Ellone left after three days. I took her home and on the way, I decided to have that talk with her. My quote-unquote evil side kicked in and I said, "That was so cute the way you were getting everyone to focus on you."

She said, "What?"

"Oh you know what I'm talking about. Don't play dumb. Having everyone focus on you so they ignore me and Irvine."

"Rinoa, what are you talking about?"

"You want to take Squall away from us. You want him all to yourself, don't you?"

"He's my brother! I don't want to take him away from anyone. I haven't seen any of them in years, that's all. I'm not trying to do anything."

I sighed, the horrible person inside me vanished, "I know Ellone. I'm sorry, I really am. I don't know what I was thinking. Please forgive me."

"It's okay," she said.

"No it's not. I'm a horrible person and it'd be better for everyone if I just died."

"Don't say that. Your friends care very much about you. They wouldn't want you to die, especially not Squall. Squall cares a lot about you, I know he does. He was furious at Seifer. What a creep he was. Squall hates him."

"Yeah, Squall and Seifer don't like each other. As far as I know, they never have."

"They've been fighting since they were in the orphanage. They always were so competitive with each other. Squall would get so mad, it was a little funny sometimes. I remember once Seifer challenged Squall to a race to the beach and Seifer cheated somehow. I think he tripped him or something. Anyways, Squall was so mad for the rest of the day. I thought it was sort of funny because Squall kept calling Seifer 'Seifer the cheater'. He must've been about six at the time." I smiled trying to picture little Squall. How cute. We said our goodbyes when we came to the town. I apologized again and she told me not to worry about it. then I went home. Seifer was waiting in our room for me. I heard his voice and took off. He just wanted to punish me, I knew that. So I went to the cafeteria. Quistis was there as well. I took a seat next to her.

She said, "Hey Rinoa. How ya doing?"

"I'm fine," I told her. "I'm a little embarrassed by Seifer's little scene with Ellone. Kind of ashamed too."

"Don't worry about him. He's a jerk, you know that. No one usually listens to what he says. Anyway, you've got nothing to be ashamed of."

"Yes I do. You and I both know that. Well ... what are YOUR plans for the day?"

"Actually Zell and I were going to make a trip to Esthar. We're going to spend the weekend there. It'll be fun."

"I bet it will." I couldn't help feeling a tinge of jealousy. Seifer would never take me anywhere. He's never been the romantic type. Oh well. She went on telling me about their plans for the weekend. She asked what I was going to do. I said, "Other than a few sessions with Dr. Christenson, nothing really. I'll probably just hang around with Selphie."

"I think she's leaving too."

"Really? I didn't know that. I hope you all have a great time." Dr. Christenson came to see me later that day. We talked a little more about my dad which stirred a memory in me. He sometimes told my mom it was a mistake having me. Apparently having me ruptured their relationship. Maybe, somehow, having a child gave my mom the strength to leave. Could that be why he blamed me? I ran this idea by dr. Christenson.

She said, "Possibly. Rinoa, let's switch gears a little. Let's talk a bit about Seifer."

"Okay. What do you want me to say?"

"What comes to mind when you hear his name?"

"I think about my dad- only because I made both of them mad so easy."

"Rinoa, you may make people mad but they have no right to hit you. You should know that. What else do you think about?"

I shrugged and said, "Sometimes I get scared thinking about him. He's not a bad person and I wish we could understand each other. He's so emotionally detached..."

"What do you wish you could improve on in your relationship?"

"... Everything."

"Does he love you? Do you love him?"

Something inside me went off and I just blurted out, "I love Squall." I was more shocked by this statement than she was. I sighed, no point in pretending. It feels so right to say it. I nodded. "I think I may be in love with Squall. What should I do?"

"Does anyone else know?"

"No. I don't know why I just yelled it out like that. God I'm so stupid! I can't leave Seifer. I don't want to hurt him."

"Do you mean you don't want him to hurt you?"

"No! ... Well, partly- but I don't want to hurt him either. I was in love with him once ... I really was. I don't know what went wrong."

"If you decide to break things off with him but you're still scared, bring something to defend yourself. You know, like pepper spray. Or you could have someone with you. I just don't want you to get hurt, okay?" I nodded. Pepper spray would probably be the best idea. He'd be humiliated and even angrier if someone came with. I don't want to humiliate him. I feel like a horrid person just thinking about it. Dr. Christenson asked me to tell her about my incident.

"Don't you already know about this?"

"Yes, but I want to hear YOUR point of view on it. Start from the beginning of the day."

I sighed, "Okay. I'll have to think about it a little bit. I forgot most of it or 'blocked it out'. Whatever you want to call it." It took a few minutes to come to me. "I remember that it was just a regular day. It was a weekend so there was no homeroom, there isn't on weekends. I decided to go read in the library for a while. As I was looking, I heard- "I paused. Things I had forgotten were surfacing. This would not have a good outcome. I know I'll be in tears at the end. "I, uh, I heard some girls talking with their voices low at a table in the back. One of them said Seifer's name so I put my full concentration on eavesdropping. 'He's having me stay with him tonight,' one of them said. 'His girlfriend is staying at Balamb Hotel with a friend.' Immediately I went to Selphie and canceled our plan. We decided to spy. That night we stayed in her room until we heard footsteps approach Seifer's room. Five minutes later we crouched by the door, cringing at the giggling and plotting revenge ... at least Selphie was."

I can't believe I can just forget things like that. Maybe Dr. Christenson is right, maybe I do bury things within myself. But why? I'll have to ask when I finish talking. If I still feel up to it. I continued, "I was completely appalled and heart broken. I told Selphie I had to go. She was too busy eavesdropping though. I was feeling ... different, not like me at all. I kept hearing my heartbeat in my ears. Anways, somehow, i managed to end up in the Training Center with a knife in my hand. I just started cutting. I made scars everywhere, cutting right through my clothes. Obviously you can still see the ones on my face ..." I never said where I had scars and where I didn't. My stomach hurt talking about this. "Squall found me passed out. Why? Why would I forget all these things?"

She said, "Well these were traumatic times for you. It's not unnatural to bury things like that because you don't want to believe it happened, at least that's how it sounds in this case." I started crying. She hugged me and told me today's session was over.

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Are you ready for the twist in the story?