My legs were spread far, my cheeks must have been red and I looked flustered.
Father was silently eating cereal reading the newspaper on the kitchen island. He scanned both my arms, he must have been hoping for some leftovers.
"You're back early."
That was true because I had run out of the party. I was the guest of honor and I had run away. I always run when thing got thought but I would stop doing that now that I was to be a married woman. I would start with my biggest demon growing up.
"Why don't you ever say no to me? Why can't you say no to me?"
I had muttered the first weakly, I needed to shout and rephrased the question.
Father's spoon dropped and then he put the newspaper down. His eyes scanned me up and down. Why had he never denied me anything? Why had he treated me like a fragile porcelain doll, an innocent one at that?
"I've said no plenty of times."
Ino couldn't think of a single no.
"You even said yes to let some stranger marry me. I know you don't want him to and what if he was abusive, what if he hits me and you said yes to that?!"
Father got up on his feet. He had read about the melt down and realization, then the acceptance and recovery would come. He had been waiting for that but I wasn't melting down. I was facing an unrelated problem. This had nothing to do about my eating disorder or the constant numbing emptiness inside me.
"I trust you, that's why… but does he hit you? I'll take him down, I'll make sure he…"
I shook my head and started the water faucets in my face. It was almost the correct picture of it all. Tears were falling heavily making their way to the floor driven by gravity and pushed by the nest tear falling from my eyes.
"Daddy! You don't understand! I need boundaries, I need someone to tell me no!"
He was on the other side of the kitchen island now. His steps were short and silent as if he was scared I would lash at him as some scared animal if he came too close.
"I trust you that's why, I trust you to always make the right decisions."
I was openly sobbing because he had too much faith in me. I was a child when he first dropped the no word from his vocabulary, I was still a child. It was too much responsibility. I would want to make mistakes and I needed someone to tell me before I did them. I needed someone to guide me and support me even if that meant saying no.
"Stop that! I don't make good decisions! I was, I am an anorexic drug addict and you keep living like I'm still daddy's little pure princess! Nothing I ever do upsets you! I almost died and you don't even speak a word of it! Mother died and you never mentioned her name again! You've never mentioned her with a word all these years! If I died tomorrow would you go on living like I never existed too?"
It had been years and I had never spoken to him or anyone about mother. I had never realized how his lack of care had upset me. She was the warmest person I knew she deserved to be remembered and loved even if she was gone. I had never once visited her grave since we put her in it. I had never brought her flowers like she used to bring me fresh flowers for my room when she woke me every morning.
Mother deserved so much better. She had taken such great care of me. She didn't deserve to be wiped out of our lives.
"Do you really think a day goes by without me thinking about her?"
I think years go by.
"I still wake up surprised to find the spot next to me empty and it's like losing her all over again. Do you not think I loved your mother? That she wasn't the most important thing in my life? She's given me this beautiful daughter that I have to worry about every single day because I alone was never able to give you what you needed, a mother's love."
I plumped down on the floor. It was like my legs gave out and I was suddenly down on the floor. Bawling.
I was sulking and screaming.
I had never cried for mother. I had never let her go, I had let her stay to rot. I had allowed her to become almost a bad thing, a bad word. She had represented what went wrong but it was me all along. I was what was wrong. I was the one hurting father. He was worried about me he didn't want to lose me.
Father loved mother like mother always had loved him.
Now she was gone and he woke up to an empty bed, in an empty house and I was giving him nothing but problems. I was deliberately putting him through hell for my own selfish reasons. My skin was too tight. My body was too small. I was hurting my father, my friends. Who would want to be with someone like that, who could love me?
My father always had. It might not have been in the right way or the way I needed, but it had been in his way. I had let him down. I had let myself down. I was sick and I realized what I had put him through. I was letting him watch the last member of his family die in front of his eyes.
"I'm sorry father!"
I hulked. I was sure my face was covered in tears, snot and drool yet he got down on his knees, pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me. I rested my head on his shoulder and cried. Father had loved us both in his own way. He was always there for me even when I was hurting him. My father loved me.
Even when my crying died out he wouldn't let me go. He was patting my back whispering words about how much he loved me, my mother and how worried he had been, how we would get well together. This wasn't my disease anymore. It was ours. All while I was in his strong arms.
"Father?"
My voice was dry and timid. He hm'ed and I felt the vibrations.
"I didn't eat today."
His grip around me tightened.
"Can you make me breakfast for dinner?"
I love his breakfasts. Before mother was gone she used to make all the food unless it was Sunday breakfast. It was the only thing father was better at cooking than her. It was the only thing my father was good at cooking.
"As much as you like sweetheart."
He let go of me and planted a sweet kiss on my forehead and got up.
I went to the bathroom to clean up. I looked like a mess, my face was glistering from all sorts of fluids that could emit from a face, my eyes were red and puffy and my makeup was running.
Father was making food when I slipped out into the yard. I hadn't been there in ages. Father still tended to it but it wasn't like it had been. When there had been the three of us. I lay down in the middle.
Running fingers against my ribcage didn't feel right. It brought tears to my eyes. It filled me with guilt. I was perfect but it was others who paid the price. I was hurting those close to me by hurting myself. I had been away from this world for too long to realize it. It had been perfectly fine in New York it was expected.
I could hear father talking to someone in the kitchen. I could only hear his voice. It was work, one of his friends or one of my friends that I didn't want to talk to. Not even if it was Deidara. They didn't know where I was but they hadn't tried getting in touch with me. They were enjoying their party without me present as some pale ghost. I wasn't there so they could worry and be jealous of what I had accomplished in life and my intruding bones.
They weren't strong like me.
They wouldn't last a day in my high heeled shoes.
They couldn't lose ten kilos, twenty pounds in one month.
They probably couldn't lose one in a week.
Yet they all smiled, laughed and seemed to enjoy themselves.
"Why'd you lie?"
Someone was blocking my sun. Someone was looking down at me.
I had never seen him with a stern look on his face. He was always so relaxed about everything. It was like nothing could ever get to him. He was calm no matter what you told him, no matter what anyone did. He had been the only blank face the day my mother died and I needed comfort. One that didn't scream pity but rather comfort.
"Sweetie, I have to step out for a while. There's enough for the both of you, just act as home Shikamaru."
The door closed and we looked back at each other.
"Why'd you lie?"
He asked again persistent this one.
I didn't know what he was blaming me for lying about. I didn't know what he was getting at. I hadn't lied.
He lay down next to me in the grass. The food was getting cold I didn't have time to be lying around in the grass getting accused of lying when I hadn't.
He looked at me, first now I noticed that he looked dragged. He looked tired actually tired and not in his lazy tired way. He looked troubled.
"One thing is acting like it never happened, but lying about it? That's low."
I didn't know what he was going on about. He must have read the confusion on my face. I was totally lost. I wasn't acting like something hadn't happened and I wasn't lying about anything.
"Prom night?"
He tried to jog my memory. I did remember the prom clearly. Why he was reminding me of that awful night now. That night was something I was happy to go about pretending like never happened.
"God Ino! We had sex stop acting like it never happened!"
"Eh, I'm bringing my phone. I won't be long."
Shikamaru sighed and dropped his upper body down in the green. He hadn't wanted to yell that for my father to hear and he doubtlessly didn't want me to react with laughing.
I got up on my feet. I hadn't slept with Shikamaru. I wouldn't have done that and if I would, I would have remembered.
I went inside and he came too when I had helped myself to some food.
"Why don't we talk about it?"
I stuffed my face with another piece of sausage. Disgusting pieces of pork, fat and some other scary ingredients that made sausage and it tasted delicious.
"There's nothing to talk about, I don't want to hear your erotic fantasies."
He sat down on one of the barstools while I was standing on the other side to the island. I was more interested in the food than him. I was running the carb equation in my head as I took another bite. I would have to stop soon.
"You not hungry? You ate there?"
"Ino…"
He was mad at me for ignoring what he thought was an issue. It wasn't. There was nothing to talk about.
"You were like a brother to me."
"You told me that too on that night."
I couldn't have been so foolish as to sleep with him. Kiss him yes, there was a period where I thought he was the solution. The Jing to my yang, calm to my energetic, sloppy to my perfect, relaxed to my uptight, serious to my fun and serious to his fun. It didn't work like that. I knew that now. It was a foolish idea created by a foolish teenager.
"Ino, you told me that you loved me. You told me that you were coming back for me!"
I dropped my fork. He would never joke he would never take such a joke so far. He would never.
"Why are you telling me this now?!"
He had all the time in the world. He had years to tell me this and he chose today the night of my engagement party. Why couldn't he have told me the day I left, picked up the phone or even written me a letter? Why did he have to do this now?
"Don't you want me to marry him?"
I didn't even know where he was. It was Shikamaru who had run after me not him. I knew it was wrong of me to ask this. He couldn't have feelings for me. He had never shown interest in me, he had a girlfriend, and he had never shown interest in me, never made a move. He couldn't be. It wasn't allowed. I hadn't slept with him. I had only slept with my husband to be because if I had slept with Shikamaru that meant that I loved him and I never had.
Never.
"Ino…"
He didn't deny it. He didn't act enraged that I could even ask him such a thing. He wasn't allowed.
"You can't, you have a girlfriend and I'm engaged."
It wasn't like I had those feelings for him anyway. They were all friendly like those I had for the Shikamaru I got drunk on sample bottles filled with booze from our parents liquor cabinet, the Shikamaru I walked dogs with for cash, the Shikamaru who tried to stop me from sleeping with him.
"It's not allowed, you didn't speak a word! You didn't tell me and you still haven't, what is it that you want from me?"
He was putting stains on my heart that would never wash out. He had tainted our friendship the one I was in the middle of mending. He had changed; he wasn't the same boy I kept closer than Sakura. He had fallen for me and god forbids he had fallen in love with me.
"I know it's too late…"
He had already given me up reaching over the table to grab one of my sausages. That was done. It was a good fifteen minutes of madness and then it was back to normal but I wasn't ready to hit the play button again.
"We had sex?"
I bit my lip trying to imagine it. I couldn't remember much if any at all. I remember riding in his car, throwing myself at him and him turning me down. He was the only man who had, well, at the least tried to turn me down.