Hinata wished things were different. That was a broad and blanket statement. There were so many things that it encompassed.
She wished that her childhood had been happier. That she had her mom, or that her father was warmer, more loving. That she didn't feel like she had to compete with her little sister over grades, test scores or extracurricular activities.
She wished that she would've spoken up for herself when she was younger. She wished that she didn't let her friends push her around. That she didn't just quietly go along with what Ino and Sakura wanted, without ever voicing her own opinion. She wished that Kiba and Shino didn't have to do it for her, or she wished that they never did it at all.
That was where the confusion began. A spider web of decisions. For example. She desperately wished that she could've told Naruto how she felt sooner. Before he had already started dating Sakura. Before he himself had latched onto someone else. It wasn't fair of her, to finally admit it then.
She wished, then, that she could've just kept it to herself. She didn't need to give him a Christmas gift and tie all of her feelings onto it, dumping them onto him, making them his problem. She shouldn't have done that. Not when she knew he loved someone else. It was emotionally manipulating. It was unfair to him.
To Sakura too. Not that Sakura herself had every been a model friend to Hinata. But someone else's actions excused hers.
The bottom line was; Hinata knew that Naruto was in love with Sakura, that Sakura had finally agreed to start dating him, and she still chose to confess her feelings to him.
She had been wrong.
One of her big regrets.
Naruto, with all of his faults (and many redeeming qualities), was kinder to Hinata than she deserved. He told no one. Not even his new girlfriend. Allowing Hinata to stay in their friend group, unbothered. Even by himself, who treated her just as normally as he always had.
She wished he hadn't either.
Seeing him every day after that was just another humiliation after humiliation. She started to withdraw from herself. She didn't want to hear about what kind of boyfriend Naruto was at sleepovers, how he kissed or how "stupid" he was. It was like listening to people complain about their children to someone barren. It was just one consecutive heart break after another. She didn't go to Prom. She didn't go to the after-graduation party, after a front hand witness of Naruto proposing to Sakura.
She didn't want to be in that town at all.
At home her father was hounding her about SATs, ACTs, finals, college applications, her grades. Every encounter, every family dinner, every time she spoke with him was another pile on top of her emotionally warped shoulder that could not bear the burden.
So, she left.
Promising Kurenai, who seemed to be the only person concerned about her literally running away from her problems, that she wasn't doing exactly that. "Lots of people take a gap year." She had hugged Kurenai tight, kissing toddler Mirai on the cheek and she had left.
She didn't come back. Not for Naruto and Sakura's wedding. Not when she had specifically been invited.
She regretted that. She wished that she hadn't been selfish. That she could've been the good friend that she wanted to be. That she could've been there, smiling and supporting them.
But she didn't.
She met Toneri Otsutsuki. He was tall, and young, young for a CEO. Definitely older than her. She applied for an internship, when her savings had dried up and she still wasn't ready to come back.
She didn't know it at the time. She didn't suspect anything about him. But she was the perfect victim for him.
She was pretty enough. Kumo had a weird thing about her eyes, that she never understood, even after living there for a decade. Her pedigree was better than other's even if she was foreign. She had been educated correctly to not embarrass him when taken to important functions. She knew the differences between the forks and spoons and when to keep her mouth shut.
She had isolate herself, for him too. Not knowingly. It was just the icing on the cake for him.
Toneri Otsutsuk was a Sociopath. Undiagnosed, for the entirety of their union. It wasn't until a court appointed doctor had done an evaluation on him that validated what Hinata had already figured out, years ago, from first hand observation and WebMD alone.
She was the perfect target, for all those reasons, and an extra one.
She didn't care.
She didn't think to care that him sleeping with her when she was his intern was inappropriate. She didn't see the red flags when he asked her to move in with him only after a couple weeks. She didn't question his marriage proposal after less than a couple months.
When her friends, Kiba and Shino and Kurenai voiced their concerns, she didn't question how angry Toneri got. Didn't question his explanation that they were trying to push them apart. Didn't question his displeasure of her keeping in contact with them, and decided to limit it on her own.
The first time he had hit her even, she had excused him. She knew she deserved it.
Because she was using him.
Using him to take her up time. She didn't love Toneri. She loved that he kept her busy. That he took her to new places. That he got her little gifts. That he bought her alcohol when she was still too young to do it herself. That he overlooked her use of prescription medication, later in their marriage when his rages and abuse had escalated.
She regretted everything.
Then, her own little sister, her baby sister that used to check file folders for her previous elementary school test scores to see if she had beaten them, (she usually had) had to take care of her. In the hospital when she was being fed through an IV because her throat had collapsed, her head had over one hundred stiches keep the skin on her scalp held together.
She regretted that Toneri hadn't just killed her.
She regretted crawling back home, an adult failure, back to her father, back to her summer job she had in high school, back to the place she had tried to leave behind. It was like she never left. Except she had come back worse. Worse than a pathetic eighteen-year-old. If she thought she was pathetic then, it didn't hold a candle to what she was now, ten years later.
Then, there was Naruto. Naruto, who had been a shining success so far in life. Naruto who, somehow, thought there was an ounce of potential in her, used his own money to front her business. She wished that she said no. That she had just kept her head down and worked at Hyuga Hotels until she died of boredom like she deserved.
She wished that she didn't order those coats.
That she didn't recant her statements.
That she didn't go out with Kiba.
She wished that she hadn't drank anything.
She wished that she hadn't invited Naruto.
Hinata had crouched in her shower, as soon as she got home, the water as hot as it could go. It made burning red marks on her skin. She threw up several more times, letting it go down the drain. She sat there, hunched on her feet, holding her legs into her chest, until the water ran cold.
She put on the most comfortable clothes she could find. A thick turtle neck and joggers, with wool winter socks. Over kill for her the spring weather, but her body felt sick, her headache felt shattering. She crawled into bed, pulling up all over blankets, wrapping them around herself.
Then she cried.
She clenched her eyes tight, but that was worse. She could just picture her night with Naruto like she was watching a movie.
He gave her his coat when they went for a walk. She stumbled one too many times, until he laced his arm with hers. She felt the comforting fog of inebriation, it was so easy to smile and laugh at everything Naruto said. When it got to be too late, he got a cab for her, saying that she should head home. She had grabbed him right on the collar and pulled him down, the height difference was significant.
Their mouths slammed together without ceremony. Hinata could've melted like goo. Naruto tasted like vodka, but also something new. Something that made her stomach twist, like it always did when she saw him, but this time not painful. Exciting. Invigorating. He tasted like the way he smelled, when they had sat too close getting coffee. He tasted like something she wanted to have over and over and over again.
They got into the cab together instead.
She had hardly let him talk once they entered his town house. She couldn't get her mouth off his. They stumbled in, almost knocking Shinachiku's science fair project off a table adjacent to the kitchen. She dropped her purse in the hallway, kicked off her shoes. She tugged at Naruto's shirt.
"Are you trying to take advantage of me?" He had asked. Teasing.
She had giggled back into a sloppy kiss, pulling off his shirt, kissing down his chest, pushing him onto the bed. Her hands dropped to his pants, pulling at this belt.
Hinata didn't have a lot of experience initiating sexual advances. Or in doing them as willingly as she would've liked. So, even though her years married should've given her some perceived skills, she felt like an inexperienced teenager.
It's not like he had to work too hard to figure out what she was doing once she dropped to her knees.
"Holy fuck." She could hear him whisper, mostly to himself, looking down at Hinata devastatingly, like watching a natural disaster but enjoying it.
She could feel her cheeks warm, at the assumed compliment, but didn't look away this time. Her eyes locked with his and she watched him bite his lip painfully as she finally took him in her mouth. His hands came up into her hair, brushing up the side of, his fingers moved to grab a fist full. She tensed, waiting for him to pull or yank, but he didn't. Instead his fingers flexed, like a deliberate attempt to not pull and stead, rubbed down her temple, letting his fingers rethread through. Almost like he was petting her but not demeaning, more loving.
It didn't last for very long. Not that he didn't. He grabbed her only after a few seconds. Maybe minutes. Time was a little fuzzy. He grabbed her onto his lap, pressed hot, open mouth kisses onto her. Both of them tugged her dress down, frantically, tripping it off and dropping it off to who knows.
That's not what she was thinking about. What she was thinking about was Naruto's hands on her chest, the way he kissed her neck. The way she felt to grind on him. Straddling him. Riding him.
Hinata pulled herself up in bed, crushing her fists into her eyes sockets. He must think I'm such a skank. A whore. She sobbed. She sobbed and cried until she got sick again.
She tried to sleep. She was exhausted. They had gotten very little sleep the night before. After a while, her eyes hurt to cry anymore. Her head ached with a hangover and the weight of the world.
She knew where she had to go.
She did not want to go.
Alcoholics Anonymous.
Synonymous with shitty coffee and cigarette smoke. And members that should really just take their own ass back to Narcotics Anonymous and stay there.
Though famous, or infamous, it was not that statistically successful. They say, forty percent of people stop attending after only a few meetings. It is estimated that only ten percent of alcoholics "recover" or retain sobriety from AA, though AA itself boats a whopping seventy-five percent. AA stating that the twenty-five percent were "not using the program effectively".
Hinata thinks that Kurenai was right. That this whole thing is ridiculous. She has never like AA. It made her uncomfortable.
Usually older, men, with worst life experiences than her own. A lot of mentally ill people too, that she thinks deserve more psychiatric help. A lot of the aforementioned drug addicts that are there to check off the boxes. To go because they are supposed to.
Like her. It feels like something he has to do. At least to say that she did it, if her therapist is so keen to ask. A check mark off a box that she completed.
The therapist she no longer has. But she had lost control. Lost a handle on things. So she comes here.
But…
If she could really be herself. If she could say the things that she wanted to say.
She would say that the whole program is complete bullshit.
The First Step, forces the person to admit that they are powerless over alcohol. The Second, ask the person to accept a higher power, and it will restore their sanity.
Kurenai was right. The whole thing is bullshit.
But there she is. In a turtle neck, sweatpants, and wool stocks sticking out of her tennis shoes. In the back row. Her hair, dried weird in bed, had to be put into a bun, her bangs decided to do their own thing. She let them.
She'll sit in the back row, and attend her meeting. Say the things that she's supposed to say. So that maybe, in all the ridiculousness, she'll find the peace.
There's a ten percent chance, after all.
The meeting is started with a prayer. Always. The Serenity Prayer.
"God," The voices in the room echo, dozens of alcoholics join together as one mass, a mass, of everyone.
And no one.
"Grant me the serenity. To accept the things I cannot change."
But, when someone drops down next to her, in the furthest back row, when there are dozens of empty chairs, she knows that her own personal peace has dropped down to less than that.
"The courage to change the things I can."
Because she knows the man who's sat down next to her. The man that had played a key piece in her misery of that last couple days.
"And the wisdom to know the difference."