I'm feeling unloved! L I had one weekend, one glorious weekend that I got to over forty favourite lists! Okay, so a couple were for the whole ONE Yu-gi-oh story I wrote (=snort= Yah. Story.) but now I'm back down. Which is sad.

Oh well! Random, short, angst! Fun!

DISCLAIMER: Teacher: What do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?

Pupil: A teacher.

You know what really ticks me off?

Oh, wow, that was a great start. But it does.

If Scott doesn't want me because he's got Jean, that's fine. I can cope and I can deal. Hell, it's not like I'm ever gonna have that anyway. But if he thinks he can just string me along and then go running back to her…

Sometimes I really want to punch him out, you know?

But seriously.

We're secret. No one knows about 'us', such that 'we' are, and I'm okay with that too. I'm okay with the fact that he decides when and where and for how long we can be 'us'. I put up with all of that.

But when he sits there and tells me he loves me so much, and he'd never hurt me, or let anyone else ever lay a finger on me. When he tells me he gets so undeniably jealous when he sees me with other people- guy, girl, unidentified flying or inanimate objects- and how he doesn't want me to want anyone apart from him because it would crush his tiny spirit…

I fall for it every freaking time.

I let him have me every single time.

Such that 'having me' is.

And then, the next day, he'll see Jean in one of her skimpy little hockey outfits or something and you can actually see the drool coming out. Once I had to physically clamp his chin back to the rest of his face.

And he'll buy her flowers, or lunch, and she'll laugh and say he spoils her.

You think?

I can't even blame her! Much as I want to hate her, to grab her collar and shake her and tell her to either glomp him or stay the hell away from him… I can't. Much as I try and often succeed to hate every fibre of her being, I can't do it for long.

She's nice. And she's my friend, despite everything.

But I can hate him.

I can want to strangle him slowly.

He gives me so many reasons to.

But there are days… sometimes… he doesn't always want to kiss me, or feel forbidden things… some days, we'll just sit in each other's arms. And that'll be enough.

Sometimes he just holds me against his chest while we watch a movie, running his hands down my shirtsleeves and over my stomach. And that'll be enough.

I don't want perfection. I will never have perfection of any sort.

I know that. I may act like a romantic, but I'm a realist, through and through. I'll never have what he could have with Jean. I'll never have what the others seem to find with their significant others. Even people you'd think could never have relationships have something, though it's not always loud and obvious. Sometimes they don't even know it.

But when Scott's lying around me, trying to feel my skin through it all, but never touching, never actually making contact with it… I'm almost there.

I think that's why I let it happen.

I think that's why I don't really mind when he goes running after Jean. Because, despite it all, I'm still the one he comes back to.

I chew him out about it sometimes, and he agrees with me, and admits he's a jerk and that I don't deserve this. Once I even did hit him. He went tumbling half way across the room and just sat up, smiling apologetically.

But he keeps coming back, for reasons unknown. I'm still his second choice.

I entertain this fantasy that I'm his first, and Jean's just for appearance's sake, which would make sense, when you think about it. The fearless leader of the X-men… dating… me. That doesn't work, does it?

So I get angry. And I want to hit him.

Until he comes back and just holds me, murmuring apologies and professing forbidden love.

That'll be enough.