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VIIILife Isn't Enough
Chapter Eight: Cloud
VIIIThe days went by and my grades slipped, despite my devout studying and the time I put into homework. It was just that, all of a sudden, in the middle of my work, I'd stop and stare off into the distance. If only, I kept thinking. If only I had gotten Riku to stay home. Or maybe if I went with him. If I had gone with him, I would be with him now. We would be all alone, but we would be together, and we wouldn't be afraid. That, at least, would quench my unbearable uncertainty. I would know where he was, at least. Whether he was alive. The police should have found him by now, I realized. Or else they should have found the creep who grabbed him. But they hadn't, and we'd received no word of a ransom. What did that mean?
It was an image I just couldn't bear. Riku, all alone, curled up in the corner of a house, fearing for his life at the hands of some big burly killer. Riku, shrinking behind a dumpster as a man approached with a gun or a knife. Riku being hurt…Riku dying…
I screamed a denial, pressing my hands over my eyes in an attempt to get rid of the image burned onto my retinas. When I took them away, eyes burning with tears, I looked down at my math homework sullenly. I couldn't do this. Not now. Not without Riku safe at his house, in his room where he belongs. Not during this hellhole I called a life.
Sliding off the bed, I glanced down the hall to the kitchen, listening for Mom. She wasn't home yet, so I closed the door and fumbled under the bed briefly before coming up with the knife. Its blade glinted seductively in the light, begging to be used. And I was only too happy to accommodate it.
VIII"Have you seen the new kid on the islands?" Selphie was asking Tidus and Wakka when I saw them after school the next day. "The blond? He's so cute!"
Tidus looked injured.
"Oh, don't start. I'd never abandon you, Tidus," the brunette assured him, catching him in a tight embrace. "Not even for Brad Pitt."
"What about Daniel Radcliffe?" Wakka put in, his eyebrows quirking with interest.
Selphie hesitated.
The conversation, though, reminded me of Cloud, since he was obviously the blond Selphie was talking about. I hadn't seen him in several days, so I was beginning to worry. I had decided that I didn't care what happened to him, since I barely knew him and I didn't need him, but the thought of him moving away or getting killed was disturbing. True, I had lately been watching my friends with a steely eye, making sure they didn't do anything stupid and leave me all alone. But I had my reasons.
I returned home seeing apparitions of Riku everywhere I went. Each one was, as usual, only a trick of the eye, but I chased them anyway, hoping and believing for one joyous instant. These various detours took long enough that Mom was home by the time I got to the house, so I walked inside, dropping my bag next to the door and flopping onto the couch next to her. She was watching something about court on television, but when I showed up, she toyed with my bangs a bit and then spoke.
"I've been thinking about getting you that other counselor."
"But Mom—!"
"Shush," she commanded, and my teeth clicked together. "He's a newcomer, but most of the others in town have said that he's known for being soothing. He has an insight most people your age probably don't. Anyway, I've scheduled for him to come and see you this Friday. You will address him as Mr. Strife unless he tells you otherwise. Understood?"
"Cloud?" I realized, unable to believe it.
"You know him already?"
"Yeah—we talked together on the paopu tree last week. I didn't know he was a counselor."
"Well, he's technically not, but I'm comfortable with the idea of you talking to him some. Maybe that would help you get back on your feet."
I sat up, turning around to face her. "Mom…Riku—you don't think he's dead, do you?"
There was a silence as our eyes stared into one another, both seeking answers. "I don't know, Sor," she replied with a sigh. "I'm not sure what to think anymore. I don't want to make you believe he's dead, but I don't want you to end up getting hurt if you find out that he is."
I nodded. That was the same fear I had. That I'd let go and then he'd just come back, or I'd keep believing it for years, sitting on that paopu tree and waiting for him to come back. Maybe he would, finally, in the arms of the police. They'd pull back the sheet to reveal his face, pale, still beautiful. I'd reach for his hand—cold as ice. He'd be already gone, and I never got the chance to say goodbye. The injustice of it cut me to the quick, and I buried my face in my arms. Not Riku. Don't take Riku from me.
VIIICloud came to visit that Friday, and I felt the fears and the troubles fall away again. But when we came to just that, the very subject of all the pain I was going through, I fell silent. I didn't want to talk about it. Not with Cloud—I'd rather just talk about stuff, goof off, be boys and be proud of it. I didn't want to revisit the fact that Riku was gone and maybe dead.
So there was a long, awkward silence. I concentrated on trying to swallow the lump in my throat while Cloud looked at his hand as if it was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen. Suddenly he reached out and grabbed mine. "Ow," I said quickly, startled. It wasn't the kind of "ow" that meant I was hurt—it was that kind I let out sometimes if I was surprised.
"Oh—did I hurt you?" he asked, letting go quickly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."
"No, it's okay," I replied. "I was just surprised. What were you, uh…?"
"I was wondering if you were at all interested in palmistry," he replied, gazing with rapt attention at his own hand again. "I'm not very good at it, but I can tell you a few things."
Palmistry? My interest piqued, I leaned forward. "Sure, go ahead."
With a ginger kind of care, he took my open hand and looked over the palm carefully. "This one's your life line," he said, drawing a finger in a curve by my thumb. "But it's curved away from the thumb, here, and it stretches on to the base of the hand. It means you're going to do a lot of traveling."
"Me?" I shook my head, smiling. "I'm not much of a traveler myself."
"That's not what your hand says," Cloud pointed out, returning the smile. "These lines here, coming out from the line, mean that you're good at recovering from bad situations." I looked wistfully at the little lines, so small and unimportant in the vast expanse of my hand. Would they really be of any help? "Well, that's good," Cloud was saying. "We'll need it. Ah…"
"What?" I asked quickly, looking up at him and back at my hand, squinting at the lines in an attempt to divine their meaning. "Is something wrong?"
"No, just…that star. See how the lines are all kind of sticking out—like an asterick?"
"Yeah."
"That means a crisis. Something very bad is going to happen at that point in your life."
No—that couldn't be. Riku was alive out there somewhere. That crisis had to be something else. I struggled to remember something that might have been a crisis—wasn't there something? Something had happened, it was very important…but it seemed like it was just beyond my grasp. "What about the…um…the Love line?" I asked then, trying to get the subject away from Riku.
"That would be the Heart line," Cloud replied. Hearts. Why did that seem so familiar all of a sudden? "Hm. It looks like you're willing to give yourself up to love, no matter what the cost. That's a valuable trait to have." He turned my hand carefully. "Let's see. The Money line looks good—the star at the top means success, perhaps riches—and the Fate line hints at fame. Because the Head and Life lines are separated, here, you have a love of life and adventuring."
My enthusiasm was returning, and I pointed to one of the lines. "What's that one?"
Cloud's eyes widened suddenly. "Uh—that's the Sex line."
"And?" I pressed, grinning.
"…You're a competent performer, I'll give you that."
We continued talking, analyzing the lines on my hand, and I noticed that Cloud was frowning repeatedly. But whenever I asked him what was wrong, he shook his head and waved it away. Finally, I turned to his hand, spreading out his slender fingers so I could see the thin lines, rivers in a world of pale pink deserts. "What…the Life line is so short," I said suddenly, pointing to the place where it faded. "What does that mean?"
He smiled, but there was a hint of something I couldn't read apparent in his eyes. "It doesn't mean anything, Sora. Palmistry is only a cheap way to tell the future for someone who has a couple of quarters to spend."
I panicked. "But everything you told me about me was so…so true! Except maybe the adventuring, and—and what if you—?"
"I'm not," he assured me. "I'm not going anywhere, Sora."
"Cloud?" Mom called from the kitchen. "Your father's here to pick you up."
He stood, going for the door. "Don't worry about it. You strike me as the kind of person that…someone's gotta take care of."
I stared at the closed door after he was gone. The echo of Riku's words hung in the room like a cloud, making the air heavy with a kind of yearning. I felt a strange lightness, as though Cloud were some kind of angel who had come in Riku's place to tell me that…that he was going to take care of me, no matter what. I curled up on the bed, looking at the window. Riku. Where are you?
VIIICloud's family had moved into my old house, as I found out from Tidus a few days later. He lived with his father and his uncle, since his mother had died several years ago when he was ten. I couldn't imagine what it would be like losing Mom, although I had a suspicion it would be a lot like losing Riku. In the case of loss, then, Cloud and I had something in common. Maybe that was what made him so gentle, so able to look into a soul to find what it needed at that very moment.
I thought about that as I sat by the beach, my arms folded over my knees as I stared into the aquamarine depths. They reminded me so much of Riku's eyes, and brought back a strange image. An image of him standing there, beckoning, while a huge wave roared toward him. And I stood on the beach, knowing what would happen and yet powerless to stop it. I closed my eyes against the ocean and rested my chin on my arms.
"Do you think you're ready?"
I started violently. Cloud hadn't made his presence known until that moment, even though he was sitting so close to me it seemed impossible I wouldn't realize he was there. "Ready?" I repeated, still shaken.
"To talk," Cloud expanded. "About him."
A sigh drawn from my lips joined the sea breeze, and I nodded. "All right. Riku. Riku is…" I stopped, looking at him and waiting for him to correct me. He only nodded, though, his eyes understanding. "He's got this silver hair that I used to…that I like to fool with. It's really soft, but you wouldn't know it to look at him. And his eyes are so…deep, just like…"
"Just like the sea."
"Yeah."
My story grew from those words, like an oak tree from a seed. I tried to tell him everything about Riku, tried to make him know Riku even though he had never seen him. Not a detail was left undiscussed, not a feature was left undescribed. I told him about the times we liked to goof off, and the times we fought with wooden swords on the paopu island, the sun shining off his hair like it was some precious set of jewels. "And he said he'd come back," I finished finally. "He promised. And that's why I know he will."
Cloud nodded. "He sounds like someone you're lucky to know," he replied, brushing a strand of hair behind his ear. "It actually hasn't been all that long, and I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise, but if he doesn't come back, you're going to have to let go. That's why I'm here."
I nodded numbly, my eyes still on the sea. If only I could go. If only I could fly over there, maybe I could find something. I didn't care if it took me all my life, I wanted to find him more than anything in the world.
"But if he said he'll come back, he'll come back, one way or another," Cloud remarked, standing. "Come on. It's getting cold, and you don't want to get sick."
He took my hand and helped me up, and we started walking back toward our houses, still chatting mildly. Cloud glanced over at me to say something, and stopped walking suddenly. I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong, but he seized my hand, pulling my sleeve up to the elbow. The angry red scabs from my nightly torments stood out starkly in the pale of my flesh, like little rows of volcanoes along my skin. Cloud stared at them, then pulled it up higher, to my shoulder, and turned to the other arm and pulled up that sleeve, too. "I was afraid of that," he murmured, pulling up my shirt to reveal the others on my stomach and chest. He muttered a curse, pulling my shirt back to normal, and looked up into my eyes.
"Please don't tell Mom," I said quickly, not even sure why I did until I remembered. "I—I don't want to hurt her. This will worry her, and I don't want…" I don't want her to think it's her fault.
He didn't speak for a moment, and I saw suddenly the worry and the pain apparent in his eyes as well. "All right," he said. "Come to my house. We'll get you cleaned up, and I want to put some ointment on those. We'll see if we can't get them to heal."
"How did you know I was…cutting?" I asked as we started for his house, his steps lengthy and full of urgency.
Without replying, he pulled up his sleeve, and I saw a thick, shiny white scar twisting along his upper arm from his shoulder. I knew without him saying so that it had to be from when his mother died.
The door slammed open and Cloud stormed past two men standing in the living room, with me at his heels. "I'm going to my room with Sora," he said sharply. "No one disturb me for any reason."
One of the men looked at me and smirked. "I see where you're going with this, Cloud."
His brother glared at him. "Oh, shut up!"
We went up the stairs to the room that had at one time been mine. The hole was still in the wall, and I could faintly read the words I had written there. "Hey, this used to be my room!" I remarked to Cloud.
"That's why I was looking for you," he replied, straightening the bed. "I heard that Riku Yume had gone missing, but I figured that Sora Hikari had probably moved away." He started for the door. "I'm going to get the ointment. Take it off and lie down."
I blanched. "Uh…take off…my clothes?"
"Everything that you have to," he replied, and was gone for the bathroom at the end of the hall. Hesitantly, I stripped down to my underwear and sat down on the bed, looking around at Cloud's stuff. There were several pictures of him with his parents, laughing and sitting at a picnic table, or else at some school or other where an elementary school-age Cloud stood holding up an award while his mother kissed him. She was beautiful, I realized, looking at the long blonde hair and the deep hazel of her eyes. Her face was kind, and I regretted not having known her.
Cloud came in with the ointment, frowning as he heard footsteps on the stairs. He quickly shut the door behind him and turned the lock. "Cloud, what are you doing in there?" came the voice of the first man as he knocked. "Don't get too rough, all right?"
The blond turned and glared directly at the door, seeming almost to send an aura through it so that the man behind it let out a squeak and sped off with a quick, "Well, I suppose you know what you're doing!"
"Uncles," Cloud muttered, unscrewing the cap as he approached me. He still looked angry, and there was a definitive jerk to his movements.
"Cloud?" I said hesitantly as he began the painful work of spreading the stinging ointment over the cuts. "Are you…mad at me?"
He hesitated, then sighed. "No, I'm not mad at you, Sora. I'm mad at myself. I should have realized this was happening, or I at least should have checked you first. Then maybe you wouldn't have as many cuts as you do now."
"But I liked it," I protested meekly, even though I knew it was probably better if I didn't say anything. "It was…helpful. It made it so it didn't hurt as much."
"I know." Cloud didn't look up. "But one day you'll cut too deep, and there's so much blood and you suddenly realize what you've done to yourself, that it hurts and it can't be undone. If you're not lucky enough to do that, though, you'll keep going until your body can't take it anymore and you die. And that's a selfish thing to do."
"Selfish?" I repeated, feeling a surge of righteous fury. How was it selfish? After all, I'd been through enough that I could kill myself if I wanted to. I should be able to. That wasn't fair.
"Right. Once you die, others have to suffer. You know how much Riku's disappearance hurt you, right? Could you imagine what it would be like if you died and he came back? Or how much it would hurt your mother?"
As I thought of that, I felt a lump rising in my throat again. I could almost see Mom crying as I lay there in the casket, eyes closed and peaceful, even though now everyone around me had to bear the biting pain of loss. Selfish. That was the most selfish thing I could possibly do to them. "I'm sorry," I said in a broken voice.
"It's all right now. You're all right," Cloud told me, his voice soft and warm with assurance. "You'll heal. Just think of that the next time you want to cut yourself open." He looked into my eyes from where he was kneeling beside the bed. "I think it would be best if we told your mother about this."
"But—!"
"Let me finish. She would want to know, Sora. What's she supposed to do when she does find out, and you never told her? That would hurt her even more than this will."
I bit my lip and nodded. "Thanks, Cloud. For all of this."
He smiled silently.
