This Star
Sorceress BladeRinoa Heartilly's polished black hair skimmed across the seat of the toilet. She coughed twice and leaned back against the tiled wall. Well, you did it again, she thought.
The sweet, loving, and almost stupid Rinoa had retired. Now her nights consisted of going out to a club, getting drunk or stoned, or both, and driving back to her Balamb home. As soon as she had reached home, she went straight to the bathroom and the hangover begun. It never lasted long enough to keep her from doing it again though.
Rinoa banged her head against the wall. She did this for a while, thinking maybe it would knock some sense into her nineteen year old head. Coughing, she stood up and dragged herself into her bedroom. She fell onto the bed and fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
Rinoa awoke to the sound of the phone ringing. She reached over and slapped a snow-white hand on the phone.
"Who are you, and what do you want NOW?"
"Rnoonan?"
"Speak LOUDER DAMMIT, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
"Rinoa? This is Squall. I'm arranging a meeting with you and Aurora."
"Who?"
Squall sighed though the phone and said, "Rinoa, our daughter."
"It's too early in the morning for this Squall."
"It's noon."
Rinoa leaned over and looked at her clock, shook her head, and responded with, "So it is."
"Are you drunk?"
"I was."
"Rinoa, this is why all of this happened."
"All of what?"
"You acting so immaturely. Now I know your father didn't raise you like this, and I sure as HELL know that your mother didn-"
"Squall, what did you want?"
"Rinoa, Aurora's three and still has yet to see her mother. At all. All she has of you are pieces of paper with imprints of the past on them."
"Not true! I saw her when she was eight months."
"Rinoa, she needs to see her mother."
"No she doesn't."
"Squall, I am on the verge of twenty nervous breakdowns, all at once!"
"What? Are you stoned?"
"No, I'm trying to explain myself. I do not want my daughter to see me like this, I don't want you to see me like this. I'm pretty damn sure I've fucked up both of your lives enough for one lifetime."
"Rinoa-"
"Squall," Rinoa cut in, "If there is one person I know who can raise my little girl to be perfect in every single way, it's you."
"Really, Rinoa?"
"Really. Now shut up, and let me get some sleep for christ's sake."
She hung up triumphantly, and never heard from either of them again for thirteen years.
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER
And so almost ended the dramatic monologue of my life. I was nineteen, I liked tripping on acid every night, and I had a part time job at the Balamb Restaurant. I stopped those habits, well, I still really haven't. I don't do much anymore though, I just stay at home, and think about what could have been. Stupid me, thinking I might just be able to raise a child at seventeen. SEVENTEEN.
Maybe if I had tried a little harder I would've kept up with my friends too. I lost contact with them after I left Garden, and so did Squall.
Yes, we did go our separate ways, and he got my daughter Aurora. He claimed that I would bring the girl up wrong if she was living with me, as I did go out every night and get stoned or something stupid. He went to Timber, my old home.
Selphie and Irvine married, I got invited to their wedding and didn't go. I was too busy, or something like that. Now they have a kid or two, I don't keep up with that anymore. One of them has my name for a middle name. I don't know why the hell they wanted to do that. Maybe they just liked the name Rinoa.
Quistis stopped instructing after a while, a dropout, like myself. We had some good times after she moved to Balamb and shared an apartment with me. We imported some angel dust, that was our big thing. For a while, Quistis wasn't motherly or anything. She was my best friend, and we kept in touch after she moved out. She went after Seifer for a while, but nothing ever happened between them. Last time I heard from her, she was in Deling, she was offered the job of managing the hotel, and then was offered to go to Esthar and be Laguna's secretary. She accepted, and resided in Deling, only leaving when she needed to. She always used to say she wanted to move into my old house in Deling, and she did after my dad died. I got the house in his will, and gave it to Quisty. That nickname still hasn't outgrown her.
Seifer, I don't even want to start on.
Fujin and Rajin left him a while ago.
Zell and the library girl are married and have two kids, a boy and a girl. Whenever they're in Balamb they offer a lot of hospitality and try to keep in touch out of the goodness of their hearts. God bless them. Why call her the library girl? Well, her real name is Kari but I think 'library girl' is kind of cute.
Edea and Cid also offered much hospitality, but never do anymore. Garden is their main concern, and things are still running nicely thanks to them, and Squall's generous donations.
Balamb has expanded in size. We've built some of our city over the sea that separates us from Galbadia. That's mostly the clubs and restaurants. The other expansion was over the sea that separates us from Trabia. That would be the more residential area. For shopping we'll head over to Dollet, or Esthar if we're desperate for something rare.
The main reason I'm looking back now is because of the invitation I've received.
Dear Miss Rinoa Heartilly –
You are invited to a reunion of family. Please, only the Heartillys. No boyfriends or anyone who has not been associated with our family before.
It will be held at the Balamb Hotel.
We hope to see you there.
It wasn't signed.
I can count on one thing. Squall won't be there. It's not that I'm trying to avoid any of my friends; it's just that if there were two people in the world I never want to see again, they're Seifer and Squall.
I do want to see Aurora though, and it hasn't seemed possible until now.
She would be sixteen now. Old enough to understand what had gone on when I was only a year older than her. I'm thirty-two, and already starting to feel old. It seems too late to do anything else with my life. Too old to get married, too old to get a worthwhile job, too old to even stay beautiful anymore. Well, that wasn't true. I keep my hair perfect, dye it black every month, keep the cute little brown streaks, make sure my skin is spotlessly white, my teeth the same, and stay skinny as always. It seems to be the only thing I can keep up that most women can't as they age. At least I can look at it in an optimistic way. I have no husband to drag around everywhere and drive me miserable, no kids to pester me constantly and tell me how much they hate me, only to tell me how much they love me when they want something, and no job to rush out to every morning. It's not like I live on the streets in a cardboard box, and I'm not poor either. I live a few blocks down from the Balamb hotel, and I waitress at different restaurants when I need some fast cash. Usually I just help out at the hotel behind the desk, and they pay me a lot to do nothing. Nothing but sit there and look pretty. Doesn't sound like a job to me. I call it fun.
That's right, kiddies, work can be fun! I just sit in this life size aquarium and am my pretty self all day long. They provide the entertainment. Sometimes they shove another girl named Andrea in there with me when they're having parties and we chat about the good old days. I don't tell her the bad stuff, she's young and happy and just out there for the good times. She's just a bit younger than me, maybe twenty-eight, but we can still relate.
However, this event was not going to be for work. I'll be damned if any of my rich, snotty family sees me in a fish tank.
Seeing as they are so rich and snotty, and I should look the part, this calls for a trip to the Balamb mall.
It's very anticlimactic when you're going to the mall and you don't know what you're going to buy. I know I want a dress of some kind, and it has to be rather expensive (or just expensive looking). I haven't kept in touch with any of my family either, and I really don't want anyone looking down upon me.
The Balamb mall has nothing. At least, no stores I would shop in for a nice, decent dress. Stupid teen stores, promoting prostitution. Okay, so they're not, but they look like they are. I didn't wear any of those slutty clothes when I was a teenager. Oh crap, now I really sound like I'm thirty something. Someone please just shoot me now.
The mall is a lost cause. I'm just going to go home and show up at the reunion wearing normal clothes and I'll surprise everyone. The Heartilly family is supposed to be proper and well brought up. I'll show everyone that I am no longer a little princess.
Yeah, that will be fun.
Of course I have to find the dress, they'll shoot me if I walk in wearing a blue sweater. Oh, and if I see my Aurora, I can tell her that I am her mother and this is the dress I was wearing when I met your father for the first time.
It feels weird saying 'my Aurora'. I didn't raise her, so it doesn't feel as if she's mine exactly.
It feels as if she's Squall's and only Squall's.
It was my fault I never took the opportunity to see her when she was three. Maybe seeing my little girl would've turned my life around in some way, and I would come to my senses. Maybe I would've run back to Squall, ashamed that I thrust this responsibility on him. He gave up everything he loved for my little girl, and I didn't even say so much as thank you.
Never even married.
I shouldn't be dwelling on what could've been, but it seems hard not to. That dress is lying in front of me, it's pure cream color sprawled across the bed, just waiting for me to break down and cry as I recall that first dance. In fact, it was our only dance. I won't cry.
I never cry.
This reunion is sucking. Period. I'm standing around by the table, waiting for the festivities to begin, in a little cream dress. I know no one.
By 'festivities' I mean everyone is going to wander around, looking for people they recognize slightly and trying to start up a conversation with them.
I am not.
I have my first martini in my hand and I am silently standing around, watching my relatives dance to some crappy DJ and look up through the skylight at the stars. I have two choices. I can either A) Go get that cute waiter to dance with me or B) Continue to stand around and look up at the sky.
I chose B. I remember what happened last time.
The family is all talking about how pretty the stars look tonight and 'why didn't we have this outside under this beautiful sky? That would've been just lovely! Just LOVELY!'
I can't stand rich people, even if they are family.
Looking up at the sky. Yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty if you like to look up at bad memories. I don't like the stars anymore; they led to a lot of problems. I find it hard to like anything that reminds me of Squall.
Oh, a shooting star. You see those all the time now. It's pretty, even to me. It's just not cool when the latter of them are at five in the morning and you have to go sit on your roof and try and see the show through the morning fog. It's a clear night, though. It'll be a clear morning.
They're green, shooting stars. It's hard to tell them from air traffic, but when they seem to crash land, you know that they're stars. They're stars that didn't make it through another night.
There she is.
She just walked in, wearing a red dress, long ribbon in her long black hair. The dress looks expensive, and makes me wonder where he works now to pay for her. Her skin is whiter than mine, she lightly touched whatever she needed, as if it was about to fall out of her hand any second. Her cheeks are the color of the punch she's carrying as she stands against the wall. She has long slender legs, her dress skimming just to where her knees bend. Her hair beats against her back when she moves. The one thing that separates her from the rest of us Heartillys is that she is unusually calm.
I wouldn't have known who she is. She looks like everyone
else in the room. We're all photocopies of each other.
I could only tell by looking through her blank, transparent blue eyes as she
glanced cautiously around the room.
I'm almost afraid to walk over to her, her translucent eyes forever in my mind. This is my daughter. She's beautiful.
I'm twirling my diamond ring around my finger, out of nervous habit. I swore to myself I would never wear it again, but tonight while I was getting ready, it caught my eye and I knew I should. She's hard to get to; I have to cross the dance floor where everyone is making fools of themselves, trying to dance to some waltz. As I cross I'm getting the usual 'Oh HIIIIIIIIII Rinoa! How are you doing?' and I don't respond. I don't know any of these people. Family is supposed to pull you up when things get rough, and no one here did anything for me. Even those aunts who lived in Dollet, now connected by bridge to Balamb. No one even bothered to come visit, ask if anything was alright. The only place I knew these people from, were clubs. These people have seen me drinking like no one else they knew. They knew something was wrong, but they stayed off to the sidelines and waited, thinking it would pass.
What if it didn't, though? What if I died? I sure as hell could've with all the shit I was doing at once. No one cared. These people have seen me get drunk and stoned. They've seen me shoot heroin and take E, where I definitely could've passed out or gone into a coma right there at those bars. Some have even seen me shoot caffeine. The only thing they haven't seen is someone pulling me out. I'm sure they figured someone else would do it, but that's what they all figured so no one even wanted to try to help me. Maybe they thought someone beat them to it, and I didn't listen. Maybe they thought I was stupid, young, and stubborn. I would fall out of the phase on my own. Though I think the reason is that they were so self-absorbed, they barely even noticed.
Which is why no one in this room is in any way, shape, or form my family.
Except for my little girl.
I've finally made my way across the room, and I have started to talk to her.
"Hi," I said. Damn, think of something else Rinoa! She's your daughter! You haven't seen her for practically sixteen years!
"Oh, hello," she said, as I thought she would. She sounds every bit as proper as she looks. Squall did bring her up well.
"I know you probably don't know me but-"
"I have something that belongs to you,"
Well that was surprising. Who knew?
She's pulling a long silver chain out of her purse, which has two rings clanging against each other at the end.
My necklace.