A plain white envelope lies on a table, a sharp contrast to its fancy surroundings. It is addressed, in small, neat writing, "To the world, so that everyone may know the truth."
Dear Everyone,
Ever notice how strange first impressions are? They're quite often wrong, and yet everyone seems to rely on them so much.
Most people's first impressions of me are the same. Popular, beautiful, rich; I'm the girl who has it all. Always smiling, cheering people up, always happy no matter what happens. I'm the one person most guys would give anything to go out with and most girls would give anyone to be. I'm the perfect girl with the perfect life.
But it's all lies.
I've built up a mask of lies, lies that have completely obliterated the truth, lies that make people believe I'm a perfect, smiling girl. Once I even had a reporter ask me, "What's it life to be the perfect girl with the perfect life?" I told them, quite truthfully, that I wouldn't know, since both myself and my life are far from perfect. Everyone thought I was just being modest.
Ironic, isn't it? I spend my life telling lies because people find them easier to believe than the truth, and people think that the closest to the truth I've ever come is just me being polite about how my life's better than theirs. See? Ironic.
They only see the good parts of my life. The rich, beautiful, popular part. Of course, they all know about my parent's deaths, and my injury a few years ago, and then later on the breakup, but it's easier for them to look past all that and just see the good things, the stuff that they wish they had. Isn't it funny how everyone else is so much better at seeing the good stuff in my life than I am?
I guess unless you know me, the real me, which you probably don't, then this letter might be a little confusing, and I suppose it's better to start at the beginning than the end. So here it goes: the story of my life. The story of Kagome Higurashi, a girl whose heart was broken again and again, until she couldn't take it any longer.
It all started when I was fourteen years old. Up until then, my life wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn close. I had a loving family and real friends who truly understood and cherished me. I loved my family more than anything else, my mom and my dad and even my kid brother, Souta. My friends came in a close second, though I spent a lot of time at home. I liked watching Souta best and though I went out to a couple parties, I was mostly a stay-at-home gal and never even got a boyfriend.
A couple of months after my fourteenth birthday, my life shattered into a million pieces, and my heart broke for the first time.
My parents dies in a plane crash, on their way back from a business meeting.
It was so sudden, and unexpected, that at first I thought it was some kind of cruel practical joke. When I realized it was real, it felt like the world was falling apart. And in a way, it was. My parents were my world. To have them suddenly gone, taken away without any notice, was just too much to bear. But I didn't cry. I couldn't cry. I had a lie to live.
So I smiled for the cameras, and waved to everyone, and lied. Lied about how I'd accepted that they were gone, and that no amount of wishing would bring them back. Lied about how I was ready to move on and live my life. Lied about how I'd shed my tears, lied about knowing that they were in a better place, lied about being okay. Lies. All lies.
I wasn't okay. I hadn't accepted that they were dead, I hadn't shed all my tears, and I never would. How could they be in a better place? What place could be better than right here, watching their children grow up? How was I supposed to move on, when I kept expecting to hear my mother singing as she made dinner, or my father chattering happily away about the stock market things that only he and Mama understood?
But that wasn't what the press wanted to hear. They didn't want to hear about a girl having a breakdown when her parents died. That was usual, boring, unexciting. What they wanted to hear was how perfect little Kagome Higurashi was dealing so well with her parents' deaths, how she was being so mature about it, how she was adjusting perfectly to her new foster family with one of her father's closest friends and business partners.
So that's what I told them. I told them everything they wanted to hear, instead of every thing I wanted to say.
Souta and I were with one of my father's friends, since we didn't have any close relatives. He and his wife had a daughter, Kikyou, who was my age and uncannily similar to me in looks. But she was snobby, always acting like since my parents died, I wasn't worth anything to anyone, and we didn't get along at all.
My foster parents (I had forgotten their names, so I only called them 'Mother' and 'Father' for lack of better options) loved Souta, but for some reason or the other, they didn't like me. Maybe because Souta was adorable, whereas I was fourteen and a half and disagreeable. Or maybe it was because Souta didn't really have any memory of our parents, and was quickly able to accept them as his family, while they were never family to me.
Whatever the reason, they never liked me very much, and they made it perfectly clear. They never beat me, but they were bad enough in their own way. They hardly ever let me see Souta, and when they did, he was war of me. It hurt me to see that they were making my own brother afraid of me.
I remember being lonely, having no one to talk to or laugh with. My foster parents and Kikyo avoided me whenever they could, leaving a room with me in it with comments like, "We'd better leave. Don't want the little orphan to ruin our conversation." They always thrust that word, orphan, in my face, like a swear word. They never called Souta an orphan, perhaps because he had accepted them and I had not. I used to tell myself that I didn't want their love, but sometimes, when I was very lonely, I used to wish that something would happen to make them love me, love me like they loved Souta, love me the way my parents did.
When I was fifteen, my heart broke for the second time.
My birthday passed with little celebration, only a small party with some business people I didn't know. The excuse for the reporters was that though I "was no longer grieving for my parents' deaths," I still had to "get used to large crowds of people, many of which knew my parents." The real reason was that my foster parents "didn't want to spend too much money on the ungrateful orphan brat."
Anyway, a few months after my birthday, we were out horseback riding. I was still fairly new at this, and Kikyou was teasing me, about how I was never going to be as good as her because I was an orphan. I was completely illogical and stupid, and I don't know why she got to me, but she did. I yelled that I'd race her back to the stables, and took off before she could protest. She easily caught up to me, and placed her horse in my path. My horse reared up in surprise, and I fell off. When I landed, I heard a sickening crunch, and felt pain sear through my arm, before I fell into blackness.
I was only out for a few minutes, because when I came to, I was lying on my back on the ground, with everyone standing over me. I barely had time to register this before pain seared through my arm again, and I had to put all my concentration into not yelling. I heard someone, probably a doctor, tell my 'father' that if I wasn't taken to a hospital, I might die from loss of blood.
My 'father' looked at me. I looked him right in the eye and didn't look away, even though the pain in my arm was nearing unbearable. I though that this was it, the moment when they realized how much they really needed me, how they could love me just as much as Souta, and I wouldn't have to be alone anymore. The pain in my arm was now almost blinding, but I still gazed steadily at my 'father', waiting for the kind words, the apologies, the "I-was-so-scared-we'd-lose-you" speech that every child wants to hear from its parents.
The pain must have been making me delusional, or maybe I had gone slowly insane after months of being left alone. In either case, it was foolish, wishful thinking that my foster family would ever love me.
My 'father' gave me no kind words. Instead, he shrugged and turned away, uttering the words that broke my heart again, the words that I can hear inside my head to this day, the words that will probably echo inside my head as I slip away, as the world fades to blackness and life fades from me.
He said, "Go ahead, let her die. What's one orphan, more or less?"
At these words, a hundred emotions ran through my head. The first was disbelief. I wanted to believe that I was hallucinating, that when I woke up I would see my foster mother and father hovering over me, worried. But I knew it was true.
The second emotion was anger. They had no right to hate me! I never did anything to them! It wasn't my fault that my parents died, I hadn't wanted it to happen! All I ever wanted was for their love, for them to stop hating me for something I hadn't done. And gradually, anger gave way to sadness, and the realization that no one cared about me. My parents were dead and my hew ones hated me. No one would ever care about an orphan, even if she was smart and beautiful and rich. No one would ever love me again, not even my own brother.
Slowly, the sadness swelled to heartbreak.
I guess someone had decided that it would be bad publicity if I died, because when I next woke up, I was in a hospital with a cast on my left arm. The nurse who took care of me pretended to care and be sympathetic, saying things like "You poor dear" and "I'm so sorry", but I could tell that all she wanted was for her shift to end so she could leave. This only strengthened my new belief that no one cared about an orphan, and no one ever would.
Then when I was sixteen, I met Inuyasha.
We met at some business banquet. Inuyasha's father was the CEO of some company that my foster father wanted to merge with. I had stepped off onto the balcony partly because I was bored of all the business talk, and partly because I didn't want my 'father' showing me off to his friends as his "beautiful foster daughter, Kagome,' like he had at so many other parties. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't hear him come up behind me until he spoke.
"You're Kagome Higurashi, aren't you?"
I can still remember the way he looked that night on the balcony, with the moonlight shining on him and illuminating his unique and beautiful features: silver hair, warm amber eyes, those adorable puppy dog ears that marked him as a half-demon. Startled by his apearing so suddenly, I could only nod.
" You're the perfect girl, the one whose parents dies a couple years back and dealt with it overnight, right?"
I nodded again, wondering where he was going with this. He came to stand beside me. I could feel his warmth as we looked over the vast lands that my 'father' owned. I f I concentrate hard enough right now, I can still smell the night air the way it was that night, fresh and pure. Just one of the many experiences I'll never have again.
Abruptly Inuyasha said, "I don't believe any of it."
I looked at him, too startled to speak. Did he mean what I thought he meant? If he did, I was amazed. He was the only one to see past my mask of lies. Everyone else had always just swallowed what I told them, believing it to be true because it was what they wanted to be true. I asked him what he meant.
"I don't believe that you're over their deaths already," was his answer. "It took me years before I was over my mother dying. There's no way you're over both your parents dying this fast."
I thought for a moment, debating whether to hide behind my mask again or to entrust my truth to a boy I had just met. My instincts from the past year told me to tel him the lies I had so carefully constructed, but some part of me also wanted to trust him. Finally I said, "It's what they want to hear. They want to hear about how I'm dealing with it wonderfully, so that's what I tell them."
He was silent for a moment, just staring down at the fields below us. "If you only tell people what they want to hear, it's usually not what you want to say." he said.
We looked into each other's eyes, and somehow I found myself telling him everything. I told him
about how my world died with my parents, about the lies I built up around myself, about how my foster family didn't love me and never would, because I was an orphan, with no family, and no one would ever care about me again.
There was another moment of silence. I was a little worried. It was the only time I had ever told anyone the truth. What if he didn't believe me? Then Inuyasha looked straight at me and said, "I care about you."
And I believed him. I had only met him that night, and yet I believed him. He gave me my first kiss on that balcony, and from the moment our lips touched I knew that I was in love.
Within a few weeks we were going steady. The media had a field day once it learned about our relationship. A lot of people thought that it was just a business promoter, since both of our fathers were CEOs. But we really were in love. At least, I loved him, and I thought he loved me. I was wrong.
When I was seventeen, my heart was broken for the third and last time.
My seventeenth birthday party was less of a party and more of an excuse for my father to have another business banquet. After the speeches were made (Inuaysha and I both snorted at my 'father's, in which he said that he 'was never more proud of his adopted daughter, whom he loved like his own') I had to excuse my self to use the bathroom.
When I got back, Inuyasha wasn't there. I thought that he might be at one of our favorite places - an old tree near an abandoned shrine on my 'father's land, where we used to sit and plan our futures together. Sometimes he went there to be alone. I figured that I would go see where he was, just so I knew, then leave if he wanted to be left alone.
As I got closer to the tree, I heard Inuyasha's voice. I was about to go talk to him when I realized that he wasn't talking to himself, h was talking to someone that was with him.
"...you'll be a beautiful woman, and the best cook in the world. We'll have a huge mansion. Five - no, ten times as big as the one you have now. We'll have a thousand acres of land, and a thousand places where we can sight and watch the sunset.
"And children?" asked a voice that I recognized as Kikyou's. I wondered why Inuyasha would be with Kikyou, hoping that this wasn't what it sounded like...
"Oh yes, we'll have lots of children," he said. There were giggles (Kikyou's), followed by silence. I looked around, hoping against hope that it wasn't what I thought it was...
...but it was.
Inuyasha was sitting under the tree, with Kikyou in his lap, kissing her with more passion than he'd ever shown me.
I must have gasped, or sobbed, or made some noise, because suddenly they both stopped kissing and looked up at me. I was on my knees with no memory of having fallen.
"Inuyasha...how could you do this? I thought you loved me..." I didn't understand what was happening, and didn't want to. Inuyasha was the only person in my life who cared about me. This couldn't be happening, and yet it was.
"Ha! Me, love you, a miserable little orphan wretch?" Inuyasha snorted. I can still remember the venom in his voice, and it still brings tears to my eyes. "I only went out with you to get closer to Kikyou. I never felt anything for you!" He turned to leave.
"But...Inuyasha, wait!" I was stunned. This couldn't be happening. Had the past year, all of the kisses and embraces, all just been a lie? "Inuyasha, don't leave! I need you! I can't live if you're not here for me!"
He just smirked at me. "So? Go ahead and die. What's one orphan, more or less?"
My heart didn't just break. It had broken two times and couldn't break anymore. It shattered. It shattered into a million pieces, like a jewel, but this couldn't be repaired. I needed someone else to help me, and there wasn't anyone left who cared.
Inuyasha just turned around, picked up Kikyou, and walked away, out of sight, out of my life, taking my love, hope, trust, and the shattered pieces of my heart with him.
It's been a year now. A year since the breakup, a year since I had to deal with the millions and millions of reporters. I lied to them like I've been lying for the past four years. I told them that it was fine, if Inuyasha wanted to be with Kikyou, it was his choice, and I didn't want him staying with me if it made him unhappy.
That, at least, was partly true. I didn't want Inuyasha to be with me and be unhappy. I wanted him to be with me and be happy. I wanted him to love me, to look at me the way he did when I was sixteen, to look at me like I was his world and no one else was.
When did that love go away? When did it stop being about me, and start being about getting to Kikyou? What made him love her more than me? I loved him more than she ever would, more than anyone did! What did I do to deserve this? What did I do to make the world hate me, and take its love away? What did I do to be left out in the cold with no love to warm me?
I've been asking myself these questions for a year, and the pressure's built up. They say that time can heal everything, and you just have to wait.
Bullshit.
The longer it was, the more it hurt. I eventually moved out, because I couldn't stand Inuyasha and Kikyou looking at me with those smug looks. I went back once a month to visit Souta, but I've lost hope. The way he looks at me would break my heart if it hadn't gone past that point already. He looks at me with fear, like some strange thing that's invaded his life. I'm afraid that my foster family is taking out their anger on him since I'm not there. He flinched once when I raised my hand. I would try to get custody of him, but I'm only eighteen, and they would turn me down anyway. Nobody wants to help an orphan.
Everyday the ache grows bigger. Every day is another day without my parents, without Inuyasha, and another day that Souta is with those people. Every day is another day alone and in pain. Sure. I have some friends, but they don't know me. They only know the smiling girl with my name, the one who's always cheerful, without a care in the world.
Every day is another day when I have to come home and face my apartment. It's pretty nice, since I've got a lot of money I inherited, but it's empty. It doesn't feel like home. Home is a place where I can go, exhausted, and there's always someone there to comfort me and hold me. Home is where I can cry and not be ridiculed for it. Home is where I can be me, in front of everyone, and not be shunned. I want a home. And every day is another day when I don't have one.
Every day is another day where I have to go out and face the cameras. The reporters aren't as bad as they used to be, but I still have to lie and smile. God, how I am so fucking sick of smiling. I've been smiling for the camera for four years now. I've been through tragedy after tragedy, faced heartbreak after heartbreak, and always I've been smiling. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of lying so that people can hear what they want to hear and be happy. I'm sick of hiding the truth because it would distort my web of lies. I'm sick of smiling.
So there it is. The truth. All of the events that lead me to do what I am going to do today. Now everyone will know what really happened, will know that all my smiles were pretend, and that they never noticed.
You know, I still wonder about that. For four years I smiled a fake smile, and no one noticed. For four years I pretended to be okay, and no one thought to suspect otherwise. Why? Was I that convincing? Were my lies so tightly spun that no one saw past them to the truth?
Maybe. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe someone would have seen, if they had looked close enough. But why didn't they? Why was everyone so content to stop at first impressions? Did no one bother to look close enough to get the impression of a broken heart?
I will ponder this, even as my soul spirals down into darkness, and I slowly depart from everything that has caused me pain. My foster parents, Kikyou, Inuyasha...I will never see them again. My only regret is that I could not save Souta from them...but perhaps whoever finds this letter will help him for me.
And please, don't grieve too hard for me. Shed a few tears, and saw a few words, maybe plant some flowers for me...and then forget.
After all, what's another orphan, more or less?
On March 15, 1995, Kagome Higurashi was found dead in her apartment. It was her eighteenth birthday.
Her letter was found on the table beside her, along with an empty glass and a bottle of sleeping pills. The funeral service was held a week later. Kagome's foster family, nine-year-old Souta, and Inuyasha all came. Not one of them shed a single tear.
Her tombstone was a stone angel. Carved on the base was her name only, no date of birth or death. A few flowers were planted around the base.
Upon investigation, it was discovered that Souta's foster parents were abusing him, and he was given to another family. When he was eighteen years old, they showed him Kagome's letter and explained what had happened nine long years ago.
The next day Souta took a hammer and chisel and visited his sisters grave. The words that he put there that day are still visible, carved somewhat clumsily under her name. The tombstone now reads:
Kagome Higurashi
A girl who died because no one looked close enough
To get an impression of her broken heart
A/N: Wow, was this super-angsty or what? First, I have to thank whydoyouneedtoknow, who unknowingly gave me inspiration for this story with that line in chapter 19 of their wonderful story Living with Danger: One Mudblood more or less, what does it matter? (Lucius Malfoy)
That line inspired the heartbreaker line that is so often repeated in this one shot, and really the whole story stemmed from that line.
And now for symbolism. I hope you all caught that allusion to a shattered jewel? If you didn't, then you obviously aren't a true Inuyasha fan. Anyway, that was the obvious one. I chose her birthday as the Ides of March for a few reasons. First, we know that when the series starts it is Kagome's seventeenth birthday. I'm pretty sure it was spring (but I might be wrong - in any case I'm too lazy to go find the first episode DVD / manga right now. But she was wearing a miniskirt, wasn't she? It can't have been too cold. I wonder what Japanese girl's uniforms are in the winter? Or does it not get cold there? Sorry, getting off topic.) And also, Caesar was killed on the Ides of March when he stabbed 27 times. While Kagome's heart is hurt only three times, I still think it's a good birthday for her, considering it led to the same thing.
And that's all the symbolism that I used. If you spot anything else, please let me know in a review, although I assure you it is purely accidental. I'm not smart enough to put too much thought into my stories. I just write whatever comes into my head and - voila! - I have a fanfic.