Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Scar Tissue ❯ Old Friends ( Chapter 5 )

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Part 5

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

I quickly quelled a flash of panic. Crap! With the effect of the energy pills fading, it was becoming harder and harder to keep up my "normal" façade of the happy-go-lucky joker. It was only going to get harder with more people around. Suddenly I became aware of my new cuts itching again, both the one from earlier today, and the ones from a couple of days ago. Absently, I started to rub the bandage on my upper-right arm through my shirt as I watched the people start to pour out of the van.

Relena and Noin were the first off the van, giggling like schoolgirls. I raised an eyebrow, wondering what was up with them. They didn't usually act like that. They were followed by Catherine, Sally, and finally Hilde. As soon as she saw she me she ran over and threw her arms around me, and I returned the hug. Quatre used to tease me about Hilde and I being an item or something, but it was never like that between us. We were just good friends, and it really had been too long since I'd seen her, almost six months. I wasn't sure why I hadn't made the trip out to see her in all that time. She lived on the neighbouring L2 satellite to mine. I guess I'd been avoiding her, just like I'd been avoiding everyone else.

Suddenly, she pulled back, holding me at arms' length, and really looked at me. A frown creased her delicate features.

"Duo? Are you sick or something? You're so thin! And you look like shit run over twice!" she exclaimed, her voice dripping with worry. I blushed furiously. That's Hilde, blunt and to the point. I blushed even more as I realized that all the other conversations and greetings going on around us had fallen silent, and everyone was looking intently at us.

"I-I'm fine, Hilde. It's nothing," I stammered, uncharacteristically (at least to them) at a loss for words. Her frown deepened.

"Like hell, you're fine, Duo. Something's obviously wrong. You never weighed much to begin with, but now you're nothing but skin and bones. And you're so pale, like you haven't seen the sun in weeks," she retorted. Right about then, I was wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole. I squirmed under everyone's scrutiny. Suddenly it seemed hard to breathe, I felt so trapped. Unconsciously I rubbed at the bandage under my shirt again, as my eyes flicked nervously from Hilde to the others and back again. I was about to open my mouth and say something, anything, to end the awkward silence, but Hilde beat me to it.

"Fine," she said in a voice that signified that this was anything but over. "We'll talk later." She must have realized that this was hardly the time or place for this. Her face softened, and she pulled me back into a tight embrace. "I really have missed you, you know," she murmured in my ear.

I hugged her back, tightly, wincing slightly at the pain that it caused my latest cuts. "I know. I've missed you, too," I murmured in response. Slowly, the conversations started up around us again, though a bit more subdued than they'd been a moment earlier. I was exceedingly glad that the moment had passed. But I knew with a sinking feeling that sooner or later Hilde was going to demand answers. I had no idea what to tell her. No one had ever really asked before.

After all of the girls' bags were brought in and they were shown to their respective rooms, we all went to the dining room for supper. The meal was pretty much a blur to me. I really wasn't used to being around so many people. I had to admit to myself that I'd become sort of a hermit over the last six months. The earlier energy pill-induced giddiness was all but gone, and I was still reeling from the incident with Hilde earlier, so it was quite a struggle to be cheerful and chatty, like I was supposed to be. Maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed to me that I was getting a lot of funny looks from people, which was making me nervous. And I know for sure that Hilde kept shooting me worried glances. It was all giving me one bitch of a headache.

I tried to shake it off, and concentrate on the conversations around me, mindful of making wisecracking remarks wherever I thought they would be expected of me. Everyone was talking animatedly, clearly happy at the chance to get caught up. Relena, of course, was very busy with her work as Vice-Foreign Minister. Noin was the head of her security team. The two of them kept looking at each other and giggling, like they were sharing a secret. Catherine was now part-owner of her circus, and was greatly enjoying the business end of the organization, as well as continuing with her knife-throwing act. She proudly announced that when the ringmaster retired in a couple of years, he would be handing over the entire business to her. Sally was working with a refugee-aid society which was located, surprisingly enough, on the same L2 satellite on which I'd been living for the past six months. I hadn't even known. Hilde had started taking college courses. As the other former pilots filled in the girls on what they'd been up to, I deftly avoided talking about what I'd been doing, just as I had when we'd been talking about the same thing over breakfast. Once again, my evasiveness raised a few eyebrows, but nobody pushed the matter.

Finally, dinner was over. Quatre announced that everyone should go freshen up, and that the party would start in the "casual" living room (as opposed to one of the "formal" living rooms, of which there were several - rich people are funny that way) well, whenever everyone showed up there. I seized the opportunity to flee upstairs, much as I had after breakfast that morning. This time I headed for my room, shutting the door behind me and leaning back against it with a sigh of relief. Maybe coming here had been a mistake. I had had my doubts when Quatre had first invited me, a couple of weeks ago, but had finally given in. I did miss everyone, after all. But it was becoming increasingly clear to me why I had been unconsciously avoiding them. I was in no condition to be pretending that everything was okay, when it most definitely was not. I was just not up to this, any of it.

And it was starting to look as if the others were suspicious. It was obvious in Hilde's case, but the others were worrying me, too. Though there were times when I would have given anything for someone to notice, to see past the mask, to see ME, the real me, and care, most of the time I was still scared. Scared and ashamed. Man, they'd all been so oblivious during the war! I walked around with my sleeves rolled up, cuts perfectly visible on my forearms, and no one said a thing. I relentlessly played the joker, thinking to myself the entire time that it was a ridiculously transparent façade, that anyone would see through in a second, but apparently I was wrong. They all took the joker at face value. It had hurt, badly, that none of them seemed to care enough to look beyond the surface. But I had learned to more or less accept it (hadn't I?), and all of this… this concern was freaking me out. And no one besides Hilde had even said anything yet!

Shit, what was I going to do about Hilde? A small voice in the back of my head told me that I should do the smart thing when she finally confronted me and demanded answers: tell her the truth. Tell her all about the pain, the misery, the unbearable emptiness and loneliness. All about the inexplicable and undeniable need to try and get those feelings out, somehow, anyhow. All about how I hurt myself, mostly by cutting, but also by hitting, and on one memorable occasion, by burning my leg with a cigarette. All about how I can't explain why I did that, even to myself. All about the disgust and shame I felt, knowing I did those things to myself. God, the list of things I could tell her about was endless. But I couldn't do it. I knew I couldn't do it. I was too afraid. Afraid of the disgust I was sure she'd feel for me, if she knew all my darkest secrets. The disgust anyone would rightfully feel, knowing those things.

And how the hell was I going to make it through that damned party tonight?

TBC