go on hurting anyone that tries to get close to me.

I'm not being fair. Not to them, not to myself.

This is my home. We're a family, not through neccessity but because we want to be.

I want to feel again. And I guess, considering that we're family, I'll start with all of you.