I don't do this often.

I sit in my office, trying to effuse an aura of calm into the white scenery. My eyes are closed because the color hurts my eyes.

It shouldn't. It's my choice. Things which I have chosen are not to give me any sort of pain. I chose white because it buffered me, built a barrier between my self and the constant barrage of stupidity. White is pure, white is clean, white is blank. Virgin white. Untouched.

Such an irony.

I breathe slowly. I let the world in for a while; I breathe it in, breathe in all the people around me sitting securely in their own rooms. I reach beyond these walls for an instant and tap them, try to see within them. I try to feel them, because if I can feel them, then I should understand them.

Sometimes I understand them too well. I understand that they themselves are hollow. They are woven so tightly together that they do not see the world around them. They do not see that there are issues and people and intense amounts of mental traffic swirling around and through them that they are oblivious to. They live in their own worlds, content to float merrily along without so much as a nod to acknowledge that there are minds outside their own bubbles of reality.

And then I see myself.

And then I come here. I come to my virginal office and spill blood and fluid in its sheets; I sully its face with my confusion and my uncertainty. I have lived through years; I should not be questioning myself like a troubled adolescent. I should be secure in my niche. I should know myself by now.

Yet I still see my reflection in the stupid and the mundane. I see who I could have been as a child but never was. Jubilation is much stronger than I could have ever been. She and I both have suffered loss, loss that has impacted our fragile minds ... but she received comfort; she was healed. I was not.

I stand from my desk and turn to the window. The sunlight is too bright; I close the drapes but they let the sunlight shine through ... they are white, and transparent ...

Is this face I wear so transparent? Am I so in need of identity that I cover myself with blankness only to find that the sun shines through it all?

This is shallow of me. This is shallow and juvenile. I am a grown woman; I should not worry about these things. I make the rules here. It is my turn to direct activities as I see fit. I should direct my own life.

But I don't. I've broken down and given into someone else's Dream. I'm nothing more than an appendage, a willing vessel to do as the High Xavier commands. I am no queen, in fact, that title has been stripped ...

I nearly laugh to myself.

I have come here, broken, to be rebuilt by my office. A room can do no such thing. I am no queen returning to her castle. I am nothing.

I am nothing. The phrase repeats itself in my mind. Nothing. The students I prize so highly, the closest I have come to friends, despise me. I am an instrument of terror - when I am no more than their instructor. I want to help them.

That is why I am here, I know. I am here to help them. I am not here to carry out Xavier's wishes.

Fool.

I am here to be what I never had. I am here so that these children do not wind up as I did. I am here to give them support, to show them that they are not hated and worthless.

Because someone once told me I was worthless.

And I believed it.

Those images haunt me to this day. I am terrified that what I am doing is not helping; terrified that underneath these facades of strength these children are learning nothing, terrified that they believe they are worthless.

How am I ever to show them they are not when I doubt my own self-worth?

I repeat it to myself when I come here. I tell myself in silent litany that I mean something; if I wasn't here then half of these children would be dead or spending their lives in endless day-to-day where they could not make something of themselves.

But then Xavier could always find someone else to do his bidding, couldn't he?

And how can I show them the value of life when I have spent the greater part of my days in filth and depravity? Do I truly believe that my experience has made me wiser? Perhaps they are the wiser for living as they have. I have good kids here. Everett and Paige would grow to be model citizens - should I subject them to something horrific as life?

Yes, I decide. Yes, I should - because if I don't, then one day Life will bite them on their asses.

So I am doing the right thing. I must be. Otherwise I wouldn't be here.

I just wouldn't be here. That greater power would not have seen it fit for me to live my life; He would have merely let me die long ago. There must be purpose or there would be no point to life.

Life is feeling; life is seeing.

Perhaps I have seen too much.

God knows I haven't loved. There has been nobody who would crawl to the ends of the earth for me. I control estates and empires; the fates of Frost Enterprises and the Massachusetts Academy alike are in my hands, but that does not bring me intimacy. I am too cold; too shrewd. I invite men in, I show them myself, because I know I am beautiful. I know they want to f*ck me.

But lust isn't love. The closest I've come to that is my students. And then fate rips them away from me, and fate sends me through whirlwind experiences, and I see so much more than anyone would ever possibly give me credit for.

And then fate has the audacity to give me a second chance.

Why in hell would anyone give me a second chance?

A knock breaks the free flow of thought. Before I turn to answer it, I compose myself; realign my features into something regal.

Jubilation peers in. "Yo, Frosty?"

"Ms. Frost," I correct her. It is a habit.

"Yeah, whatever," she continues. "Hey, we wanted to get a pizza or somethin' and Cassidy said we should hit you up for the cash 'cuz he's ..."

It is amazing - she is here, she is surviving. She is living a life she could not dream of, one that she could not even have with the X-Men. And it does not matter that she ignores her Literature lessons, and it does not matter that she is rude to me in class. I have touched her enough by simply being here.

"Dude ... Ms. Frost, you okay? Why you lookin' at me like that?" She casts a wary glance at me, gently closing the door.

"No - " I put a hand to the knob and let her in. "Come in. Yes, you may have some money for pizza. I suspect it was Sean's night to cook?"

"Uh, yeah," she replies. "He said somethin' about an old Irish recipe, like, how you put everything in like a sheep's stomach and cook it for like, ever."

And I cannot help but laugh.

I do not do that often enough.


thanks dj