Optimism Dreams: Jake's Journey of Success

"I am so sick of this!" I slam my fist on the table, and the other kids at the lunch table look over. They know how things are for me, but I still can't help myself from letting it out.

"Jake," Mom says quietly, "Please. You know how your dad feels about you swearing in public."

Dad's an old-fashioned guy, and he figures that if he doesn't hear a swear word, then we won't either. He doesn't understand that people say them all the time around us, or that we hear them on TV and stuff. But I don't have the energy to argue right now; I just want to eat my lunch in peace.

I take a bite of my sandwich and stare down at my tray. Even if Dad didn't care about what other people think, he'd never let me curse in public. He told me once that it was because "We're better than that," but I've never been able to figure out what that means. We both have powers, and we're just as much mutants as anyone else is. Why does he insist on trying to act like we're normal?

I bet Mom would be more reasonable about this stuff, but Dad's always running interference between us because she lets me get away with too much. At least sometimes she tells him to back off and leave me alone, but most of the time she goes along with whatever he says just to keep the peace. She worries about him too much - he tried to kill himself after Mom died, but now he's doing better than ever and acts like nothing happened. But I guess some things can stay hidden inside you forever, even if you're not a telepath or anything like that.

Of course, I've been getting into a lot of trouble lately myself, so they've got reason to worry about me too. I've tried talking to them about it when things get bad for me at school...but they never do anything about it except make excuses for everyone else instead of blaming them for treating me like garbage. I thought maybe Dad would show some backbone after Mom passed away...but no luck there either.

My parents had different ideas about how the world worked when they met back in college: Dad grew up with money and saw his father use his money and power to get ahead in life; Mom grew up poor with no abilities except her smarts and ambition...and eventually ended up using those gifts to become a rich CEO herself. So they had different ideas about how abilities should be used: Dad wanted a world where mutants had power over normal humans instead of being treated like second-class citizens; Mom wanted mutants to live in harmony with normal people instead of standing apart from them...or standing against them whenever necessary because it was easier than waiting for persecution to end naturally (and neither one of them wanted mutants to be persecuted). Of course these were just general ideas...Mom was more pragmatic than idealistic, sometimes you had to fight back hard before others could see reason; Dad sometimes didn't want to wait for people who used their influence badly to change their ways before fighting back against them (and usually ended up causing more problems than before).

Then Mom died...and suddenly Dad wasn't willing to wait anymore. Instead he decided that everything had gone wrong because normal people weren't willing accept mutants as equal partners in society...so every mutant needed their own little slice of the pie so they could all stand together and fight back against hate-mongers instead of working together with normal people who liked mutants fine as long as they stayed in their place. He started calling himself Magneto - which is ridiculous since Mom (who was a mutant herself) was the one who went by Magneto, but I guess he felt entitled because she left everything she owned to him instead of her family on Earth (where she grew up)...which meant that he could fund his illegal activities even if her family started investigating him after her death (nobody was really sure whether or not they were together while she was married).

I don't blame him for what happened next: A bunch of other mutants came forward saying that their parents had been killed by normal people (usually cops), so revenge seemed justified (at least according to Dad). And once you've started attacking the police and government agencies...well there's no going back from that point (not unless you want your entire group captured or killed). And now here we are: living underground because it's unsafe for us above ground anymore...and Dad wants me to join his cause too.

It's not like I'm super popular at school or anything - every kid is getting bullied eventually - but at least my parents believe in trying to fit into society rather than giving up on it completely and disappearing underground where nobody can find us again until civilization collapses completely (which they happen to be doing right now). It may seem hypocritical of me considering what I'm planning on doing later today after school - which is