I wish I owned something, but I clearly don't

Summary: Marie has always kept secrets. Ever since she was a chiled she'd had them and repressed them.
When she leaves college as an acomplished woman, Marie's roomie Jess convinces her to go travel, but it doesn't tak long for it all to go to hell in a handbasket.

Oxford, Mississippi

On a single bed, in a small dorm room sat a young woman. Her green eyes were glued to the pages of the book in her hands, while a small frown marred her forehead.
Her long brown hair stood in contrast to the two white bangs that framed her face.

"Seriously?" The question surprised her and made the green eyed girl look up from her book and at her roommate.
"What?" she responded to the girl standing in front of her. Her accent was thick and native to the state. The roommate in question only sighed in response.

She was a tall athletically built female, with wild and curly black hair, and accent that clearly showed that she wasn't a native mississippian.

"Marie, we are done with the reading! Tomorrow is graduation day." She laughed while she grabbed the book out of the southern girl's hands and threw it across the room.
Then she pulled Marie by her gloved hands from the bed and shoved her gently in front of the mirror where two black robes hung.

"Feel it!" she ordered Marie. Marie choosing to indulge in her friend's insanity to avoid a falling out, grabbed the ugly robe in her hand. "
Yeah, an' what's so special 'bout it, sugar?" Her friend only rolled her eyes. Only Marie would be graduating college and not really give a shit.

"Okay, try for a second to pretend that you're a normal person, and be excited! The ugly robes are our symbol of freedom. The torment is over, and in response to that we are going out drinking tonight… heavily so we can look our worst tomorrow when we receive our diplomas, as a protest to the suffering we've had to put up with for the last couple of years."

This time Marie rolled her eyes. "Jess, you do know that I'm still underage. I'm only 20."

"A-bub-bub-bub!" Jess raised her hand to Marie in objection. "That isn't going to work with me missy! That has never stopped us getting wasted in the past. Besides, I'm older than you and therefore I'm technically your older dorm-sister here, and it is my sworn duty as an older sister that I make sure that you not only get hammered but also grab a few good butts along the way. And it's not my fault that you started college as baby."

Marie walked back to her bed and threw herself on it dramatically.

"I wasn't a baby, I was sixteen. And maybe you should stop breakin' the law, now that you're a lawyer." She protested annoyed.

"Potayto, potahto." Jess dismissed her with a handwave. She sat down on the bed next to her younger roomie and gave her a serious look.

"Come on, what's this really about Marie. Don't go all goth on me now." She half joked while thinking back to the day she met her new roommate.

Marie had dressed in all black and dark green, looking all angsty, pale and pissed off. Those first couple of weeks together had not ended well.

Later they had come to an agreement of peace, and after some heavy drinking and kicking a too hands-on guys' ass they'd been as close as sisters.

"Is this because of your skin disease?" Jess asked her carefully while watching for her reaction. She knew Marie had some disease that left her very sensitive to the pressure against her skin.

Another small frown marred her forehead. "No… Yes.. And some other stuff." She said sounding confused even in her own ears.

"Talk to me." Jess pushed, because she knew it was the only way she would ever get a response from Marie.

Suddenly, Marie sat up and looked at her more seriously than Jess had ever seen her.

"Sugar, we both know that you came to Ole Miss because you were itchin' to get as far away as you could from your family. And I came here, because my parents thought it was the easiest way to get their daughter off their hands, without havin' to pay a dime." She said, angrily thinking about the scholarship she had been offered, and that her parents had forced her to gratefully accept in order to get her out of town after the incident with Cody.

"We're your parents, whether or not you are a monster is up to the great lord himself to decide, so we will be merciful towards you until your day of judgement. Until that day however, you will cover yourself up completely. You will accept the scholarship offer as we'd been plannin' before this mess started, and after that, you'll never set foot in this town again."

The memory of Marie's mother's angry voice was interrupted by Jess nudging her foot lightly.

"Yeah?" Jess asked her. Marie pushed the painful memory away into a dark corner of her mind.

"I can't go back home, and you're leavin' for that big lawyer job back home in Boston. And lets face it, I may be a prodigy here in Mississippi, but out there," she said referring to the rest of the states "I'm just a kid. Nothin' more and nothin' less. You saw how hard it was for me to even get that stupid internship. Nobody would or could take me seriously. If it hadn't been for the Dean getting involved I wouldn't have gotten one." Marie said angrily but it quickly turned into sadness. "I honestly don't know where t' go from here, an' it's freakin' me out."

Jess' eyebrows rose a bit in realization. Marie was without a home or job to go to. "Maybe you should just go live in the wilderness for a bit," Jess joked but she quickly became serious again.

"Look Marie, maybe you should see this as a once in a lifetime opportunity. You have the freedom to go where ever you like without anyone or anything holding you back." She said with a look of yearning that made it clear to Marie that was exactly what she herself wished for.

"Now I know you may not have a lot of money, so like I said last week, you're always welcome to crash at my place once I get finished moving in."

Jess stretched out her arms "Now come on, hug it out and lets get hammered." Marie rolled her eyes at her, but hugged her carefully anyways and smiled into Jess' shoulder.

Ole miss U, graduation day

Marie stood in line with the other graduates waiting for it to be her turn to receive her diploma.

Her head was a pounding mess, her eyes bloodshot, but at least she could say that she wasn't the only graduate looking like hell.

Her eyes scanned the crowd in some stupid hope that her parents would be there on her big day, but after failing to locate them she just shook her head and ignored the the clenching feeling her heart gave her.

Her name was called, and she almost mechanically walked up stage, shook hands with people whose faces were familiar yet unknown and walked down again.

She stood in the back, a away from the crowd, thinking about her conversation with Jess the night before and realized that Jess was right.

Maybe she should go travel a bit.

Her bare hand clenched around the diploma. Now would be the perfect time to go look for others like her. People who were cursed too.

She knew logically that she couldn't be the only one, "Whether or not you are a monster is up to the great lord himself to decide…" her mother's voice came back haunting her.

No, she shook her head to herself, she wasn't a monster and she'd be damned if she'd let anybody else tell her otherwise.

Something inside her just snapped and she knew what she had to do.

She slipped away from the rest of the ceremony unseen, and headed back to her shared dorm.

She stood in the doorway and looked around at all the small knick knacks that she and Jess had gathered over the years and sighed.

She grabbed a large duffel bag from the bottom of her closet and started packing all her clothing into it. Toiletries were next on her list. Cellphone and charger were important.

Just because she didn't have a family any more, it didn't mean she didn't have people she cared about ...meaning Jess.

She walked over to her bed and lifted the mattress.

Every single dollar she had managed to save over the course of the last five years was there in a wad. Not that it was a small amount.

She hadn't really ever told Jess that she had been granted two scholarships in total, when she came here.

One to cover for her education itself, and one she had convinced a different foundation to donate to her, for her needs with her research and living arrangements in school.

She counted the money. The total was nine thousand dollars. She was actually surprised at how much she had managed to save.

She changed out of the robes and formal clothes in exchange for some black pants, shoes, a white cotton t-shirt and her favorite black leather jacket.

She stuffed the money into the inside pocket of her jacket, and took a last glance around the dorm.

"Well one part of my life is over… and a new one begins, I guess." She took a small piece of paper and wrote a small letter to Jess.

She grabbed her duffel bag and walked out the dorm room for the last time.

Marie looked out on the parking lot. It looked like a million cars had parked.

She just needed to find the right one. Now she hadn't ever actually hot wired a car, but in theory it shouldn't be a problem for her.

She just needed to find a car that was in a blind spot, so the building security cameras didn't pick her up.

She studied the cameras for a bit, until she found it. And groaned out loud. "Of course with my luck, there would be biker with his Harley in the blind spot. Probably waiting for one of his brats to finish up."

Now Marie had two choices, one; she could wait until he left his bike but risk someone coming back from the ceremony and see her steal the bike.

Or two; she could go over there fake an emergency, and ask him to contact a member of the faculty while she steals his bike. Why would you steal his bike Marie, you don't even know how to ride it… a male voice resonated in her head.

"Shut up Cody! The last thing I need is your crazy voice questionin' me damn it!" Great, just what she needed. Marie thought she would have been freed from his voice after he woke up from his coma a couple of years ago, but apparently wasn't.

Marie shook her head and looked towards the sky praying for strength.

You could just touch him, you know shortly. That way you knock him out cold, and you'll know how to actually drive it… and I won't have to worry about us dieing less than two feet away from the crime scene.

Marie's facial expression mirrored her feeling of surprise. It was actually a pretty good idea.

Yeah, I do get those once in a while… Cody retorted sarcastically to her.

Marie only rolled her eyes at him. Then it was settled. She started making her way towards the fat biker.

One would probably assume that her past experience with her powers and Cody would leave a young Marie terrified of using them.

One would normally assume correctly, however having been in college for the better part of five years, gloveless most of the time, she had grown used to small touches and "accidents" as she liked to call them.

Besides whenever they had happened, people had never given her a second glance,but blamed the dizziness on the stress of being in college, and the many burdens and responsibilities that came with the life.

Marie had managed to grow a bit more accustomed to her curse, leaning to control it somewhat.

She was standing right behind the fat biker now. She pulled of her left glove and touched his neck fat lightly… He went out as a light.

She looked around again just to be sure nobody had seen.

No one had.

She pulled op "Tom's" memories of driving and quickly saddled up.

She gathered the helmet in her hands with a cautious look at it. "Please don't be sweaty, please don't be sweaty, please don't be sweaty!" was her mantra before she put on the helmet…

She cringed.

It was sweaty.

Marie turned the key in the ignition, fired up the old Harley and sped out the parking lot like she was possessed without a second glance back and a specific destination in mind. "Alaska."

Kansas City

Marie didn't know how long she had been driving, because every second of it felt exhilarating and exciting, and for the first time since she had been cursed she felt free.

But the day had eventually turned to night and she was getting really tired and hungry.

And it didn't really help that she was still nursing the hangover from the day before.

A big sign Welcomed her to Kansas City, and she slowed down as entered.

Her eyes were everywhere, taking in the sounds, colors and people.

Everything was big and open, the large green areas reminded her a bit home, but the city was so clean, she was almost surprised.

As Marie reached the city center she stopped the bike.

She looked around a bit until she found a small alleyway that could fit the bike and it there. Just in case the fat biker Tom had reported it stolen.

She walked around town, exploring what little she could while searching for a diner og something that was open 24/7. She walked past a few closed stores until she came across a Mcdonalds.

"Seriously… oh well hangover food is hangover food." She spent half the night eating like a pig in McDonald's and the other half sleeping with smile on her face in a small motel near by.

A cute and young officer had pointed her to it while shamelessly flirting with her.

His partner, a middle aged man just sighed and rolled his eyes at the two. The younger police officer was easy on the eyes, and what could she say, Marie was a natural flirt, touch or not.

And she was good at it if the small piece of paper with his number on it in her pocket, was any indication.

...