Chapter Thirty Five

Wasting In My Lonely Tower

Everybody found out.

"What were you thinking?" Yuri asked through gritted teeth, bashing the rolling pin against the bag of ice. I made a face at him from my horizontal position on the sofa. I rolled my eyes to look at my hand as it lay on the table, white bandages already muddied from my hurried run home, a little sodden in the rain. Groaning, I stared at the ceiling, the raised eyebrows of the nurse flashing across my brain. She hadn't really asked many questions but I'd seen the hurried scrawl as she flittered back and forth getting bandages, and the hastily opened emails I slipped out the room. I knew exactly who she was emailing in such a hurry. She'd probably been told to report any and all injuries.

"Yukimura is going to have a fucking field day with this," I murmured.

"Oh, and Tsubame won't?" Yuri growled. "The paint we could have dealt with. It was paint. But this?" He reached over the sofa to pull at my uniform, forcing me to look at the slowly browning stains. "This is a problem." I snorted. He looked like he wanted to throw the ice at me but instead he lifted my legs and slid onto the sofa underneath them. I winced as he took my wrist and pressed the freezing bundle into my knuckles. Silence reverberated in the space between us. Finally he sighed.

"I'm going to run out of ice if you keep this up." I smirked, settling back into my lounging.

"So how did the tracking site take it?"

"Oh, they're freaking out," he said, glancing at his phone on the table. "Trying to figure out how to use this to get you expelled." I pulled a face. I could feel it vibrating almost constantly by my feet. I wondered what the consensus was – would they make a folder of all my transgressions? Present it to the School Council? The Chairman? The Governors? If they had any sense, they'd send it to the Bitch Aunts and my life would be over. Luckily they didn't appear to know about that. I twitched my fingers, feeling the burning under the butterfly stitches. Yuri rubbed my palm and repositioned the ice, leaning back. I closed my eyes. I'd probably angle for destruction of school property, if it was me. Which it wasn't. Hopefully I could use Dr Yukimura as a character witness or something, although I imagined that her reports were already circulated to the relevant parties. I groaned.

My phone burst into life, the tinny tunes of Ed Sheeran startling us both. I rolled my eyes to look at it as it vibrated across the table. Yuri hooked it with his foot to pull it closer and leant forwards to see the caller.

"Don't answer it," I instructed him, glaring at the ceiling. He raised an eyebrow.

"You don't even know who it is."

"Really," I snorted. "Not many people have my number. It's not gonna be you. So that leaves Yukimura, who I don't have the energy to talk to, or an aunt, who I never have the energy to talk to."

"Or the club," Yuri murmured. Something got tight in my chest. I tried to roll off him but he gripped my legs and gave me the look. I hated that look. It was the look that we needed to talk when I clearly did not want to talk.

"No." I wriggled in an attempt to extricate myself. "I'm not doing this."

"You have to talk to someone at some point, Katya."

"I've got that damn therapist, haven't I?" I muttered. Yuri made a derisive noise.

"Yeah, because I'm sure you talk to her about everything." His eyes flickered to the journal lying forlornly on the floor, abandoned in fury halfway through the entry. I covered my eyes with my free arm. I hadn't been able to get the words out. I couldn't find the strength to write down that I'm losing my damn mind because I'm being haunted by the obsessed psychopath that I shot through the damn face. I looked at Yuri's face, unsuccessfully hiding his worry and frustration. How could I tell him when I couldn't even tell a notebook? How could I say, without appearing insane, that I just wanted Jai to leave me alone.

"No, I don't think I will."

I jumped, yanking my feet away from Yuri, who stared at me with wide eyes. I knew he wasn't there. I knew that. But his voice echoed in the room anyway, mocking me, laughing. Go away, I thought desperately, leave me alone, leave me alone. I gripped the sofa and tried not to hyperventilate. It wasn't working. Blood rushed in my head. I was vaguely aware of Yuri asking me what was wrong and I just shook my head. What was wrong? What was happening to me? Jai had succeeded in his quest. I was broken. I was losing my mind. Words to dismiss it caught in my throat. I felt Yuri's hand on my back as I stared at the floor, trying to breathe, trying not to throw up. My whole body was shaking. My lungs fought the air I tried to suck in and my heart was pounding so hard it was a wonder my ribs could keep it contained. My skin was burning.

"Look at you."

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block everything out.

"I'm pathetic." Yuri didn't answer me but he pulled me into his family's signature bear hug and suddenly I was crying, sobbing into his shirt, and I wasn't entirely sure why.

I curled up under my blanket, staring at the steam that curled lazily from the mug placed amongst the piles of discarded paper and half-read books. It rose like some sort of sleepy dragon, curling around itself as it writhed through the cooler air, and then dissipating like a dull dream after awaking. My room felt like it was looming over me, walls dark and way too close; I burrowed further into my furry nest, trying to ignore the stack of still-ruined stuff in the corner, piles of shredding clothes and ripped books, covered half-heartedly with a ruined sheet. There was still a wooden cover blocking the evening light from streaming in through my window and it smelt of the paint that covered up the scratches. My room was healing too. Why did everything remind me of him? He was ruining my life. I might as well have not killed him. Why did I never learn?

"Stop it," I moaned, pulling the blanket over my face and retreating even further into the hot soft darkness. I could hear Yuri murmuring in the next room, his voice low and urgent. If I lifted my furry coverings, my eyes tracked him back and forth past the open door, pacing in the kitchen with his phone pressed to his ear, his face plastered with worry. Not worry. Bless his heart, he was terrified. He looked more scared than when she'd been laid up in that damn hospital bed. I curled into myself more, hearing the crinkling of the bandage on my shoulder, feeling the pull of the stick-on stitches on my wrist. I was falling apart in every single meaning of the word.

"Feeling a little down, English?"

I shuddered, hugging myself, blocking out his faded chuckle in the back of my mind I could almost feel a weight on my bed, could almost see the sadistic smirk on his angular face as he lounged. I tried not to move, irrationally afraid that in the dark, somehow he was there. My lip hurt as I nibbled on it, trying to distract myself from my overactive imagination. I wondered who Yuri was talking to. I hope it was maybe just his mum or Sayuri, but I knew better. It would be Dr Yukimura or maybe even an actual doctor. I glared darkly at nothing. It had better not be Kyoya but as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I knew it probably was. They had better not stage another freaking intervention. I thought about yelling profanities at him, but I didn't have the energy. I was too tired. I was so, so tired. I decided I was going to live there, in the comfortable world of my bed. I was never going to move again. Why should I? School was too hard. I couldn't fight this. My ghosts followed me wherever I went and this one was particularly persistent, tormenting me in those moments of silence. I just wanted him to stop.

"But it's just so much fun!"

"Go away, you prick," I hissed.

"No, I don't think I will."

"Maybe I should dig you up and kill you again!" I threw the blanket off me and it sailed through the imaginary presence, hitting the wall and falling into a heap at the end of the bed. In the corner of my eyes, Yuri looked up sharply. I didn't know if he'd heard me but my chest was burning. Not from fear, or panic, but fury which curled down to the pit of my stomach. Fuck Tsubame. Fuck the paint. Fuck the other students and the tracking site and the teachers and the rumours. And most of all fuck Jai. He wasn't going to win. I wouldn't allow it.

"Not again," I growled. "You won't break me again."

"Good." His voice echoed as Yuri hung up, grabbing his own tea to come and join me in my cocoon of recovery. "I was starting to get bored."