Cinderellas

Cinderellas Chapter Eight (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather gets a nice box to keep her Wataris in. It’ll help cut down on the explosions. J Readers/Reviewers: *blush * Thanks! And nope, this isn't in the Foreververse!

“I don’t fucking believe it!”
“Jubilee, calm down…” I had to jog to keep up with her. Her legs aren’t that much longer than mine but she was angry and walking fast. “Jubilee!”
She slammed her fist against a locker, hissing and grimacing at the pain. “I don’t fucking believe that jerk off just told me…I don’t believe he just said…”
She was shaking, she was so angry. She even flinched away when I put my hand on her arm. Self consciously, I tucked my hands into my pockets and tried to sound reasonable. “Just because he’s the principal doesn’t mean he’s going to be open minded.”
“Fuck open minded!” she shouted. I cringed. It was the middle of fifth period and we were alone in the hall. I could hear doors opening behind us, probably teachers sticking their heads out to see what was going on. I grabbed her arm, ignoring her as she tried to twist away, and dragged her into the girls’ bathroom, luckily nearby. “I’m a student being harassed! WE are students being harassed! It shouldn’t matter why! He should do something about it!”
“I know,” I finally sighed, letting go of her arm. I was between her and the door so I knew she was not going to leave until I moved, or until she moved me herself. “Jubilee, life is unfair,” I began.
“Tell me about it.” She leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, huddling over her knees. “Damn it to Hell.”
“Life is unfair but we don’t have to take this lying down.”
“You sound like Jean.”
“We can complain to the school board.” I was remembering something I’d read a while back about a racial incident at some school out west. The principal had blown off the complaints and the students had gone over his head to the school board; I told the story to Jubilee and she snorted. “What’s wrong with that idea?”
“It’ll never work.”
Jubilee, always so optimistic, always so enthusiastic, looked crushed. Like someone had told her Santa didn’t exist. “We can try.” I sat down across from her, holding my hands palm-up on my knees, giving her the opportunity to hold them if she wanted to do so. “What can it hurt?”
“It’d be worse than being outed here. Everyone in the state would hear about it. I mean,” she shifted, stretching her legs out in front of her and frowning to keep from crying, “you read about that case out west. Do you really want them to read about us?”
She had a point. If I hated the idea of being out and open in Bayville, how would I feel about people I would never even see knowing about us? “I don’t know,” I finally admitted.
She dashed some tears from her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m going home.”
“It’s only fifth period.”
“Fuck it. Let’s go. We’ll stick a note on Scott’s windshield that we left early.”
“What about practice?” I asked as I struggled to my feet. “Your meet is next week.”
“Prom is this weekend…girls are skipping left and right so they don’t mess up their manicures.” She sounded like she was ridiculing them and frankly, I don’t blame her. “Coach’ll never say anything if I skip today. She’ll just think I went over to the dark side and had to do a Barbie thing.”
I didn’t like how easily she was blowing off her favorite thing in the world, gymnastics practice, but I was not going to comment. It wasn’t my place, for one, and I didn’t want to be a nag, for another. I just nodded and smiled a little, following her out into the empty hallway. We didn’t talk until we got out into the parking lot. “You’d think they’d have more hall monitors or something,” I commented as we found Scott’s car in the seniors’ lot. “Or more skipping.”
“Cut backs m’dear,” she muttered, fishing a pen and piece of paper out of her back pack. “Kelly can’t be bothered fixing the security monitors while the football team needs new uniforms and the hall monitors are too scared of the Brotherhood to dare show their faces just in case Lance decides he wants to bail on a class…okay. Let’s get.”
That was the last thing she said to me the entire way home. I’d ask a question, make an observation, even just hum to myself at various points during the nearly half hour trek up to the mansion, but she did not even look at me much less respond or even make “shut up” noises. She looked worried, her brow wrinkled and pinched, her lips pressed into a thin line. Every once in a while, she’d run her fingers through her hair and sigh, but that was it. I had never been happier to see the gates than I was that day. She has to talk to me now, I thought. She’s bound to have thought of something… But no. She walked ahead of me all the way up the drive and straight into the house, heading for the kitchen. I followed at a short distance, her living shadow. She pulled the chocolate milk mix out of the cabinet, got out the soy milk, and began making herself a snack. Storm and Logan were elsewhere and apparently had not heard us enter and for that I was grateful. “Jubilee?” I finally murmured, hoping she had something to say.
“Rahne…I think I know how to put a stop to all this.”
“Good, I…”
“I’m breaking up with you”