They're humoring me again.

I'm being foolish and irrational. I know it. And for once in my life, I wish someone would just sit me right down and tell me so.

They won't, of course. They'll love me and support me and care for me and protect me--but if there's one thing everyone in this damned school avoids, it's direct confrontation with Rogue.

So instead, everyone humors me.

I'm tempted sometimes to push it--to see how far they'll let me go. I don't, of course. I do care about these people. They're the only family I've got--the only ones who accept me. And yet, all this endless humoring gets on my nerves.

They did it right after he left. They looked at me and saw an adolescent girl with a crush on an older man. I guess I could be forgiven it, after all, he saved my life by risking his own. Enough hero for any young girl to worship. And worship I did, in my own way.

They didn't understand, though. They thought it was a crush. A harmless attachment. After all, what had ever passed between us? A few words . . . some chaste touches.

That's what no one understands. For me, no touch is chaste.

Ever.

Since I was old enough to appreciate it, two men have touched me. I nearly killed both of them.

Only one man has ever touched me a second time. And how he touched me--I woke up pressed against his body, his hands cradling my face and his lips on my forehead. More touch than I'd ever had before--for me, more intimate than any lover's embrace.

They think I'm a girl who lost her idol.

I know I am a woman who lost her lover.

So I humor them as they humor me. I let them believe that I am still young inside this ancient head of mine. That I have a scrap of innocence left in me.

I don't look in the mirror anymore . . . it's too unsettling. I feel like I'm as old as the Professor, with the experience and knowledge behind me of twice my years.

He did that to me, when he touched me. He gave himself to me--every single bit of him. For weeks after, I knew everything he knew . . . had experienced everything he had.

Logan is hardly an innocent. And thanks to him, neither am I.

Everyone thinks I'm over him now. I haven't mentioned his name in weeks. I smile and laugh with the others. I play games and talk late at night with the girls. If anyone notices that I never have much to say about the boys our age . . . well, I'm Rogue. No one would ever dare mention it to my face.

I think a few people suspect how much I still miss him. Jean, surely. I think she misses him too, sometimes. We exchange these sad little smiles . .. and somehow we both know what they mean. We never say anything out loud .. . even after a year Scott gets all prickly if you so much as mention his name.

The Professor knows--can't help but know with the ability to read thoughts. Mine are crystal clear, even to myself. He is still there, inside me, part of me . . . and I'm clinging to him desperately as he fades away.

I cried to the Professor once. I awoke from a nightmare . . . and for the first time in a year it wasn't one of his. I felt like I'd lost something--some little bit of myself that had become tied up in suffering through his pain. I clutch every bit of him that is left to my heart, refusing to let them go.

I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. But I have to keep fighting--I have to try. Because after the little bits of him that are left fade away .. .

They tell me I'm growing to be pretty. I'd like to believe them . . . but I've seen in my head what he thinks is pretty. He has a thing for redheads. Mature women.

Women like Jean.

I'm just a little girl to him. If he did come back . . . I could never have him like I want to have him. Even if I were capable of that kind of love--I know better than to think he'd seek it with me.

So every time a bit of him fades away, I come out here. No one follows me--they humor me in this. I stand out under the stars and stare up at them. . . and I cry. Every day there is less and less of him inside me, and the agony of these nights, under the stars . . . it grows.

I miss him.

The wind comes, blowing my hood back from my face and caressing my skin like no human can do. The wind is coming from the Northwest tonight.

Where he used to be.

I can't feel him anymore. I've tried . . . but he could be in Mexico or Europe or on another planet for all I know. All I have left is the warmth.

I breathe in deep, imagining that the wind is coming from where he is. Imagining that I can feel his scent on the wind, carried across the border and the city, wrapping itself around me.

Praying that I can figure out how to hold on to what's left of him inside me, before I lose him completely.