A/N: Okay. I took the last chapter I posted (the really short one) and put it in this one, so it's a longer chapter six, even if it still short and makes no sense and I'm not really sure what I was trying to say with it. I got some things mixed up too, but I kinda just want this story to be finished, for me to find a closure with it. I started this when I was feeling really low…and so I don't feel the same way so much. Also, it's the second last chapter. I changed the plot a bit.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED.

Chapter Seven

Forgotten and Forgiven

A shell. That is how I feel. I am a shell, but a shadow of my former self. I am not me any more. I am not anyone.

I am numb.

Numb to all the pain. All my hurt.

If I waned, I suppose I could make myself forget. Forget everything, what made me this way. Forget what I've tried, what I came so close to doing.

But I want to remember.

I don't want to forget. I need to remember that night. Every small detail, however insignificant.

I have to remember him most of all.

Athrun.

How he found me there, weak, fragile. How his face showed every emotion he felt at that moment. The flicker in his eyes, the unshed tears I could see there. He helped me more than he could ever know. He kept my secret. He cared for my self-inflicted wounds. He was brave to do so, never wavering, understanding.

I knew then that I loved him. I wanted to tell him over and over again, but found myself unable to do so.

I just watched silently, basking in his presence.

I want to remember all of that, the good with the bad.

Though the memory of my anguish is always fresh in my mind, haunting my thoughts, I'll always remember it along with the better part of the memory, because of him.

I'll never forget.

Shivers wrack my body and I wonder what I've done. Where I'm going with my life. The only thing I was sure on once I shattered the mirror, the only thing that anchored me to reality and life was Athrun. He was the only thing that made sense, the only thing I thought I understood the reason for it being in my life.

I guess you could say I thought he loved me.

I'm probably wrong. I'm always wrong. When I was little, I thought that Santa Claus was real. I believed in all those little lies that your parents feed you. Like all little kids do, but I always believed in them for longer. I have a habit of holding on to what I know, whether it's false or not. I can't face the truth sometimes. My realities were so much better, nicer and less cruel. When I found out that Santa wasn't real, that Christmas Eve when I caught dad putting the presents out, I cried. I was in denial for a while.

Now that I believed Athrun wasn't what I had thought him to be, I find myself to be in that same state of denial. How can my understanding be the wrong one? I thought it so clear, so beautiful what we felt for each other, how could it have been false?

I'm waiting for him to look at me with his mesmerizing eyes and tell me I had it all wrong, that the kids at school had just made that up for kicks. That he'll hug me and kiss me and make it all better.

I'm deluding myself, I know, but I have to make sense of everything.

I never liked change.

And what I was thinking seemed so plausible.

I still don't really know what happened. I haven't asked him about it. I don't know if I want to. I try to get the facts straight in my head.

Did he tell his friends to gloat? Did he spread those rumors to show off? That he bedded Miss Ice Queen? Maybe he'll go tell them I hurt myself, that I cut myself for pleasure.

Though, I can't believe that. He looks at me in such a way that makes the accusations I've built up completely false.

How did they find out, though? Maybe we were being too obvious. Maybe it was just something someone decided to say. A stray comment taken too far.

I had to stop thinking about it.

Shaking my head, I forgot all about it. I never wanted to dwell on it again. It just didn't seem important anymore. Perhaps it never was.

Nothing's going to be the same again.