April 25, 2002

By Yashira

(Author's note. To prevent confusion, when you come to a block of text that's entirely in italics, that's someone's else thoughts. *wink, wink* Let me know what you think of this chapter. J Thanks for the reviews, I needed it to be pushed along. J )

Connection 5

If I were to tell you what I feel, would you believe me? Would you understand the words? The medium? The very essence that I'm trying to convey.

I…

Feel….

Terrifying emptiness.

A hollowness that is so stretched beyond feeling and emotion that it snaps when the slightest of pressures pushes down on it. A rift, a chasm… an overwhelming sense of space that engulfs me and shatters my dying heart into broken fragments… like the Shikon no Kakera that I used to search out with him. I can not cross this pit of despair. For fear or denial, this distance between us grows. I can form no lasting bridges. I can make no firm connections. I can not ever offer that false sense of hope I once held to see your face again.

Everything is broken.

Pieces of my life are like cracked remains of broken glass laid scattered around me. In each facet, like a mirror's eye, they distort and throw back accusing images of a lover's embrace and a girl- a girl all alone- watching from a grievous distance. Abruptly I cry out, as my fingers bleed from where I've cut myself when I thoughtlessly reached for one such fragment of glass. That was foolish of me and careless. Like a broken piece of glass that can no longer form itself anew, I can NOT have what I see. I can not take what I want. I can not come between him and Kikyo. It is….

Forbidden.

I knew it from the start and I foolishly turned a blind eye because in my weakness, with that heart that loves so unconditionally, I could not simply leave him. I wanted what I could not have. I followed with hopes that I could be with him and be happy… but I was miserable. I was so horribly miserable and I constantly felt as if someone was trying to wrench my insides out with a dull pair of pliers. Each and every day, it cut at my heart that I could not be the one to make him happy… that his mind and his thoughts were always on the one who came before. This love I felt for him, this love that still beats inside me… hasn't died, but I ca not be there any more for him. This pain was too much to handle and I'm only 15. I'm not even out of school, I'm not old enough to drink, I'm not even old enough to drive. It wasn't right to keep me feeling this way… it wasn't right!

And like a solid piece of glass I broke myself to sever our connection.

Pieces of him and me… reflections of what we were, what was, and what could have been are no longer relevant. He stood there when I told him I was leaving, his face shielded by his white hair, and HE LET ME CROSS over the well. He knew what would have stopped me… he knew and he let me go anyway. He let me go… and thus his choice was made.

God, I want his face to leave my thoughts. I wish it so hard that I can hear myself crying in my dreams even now because his face… I still long for it! I don't want it to go on anymore! I don't want to see his face haunting my dreams when I can't wake up next to him. Yet, I can not stop searching for him, because in my dreams he stays with me. In my dreams he chooses me, chooses life… in my dreams he's mine.

…but when I wake up.. I wake to a nightmare.

Nothing is the same any more. This chasm… this rift which I made to protect myself, to keep me from calling his name, goes on for miles uncounted. It snaps and twists if I so much as try to stretch out my trembling hand. It can not be mended because this is a rift formed by my pain and fear. It is so immense that I do not believe that it is ever possible to connect the two sides. I do not dare to want to connect the two sides. It would have been better to be…

Alone.

What was that saying? Better to have loved and lost and never to have loved at all? The person who coined that phrase was an idiot. I hate this feeling. It is better never to have loved at all if all I'm going to feel is a shivering emptiness so horrifying that it clings to the roots of my very being and won't let go. This feeling bleaches out what little remains of my festering broken heart… why did I ever allow my self to care? … to love?

Because I am human. It is my nature to care, to nurture, to reach out… It is my nature to love… someone who can not love in return.

Fear. Abandonment… betrayal? I'm suddenly terrified. I've crossed the distance of time and space and yet I'm anxious. Kagome came here! She came home because she –had to- wanted to get away… from me? My nerve fails me and my body aches with unknown trepidation. Do I truly know what needs to be done … what needs to be…

I stop, frozen on this side of the well, my limbs paralyzed as if someone has reached down and chained me with the strongest of metals. I have never felt fear like this before. It's so mind numbing, so mind consuming, and so overwhelming that it will not let go of me. I came here for her? Yes… I must keep telling myself, but why am I frozen? Why this sudden foreboding?

I turn over in my bed, hugging my pillow close to my shivering body, as I open my eyes slowly. Wasted tears, even now, have slid down my damp cheeks and the pillow is salted with them. My heart still hurts from those words… my heart still beats its shattered dance. You know I must go…. I told him that and the scary part is that I meant it. I meant every word I said. I rather be alone and that's the awful truth. Better alone then with those who are not truly there. They hide in shadows, like false painted figures whose true colours show only when the rain pours down.

I think I was put on this earth to be a watcher… a waiter… someone who sees, but can not touch… someone who longs, but can not have. I'm not here to be loved… I'm here to be his support and if that's so then I'm just here to be alone… alone…

It's so easy to say it to myself that I want her to come back, that I want to see her smiling face, but when I try to tell that to her… When I try to tell myself that's what she wants to hear, I find out that's not enough. How could I fool myself thinking that was enough? BUT THEN, WHAT DOES SHE WANT? SHE WANTS...

Me.

I can not… I am unable to… give that…

I stop outside her window, staring up at the tree that I usually climb in from. Kagome… I swallow as if I can't breathe and I stagger against the tree as if someone as punched me in the stomach and tore up my body with razor sharp claws. Frozen! I can't MOVE! Where went my resolve…? Where went the conviction that I must get her back, must bring her home? Why can't I climb up the tree to her room?

If I go up there and she says she "hates" me and tells me to go away, what will I do?

But I can't let end it like this. I know I'm a coward when it comes to this stuff and that I let it drag on, but if I love her I must let it end properly. I must allow it to end… I must…

… climb this tree.