Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ A Day ❯ A Day ( One-Shot )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

A girl sits alone in her room, having just got out of the shower. Her glasses are stained with tears and her dark brown hair hangs down her back in wet curls, her bloodshot eyes shining in the light of her computer screen. Every so often, she sniffles - her tears have stopped momentarily, but they could start again at any second. Memories are rushing through her head - every memory she had of him. This was it - the straw that broke her back. Hell, it wasn't even a straw - it was more like a tiny little piece of bird seed, like those little round tan ones that the sparrows seemed to like so much.

It was like Rika said in X-Day when she confronted Polaris on the roof - it wasn't just one big thing in life. It was all the little things that built up over time. Well, in her case, the girl thought, it was both - other people might not think so, but she was far past the point of caring. She was thinking now, rubbing her eyes every once in a while as a bad headache built up at the left front side of her head, up behind her eye. Sometimes she idly wondered if it could be a brain tumor - she had actually welcomed the morbid thought once in a while. Now she didn't care about that either.

"There'll be a day..." she said to no one in particular. "... a day when I won't cry anymore."

She couldn't say it. She had been on the phone with him for two and a half hours and she couldn't say it. All she could croak out was "I like you a lot" before breaking down and crying into the phone. She rubbed at her eyes again - the headache was getting worse and she wondered if she should go get some Excedrin. But no... Her parents were downstairs and they would ask questions if she came downstairs in a towel with her eyes bloodshot. A heavy sigh escaped her lips as she stared at the computer screen, as if it would give her some kind of brilliant vision.

"There'll be a day..." she said again, possibly talking to her computer. "... a day when I'll stop shaking."

The face of Sanosuke Sagara gazed back at her - he had been her friend, confidante, and companion, for almost five years. Sure he gave lousy advice, but he was always there for her - she had ruined a keyboard or two, crying on them. Finally, the headache got to be too much. She decided to go and brave her parents - bullshitting was always the way out - and she sighed again as she got up from her computer chair.

Ouch! The girl tripped over something on her floor - the room was dark because her ceiling fan's bulb had blown out two days prior, so she couldn't see what it was. She didn't care much anyway. On her way downstairs, her dad asked her how she was feeling. "I'm fine" was her standard answer, so "I'm fine" was the answer given - it was accepted and she trailed down the stairs in her towel. Her mom was in the kitchen and there was a freshly-cut apple on the counter, so the girl took a slice, chewing the juice out of it as she headed for the cabinet. She held the apple and juice in her mouth as she popped the Excedrin in along with the fruity mush. On her way back up the stairs, her mom admonished her that medicine was not a substitute for a proper diet.

"There'll be a day..." the girl said when she was back in her room. "... a day when I won't care what other people think."

She thought of her so-called "friends" at her anime club and felt a slight pang of anger. Though they always denied it, she felt like they treated her like shit. She was the rear end of the group, a screwy combination of little sister, comic relief, whipping boy, mascot, and pet. Everything had been fine for the first year that she had known those people - they had taken her in and cared about her and been there for her. Then it was like her novelty wore off and she was just tiresome. Oh well... That was how it was in every social group she had ever been part of. Always the same, like the big electronic fads at Christmas, maybe a Furby - at first, she was hot stuff, then when they figured out they couldn't turn her off, they got sick of her.

They were never satisfied with her. If she wore miniskirts and was her normal cheerful, affectionate self, she was a whore and begging for attention. When she ditched the skirts and started coming to club in jeans and whatever shirt was clean, trying not to speak much, she was being "emo" and begging for attention. The president felt like she acted like she owned the club - this had come as a complete surprise to her. These people got on her case for everything from the clothes she wore, to the way she acted, to the school she had gone to, to the area of town she was from.

"There'll be a day when I..." she paused to think. "... when I won't let people make me into their bitch."

Her thoughts turned back to him - the one who had caused her tears in the first place. She loved him. He wasn't her boyfriend, and she knew people would say she was crazy, but she loved him. Hell, she had only ever seen him face-to-face once, but ever since then, they had talked on the phone almost every day. She almost couldn't wake up without the sound of his voice - he called her from work nearly every morning, even if it was just to annoy her into getting out of bed. A bad twinge from her headache made her shake her head.

Then her mother barged in on her. It just WASN'T enough that she already felt lousy. She didn't CARE if she had a convention to go to in two days - she was beginning to not care if she went at all. But no, her mom had to come in a root through her closet for something. Part of a costume that the girl hadn't been able to find the day before - obviously she wouldn't be able to find it now, and like she said, she didn't care.

"There'll be a dayy when nobody'll bother me anymore," she muttered.

Augh! Her headache was just getting worse. For a moment, she curled up in her chair and pressed both hands to the aching region of her head - it didn't work. But her thoughts turned back to him anyway... Every single time he had made her smile was slowly playing itself through her head. She had a picture of the first time they met - she'd had a thought once that not many couples had a picture of the moment they met. But what couple? They weren't a couple. In fact, she hated that picture - her hair was frizzy and her skin looked yellow. Her dress had been beautiful though - it had been her senior prom dress and she had picked it because it looked like Princess Serenity. Hmph... It was a size 2 and she probably couldn't fit into it now anyway, the fat bitch that she was.

How could she have ever possibly asked him to have feelings for her? Probably for all the reasons she hadn't tried - she was loud and annoying, too independent yet clingy, not pretty enough, all the usual. She wanted to throw up. He could never have possibly loved her. That nearly brought tears to her eyes as she thought of one day... One day when he had actually said "I love you." But he hadn't meant it - the words were said while they were both in hysterics, laughing at something they couldn't even remember now.

"There'll be a day when I won't be afraid to say 'I love you'..." she said quietly.

She reached for the "toy" she kept by her desk - everyone thought it only shot pellets.

"That'll be the day that I die," she said, her voice hardening.

Her face hardened into an icy non-expression, her eyes becoming cold as uncut emeralds.

"That day is today."