Lightning-Dono: Has anyone ever heard the song "Here I Am" by Bryan Adams? It reminds me of Nami…except the singer is male. This chapter is a short one, but...it's worth it, I think.

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Fourth of Fall

Am I the bearer of some type of trend here? First, my father was one of the least desirable and least cooperative men in the world. Then, Jack came around and he has an urge to cause trouble, specifically to me, and now Gustafa is causing me grief. Like said in my previous entry, Gustafa didn't deserve any of my hatred because he didn't know what I wanted to hear. But right now, looking back upon it, I was pained to know that he was just so…thoughtless. Can he really look at a question like that coming from any girl and deem it something unworthy of time at which he can dismiss with a short answer like that?

Maybe I should continue to like him as a friend as well. But I find myself unable to because of internal turmoil. I can't seem to understand why he would reject me so easily, push me aside after I had known him for such a long time.

I feel like Jack now, floundering about for answers in hope that someone might see me as highly as I did they. Jack admired me, but I wouldn't even approach him with a pitchfork looming twelve feet over my head. I had a giant (God forbid I use this word, but I must) crush on Gustafa, but all he saw was another simple red-head wanting attention because she didn't have enough people to be around.

So today I decided to visit Cody to talk, and I got the shock of my life. And it wasn't just Cody…it was more than one person who had been going against me all this time, turning my hopes to dust and grinding them into the ground with their heel.

Jack and Cody were deep in conversation when I arrived at Cody's steel trailer and as I crept behind it to eavesdrop, which was uncharacteristically sneaky of me, I heard some of the most startling, blood-boiling things I had come across in my life. Jack hadn't bought that junk from Van for no reason. He was bribing potential people I would target as a love interest with them in order for them to reject me, ward them away from any signs of intimacy they wished to display to me. Jack was handing Cody a pair of sheep shears for him to somehow trim metals with. Apparently this was supposed to beequal exchange. How could Cody, my long time friend, comply to such an uneven and filthy trade? Andthe even more hauntingquestion was, whatin the world could Jack have given Gustafato make him agree to such a scandalousideal?

A moment later, he emerged into my range of vision and although I was in the shadows, he still saw me as though he had a radar tuned into my position. I was enraged when I saw his cocky expression melt into that of horror. Perhaps I didn't realize it at the moment, but maybe Jack had actually tried to run. But that never did happen, and if it had, it hadn't gotten him far.

Because the next thing I did was pounce on him and, instinctively, everything I had held within me for the past couple of days bubbled over the top and I took one look at my nails, glanced at his smooth, unmarred skin that should have been tan and weathered by farming and I scratched at him.

I don't know what kind of force took over at that moment other than pure, undiluted fury. I never knew I had been so passionate about love as I knelt there on a squirming, kicking, and flailing Jack, scratching open his arm for streams of blood to flow down. I had never been so angry in my life, and I had never done anything quite so violent before. I was cold, but I had never released my anger through means of physical harm. But Jack had nearly ruined my life, and letting this go would be like letting a criminal walk free.

If I hadn't come to out of my rage, I probably would've managed to kill him, as horrible as the thought is. But when I blinked through my tears and saw what Jack looked like, the tender part of my heart took over and I knew that I had gone too far.

Jack was whimpering, crying, and to my morbid satisfaction, bleeding. Reality struck when I saw blood, wet and set in my fingernails. Jack's blood.

I wanted to just kneel over him and cry, berating myself for what I had done for something that I probably couldn't save anyway. I wanted to bandage up his wounds, wipe away his tears, and carry him home and I felt a rush of pity take over. I suddenly couldn't understand what the purpose of what I had done was. How was this worth having Gustafa back? If I ever did get together with him, he wouldn't want someone who did cat impressions when she got angry, scratching at whatever was in reach. Did he seem like the type of person that would be easily satisfied by a madwoman?

The moment Jack passed out, Cody approached me and when I looked up at him, all he did was stare back at me grimly. It was almost a look of reproach, as though he were laying eyes upon a person who had just commited man-slaughter. But judging from what I had inflicted upon Jack, it was as good as man-slaughter.

"What have you done?" He asked in his thick, accented voice, looking down at me sternly, eyes dull and unfeeling for my predicament. His bulky frame shone with light from the orange, near-evening sun casting bright orange beams of light across the sky. At that moment, Cody looked like the formidable bridge between good and evil, what with his body outlined in a glaring flare of orange light while his front was dark and contrasted with the aura he appeared to radiate. When I looked around me, trees with their leaves slowly drooping downward with their leaves slowly changing colors and their branches reaching for the heavens, it seemed too perfect a setting for such a heinous crime.

But if Cody were the bridge between good and evil, what path had I chosen? Would I always a be a bitter person on the outside with caring that I hid constantly within my heart with a padlock? Or would I manage to free myself from the monstrous bonds love had managed to bind me with?

After I stood up, I wiped my hands upon my shorts, leaving streaks of dark crimson and I lifted up Jack's torso fromthe ground, leaving his slack legs on the ground as I tried to drag him. Cody didn't even bother rushing to aid me, but instead stood there like some sort of saint, onlooking what I would do to repent for my ill-thought of deed.

And in one fleeting moment of selfishness, as I pulled on Jack's unmoving body save for his shaky breathing and the fluttering pulse in his wrist that was beneath my fingers, all I could think about was how I would explain to Dr. Hardy what had happened.