One cut. Two cuts. Three cuts. The pain kept coming. Each one of Neji's words cut me. They dug deeper and deeper until I was bleeding from my heart. He loved, but not me. He smiled, but not me. He laughed, but not me. Each day I'd see him and Sakura pass by laughing, smiling, loving. I cried until I ran out of tears. He ripped my heart out, threw it on the ground and let it rot. Neji was once the quiet, gentle angel I knew him to be. He loved me, and I loved him, but that was over now. Now, he loved Sakura, she loved him. Over time he grew into a devil. He ignored me and only nodded when we sparred. My love for him is still there, but I don't want it to be. And that Sakura. That shitty Sakura. She stole him from me, just like the slut I knew her to be.
On Christmas day, after he had started going out with Sakura. I told him. I told him about my feelings for him. Nothing was worse than the reaction he gave me. He glared and walked away, leaving me in the snow to drown in my own tears. The next day I saw him with Sakura. They smiled like we used to. I waved and he turned away. Did he hate me? I thought so at the time.
After a while I gave up on being his lover for the time, and we were friends again. We weren't the naïve 13 year olds we used to be. He had grown up and found a suitable woman. I grew up too, but I still basked in the time we were young. I learned to be content with the way things were. Sakura was his lover, and I, his sparring partner. I told myself I would get him back someday and I thought that it would all be better. It was all fine until my 18th birthday. I had every one I had ever known at my party. It was all filled with laughter, smiling and love. Yes, everything was great until Sakura had made the announcement.
Ting, ting, ting. Sakura tapped her fork against a glass. I looked up from my seat at the head of the table.
"Neji and I have an announcement to make." Neji stood up too. My eyes turned to steel, this couldn't be good.
"Neji, why don't you tell them." She smiled at him, he smiled back. She blushed.
" Sakura and I have decided to get married." There were gasps all around. Then came congratulations. Tsunade yelled 'that's my girl' and winked. I hated it, but I stood up too.
I tapped my glass to get everyone's attention.
" Sakura, Neji, I wish the best too both of you. I...hope that…" The words wouldn't come out. The were clinging, begging not to leave my mouth. Tears started to prick at my eyes.
" you will have a great relationship." Hinata finished for me. "Cheers." she said. I lifted my glass and then remembered the times when we were together. Laughing, smiling, loving. My muscles contracted and I dropped my glass. The only thing I remember before I hit the ground was the worried look on Nejis face.
I ended up in the hospital and from there on my health got worse. I couldn't eat. I kept coughing. I slept more than half the day. I was loosing it and everyone could tell. The way my eyes were always clouded. My mouth turned into a permanent frown. I became isolated.
It was the day of Nejis wedding when I lost it. I died inside so I decided there was no reason to live.
They had invited me to come to the wedding, and I did go, but I wore black. All black. My eyes were surrounded by black to cover up the red of wasted tears.
The wedding was outside. I was planning to do it at the beginning of the wedding, but plans changed. It started raining, so they moved the wedding inside.
About ten minutes before the final words I got up and ran outside. I wasn't expecting someone to follow me, I was planning on the fact they wouldn't notice. Tenten would be gone and no one would care, the after the wedding was over. They would walk outside to the gruesome sight of a brunette girl, dead from slits on her wrists, soaked and cold. They'd cry and feel guilty.
But that didn't happen. Neji had followed me. He watched as I clamped my teeth shut, closed my eyes and slit my wrists. He heard me call out his name and he saved me. He saved me from a certain death. He picked me up and held me close. The warmth of his body seared my skin.
I'll never forget that night. Not because of the tragedy. No, but because Neji told me the three small words I needed to hear all my life.
"I love you." That night was the first time I ever saw Neji cry.
People flowed out of the chapel and someone called 911.
I sighed in relief when the sirens came. On that night, I fell asleep in Nejis warm arms.
Later when I was in the hospital Neji came to visit me. He told me things that put my heart to rest.
"Tenten,…., I need to tell you something." Neji looked at me solemnly. Then he turned his head away and sighed.
"What?" I rasped. The crying and screaming had made my throat raw. Along with the fever I caught and the stitches in my wrists I felt downright lousy.
"It's the reason. It's the reason I was with Sakura." He looked me in the eye and I nodded for him to continue. "Sakura had the choice of choosing Tetsunori, my older cousin, or me to marry. My parents wanted to join our companies. Sakura chose me to get back at you for being chosen as Tsunades apprentice. I didn't want it, but she insisted. I ignored you so you wouldn't get hurt." I smiled when he told me this. Then I cried in relief.
After that everything worked out okay. I don't know how but it did. Ever since then I smiled more than a billion times, I've laughed till I cried and I've loved ever since then.
The only thing that reminds me of what happened is the scars on my wrists.