Holding On
Chapter VIII
Time passes on, and although the pain of being away from Cloud is almost too much to bear for the first few weeks that he is gone, it slowly begins to subside as more days go by, though I still can't force myself to visit our place on the hill by myself. I'm able to cling to the fact that I know he loves me, and I savor every word that he writes in the letters he sends to me frequently. He writes to me at least once a week, and thankfully the letters get delivered quickly, so I'm even able to write back to him before he writes to me again.
In his letters, Cloud tells me about everything that's been happening to him since he joined ShinRa. I've asked him before to describe what Midgar is like, but he wasn't able to find the right words to explain it to me, so he promised to take me there someday. I hear a lot about his roommate; a boy that is only a few years older than Cloud, but is already a second class SOLDIER.
His name is Zack Fair, and according to Cloud, he's been helping him with the intense training that the recruits have to go through in order to get accepted into the ranks of SOLDIER. I hadn't realized it before, but I think getting into SOLDIER must be Cloud's ultimate goal. SOLDIER's are renowned for their strength and heroism, so I suppose if Cloud wants to be one of them, I can't complain.
Cloud always asks me how my father and I are doing too, though I don't ever have much to tell him, since nothing that I'm doing is nearly as exciting as what he's constantly surrounded by now. He tells me he loves me and promises that we'll see each other again soon at the end of every one of his letters, and even though I know he probably won't be able to come and visit for a long time, believing that I'm going to see him eventually is comforting.
I'm absolutely terrified when he tells me in one of his letters that he's gone through enough training, and although he's nowhere near good enough to be able to join SOLDIER yet, ShinRa is shipping him off to go fight in Wutai. He assures me that he will be fine, and that his squad probably won't even see any action, but I still worry about him. His letters continue though, even while he's in the far away country of Wutai, though they do take a bit longer to arrive.
About a year has gone by now in this manner, where my only contact with Cloud has been from his letters, but I've kept myself so busy by taking both piano and martial arts lessons that I don't have much time left to worry about him. While I'm lying awake at night though, thoughts of something bad happening to him always try to creep up on me. Everything had been going fine despite my anxieties, at least up until about a month ago, when his letters suddenly stopped.
At first I tried to tell myself that he was probably just busy, because when I asked his mother about it she said that she hadn't heard from him either, but every day that I don't find a letter from him in my mailbox my fears continue to grow. I've tried to distract myself from it, but lately I've been having nightmares almost every time I shut my eyes. My mind has conjured up every possible thing that could be keeping him from writing letters anymore, and all I can do is pray that I'm wrong about all of it.
It's the middle of September now, and it's raining outside today, though not very heavily. In response to the bad weather, my martial arts teacher, who holds class outside, canceled my lessons for the day. With nothing else to do, I've been lying on my bed for most of the afternoon, trying to occupy myself with a book. This is yet another attempt to keep myself from wondering when, I refuse to think if, I'll hear from Cloud again. A sudden knock on my front door breaks into my concentration though, and I'm puzzled as to who it could be in the middle of the day.
I place a bookmark on the page that I was reading and slide off of my bed, intent on going downstairs to see who is at the door. When I'm about halfway down the staircase the person outside knocks again, and the sound is louder now that I'm closer. Even more curious now, I speed up my pace; stepping over to the door quickly and unlatching the lock before finally pulling it open a bit so I can see the person standing on my porch.
I'm not all that surprised to see that it's Cloud's mother standing before me, because I do see her quite often, but the expression on her face has my heart instantly thumping harshly against my ribs. She looks absolutely horrified, and her eyes are red around the edges, like she's been crying recently. She doesn't say anything at first, and I can't find any words for her either, so she instead extends her arm to give something to me. I take it from her, noticing vaguely that it's a plain white envelope, and I glance back up at her when she finally speaks up.
"This came in the mail today," she says, and her voice has an unusual hoarse and solemn sound to it; nothing like the cheerful woman that I'm used to seeing. "I think you should read it too," she explains.
I swallow thickly, looking down at the envelope in my hand. "Thank you," I say, my voice so quiet that it could barely be qualified as a whisper.
She turns away from me then, walking back towards her house through the now misting rain; apparently intending for me to read whatever is inside the envelope while I'm by myself. I push the door shut slowly, suddenly felling light-headed and almost queasy with anxiety. I decide to take it up to my room before I open it, but on the way upstairs I catch myself reading the front of the envelope. I notice that it's not from Cloud like I had originally expected, but rather addressed as being from the ShinRa Company, to the parents of Cloud Strife.
This knowledge somehow makes me even more nervous, and by the time I shut my bedroom door behind myself and crawl onto my bed, I feel as if I'm about to pass out from all of the stress. I peer down at the envelope, realizing that my hands are trembling as I begin to open it. There is only a single sheet of paper folded up inside, and only after taking a few deep breathes can I convince myself to look down at it.
The paper looks professional, and there are a lot of formalities in the beginning of the letter. I skip over them quickly, trying to figure out what it means. I find my answer soon enough though, when my eyes lock onto a specific sentence towards the end of the last paragraph, one that reads, "We regret to inform you that your son, an infantryman named Cloud Strife, was killed in action in Wutai".
The rest of the letter is more sympathies and impersonal condolences, ones that I read over in a state of numbness, at least until I cannot see the words on the page any longer. I realize belatedly that it's because my eyes are overflowing with tears, and they're splattering onto the paper as they run down my cheeks and drip off of my chin. I double over at the waist, suddenly feeling as if I can't get enough air into my lungs, because the awful aching in my heart is not allowing me to breathe.
I had been wrong before, when I believed Cloud's promises that he would be coming back for me no matter what. I was so naive to believe that if he would just tell me that he was going to be okay, and then it would actually work out that way, and he wouldn't get hurt. He can't keep his promise to me anymore though, because he's gone now, and he's never going to be coming back for me like he said he would.
To be continued…
(A/N) Oh the tragedy! D: The story isn't over though; we've still got one more chapter left. ;) I didn't actually plan on updating my other in progress story, To Have Loved and Lost, at the same time as this one, but I do think it's rather funny how the last update on that one sort of relates to this one… Those of you that are reading both should see the irony. :P
Thank you, thank you, thank you all so much for the reviews! :D
-punkiemonkie