Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Scar Tissue ❯ A Memory ( Chapter 4 )

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Part 4

I felt sick to my stomach. I don't know if it was because of the pills, or because I forced myself to eat those pancakes, or because of what I was feeling. Maybe it was all three. I just sat there and let my mind wander as I stared, transfixed, at the drops of blood on the floor. My blood. My blood that I had spilled. As my mind continued to drift, I found myself thinking back on the time that I had come closest to letting my guard down, and telling someone the truth….

I slouched into the dorm room Heero and I were sharing and threw my bag down on the floor in a huff. I flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. It had been an incredibly bad day. I heaved a world-weary sigh and rubbed my face with both hands. I was not going to cry. Boys don't cry, especially not over something as pathetic as a "bad day." I couldn't even put my finger on any one thing that had me in such a state. It just seemed to be everything and nothing. I had moved through the day on autopilot, feeling unbelievably disconnected from the people around me. And it wasn't just because of the glaringly obvious fact that I was an undercover Gundam pilot. As I looked around at the other students, listening to their inane chatter, I got the distinct impression that I would have felt isolated from these people even if I had been just another so-called "normal" student.

Everything was just weighing on me. I felt like I was drowning. I felt empty, alone, scared…. I was feeling so many things that I just couldn't explain. Sometimes I wondered why I didn't just explode. It was all just too much, and I couldn't even say for sure what "all" was.

I looked at my forearms. There was a scattering of long pink scars on the white skin. My own handiwork. In my opinion, there were more there than could easily be explained away as accidental scratches, but apparently no one else thought so, since no one had ever asked about them. It was only recently that I had started cutting there, in a place that was so visible, and I had continued to wear my shirtsleeves rolled up, almost daring anyone to ask, to care. But no one did. Sometimes I thought I'd give anything just to have someone ask me if I was okay and mean it, so that I could spill everything. Most of the time, though, I was terrified of anyone finding out.

My chest felt so tight, filled with inexplicable pain. My left food was tapping rapidly against the mattress, a nervous gesture that reflected how restless I was. With another world-weary sigh, I sat up, and then nearly fell off the bed in fright when I saw Heero sitting at his desk. He had apparently been there the whole time, his attention completely focused on the textbook he was reading.

He must have heard me come in. Why hadn't he said anything? I thought my actions had spoken pretty loudly about me being in a less-than happy mood. He could at least have asked if I was okay. I thought back to my musings of only a moment before, and suddenly I desperately wanted him to ask me that question, wanted to spill my guts to him as I had never spilled my guts before. First, I had to break the silence.

"Hey, Heero, didn't see you sitting there. You studying?" I asked in a near-monotone, purposely leaving out the false joviality I usually projected. Ask me, Heero, I silently begged. Ask me if I'm okay.

"Hn," he said. Okay, so he wasn't going to make this easy. I got to my feet and went to stand just behind him and a little to his left, looking over his shoulder.

"Trigonometry, huh? Got a test or something?" Not exactly sparkling conversation, but that was the message I was trying to convey, after all. That something was wrong. Ask me, Heero. Please, for the love of God, ask me.

"Hn," he said again. I had to resist the urge to shake him. I was in pain here, how could he not notice? Sure, I still acted the clown for the most part, but for weeks, months even, the mask had been faltering, cracking, becoming more and more transparent. At least I thought so. It had gotten to the point that I honestly didn't know how even a complete stranger could look at me and not immediately know that something was seriously wrong. But here was this guy who spend a lot of time with me and was supposedly maybe even a friend, and he didn't seem to have a clue! Was he really that blind? Or maybe he just didn't care, was that it?

Frustration and pain that had been building up for a long time came roaring to the service. I rubbed my hands together to keep them from shaking. That was it. I had to tell him, someone, anyone! I couldn't go on like this. It was too hard. He was my friend, wasn't he? He would care, right?

Drawing a shaky breath, I opened my mouth for the third time: "Heero, I -"

He suddenly turned in the chair, eyes ablaze with fury, cutting me off. "Damnit, Duo! Do you want something? Otherwise could you just shut up! I have a lot of work to do and your chatter is distracting me!" he snapped.

My eyes went wide as saucers as he glared at me. He clearly wasn't interested in anything I had to say. My resolve disappeared. "N-no, Heero, I don't need anything." Satisfied, he turned back to his book. I just stood there for a moment, feeling stunned. But I quickly started to fidget again. Suddenly, I had to be anywhere but here, and I was feeling a very familiar need. Grabbing the little travel shaving kit that held my razor blades, I gave Heero one last sad look and then made a beeline for the bathroom.

I gave my head a slight shake, bringing myself back to the present. Crap! The time! I looked at my watch. I had to meet the others in less than ten minutes and I was sitting on the bathroom floor, holding a wad of toilet paper to the deep cut I had just inflicted on my arm, and reminiscing on painful memories from the past. I shook my head again, and tried to focus on the situation at hand.

First, I lifted the blood-soaked tissue and examined the gash. Damn, it was deep enough to require stitches. That just wasn't going to happen, so a bandage would have to do. I shifted away from the cupboard door enough so that I could swing it open and grab the first aid kit. It was awkward bandaging the cut with only one hand, but I'd had lots of practice and managed to get it done pretty quickly. I then hurriedly mopped up the few drops of blood on the floor and put away the razor blade. Last of all, I took stock of myself in the mirror. I still looked and felt pretty high, but the others hadn't noticed before so it was unlikely that they would now. Experience had taught me that I was the clown to them and nothing but. I was dismayed to see that my hands were shaking, but hopefully no one would notice that either. Plastering my grin on, I ran downstairs to meet them.

They were all waiting for me in the foyer, Wufei and Heero looking pretty annoyed at my lateness. Quatre and Trowa seemed too wrapped up in each other to care, though. We piled into one of Quatre's vans, Heero taking the wheel. The trip into town for party supplies was pretty uneventful. I let the energy pills do their work, chattering incessantly about everything under the sun without really saying anything at all. Even Wufei's mutterings and Heero's death glares couldn't shut me up. Okay, so maybe they hadn't changed all that much. The whole time, though, I could feel the sharp sting from my fresh cut, and I would often unconsciously pat it with my hand, as if confirming to myself that it was really there and not just a figment of my imagination. Maybe I was doing it because I didn't really feel as if I was there, like maybe I wasn't a real person, and the pain proved that I was. Weird.

I was a bit more subdued on the trip back out to Quatre's estate. I could finally feel the effects of the pills winding down. They were intense, but they didn't last for very long. We had finally finished bringing in the last of the stuff we'd bought when another van pulled up to the front gates.

"Oh, great!" Quatre exclaimed. "The others must be here!"

TBC