He was a good kid at heart, as almost all of them at the mansion were. His reaction to the fire on the television was more than appropriate and Kealey nodded her head in agreement with his emotions, only pulling her eyes from the screen again when he spoke.

Kealey shook her head as Locke “enlightened” her about the fact that it hard to be confident. She wanted to chuckle too, but again she was worried the teen would think that she was laughing at him. The last thing Kealey wanted to was to damage his ego. That wasn’t her intention at all.

”You don’t have to tell me.” she said, going back to work on the salad she’d started making earlier. ”Not only do I have to deal with my own insecurities, I have to deal with everyone else’s too.”

Kealey didn’t point out that she’d spent her adolescence in a novice’s habit in a rural Irish church. The fact that she’d skipped puberty for all intents and purposes didn’t have any bearing here.

”Trust me kiddo. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. I can tell you’ve got a lot of good things rolling around in here.” she said, tapping a finger against the side of her head. ”Besides, you’re a good lookin’ kid when you’re not trying to hide behind your hair or in a pot of macaroni.”

”Oh man,” Locke uttered, not only in reference to the fire, which made the TV screen flood with more oranges, reds, and yellows than a Thomas Kinkade sunset, but also what Kealey must be forced to go through. Just his social ineptitude at times was crippling. Every teen is stricken with crippling self-doubt from time to time, no matter how confident they are. If just a handful of us students have days as bad as mine… How can she even deal with getting out of bed? Great, now he was feeling guilty about how he felt on a regular basis.

Though Kealey had not actually made any sort of physical contact Locke was as embarrassed as if she had. It wasn’t the comment about him having a lot going on up in his head, for he took that as the same old compliment of his practicality. He was admittedly dull and predictable, but on the upside he was logical and sensible. What made Locke want to squirm in his skin was that he looked good when not hiding behind his hair. How messed up do you have to be if such a compliment made you feel as hurt as if you’d been insulted? He had to hide behind his hair to look anything like a normal person. “No, I’m not,” he admitted. She would be able to tell what he was feeling anyways. To avoid having to say more Locke jabbed a fork into his second diner and tried to make the bite last as long as possible.

He felt for her, and Kealey was silently impressed with the teen. Few of Locke’s age were able to get a handle on what it was Kealey could do. Sure they felt sorry for her, but the level of understanding she could feel from the boy in the kitchen with her made Kealey tilt her head a little bit to the side.

Another feeling crept into Locke’s psyche and Kealey shook her head, ”Oh please don’t feel guilty. I’ve been doing this for a very long time. It’s not as bad now as it used to be. Most people just think I’m flighty and dimwitted.”

It was the truth, and Kealey had never held it against the people who felt that way. What else was a person to think about someone who was as impulsive as Kealey?

Her comment, or compliment, was not taken as well as the rest of the conversation…and that was saying something. The boy was mortified, and certain when he spoke, and then he dove into his meal like it would hide him more effectively than the hair he was so determined to use as a curtain.

”If you’re talking about your eye…I noticed it ages ago.” she said, considering showing the boy one of her two very large scars. She tossed that idea away quickly. With as uncomfortable as he’d been so far, that would simply make things worse.

”You know. Everyone around here thinks their either strange or weird in some capacity or another. If there’s any place you’re going to find people who look more than skin deep, this is it. Trust me. I know.”

She crossed her arms and maneuvered until she made her way into Locke's line of sight, "And it's not that bad."

She had seen it. Kealey was trying to pass it off as not that bad, but Locke knew the truth. His scar and his dead eye were more frightening then anything he saw in any of his horror movies. And it wasn’t all about appearances. If Locke did look normal it wouldn’t change the way he dressed. Clothing items would still be worn until they fell off of him. The Californian had no interest or money to follow the latest fashion trends. It changed way too often. So there was more then just the cosmetics behind his dead eye that bothered Locke. “Sometimes a scar doesn’t mean that the wound’s healed,” he said slowly and deliberately, weighing each word more careful then a jeweler would buying gold.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I know that I probably am not the most frightening person here, but my disfigurement and disability have nothing to do with being a mutant. This is something in addition to one social stigma, and really, it’s one I could do without.”

>>“Sometimes a scar doesn’t mean the wound’s healed”

Kealey stopped moving and maneuvering and simply stood, staring at the young man in front of her. Slowly, the blond nodded her head, ”Truer words were rarely spoken.” she said solemnly. ”The ones that people don’t see often take much more time to heal, and hurt far worse.”

They were speaking in vagaries now, but it didn’t matter. The message was getting across, and Kealey wondered if Locke had ever mentioned any of these things to anyone but her. He was opening up, just a small crack in his exterior, but it was still something. Kealey listened as he spoke more.

”I’ve got scars too.” she said, drawing a finger across her abdomen from the bottom of her rib cage to the bottom of her hip bone, then mirroring the action from the back of the top of her thigh to the top of her knee. Her shirt and pants covered them, and she rarely wore anything that didn’t. ”These hurt way more, though.” she said, folding her hands over the middle of her chest. ”They kind of stick there sometimes. Even when I think they’re gone.”

”And I wasn’t necessarily talking about physical nature Locke. Sure, that was part of it… but the people here really do understand. All of it.”

Kealey looked back at her salad and sighed, she’d really done well making the poor boy uncomfortable while he ate.

”And I know it doesn’t seem like it…but talking does help. I’m not trying to get you to tell me, if you don’t want to…I’m not really good at advice anyway, with as emotional as I get. But if there’s someone you trust…every time you talk about it, it hurts a little less.”

That was the problem. All those head shrinks that Kendra had him see, all those books that were suppose to be a guide on dealing with grief, they didn’t tell you what to do when the person who had died was the person you needed the most. Locke couldn’t find someone he trusted completely. Even the twins couldn’t be counted on entirely, and they were the most important thing to Locke. His dad got it, Kendra didn’t, and Tarin partially got it. The Californian put his spoon down and looked at Kealey with a blank and bored expression. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He had gotten a good amount of practice saying that, especially with that look on his face that said he was done with the matter. Normally people got the idea and moved on, though the psychiatrists always wanted to know why he didn’t want to talk about it, and how it made him feel. An empathy Kealey might be, and she might be an adult, but that did not mean that he had to talk about things if he chose not to. And Locke clearly was stamping a big red DENIED on that conversation and the possibility of getting over the things that bothered him so deeply. Instead he got more of the mac and cheese in his bowl. “That doesn’t make sense,” Locke said, “Why does being aware of other’s emotions mean that you’re not capable of leading or giving people advice? Nobody wants a cold and cynical leader, or someone who has killed off their emotions giving you advice on your own.”