Shit. Rima always acted like a mom towards me. I prayed for mercy as my phone's ringtone belted with Rima flashing on the screen.

"Hey girl, long time no see!" I quickly announced.

"Don't play that shit with me! Why do I hear you sleeping around? From JACKASS?!"That's what she called Tadase.

He loved her. He used to take her places. Bought her huge valentine and birthday gifts. Shower her with compliments. She was the pretty soprano singer to him. She was funny. I knew he told me all the time for 3 years before we dated. I knew I was closer to the third choice for him. I went to a concert he sang in once. He gave an ornamental fan once for graduation that his mother made him give me. I was pretty one time at prom. I was a so-so alto singer. I was punny in a bad way to him.

"So what? I'm sleeping with a random man," My anger burned through my words. I bit back the harsh words that tried to launch into the air.

"Amu. . .," Rima quietly sighed. I assumed searching for the right words. "I don't know what's wrong, but you need to talk to someone," My anger rose. The air vaporized around my skin. I let her continue. "I'm serious. I know you can handle yourself and you're doing what you want, but. . . This isn't you," Any composure I had previously showcased shattered. I was so tired. I didn't know what exactly. The situation I keep finding myself with Taylor, my ex telling me hollow worries of my safety, or my best friend repeating these worries to me hours away. Inserting herself in a life she has no part of. I couldn't handle it anymore.

"Well fuck Rima! I spent half the year with a man who treated me like a hidden hobby! I'm sleeping with a man that hides me in his house from his roommates, because I know it's Kairi in the other room playing with the dogs, while I'm being played with on the other wall! Making sure he doesn't find me being a common whore! But, somehow I'm the person who doesn't know what I'm doing! I'm the only person who knows! It's always I need help with you people! Who the fuck I'm suppose to talk to huh? You left and in case you forgot I don't have any fucking friends, because they all left me! Tadase made sure of it. So who am I supposed to talk to huh? So don't get all righteous with me for talking to him. Even if he doesn't care about me, I'd rather talk to a fake relationship than face the music that I destroyed my relationships with people. Ok?" The phone was silent. I could feel the indignation emitting through my screen and billowing into the room. I wanted to apologize, but I spent years helping her. Making her happy and I wasn't always the best. Now I needed help and she was talking me down like a young child recklessly skipping school. I didn't need it. Not everyone had her perfect relationship, some of us knew better than to expect to have something so juvenile and fantastical.

"Amu, what have you been doing?" She sounded hurt and shocked, mostly concerned. My anger had simmered down. However; I wasn't ready to continue this conversation.

"Not drugs," I hung up and annoyingly tossed the phone on the carpeted floor. I snatched my house keys and allowed my emotions to allure me outside. I found myself half across town and the sky had taunted me with its joyfull white puffs and bright blue blinding me mellowed to a purple and red swirl. It's own intensity confused my thoughts and I went home before dark.

I didn't know what I was feeling anymore. I saw the warm yellow leaking through the windows of my home. My family was probably eating dinner and watching tv. I wasn't ready mentally for that interaction. I had taken residence behind an oak tree sitting there staring at the ground as I used to do as a young child.

I needed to focus on myself and get myself straight. It seemed too big of a task, so much had bottled up. I let my mind drift through the loud thoughts beyond the anger, the disappointment, the fear, the hatred. Deep past those it was a young silence. I drifted through the dark like a calm lake bobbing me further into my consciousness.

I couldn't remember anything very well anymore. Much of my memory had split years ago. They were fragments that in rare events I could find and piece together. I had remembered being this way before once.

I was a child. Twelve or so, I remember It was morning. The mist had obscured the space around me. The air was wet and cool on my young skin and the bark of the oak was rough against my back pulling on my shirt. The water was thick in the air like breathing in a rainstorm. Ahead of me sat a metal fence that was placed haphazardly attached to exposed cement blocks lining the yarn, keeping me closed in. Beyond the twisted metal wire was a dirt road abused and neglected with deep holes sprinkled around. The holes were filled with old water dark and opaque. I had skipped school and by this time it was almost noon. The sky was grey and threatening rainfall. I had been staring at that space in the dirt path for hours unmoving. The event replayed inside my mind the whole time.

I had woken up early to take the trash to the street. It was dark still and cold with a faint wind. My neighbor emerged from his home slowly shuffling down the path. He was family to me. My parents had split long ago and he was the father figured I was purposely neglected from. He was an uncle to me. Taught me soccer, and tried to teach me to ride a bike. He brought food often and solved puzzles with me.

He had been experiencing the worst migraine and was rushed to the hospital after he collapsed and his head exploded from the pressure in his head. A tumor had been growing in the back of his brain causing the pressure. Diagnosed with brain cancer he had returned home and tried to stay safe. He walked slowly and trembled a lot. It pained me greatly to see him in such pain with no family.

That day I had approached him asking if he wanted me to get his mail. It was all the way down the path and we lived at the end of the path. He smiled and rejected my offer and I let him walk away. I went inside to finish getting ready then I heard sirens. I rushed to the screen door seeing an ambulance In front of the yard behind the oak tree blocking my view. I couldn't go there and disrupt them. So I waited for them to finish and leave and I rushed down the path. I knew he worked at the mechanic shop next door to us and I asked his boss what happened. The boss had tears in his eyes and fought to get the words out. My neighbor had collapsed again on the way back from getting the mail and was dead on arrival.

Now what was the path in front of me sitting behind the oak tree he laid dead for who knows how long till the ambulance came and I didn't know. This man who taught me things and kept me safe was gone.

My memory faded away and I began to float through my consciousness. I came to staring at the ground again behind an oak tree. Dark had fallen and I finally arose and went back into the house. I sat in my room after retrieving my phone from the floor. Rima hadn't called back or messaged me, but someone else had. I watched my phone in confusion as his name shone on my screen.

Ikuto: Hey