Chapter 14
Don't turn away,
I pray you've heard
The words I've spoken.
Dare to believe for one last time.
Disturbed, Darkness.
How was I supposed to answer that?
What was I supposed to tell her? That I wanted her to keep it? I wanted her to have a little piece of me with her at all times? That I still…
"Squall?" she prompted, waiting anxiously for an answer.
"I gave it to you, remember?"
How stupid did that sound? Of course she remembered.
"You're sure?"
"Yes, you should keep it. It's yours now."
"Thank you," she squealed in delight, throwing her arms around me. I just didn't know how to react. I wasn't used to this kind of thing, after all I've spent the last four years trying to avoid as much human contact as I could, and now…now I find myself in this impossible situation. Should I throw her off me or what?
Tentatively, I placed my arms around her, still unsure of quite what I was doing. Her eyes seemed to light up in surprise as I held her close to me and she looked up at me, smiling.
Hyne, that smile. That perfect, angelic smile. It was the same smile that I remembered from the dance, the same smile that captured my heart and made it melt.
Look away Squall. Look away.
I couldn't let her see the effect she was having on me. My heart was pounding so quickly in my chest that I felt certain she could hear every beat. What was this I was feeling?
I didn't know, and I wasn't sure I was ready to find out so I pulled away from her slowly, trying not to offend her too much.
Bad move. She looked up at me, hurt showing in her eyes as she awkwardly moved even further away from me, not wanting to be around me at this particular moment in time. Not that I can blame her.
"Erm, I think I'm just going to go for a shower," she muttered before hurrying out of the room, not even giving me a chance to reply. It was obvious that this was just an excuse to get the hell away from me. This must be having more of an effect on her than I thought.
Or maybe it's because I didn't really think about what this must be doing to her. All this time I've only been thinking about myself, about how I feel and about how everything in my life has just fallen apart. Why didn't I ever stop and think that she must be feeling the same way? Someone who she thought had died four years ago walks straight back into her life, and I didn't think that it must be a little weird for her. How selfish am I?
And now I've hurt her and she's avoiding me. Part of me is saying, why should I care? You're not a part of her life anymore and she's not a part of yours. Just leave and be done with it. Another part is telling me, go to her, comfort her, apologise for all you've done wrong. She's the most important thing in your life after all.
Of course she is. She's the only part of my life I have any sort of connection to, the rest are just fragments of memories jumbled up in the recesses of my mind. Only my memories of her make any sort of sense, they're the only ones I can really understand, the only ones with a time and a place. When I saw Quistis before, something definitely clicked, but all I saw were quick flashes of events, nothing coherent. I saw a classroom in which I was sat behind a desk, and then the scene changed to a dark, gloomy cavern, but what they meant, I had no clue at all. I couldn't even see Quistis there, it was all so vague. Not at all like my memories of Rinoa. I can even picture every little detail of our dance, every piece of furniture in our room. It's almost as if she was the only thing I ever thought about, the only thing that was important to me.
Maybe she still is. I know that she's the only link I have to my past, and maybe she's the only way I'm going to find out about the real Squall Leonhart, but maybe there's more than that. I'm not sure but I think I've actually started to enjoy her company. That's why I felt guilty when I pulled away from her wasn't it? It can't just have been because of my own selfish desires to discover my past can it?
No, I like being with her. I've grown so accustomed to being on my own that just talking to her is a new experience for me. It feels good to have company instead of being trapped within my self-imposed solitude.
What am I thinking?
Me? Liking company?
What's happened to me?
There was only one answer I could find.
Her.
I sighed, trying to remove all thoughts of her from my head. They only make me confused and unsure of myself. That's the last thing I need right now considering that I'm not even sure who I am. I opened the only thing that could possibly offer me any distraction, my journal.
I can't quite believe that I'm here. How did we make it this far? So many times it seemed as though it were all over, but now here we are, preparing to face her once and for all. Whether this will be the last entry in my journal I'm not sure. Either we kill her or she kills us. The time for games is over.
I wish I could be with everyone now. After all, this may be the last time we ever get to spend time together, but well, I just can't tell them how I feel. They're probably all there on Ragnarok's bridge saying how much they care for one another and how they're sure everything will turn out alright and I can't do that. I have to face the truth. Everything might not turn out alright. Somebody very special once told me that nobody can predict the future, and she's right. It's for her that I'm writing this.
When I went to her in space I felt closer to her than I ever have to another human being. I could hear her calling out to me, and it wasn't her voice she was calling with, it was her heart. She called out to me with her heart and I heard every word of it. That was the first time I faced up to my feelings for her and realised just how much she meant to me. Would I have jumped out into space after Quistis or Zell? I doubt it. But I did for her.
We talked for so long on the ship. I think that it was the longest conversation I've had with anybody, and if not, it was certainly the most meaningful. I've never poured my heart out to anybody before and she just listened to me. She actually listened to everything I had to say. But then I found out the truth.
The truth about her.
She's become a sorceress.
She's become everything I've been trained to hate and despised. She's become everything I've been trained to kill. But there's something even more frightening.
I don't care.
She could become the world's enemy and I just wouldn't care.
Letting her go to the Sorceress Memorial was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. And I chose wrongly. I let her go. I'm so grateful to everyone else for talking me into getting her back. The moment when she ran out of the sealing chamber and I held her was one that I'll remember for the rest of my life, however long or short that might be. It's brief moments of happiness amongst this whole mess that have made these times the best of my life.
And when we made our promise in the flower field, I knew that there would be many more moments like that to come.
I just wish that I could have finished what I was trying to say then without the interruption from Esthar. I needed to tell her what I had come to realise, I needed to tell her how I feel. This is why I'm writing everything down, in case I don't come back and she gets the chance to read it. In fact, I'm going to make her take it with her, then if I am killed, she can know the truth. Now just doesn't seem an appropriate time to say it. It'll just sound as if I'm trying to make her feel better because these could be the last few moments of both of our lives. I want it to sound genuine because it is. It's the truth, I mean it. What I needed to tell her back then was,
Rinoa. I love you.
I loved her.
I really did love her.
Something tells me that I should be surprised, shocked even, about it, but I'm not, I expected it.
Maybe it's because I understand how I must have felt back then. I understand, because…
"Squall?" Rinoa exited the bathroom, interrupting my train of thought. "I'm sorry for storming off like that before."
"It's alright."
"Good," she replied smiling, making her way across the room to sit down.
"And Rinoa?"
"Yes."
"I…I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry for…for everything."