feathers ↣ w. worthington iii

(12) Baby Pink Is The Best Color. Change My Mind.

"People always ask me how I pronounce my name, Jo-see or Jos-ee. And I always tell them the same thing: How dare you speak to me!" Josie McCoy in Riverdale

"Lilli, wake up," Ororo said, nudging Lilli. Lilli groaned, rolling over and facing away from Ororo.

"Let me sleep," Lilli grumbled, barely audible since her head was beneath her pillow. "I haven't slept in days."

"Girl, you've slept nineteen hours," Ororo retorted, grabbing the pillow off of Lilli's head. "It's lunchtime. On Friday."

"Friday?" Lilli asked, sitting up. "Shit... I haven't eaten since yesterday morning. How am I still alive?"

Ororo rolled her eyes as she pulled Lilli up by her arm. "Come on. We can go have lunch and then talk with the X-Men."

"Why do I have to talk with them?" Lilli murmured, frowning as she stood. Her eyelids felt heavy and she had to hold onto the bedpost to keep herself from falling. She felt exhausted.

"You just magically reappeared after being away for half of a year, we're going to want to talk to you," Ororo answered. She threw a towel at Lilli, scrunching up her nose. "Go shower. You smell."

Lilli sneered at Ororo before stumbling off to the bathroom to shower. Even though she'd slept all night and all morning, she felt exhausted. She could barely keep her eyes open as she showered. The hot water rolling over her skin only calmed her and made her even more sleepy. She craved her bed.

The past.. what, 36 hours? They'd been utterly exhausting. It had felt like a dream: Lilli'd left her home in Ohio, beat up two Kezing agents, drove across three states, stopped an attack on the Xavier Institute, and nearly frozen into a popsicle in the woods after her talk with Warren.

Warren. All of a sudden Lilli was wide awake and felt hyper aware of everything she was doing. This wasn't a dream. She was really back at the Xavier Institute. She was really back with her old friends who she'd mistakenly accused of excluding her. She was really back with Warren and Peter, who she'd abandoned. Lilli started shaking as she remembered what Warren had said to her the previous day. How she had sinned by leaving Peter and Warren for dead. Warren had known just how to get under her skin, and that's exactly what he'd done.

Lilli abruptly turned off the shower. She wrapped her towel around herself and stepped out into the steamy bathroom and towards the mirror. Lilli placed her hands on the counter and stared at her face in the mirror. Before she'd left her home in Ohio, Lilli had sworn to herself that she wouldn't be a coward. That she wouldn't be weak, that she wouldn't be stupid, that she wouldn't be stepped on. She'd sworn to never be the naïve girl she'd been the summer before. And yet she'd already almost frozen to death crying about some boy. Some boy who obviously hated her; some boy who seemed to want her dead. Lilli had already gone back on her promise to herself.

"Who are you, Lilli? Are you a little bitch?" Lilli asked herself, looking into her own eyes. They stared back at her, unmoving. "Or... are you a badass bitch? Which one is it?"

Lilli's reflection didn't move. It didn't answer her. "Because I'm gonna need you to make a decision real quick, girl. You're going to go down there and see all of those people again, and you're gonna have to make a choice. What's it gonna be?" Lilli stared at herself, waiting for an answer.

As she stared at herself, she started to realize something: while her skin was pale, it had protected her from countless injuries. Her blonde hair was frizzy, but it had kept her warm on cold nights. Her eyes, while a dull gray, had let her see the world and everything in it. Her teeth, not perfectly straight, had allowed her to eat her food and keep herself alive. Her voice was deep but had said a thousand "I love you's." Her hands weren't soft, but they'd held so many amazing things. Her feet had carried her for eighteen years and still held up. Her stomach wasn't the skinniest or the most toned, but it had held the best food she'd ever eaten and gave her fuel to keep on moving.