Us Mutants Prefer the Term "Special"

x17x

The zone was just about done and Zaine was rarely apart of it. When I got home earlier, he had left a note saying that he had to take care of something, but in a new town, I didn't know what exactly that was. But considering he was a teenage boy with a fast ass car, I guess he could do whatever he wanted. But honestly, I wanted him here with me. I mean, he tried to win my best friend over, but instead of backing himself up with some boyish excuse he had for trying to perceive Tyler's grandiose gestures, he was gone and left me to spend the night with my family.

Now it was ten o'clock and I was turning in for bed. When I actually fell asleep, just like last night, there were a couple knocks on my door and as I groaned and rolled over as the door cracked open. There were specific words I was expecting him to say at this time and they were "I apologize." So if he wasn't going to say those two words, he wasn't worth me opening my eyes completely.

"Secret for secret?" he asked in a whisper.

"I've discovered that just recently that promise was broken last time because you didn't follow up after my Tyler story," I grumbled and it was true. I was the one sharing so much about me, but he was the one closed off. Even though his file rested in my backpack at the foot of the bed, they meant nothing if they weren't coming from his mouth.

"Les Deux, France," was all he said.

As my eyes opened at the location he said, and realized what he was talking about. He was finally opening up. He was telling me where he was from, days after I had asked him on the jet. When my vision was cleared, it was just enough for me to see him shut the door like he had last night. This time, I got up and followed his pursuit after briefly deciding to take advantage of his want to share. I looked down the hall and banister to see that my parents were downstairs, watching TV, but still continued to Wib's room. I found Zaine pulling off his shirt and sitting down on his bed as if expecting me to come in.

Or maybe he didn't expect me, because if he did, he'd know that my eyes would be struggling to stay away from his sculpted chest and abs.

"And yes I'm a US citizen," he added with a smirk.

"That's not what I was going to ask," I mumbled.

"But you were going to ask just about everything else," he assumed. "My family was there on leave for the military and I was born at the resort they went to before coming back to the states. So I have dual citizenship somehow, but I grew up near Seattle."

"That's cool," I nodded, feeling even more awkward as his presence enabled me to speak. "Well...good night I guess."

"Night," he said and stayed sitting there. Oh right. He doesn't sleep. I turned my shoulders and left closing the door, but then did my "what the hell am I doing" spazz and decided to knock on his door once more. He opened it immediately and our faces were close as I looked up to him.

"Secret for secret?" I asked, goofy. He sort of half grinned, but contained it. "You don't have to try and act like Tyler for me to like you."

"Sorry...I just don't know how to be normal..." he apologized for the wrong reasoning.

"Acting like Tyler isn't going to make you any more normal than you are now," I said within a laugh. "Just be yourself."

"How am I supposed to do that? I can't...take you places, or boost your popularity by being on the varsity football team, or even..." he mumbled something at the end that I couldn't understand.

"What was that?" I asked with a frown. I didn't care about the other stuff, but I wanted to know what else he thought he couldn't offer me.

"Nothing," he lied. I raised an eyebrow and took a step back away from him, which is what neither of us wanted. He hung his head and sighed out of defeat while he turned his back to me and then went to retire to his bed. "I said...that I can't even sleep with you."