If anyoe's wondering, I changed my penname!! Hooray! Thank you magnanimously for the reviews, and - peaches - !-SPLAT-!
Chapter Six
Hit Rock Bottom
You seem so quiet in class.
Funny how six simple words sent my heart pounding away. I changed into my gym uniform and slammed the locker uneasily, examining the journal. Turning around, I prodded it with the tips of my fingers. However, nothing had changed.
You seem so quiet in class.
My cheeks flushed with dismay. How much had the person read? I was known for my paranoia; I scrutinized everyone in the gym room. Nothing different. The girls all talked merrily.
No. It couldn't be any of them (right?). My feelings were bursting with apprehension. Rather suddenly, I felt the blood vibrating in my ears. I felt lightheaded.
I needed to know who had read this. I must find out.
"Hyuuga!" Startled, I looked up. "Need a journal for gym?" snapped the teacher briskly.
I shook my head and stuffed the cursed journal into my locker.
XxxxxXxxxxxX
"Hurtles! YEAH!! UP and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat 'em!! Boys! Don't be shyyyyyyyyyyyyy. We all know your bodies are significantly different - from girls, but juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuump those huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurtles!!"
Sweating, cursing, old cow, stupid teacher, shut up - the class tripped, hopped, and fell through the hurtles.
This was ridiculous. There were no jumpers in our class, and yet the teacher expected us to jump 20 hurtles in a row?
Throughout tripping, I worried profusely - sweat profusely also - about...that person who had encountered my journal. I'd written so many inward, secret, honest thoughts and opinions in it.
What if the person who'd discovered it was Naruto? My heart clenched. I couldn't admit it - the secret was unbearable. I hated it, yet I knew it to be true.
I still loved him. The way his blonde hair swung cheerfully over his anxious face. He was my science partner, and twice he'd worriedly asked me what was wrong. Dense, rather.
Sakura, on the other hand, couldn't care less - about me or him.
It was almost as if he'd never dumped me in the first place.
I wanted, needed, prayed unconsciously - that I'd forgive him. I think I had done so already.
My eyes smarted with tears. He'd hurt me so much...but I was so stupid, so ignorant - why did I still -
And why was the ground rising?
Oh.
XxxxxXxxxxxX
-Splat went -
My face connected with duck manure. At that instant everything was erased from my mind except, well -
XxxxxXxxxxxX
Dear God,
...You know, I could have been a perfectly limber, adroit and a well-balanced girl, both physically AND metally fit. I could have had blonde hair, blue eyes and I could have not landed in duck manure.
But nooooooooooooooo.
XxxxxXxxxxxX
I scoured the hair, leaned into the mirror, and tugged at the towel. My face was thankfully manure-free, but my skin was pink and still horribly red. Gym was almost over, and I heard the girls come in.
I seized the books, glanced twice at the journal, and decided to keep it with me. I hightailed to history.
XxxxxXxxxxxX
"Are you okay?"
I jumped up. Too bad this was history class, not gym. No use for jumping up.
"I - I'm okay. Wait," I frowned at Sasuke's poker expression. "You were in gym. You saw me go under."
"That I did."
"So you should know," I sighed, picking moodily at a scab, "the answer."
"Hm hmm," he said absently.
"Yup." I could always converse - have a conversation with, if that's what it could be called - with Sasuke. He really wasn't such a taciturn person, though extremely grade-centered. Now, even as I picked at my scab and even though I could clearly die of blood loss, he turned to the text book and scanned ahead.
The class commenced. I flipped idly to page 363 and started to tackle the note on scallywags and carpetbaggers.
"Uchiha," drawled the teacher. There was always a small oral quiz in the end of the day, random ones to random people. "Definition of copperhead."
"Midwesterners who sympathized with the South and who opposed abolition."
"Hyuuga. Habeas corpus."
"Uh - uh - constitutional...protection...um..." I hadn't expected this.
"Constitutional protection against unlawful imprisonment."
I wanted to shoot Sasuke a look. I knew the definition.
"Correct, Uchiha, but if I remember correctly, your last name isn't Hyuuga. Neither are you a girl."
The class ogled at Sasuke.
Uncharacteristically, he flushed.
When the bell pealed he followed me. After all the students had filed out, I traversed to my locker. I noticed he was still behind me.
"What?"
"I wrote - I read - "
"What?" I drummed my fingers along the edge of my locker. If he'd read my essay on General William Tecumseh Sherman he would most likely point out several errors. I waited for the criticism.
"I read your journal."
"Wait - what?!" I repeated, only this time it was close to a shriek. I jumped up, books toppling to the floor.
He held the books I dropped and handed them back to me wordlessly. Reflexively I snatched them up. His gaze did not waver.
"D-don't tell me you read the whole thing!"
He shrugged uncomfortably. "I had nothing better to do."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded urgently. I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans, leaving lines of sweat.
"I was bored," he implicated.
"N-no! My - wait, you - "
"Never mind," he cut in brusquely. I watched in a distant, hazy vision as he turned and strode away.
XxxxxXxxxxxX
What does this mean?
I kicked the stones by the river. They skipped down the precarious ravine and disappeared into the fog in the bottom, vanishing from sight. Frustrated, I flung my book bag beside me and sat down. The stones cut into my skin.
"What does this mean?" I scowled, my mind searching, but devoid, of an answer.
"It doesn't make...sense. Why would he..."
My leg slowly started to bleed as a black obsidian rock pierced flesh. I bit back a yell and rubbed the skin. Everything was encased with fog, and nothing was lucid. Nothing was clear-cut. There were no exact answers. And it was, ultimately, grating on my nerves.
I wished I could ride a cloud, travel to a faraway kingdom, be a princess, be a serf, anything. Away from here, away from stress, my annoying sister, the ubiquitous problems that seemed to find me and hunt me down whenever I stopped to think.
He was a silent person, I mused. He was just like me. Sasuke never talked to anyone unless talked to, and was one of the first to walk out of a classroom. He never questioned anything, never annoyed anyone. He was alone and often saturnine. I always seemed to catch him staring glassy-eyed at a page in some text book, processing the information but thinking about other things. He multi-tasked. And he was lonely.
In fact...
He was a lot like me.
But someone like me wouldn't be brave enough to write into a journal and return it to a place where the owner of the journal would discover it. I would never look, read, peruse, the journal.
Or would I?
Everyone was so bold, over-confident, in high school. People broke rules and laughed at others in ridicule.
I just couldn't be a part of that.
TenTen was now officially an item with Kiba. Every day they linked hands in the hallway.
I couldn't do that. I would be too nervous to see the reaction of everyone else.
Sakura chased after Naruto and yelled at him in public.
I couldn't do that either. I had no guts, and Naruto...Naruto...
I was a silent, small person. My best friend - TenTen...she was big and big-hearted.
Despondently, I threw a rock into the ravine. If she was my best friend anymore, that was.
"I can't do anything right." Standing up, I discovered the ravine was much steeper. The rocks made no sound. I reached down and seized two large handfuls of granite. Sharp edges cut into my palm. I gripped them harder, upset and alone and frustrated and I can't do anything right I'm not afraid but I am -
I flung the rocks out into the ravine, watching them disappear. Tears flew down my cheeks.
XxxxxXxxxxxX
There once was a girl who couldn't do a fucking single thing right.
Me.
XxxxxXxxxxxX
My foot stuck into a hole and I pitched forward. Breath left me. I crouched down, shoulders heaving, on the very edge of the hill.
It was an intimidating drop.
Small pebbles littered the way, hopping down. I'd been close, too close, to falling.
I imagined everyone seeing me like this. Ashamed, I hung my head. What a twisted person I was. I was so happy in fifth grade, in eighth grade, in sixth grade. Now that was a deep, dark secret.
My grades were top-notch. I had friends. I was popular.
Now...
Now I was stuck in the shell of the person I was. Being such a teenager like me must be excruciating hell. I found sadness in little things like songs, and cried and sobbed when anyone laid a finger to criticize me.
I was weak.
I was so weak, so incredibly weak.
Shaking, I dragged my book bag. My home would be a few minutes' walk away.
XxxxxXxxxxxX
When my sister saw me, she smiled in that normal, perfunctory way.
It was routine. She didn't notice the cuts on my legs and arms and hands.
She didn't know I'd been so close to death.
I hugged myself. Suicide...I had thought about. The pain of everything, and then Naruto dumping me.
Just hang on a bit more, I told myself. Hang on a bit more...and when that last thread is cut, you can suicide and leave this god-forsaken world.
On Saturday I hung around my deck, not doing anything. Hiashi upbraided me harshly, but even he was relieved it was the weekend.
My fingers played distantly with my short hair. It was uneven.
It was odd. What I used to find so wonderful - that my hair had grown nearly an inch since the beginning of school - was now primitive and out-of-line. I needed to try and revive my soul, have a mental health day, maybe try something different.
Different...
I traced the wood with a hesitant toe.
Different...
Something braveand unlike Hinata Hyuuga who was always declared the weakling.
My thoughts drifted lazily to the ravine from yesterday. It was only five minutes away from my house. I stood up, grasping the doorknob, and trailed outside. The grass tickled my feet. I realized I had no shoes.
It didn't matter. I wanted to do this now, right now.
I glimpsed the ravine, and soon I saw it full view.
It seemed so much steeper than from yesterday. Wind rattled through the layers, dust billowing into my eyes. I squinted. There was no end in the bottom, yet there had to be.
I would descend into it. I would do that something brave. I would prove myself.
I lowered myself onto the first ridge. It was then I realized the foolhardy decision I'd made as to not wearing shoes. The rocks imprinted on the tough skin of my foot, and I winced.
Still.
This was mandatory, in the sense of proving myself.
A few more feet down, as I gripped the rock layers in a tight hold.
Just a few more feet, a bit more - my knee scrubbed a patch of stones. The raw skin, the raw hurt, the pain - I cried aloud. How many more feet down? How many more injuries could I sustain?
There was a gaping expanse of blackness directly below me. I swallowed, sweat trickling down my face.
Why am I doing this? Even if I get out of this alive, it was a stupid thing to do. Even if I managed to reach the bottom it's still idiotic.
I grit my teeth and peered up. There were at least five yards between me and the opening. It wasn't that much distance.
I deigned to climb back up, just as tears started to seep down my cheeks. It was useless. I was useless. I'd never do anything to prove myself. The best thing to do right now was get back up, be glad to know I was alive.
Alive but a cowardly fool.
One hand up, a foot up...another yard closer, another yard - I concentrated on only the rocks before me, not daring to look at anything else. I nearly reached the top when the angriest voice I had ever heard in my life was shouting at me.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
My foot slipped and my body dropped.
I'm alive! I'm ali-ive! (I can feel you all around me, thickening the air around me...(lyrics of Flyleaf!!)
Well, yes, I'm alive...
Part of the reason why my writing is so emo is because I feel so stressed lately!!
If you review I will listen. I know you're all people too, and whether if it's about how my stories suck or the fact 10,000 people died in the earthquake in China, talk to me. (or about the quiz you just failed, like my pop quiz in history XD)
I really want to know what you have to say!