"I would tell you I am happy
If I wasn't so damn sad
And the loneliness both overwhelms and keeps me empty
That's how it's been for a while . . ."
Whilst sitting with Zell and thinking about his words, Selphie realised that Irvine would probably be expecting her to go to his room. After all, she had found out that he was in fact telling the truth, which made Selphie feel more than a little guilty.
"Where ya goin'?" Zell asked, looking up from his place on the cushions, a comic book open in his hands.
Selphie stopped at the door, her hand on the knob, hesitant to step out into the hallway.
"I guess I'm going to see Irvine."
"You guess?"
"Okay. I AM going to see Irvine."
Zell pushed himself up from the floor, and cracked his knuckles one by one, followed by the bones in his neck.
Selphie winced.
"Do you have to do that? It's gross."
The blonde cracked one of his fingers once more and grinned, before ruffling the brunette girl's hair up with his gloved hand.
Selphie tutted at him and told him to go in a mock angry tone whilst trying to sort out her hair and shut up the door. She watched her friend walk down the hall, then turned in the opposite direction; the direction in which Irvine's dorm was situated.
She stopped and cursed under her breath when she realized she had forgotten to bring her jacket, the cold dank air making the fine hairs on her arm stand on end. Looking down at her marked arm, she contemplated going back and fetching it, then decided against the idea, telling herself it was only a short walk to Irvine's room.
Selphie stopped outside the door marked with the initials 'I.K' and brought her hand up to the wood, poised to knock. Something made her want to press her ear up to the door and listen to whatever he might be doing inside. Her heart gave a little skip when she heard the shrill voice of another female.
Phew, it's only Rinoa.
Knocking three times, Selphie stood and waited for someone to open up and let her in.
The door swung open to reveal a fuming Rinoa and a sulking Irvine in the background sitting on the bed.
"Oh hey Selphie. I'll leave you two alone."
Selphie nodded and faked a smile. Rinoa leaned into her and gave her a hug, whispering in her ear, "Don't worry, I had a massive go at him for you."
Her ebony haired friend gave a huge grin and skipped off naïvely, leaving Selphie to step inside the slightly messy room.
Shutting the door behind her, Irvine looked up and mumbled something about Rinoa being a bitch from hell.
"Irvine . . . Um, I went to see Squall. I'm sorry I didn't believe you, but can you blame me?"
The cowboy simply stayed sitting on the bed, head in his hands, loose golden-brown hair falling over his face.
"Um, Hello?"
". . . hi . . ."
Okay, he's not usually this un-talkative.
"Are you alright?"
". . . . . ."
"Uh oh, he's turned into Squall," Selphie joked, getting a small laugh from the sulky man, then finally, she got more.
"I'm such a shit, Sef."
Selphie walked over to Irvine and stood in front of him, her hands held loosely together behind her back.
"I'm a complete tosser. Rinoa's right. I don't even deserve to have you as a friend after the way I treated you. I'm so fuckin' shallow. That argument was my fault. If I hadn't of been thinkin' with my other head that time, none of this would've happened at all.And . . . and what if you had died that day? I think I would've ended up killing myself too . . ."
Selphie waited for him to say more, but nothing came, apart from pure emotion. She heard Irvine sniff a bit and passed it off as the start of a cold. It was when she saw his shoulders hitching slightly that she realized he was actually crying.
Almost as if it was instinct, she knelt down in front of him and pulled his hands away from his face. Without much resistance, he gave in to Selphies tugging to reveal ruddy looking cheeks and watery azure eyes.
"Selphie . . . Please . . . please forgive me."
Selphie suddenly felt awash with turbulent emotions. She said nothing but closed in on the crying man with a hug, who wrapped his arms around her waist tightly as if afraid to let go.
With no lessons to go to, Zell sat in the library, half catching up on overdue written work and half sneaking in looks at Anna. She was one of the library committee girls, who had black silky looking hair tied back in a pigtail with a few loose tendrils framing the delicate features of her face. Occasionally, she would look up and give Zell a shy smile before blushing a little and turning back to her work.
Three girls came in laughing and walked over near the desk where Anna was standing.
Zell looked up again and frowned when he saw that it was Amber, Celia and Nichi standing in the way of his view of Anna.
He noticed Celia give her a dirty up and down look before asking something.
"Yeah, hi. Where the hell are the books on gunblading? You better have some, because I'm on an errand for Seifer."
Anna, being as shy as she was, found she couldn't talk, due to the intimidating feeling the three girls were giving off. She simply pointed over to a shelf in the corner and forced herself to smile.
Celia gave her another look before muttering something to Nichi, who laughed loud and glared at Anna.
Celia strutted over to a book stand, looked for about 3 seconds and grabbed the first book with anything to do about Seifers weapon.
Nichi and Amber had sat themselves down on a table, getting out there make up and hair brushes.
"So, who are you taking to the dance?"
"We're actually going?"
"Duh, we have to outshine the other girls and set an example of beauty."
Celia sat down on the spare seat, crossed her legs and flipped her long blonde hair behind her back.
"I'm going with Irvine."
Amber frowned, "I wanted to go with him!"
The two blondes glared at each other, until Amber finally backed down, giving in to her ring leader.
"Irvine promised me ages ago. Anyway, Seifers always free."
"Yeah, he's a good lay."
"And you need someone to screw afterwards; else there'd be totally no point in going."
"Is Self-harmer Tilmitt going?"
The three girls laughed, resembling nothing short of Shakespeare's cackling witches.
"Probably. She was the one who arranged half of it, along with her goofy friends."
Zell was sitting a few feet away, listening in to their conversation, if it could be called that. They hadn't noticed him yet, and he'd rather keep it that way.
Selphie was sitting in the infirmary, waiting for Dr. Kadowaki to remove the stitches from her wrist, as the doctor at the hospital had advised. She had left Irvine in his room. After crying, he had fallen asleep. Selphie had sat with him for a while, listening to his even breathing whilst putting little plaits in his hair like she used to.
She hadn't noticed Dr. Kadowaki take hold of her wrist and begin to take out the stitches slowly, and before she knew it, she was ready to go.
"All done, Selphie. That wasn't so bad was it?"
I never said it was going to be . . .
Selphie hopped down off the standard white hospital like bed and walked out into the main area of Balamb Garden. For the first time since she had made that near fatal cut, she looked down at her wrist again. The gash that was once raw and open had now closed up thanks to the stitches. It was red and purple, raised in places and off colour where the thread had been holding the wound together.
Selphie made the fault of not looking where she was going again, and bumped into a rather sturdy feeling figure. She was about to mumble her apologies, but when she saw Seifer towering a foot above her, she didn't bother.
"Where's your manners?"
Selphie said nothing back to the tall blonde, learning from previous experiences that he wasn't one to talk back to.
"Hm. Maybe I'll have to teach you some."
Not liking the tone of his voice and the leering look he was giving her, she stepped out of his way. Seifer grabbed hold of her wrist, fully aware that it was her bad one.
"Why does chicken wuss care about you so much? Little squirt. He's probably only tryin' to get in your knickers. Like playboy Kinneas."
"What the fuck would you know, Almasy."
Seifer snarled at her, twisted her wrist around and pushed her forward so that she stumbled and almost fell to the floor.
Selphie caught her balance and felt bubbles of anger rise up in her. She turned around quickly and swung a punch into Seifers stomach. Apart from she never made contact. The blonde bully had caught her wrist again, making it decidedly sore. The small teenager flinched in his grasp, waiting for him to release her.
Before he did so, he leaned closer to her and clutched her wrist tighter, stopping the blood flow, which was making her hand numb.
"I'd watch it if I were you. I should break you in for Irvine. That might be fun."
Feeling rather scared, Selphie brought her knee up fast and made contact with Seifers groin in a hard placed blow, making him let go of her.
"Argh! You little cow!"
Although feel somewhat intimidated by this little run-in with the resident arse hole, she also felt angered by his rude comments. Selphie had run back to her dorm room to grab her nunchuku and gone to let off some steam in the training centre. Something she hadn't done for a while.
Just before the training centre were two changing rooms, one for males the other for females, in case you wanted to change before and after or use the communal showers. Some students were unfortunate enough to not have their own personal shower in their rooms, so were forced to use the communal ones.
Selphie put her bag into the changing room and stepped out in the arena.
Dead leaves and twigs crunched under her feet as she walked along, scanning each of her sides for approaching enemies, making a mental note to run if a T-rexaur came thundering along.
The bushes behind her shook and rustled a little, before a small grat came scurrying out in her direction, flailing its long arms.
Selphie was poised for action and got a quick swing of her Nunchaku in before the creature could attack, resulting in the thing letting out a screech and some green blood.
Whilst it was writhing in discomfort, she swung at it again rather hard, this time knocking it dead in the process.
After a few more rounds of battling minor creatures, she decided to retire, as her wrist was beginning to sting through the activity. The last thing she wanted was her wound to open up again.
Making her way back to the changing room, her mind began to wander, thinking about where today had left her and Irvine. They were on talking terms, but Selphie still felt unable to trust him and didn't know if she'd be able to let him into her heart again.
Grabbing her bag from the mahogany coloured bench and slipping in her weapon, she swung it over her shoulder and made her way to the exit.
She didn't make it though. Someone to the side of her charged full on, slamming into her side and knocking her halfway across the room, leaving her to come to rest against the off-white wall.
Selphie gritted her teeth and tried to stand, her mind screaming protest against the pain shooting up her spine and into her left shoulder, which had hit the wall first.
A shadow fell over her, followed by another, then another. She didn't even have to look up to realize who they belonged to.
"You were rude to Seifer. That's not allowed."
Selphie looked up at Celia and put on a brave face. She was going to say something, but once again her voice failed her and refused to let her speak.
Pushing her feet against the grainy tiles of the changing room, she made it halfway to standing when Nichi placed a hand on her head and pushed her back down rather violently.
Selphie, get yourNunchaku out!
Doing what her mind told her, she reached into her bag, but only just felt the tip of her Nunchuku before Amber bent down and threw the bag over the other side of the room.
Celia squatted and grabbed a fistful of Selphies hair, yanking her head up so they were face to face.
"Seifers not happy," she snarled, "And when he's not happy, we're not happy."
The last thing Selphie felt was her head being slammed back against the hard wall behind her, the last thing seen was her vision closing in, images fading to black.
When Selphie finally came to, it took her brain a while to remember where she was. At first all she felt was a blinding pain in her stomach and sides, followed by a dull ache slowly residing in her lower back. Then it hit her that she was unusually cold and appeared to be soaking wet.
Looking around, she registered her surroundings, put two and two together and realized she was slumped on the communal shower floor, which was linked onto the changing rooms.
One of the shower heads had been turned on above her and was squirting out ice cold water, which was beating down onto her head, soaking her hair and clothes.
Selphie knew she couldn't just sit there forever, but when she made the slightest attempt to get up, the pain in her stomach flared through her body and left her gritting her teeth.
Flopping back down to the floor, she lifted up the bottom of her dress to look at her stomach. Just above her belly button was a bruise around the size of a large fist.
It had already turned a mixture of mauve and red, but Selphie noted that no skin had been broken. There was a few grazes on her legs along with hardly noticeable red marks.
Pulling down her skirt, Selphie clutched her stomach and focused all her energy into getting up.
Reaching up for the shower switch, she flipped it off, halting the flow of cold water which had soaked her to the bone. Crawling at a snail's pace towards her bag, she searched inside for her pager, a plain, chunky looking thing that each SeeD was issued with. She sent a message to Zell, telling him to come into the girls changing rooms, not giving a damn about how suspicious it might sound to him.
Selphie sat slumped on the bench, one hand resting on the side and the other one still holding onto her stomach. She tried to remember what had happened, but only pieced together that she had passed out due to the hit her head got. Reaching her hand up to the back of her head, she felt a small bump forming and winced. Bringing her hand back to her face, she looked for any traces of blood but found none.
Around five to ten minutes later, Zell walked in looking rather hesitant, followed by Irvine. When they both saw her sitting on the bench, dress soaking wet and her hair drenched and unruly, they didn't quite know what to think.
Sighing, Selphie filled them in.
"They did it again."
Irvine seemed to catch on immediately and went walking over to her, boots clicking on the floor. Zell stood there and asked her what she meant.
"Celia . . . and her 'posse'. They . . . beat me up. Again."
During her speaking, Irvine had taken off his tan duster and placed it around Selphie, along with his arm.
Zell scratched his head and asked, "Why are you all wet?"
"They dumped me in the shower. I can't walk very well; I think they kicked my stomach a few times. And I blacked out because they shoved my head against the wall."
At this point, Selphie began to break down in tears.
"I . . . I can't . . . do this . . . anymore!" she whispered in between sobs.
Irvine placed a large hand on the back of her head (being careful not to touch the hurt area) and pulled her into his chest, wrapping his arms all the way around her.
Zell took one of her small hands in hisand raised the question of why they did it. The two men seemed to be having a conversation over her head as she calmed down into Irvine's chest.
When she lifted her head, he looked down at her with eyes full of concern and she couldn't help but think that he'd finally come to his senses.
He's come back. He's mine again.
"I . . . I think they did it because of Seifer."
Zell frowned at the mention of his enemy's name.
"What do you mean?"
"I had a run in with him earlier. And . . . he kept grabbing my wrist and pushing me. The he said something really . . . crude, so I kneed him where it hurts."
Zell clenched his fists, the leather in his gloves letting out little creaks.
"Bastard . . . I'll get him."
The blonde stood up, a light flush coming to his cheeks in anger. Selphie tugged at his sleeve.
"Don't. He'll only hurt you worse. And I wouldn't put it past him to carry out his threat. So . . . don't."
"What was it he said exactly?" This came from Irvine, who had warmed her up considerably since they first found her.
"He said . . . 'I'll break you in for Irvine' . . ."
Selphie blushed. In the background, Zell had become visibly more fired up.
"I say we go kick his fat butt into next year."
Irvine smiled a little at Zells comment and turned back to Selphie.
"You said it was just Celia and that lot that did this?"
"Uh-huh. Seifer wasn't in here."
"Okay. Well, let's go back to your room and get you dried off."
"I can't walk too well at the moment."
Irvine stood up and bent over slightly.
"Get on."
"Huh?"
"I'll give you a piggy back."
Selphie felt a bit awkward straddling the cowboy, as they'd only just moved on to talking terms, but it hurt her greatly to move much, so she did as she was told.
He carried her back to her dorm, getting a few odd looks along the way from the more conceited students. Zell followed, carrying Selphies bag over his shoulder.
Once inside, Irvine put Selphie down on her brightly coloured bed and went into the bathroom to fetch a hairdryer and some towels.
"Yo guys, I'm gonna go find Quistis and help her with some last minute festival stuff."
Selphie looked up at Zell hopping on his feet from her perched position on the end of her bed.
"Come back later though?"
Zell smiled, "Sure thing, Sef."
Before leaving, he bent down and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Don't worry too much about stuff okay?"
Selphie watched Zell whisper something to Irvine before he walked out of the door. Little did she know that what he said about going to see Quistis was a total lie. He was really going on the prowl to find a certain three girls and let off steam by means of a fight . . .