Doesn't Have a Title Yet

May started as the door of her dorm room crashed open and against the wall. I hope that didn’t disturb anyone else…, she thought. It was about 11:30 at night, after all, so there were probably at least a few other people asleep or doing last-minute homework. Looking up from her homework, she saw that it was her roommate, Leah.

“I’m gonna kill him!”

May winced. She had been rooming with Leah since their freshman year of college--that made this their fourth year living together. But that didn’t mean that she was used to Leah’s temper--just that it no longer surprised her. “Er, I take it the encounter went badly, then?” she said tentatively. Leah had recently broken up with her boyfriend, John--May was a little fuzzy on the details, but she knew it hadn’t gone well.

Leah leveled her glare on May. May knew that, deep down, Leah wasn’t really mad at her, but the glare was intimidating nevertheless. “Of course it went badly.” With that, Leah stalked out of the room. Concerned, May tentatively followed her.

As she did so, she felt a guilt wash over her. This is my fault…I should have known better, with Leah’s temper. Today, Leah had gone to see John; May had suggested that Leah try to get some closure out of the relationship. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, since their breakup had been pretty tense. It didn’t seem as though it had left much room for closure, which in May’s opinion was pretty important when ending a relationship. But apparently, Leah wasn’t quite ready to have a rational conversation with John.

Fortunately, Leah hadn’t gone far--she had just stalked off to the bathroom she and May shared with another room. Even after four years of getting to know Leah, May still wasn’t any better at dealing with her anger. “Leah…?” she inquired tentatively.

“He blamed it on me. Me. I wouldn’t be so angry if he’d just accepted the blame!” After that, Leah started mumbling, so May couldn’t really catch what she was saying. There was a moment of silence before the shouting began again. “Am I really so hideous!?” A choked sob was all the warning May had before--

CRASH.

Now, May didn’t hesitate to rush into the bathroom. She let out a slight gasp at the sight that greeted her upon her entry. The mirror in the bathroom had cracked, and a few pieces of glass had fallen into the sink and onto the floor. Also on the floor was Leah, clutching her right hand with her left. Blood leaked between her fingers and down both her hands and onto her wrists.

“Oh, God, Leah…let me see that!” May crouched at her roommate’s side and carefully took the injured hand. Leah winced slightly, but she didn’t resist, so May could tell that all the fight had gone out of her. May inspected the wounds as carefully as she could. Her medical intuition was telling her that Leah’s hand was definitely broken, but it couldn’t tell her if there was any glass in the cuts or not. However, after a minute of looking carefully at the cut, it appeared that Leah was lucky.

“It doesn’t look like there’s any glass in these cuts….” May told Leah, who didn’t respond for a minute.

“This freaking hurts,” she finally mumbled.

“Yeah, I can imagine,” May replied.

“I’m going to have to go to the hospital, aren’t I?” Leah mumbled miserably.

“Well,” May hesitated. Leah didn’t know about her powers. Besides her brother, Dane, no one did. She had hoped to keep it that way, but on the other hand, it was just too difficult to watch her friend sitting on the floor, broken and upset and bleeding on the floor. And when she thought of it like that, well, she didn’t really have a choice, did she?

She carefully surrounded Leah’s injured hand with her own and focused her energy on reversing the damage that had been done. It took a few minutes, but when she was done, Leah’s hand was fully healed. Leah snatched it away from her.

“What…what did you….” Leah stared at her newly-healed hand. She appeared confused for a minute before a look of realization formed on her face. She looked at May accusingly. “You’re a mutant.”

May winced at the ire in her voice. She’d known Leah’s reaction wouldn’t likely be good, but she hadn’t been expecting it to be quite that bad. “Um, yeah, I am,” she said. There was no point in denying it; the proof was right before Leah’s eyes.

“That…you really fooled me, you know. I never suspected, even after four years. Then again, I guess you’d have had to use your power in order for me to suspect anything. Besides, you’d always seemed nice….”

“I haven’t changed! And I‘ve always been sincere,” May exclaimed.

Leah shook her head. “But you’ve lied to me for four years! When were you going to tell me what you were!?”

May sighed. “I…well, I didn’t want to take the chance that you’d react badly.” And to judge by Leah’s reaction, May had had good reason to fear.

“React badly? How could I not react badly to find out that you’re one of those lying, thieving, murdering monsters!?”

“You really think all of us are like that? I’ve never stolen anything in my life, never mind murder!”

But Leah wasn’t listening. “Do you know how my Dad died? A mutant was out on a killing spree. He saw my father walking home from work, and decided that he’d make a good victim, or something. I don’t really know what happened, but all I know is that he kissed me goodbye that morning and then walked out the door…forever! And it was a mutant’s fault. I’m not the only victim of the mutants, May. I hear about it on the news all the time. I just…God I can’t believe you’re…you’re….” Leah paused before suddenly standing up and stomping back to their room.

May hurriedly followed her. “Leah? Leah!? What’re you doing?”

Once May reached their room, Leah had a cell phone in her hand and was about to dial something. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m reporting this to the police!”

Leah had dialed one number before May had managed to snatch the phone out of her hand. “Leah, wait! What have I ever done to you? Think!” May said, holding the cell phone away.

Leah, who was taller than her, managed to snatch her cell phone back with ease. “Gee, I dunno, lied to me for four years?” Leah said sarcastically, but she didn’t attempt to dial again.

“Well…I suppose I have. But is there anything else? Have I ever hurt you?”

Leah paused for a moment. “Well, no, I suppose not…but how do I know you’ve never hurt anyone else?”

“Have you ever known me to hurt anyone else? Really? Besides, I’m a healer. Who could I possibly hurt with that?”

Leah stared at her for a moment. May almost thought she’d convinced her, but then she said, “How do I know you don’t have any other powers?”

“The only other power I have is medical intuition, I swear it.”

“What the heck is that?”

“It means that if someone’s not healthy, I can tell what’s wrong with them. I could tell that your hand was broken, Leah. You probably would’ve had to have some surgery, though I don’t know, I’m no doctor. Even if you hadn’t needed surgery, you definitely wouldn’t have been able to use that hand for weeks. I couldn’t just let you go through that, you know, not when I could fix it.”

“Is that it? Is that really why?”

“Why else would I do it!? Well, besides the fact that we’ve been friends for four years.” At this point, May didn’t know what to say to convince Leah that she wasn’t a threat.

Finally, some of the anger bled out of Leah. She appeared to be considering May‘s words. “I suppose you have a point…but there are laws, May. I can’t just let this go. I’ve got to report this,” with that, Leah started to dial again.

“Wait!” May interrupted. “Could you at least wait until tomorrow, or something?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Well…it is pretty late at night, and we’ve probably already woken up enough people already without having the police come here. It’ll probably be a little easier to deal with all this in the morning, won’t it? I mean…haven’t you had enough drama for one day?”

May could tell that she had almost convinced Leah with that last comment. “Well…,” she hesitated. May couldn’t blame her; in fact, she wasn’t really expecting Leah to actually agree. Leah wasn’t stupid; obviously it would be a good time for May to escape.

May sighed. “I’m really sorry about your father. But not all mutants are like that. I know you’re angry, but I think you know that I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. I’m not about to start now,” she said.

Leah returned her sigh. “…All right. I could use some sleep for dealing with the police, anyway. I’m pretty tired.” May almost couldn’t believe her ears. Leah was actually giving in. “But I’m calling the police in the morning,” she asserted. May almost smiled. That was the Leah she knew.

“Fair enough,” May said. “Well, good night. I’ll wait until tomorrow to say goodbye for good, I suppose,” May said before putting her homework away and getting ready for bed. As she did so, she had to wipe away a couple of tears that had started to escape. She couldn’t believe her life had changed so drastically in one night, and for the worse, at that.

Leah waited for May to get into her bed before going to bed herself. Apparently, her roommate still didn’t trust her. But she’d agreed not to call the police right away, so May counted that as a sign that Leah didn’t completely hate her.

May pretended to have fallen asleep until she heard some light snores from across the room. Leah had always snored while she slept, though May had never told her that. Fortunately, it wasn’t much of a problem, because Leah’s snores were relatively quiet. loud and May was a pretty heavy sleeper. In any case, the snores meant that Leah was asleep, so May quietly rose from her bed and snatched up her backpack. Being as quiet as possible, she went about filling it with necessities such as food, clothes, water, a toothbrush and some toothpaste, and the money her parents had given her to use in case of emergencies. May had never been one to defy the law, but she had no desire to go to jail (or worse; she’d heard a few horror stories about the government and mutants) for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

She pondered bringing her cell phone for a moment before deciding that she wouldn’t need it. She wouldn’t need to call anyone, and she didn’t think she wanted anyone to try to contact her. She turned to her laptop. That was a more difficult decision; she wasn’t entirely sure if she’d get too many chances to use it, but it could certainly come in handy.

She jumped as Leah let out a sudden, slightly louder snore before rolling over and continuing to sleep. As May looked at her, she abruptly realized that her roommate was letting her escape. She had no doubt that Leah had every intention of calling the police in the morning--after all, even despite having a mutant friend, it was doubtful that all the prejudice she had over them was suddenly gone. Besides, Leah had never been one to defy the law either.

Yet May had been a good roommate and friend to Leah over their years in college together. And really, May had done her a favor by healing her friend. May decided that this was Leah’s way of thanking her; at the same time, she would be calling the police in the morning, so she could avoid changing her views on mutants. This would have been hard for Leah (especially given how her father had died). But there was no way that it hadn’t occurred to Leah that May would try to escape if given the opportunity. And this was the perfect opportunity.

Impulsively, May grabbed a sticky note from her desk, along with a pen. She scribbled a short note on it and stuck it to her laptop. Then, with one last glance around her room, she slid her dorm room window open. Fortunately, it was pretty close to the ground, so it was fairly easy for her to slip out the window and into the night, into a new life.

“Leah:

I won’t be needing this where I’m going. Thank you for a great four years.

-May”