Shielded
Prolouge
“I have to warn you though, she is a bit of a rebel.” Heaven help them, those were the first words anyone had ever used to describe me to my parents. What in the hell were they thinking? I should clarify however, I'm adopted. Yes, it's true, no matter how much I wish they were my real parents, or how impossible that actually was, they are not. Now, the social worker wasn't trying to be cruel or anything, she was just doing her job, and after I'd been in the cycle for a little over twelve years it's no wonder she was grasping at straws.
You see, they wanted a baby, not a full grown sixteen year old girl with her own thoughts, emotions, opinions ect., they wanted someone who's mind and life they could shape, just like any other family could, if they could have kids that is. They wanted bows and ribbons, teddy bears and talcum powder, not combat boot, nail polish and a tongue piercing. All those things aside however I can picture them, sitting there all a quiver waiting to find out who the newest member of their family was, only to be hit with such a ghastly proposition. “No criminal record or anything!” She would have tried to smooth things out. “She just, has an issue with authority is all...” She must have said having a real hard time describing me, not the model of a dream daughter from the outside, moderate grades and some volunteer work, but still the balls she must have had. I wasn't even meant to be in the list of kids they'd be given.
They'd declined, and I'm sure she was desperate at that point, big brown eyes a flutter with panic as they shook their heads and made ready to leave. It's funny but I can't imagine how she thought she was going to pull it off, even with our common backgrounds taken into consideration. “Oh, please!” she'd bellowed, as dad stood to pace at the back of the room. “She needs you to do this!” You see there's something else I forgot to clarify, there had to be dozens of girls I knew in the system who looked just like me, with just as much an attitude as I had, but they weren't called rebels like me, that's a special name for those of us kids they's rather not have to deal with directly. “She's gay!”
That, was one thing that must have hit them. “Maya's openly gay, and has been for a while.” Olivia, that's her name would have informed them. “She's suffering because of it, in the group home... No one wants her either, no one wants the kid with the 'problems...' Please I thought, I thought you...” That's when their parental instinct kicked in, along with their pride as two strong gay men. They looked at each other and knew, whether they liked it or not fate had chosen a child for them, it wasn't the child they'd envisioned, dreamed of, but the child they would come to love eternally.
-
Now, you'd think life would have gotten along all cozy and good right off the bat what with all us fairies in one big pot, but you'd be fucking moronic to make that assumption. First of all, I hated them. They seemed to think they knew who I was and could relate to me right away, they of course were wrong. My room, hastily remade from a nursery still bore the tell-tale signs, I knew they hadn't wanted me and only a week into my term took off after an argument. Long story short two days on the lam, cops, I think we have something that belongs to you, more work for Olivia. Pete and Leandre as I knew them then, or dad and papa now, had been furious. It was in that fury however that I saw the first glimmer of if not yet love, a caring for me.
It was still a bit rocky for the next couple of months as we got to know one another, tested boundaries, and settled into our roles. The only problem that remained at that point was the car. No, I didn't take it, hell I didn't even want to ride in it, and that was the problem. See, my mother and father had died in an accident when I was four, and, my only memories of them contained the sharp bite of glass, the scream of twisting metal and the deep crimson of blood. We'd been on our way to a funeral, oddly enough. My father's mom, the last grandparent I'd had. I remember looking at the backs of my parents heads, my mom's blond offset by the deep black of her husband's hair. She was thin with a narrow face and green eyes, all I can really recall of him was that he was fit but his belly poked out a bit, and mom called it his Buddha belly, I wonder why I remember that. My brother who was nine had more of mother's looks, the fairness I mean, brownish hair, light eyes, but father's build. He had left bruises from where he'd jabbed me repeatedly with his finger along the road-trip, I regret wishing him away that day.
I truthfully don't know what happened, one minute we were fine, in fact I was bored nearly to tears, and then the tires roared angrily. We hit something, spinning tightly before executing a terrifying number of roll overs which left us in a ditch. My world was black for such a long time, when everything finally came back the pain hadn't yet registered, but the pressure from my seat belt cutting into me did as I hung suspended upside down with the rest of my family.
My father was in the front seat torn up and crying; a slew of Spanish tumbling frantically from his lips, a part of my heritage I would never be granted, as he clung to what was left of my mother. Her corn yellow hair a disgusting and hateful red her smashed in face obscured from my view, her arm, dismembered by the widow however was not spared from my young eyes. That was when I started to scream. The world slipped away for a moment. When it returned the only sound I could hear was the wheezing rattle of my brother's lungs as they filled with blood. He smiled weakly to me, as our eyes met and managed to tell me everything was going to be okay.
Pain was my world by that time, pain and the stench of gas. My brother died only moments after he's uttered his comforting and final words. Father who's legs were mangled and side gaped widely managed to unbuckle himself and make it out of the car, it was there on the side of the road that he passed as the first siren could be heard.
Needless to say, I hate cars, almost as much as the ragged shinning scars I was left with to remember that day, and the chief reason for my being passed over for adoption as a kid. After all no one wants the girl whose face had been shredded by glass, a twisted intersection of scars resembling a sideways covering much of the left side, still I was lucky. My face was all anyone saw when they looked at me, after all no one cares about the scars that can't be seen. Or that's what I'd thought until the trouble with dad and papa having to accommodate my walking or biking to and from everywhere began, that's when they gave me a chance to heal, and got me a therapist, Doctor Hendricks. From there things got much better, in fact they were perfect.
So why didn't I expect the calamity that followed? Fuck if I know.
-
Seventeenth birthday a little over three months away, and I couldn't love my parents anymore than I already did, even as they smothered me, bore the brunt of bigotry with me and yes, like all parents embarrassed me. I was happy for the first time in a long time, good grades, family, friends, permission to date whoever I wanted without fear, and I was even able to go for short car rides.
It was on one of those car rides that it happened. I had been sitting in the back chewing my gum loudly and chatting with dad about what kind of party I wanted for my big day as papa drove us tom dinner, a relaxed hand on dad's knees in a, cute if they weren't mine kinda way. Everything was fine, just as before. It was like a sick and horrendous sort of deja vu when it happened. Slowing to go through the yield sign dad had no way of seeing him as the crazed and drunken man tore across the road catty-corner us, and leaped the median. At that moment, seeing them jolt with fear, the other vehicle baring down on us, papa's hand suddenly a fist clenched in desperation around dad's leg, time seemed to stop.
I knew what was going to happen then, again my family would be torn from me, and again I would be left utterly alone in a world that didn't want me. I screamed with an unbridled rage at that realization, my hands flying forward in an instinctual desperation. I felt it then, the airy hollow sensation that filled my head, accompanied by the feeling like I was pushing something, something ridged, but light. Without thinking I pushed, and pushed until the thing covered us, and then in a flash of agony, the other car hit.
Blinking away the lure of unconsciousness I managed to rouse my self and found that my family had somehow been spared, and I knew why. It hadn't hit us, rather, the bubble, the bubble I had made. “I did it!” I muttered as a pure knowledge of what had happened settling into my brain. The other vehicle sat motionless about five feet away, it's front end crumpled in, our car was fine. It was after glancing at my parents to see that they were alright that I looked down. It was so oddly surreal the direness of the situation took a few minutes to sink in. My hands were bent backwards, above them on the left, my wrist was a throbbing limp noddle as the bones had shot out at awkward angles near the elbow, on the right my forearm seemed simply to collapse in on itself made lumpy by loosed shards of bone within. I was so dizzy with the alien experience I forgot to cry, even as the ambulance arrived a bizarre calm settling about my shoulders rather than the cloak of panic and despair. As I was led away on a stretcher I couldn't help but marvel at the hand prints buried deep into the front end of the other car even as the driver stumbled free of it.
-
Surgery, shock, and medications clouded my next few days, but when I came to however I found myself in a room loaded with flowers, balloons and stuffed animals. Only after drinking all this in however did I notice my parents whispering near the foot of my bed with a pair who were clearly not doctors as the man stood arms folded tightly over his chest ruby red shades gleaming in the ambient light. After a moment of observing them the woman seemed to take notice of me and turning in my direction smiled. “Hello Maya.” she said approaching me. A silence followed, the weight of which I didn't quite understand settled upon the room. “My name is Jean, and this is Scott. Would it be alright if we talked with you for a moment?” she asked.
At the moment I couldn't have guessed where that question or even those strange people would lead me. Through adventure, glory, and even tragedy and shame. Neither could I have guessed that they would lead me to find the girl whom without my life would be utterly incomplete and worthless. They would lead me to love, acceptance and my calling, my calling as an X-Man!
You see, they wanted a baby, not a full grown sixteen year old girl with her own thoughts, emotions, opinions ect., they wanted someone who's mind and life they could shape, just like any other family could, if they could have kids that is. They wanted bows and ribbons, teddy bears and talcum powder, not combat boot, nail polish and a tongue piercing. All those things aside however I can picture them, sitting there all a quiver waiting to find out who the newest member of their family was, only to be hit with such a ghastly proposition. “No criminal record or anything!” She would have tried to smooth things out. “She just, has an issue with authority is all...” She must have said having a real hard time describing me, not the model of a dream daughter from the outside, moderate grades and some volunteer work, but still the balls she must have had. I wasn't even meant to be in the list of kids they'd be given.
They'd declined, and I'm sure she was desperate at that point, big brown eyes a flutter with panic as they shook their heads and made ready to leave. It's funny but I can't imagine how she thought she was going to pull it off, even with our common backgrounds taken into consideration. “Oh, please!” she'd bellowed, as dad stood to pace at the back of the room. “She needs you to do this!” You see there's something else I forgot to clarify, there had to be dozens of girls I knew in the system who looked just like me, with just as much an attitude as I had, but they weren't called rebels like me, that's a special name for those of us kids they's rather not have to deal with directly. “She's gay!”
That, was one thing that must have hit them. “Maya's openly gay, and has been for a while.” Olivia, that's her name would have informed them. “She's suffering because of it, in the group home... No one wants her either, no one wants the kid with the 'problems...' Please I thought, I thought you...” That's when their parental instinct kicked in, along with their pride as two strong gay men. They looked at each other and knew, whether they liked it or not fate had chosen a child for them, it wasn't the child they'd envisioned, dreamed of, but the child they would come to love eternally.
-
Now, you'd think life would have gotten along all cozy and good right off the bat what with all us fairies in one big pot, but you'd be fucking moronic to make that assumption. First of all, I hated them. They seemed to think they knew who I was and could relate to me right away, they of course were wrong. My room, hastily remade from a nursery still bore the tell-tale signs, I knew they hadn't wanted me and only a week into my term took off after an argument. Long story short two days on the lam, cops, I think we have something that belongs to you, more work for Olivia. Pete and Leandre as I knew them then, or dad and papa now, had been furious. It was in that fury however that I saw the first glimmer of if not yet love, a caring for me.
It was still a bit rocky for the next couple of months as we got to know one another, tested boundaries, and settled into our roles. The only problem that remained at that point was the car. No, I didn't take it, hell I didn't even want to ride in it, and that was the problem. See, my mother and father had died in an accident when I was four, and, my only memories of them contained the sharp bite of glass, the scream of twisting metal and the deep crimson of blood. We'd been on our way to a funeral, oddly enough. My father's mom, the last grandparent I'd had. I remember looking at the backs of my parents heads, my mom's blond offset by the deep black of her husband's hair. She was thin with a narrow face and green eyes, all I can really recall of him was that he was fit but his belly poked out a bit, and mom called it his Buddha belly, I wonder why I remember that. My brother who was nine had more of mother's looks, the fairness I mean, brownish hair, light eyes, but father's build. He had left bruises from where he'd jabbed me repeatedly with his finger along the road-trip, I regret wishing him away that day.
I truthfully don't know what happened, one minute we were fine, in fact I was bored nearly to tears, and then the tires roared angrily. We hit something, spinning tightly before executing a terrifying number of roll overs which left us in a ditch. My world was black for such a long time, when everything finally came back the pain hadn't yet registered, but the pressure from my seat belt cutting into me did as I hung suspended upside down with the rest of my family.
My father was in the front seat torn up and crying; a slew of Spanish tumbling frantically from his lips, a part of my heritage I would never be granted, as he clung to what was left of my mother. Her corn yellow hair a disgusting and hateful red her smashed in face obscured from my view, her arm, dismembered by the widow however was not spared from my young eyes. That was when I started to scream. The world slipped away for a moment. When it returned the only sound I could hear was the wheezing rattle of my brother's lungs as they filled with blood. He smiled weakly to me, as our eyes met and managed to tell me everything was going to be okay.
Pain was my world by that time, pain and the stench of gas. My brother died only moments after he's uttered his comforting and final words. Father who's legs were mangled and side gaped widely managed to unbuckle himself and make it out of the car, it was there on the side of the road that he passed as the first siren could be heard.
Needless to say, I hate cars, almost as much as the ragged shinning scars I was left with to remember that day, and the chief reason for my being passed over for adoption as a kid. After all no one wants the girl whose face had been shredded by glass, a twisted intersection of scars resembling a sideways covering much of the left side, still I was lucky. My face was all anyone saw when they looked at me, after all no one cares about the scars that can't be seen. Or that's what I'd thought until the trouble with dad and papa having to accommodate my walking or biking to and from everywhere began, that's when they gave me a chance to heal, and got me a therapist, Doctor Hendricks. From there things got much better, in fact they were perfect.
So why didn't I expect the calamity that followed? Fuck if I know.
-
Seventeenth birthday a little over three months away, and I couldn't love my parents anymore than I already did, even as they smothered me, bore the brunt of bigotry with me and yes, like all parents embarrassed me. I was happy for the first time in a long time, good grades, family, friends, permission to date whoever I wanted without fear, and I was even able to go for short car rides.
It was on one of those car rides that it happened. I had been sitting in the back chewing my gum loudly and chatting with dad about what kind of party I wanted for my big day as papa drove us tom dinner, a relaxed hand on dad's knees in a, cute if they weren't mine kinda way. Everything was fine, just as before. It was like a sick and horrendous sort of deja vu when it happened. Slowing to go through the yield sign dad had no way of seeing him as the crazed and drunken man tore across the road catty-corner us, and leaped the median. At that moment, seeing them jolt with fear, the other vehicle baring down on us, papa's hand suddenly a fist clenched in desperation around dad's leg, time seemed to stop.
I knew what was going to happen then, again my family would be torn from me, and again I would be left utterly alone in a world that didn't want me. I screamed with an unbridled rage at that realization, my hands flying forward in an instinctual desperation. I felt it then, the airy hollow sensation that filled my head, accompanied by the feeling like I was pushing something, something ridged, but light. Without thinking I pushed, and pushed until the thing covered us, and then in a flash of agony, the other car hit.
Blinking away the lure of unconsciousness I managed to rouse my self and found that my family had somehow been spared, and I knew why. It hadn't hit us, rather, the bubble, the bubble I had made. “I did it!” I muttered as a pure knowledge of what had happened settling into my brain. The other vehicle sat motionless about five feet away, it's front end crumpled in, our car was fine. It was after glancing at my parents to see that they were alright that I looked down. It was so oddly surreal the direness of the situation took a few minutes to sink in. My hands were bent backwards, above them on the left, my wrist was a throbbing limp noddle as the bones had shot out at awkward angles near the elbow, on the right my forearm seemed simply to collapse in on itself made lumpy by loosed shards of bone within. I was so dizzy with the alien experience I forgot to cry, even as the ambulance arrived a bizarre calm settling about my shoulders rather than the cloak of panic and despair. As I was led away on a stretcher I couldn't help but marvel at the hand prints buried deep into the front end of the other car even as the driver stumbled free of it.
-
Surgery, shock, and medications clouded my next few days, but when I came to however I found myself in a room loaded with flowers, balloons and stuffed animals. Only after drinking all this in however did I notice my parents whispering near the foot of my bed with a pair who were clearly not doctors as the man stood arms folded tightly over his chest ruby red shades gleaming in the ambient light. After a moment of observing them the woman seemed to take notice of me and turning in my direction smiled. “Hello Maya.” she said approaching me. A silence followed, the weight of which I didn't quite understand settled upon the room. “My name is Jean, and this is Scott. Would it be alright if we talked with you for a moment?” she asked.
At the moment I couldn't have guessed where that question or even those strange people would lead me. Through adventure, glory, and even tragedy and shame. Neither could I have guessed that they would lead me to find the girl whom without my life would be utterly incomplete and worthless. They would lead me to love, acceptance and my calling, my calling as an X-Man!