Stronger Than Us Both

Outbursts & Outrage

○Cas○

Calculus wasn't helping me think. Or, I guess, it wasn't helping me stop thinking. That's what I really wanted to do: I just wanted to stop the chaos that was going on in my head. It was all a blur of Dean and everything that Benny told me on Saturday. Dean knew there was something wrong with me; he knew that I was hiding something from him. Benny said that Dean was worried about me, but I was starting to wonder if he should be worrying about himself. Lately, I was noticing how little control I had over my powers. I'd accidently shocked myself or other people a dozen times, blaming it on static electricity. I caught breezes ruffling my hair everywhere I went, no matter if I was inside or out. The temperature fluctuated with my heartbeat, rising and falling beyond my will. It didn't take a genius to realize what was happening to me. Dean knew it, he had to. I heard him in his sleep a few nights ago, one word followed by my name. Unstable. We both knew what was going on, yet we were trying to ignore it. Dean was doing better than I was.

Mrs. Lance finished whatever she was saying as the bells dismissed us to our next class, dragging me from my thoughts. In a murky fog, I started to my locker so I could exchange my calculus textbook for my copy of Twelfth Night. As I did, my fingers sparked with electricity that danced from one fingertip to another. I started shaking.

No, no, no.

No! Not now!

I can't do this right now, not at school. Please, please stop this. Please just wait until no one will see. Go away; I'm begging you.

I tried to calm my rapid pulse so the voltage stretched across my hand would disappear. Not to my surprise, the lightning was persistent. So I shoved my hands into my pockets and went into the bathroom to wait it out. Maybe I could get this under control and go back to class. Yet that seemed like wishful thinking, even in my own head.

I went into one of the stalls and sat on the floor, cradling my glowing hand in my lap. There was no one else in the bathroom, which I was very glad to realize once hot, angry tears began rolling down my cheeks.

This is so unfair! Why can't I get a break? Why can't I just be happy without something coming along and fucking everything up for me? I was over everything in middle school. I moved on from Levi. I made a new life. I was so happy! Why did this have to happen to me? Why does Dean have to be hurt in the process? I know he's going to blame himself once he finds out, despite there being nothing for him to do about it. And what about after he finds out? What happens to him after I get sent away or whatever happens to paratas who become unstable? Dean told me that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. He told me that life wouldn't be worth living without me. He told me that he couldn't even imagine being with anyone else. This is going to tear him apart!

My tears turned into ugly sobbing that echoed off the tiled room. Of all the people to be my collateral damage, why does it have to be Dean? I'd rather suffer through this alone than to see him hurt because of me. I love him so much. It's killing both of us.

Everything caught up to me all at once, and I felt bile rising in my throat. I only had a chance to register the fact that my lightning had vanished before I was kneeling over the toilet, so thankful I chose to cry in the bathroom. Once I was positive I had nothing left in my stomach to throw up, I made my way down to the nurse's office at the front of the school so I could go home. I was only a little embarrassed that I had to go to Ellen to do so. Because it was second block, she was teaching her medical assisting class, the only one she teaches in addition to being the school nurse. Mrs. Jones, the secretary, called her down from her room before sending me through the hall to the office. It only took Ellen a minute to get to me, telling me to go home the second she saw me. She didn't ask why I'd been crying, just saying that she would take care of excusing me from my classes before she went back to her room.