It takes me a month to get a new job. I go down to the Jobseekers centre in town at the start of the week to hand in my CV, but the secretary takes one look at it and says in a very posh, snobbish accent "You didn't graduate? That's going to reflect badly on you", glancing conspicuously at the small child hanging off my hip. I purse my lips. "I have experience," I say, which admittedly doesn't count for much when my employment is limited to the very bottom range of jobs. The lady looks for positions that might be available to me, but draws a blank. There aren't many factories or cheap-shit shops in a nice place like this. I ask around at the counters I visit anyway, but there's precious little going around for someone like me; and although I check back at the Jobseekers centre every few days, nothing comes up.
Larxene, who views my unemployment as an extended holiday, enjoys the long hours we spend together in and out of our flat. It's the tail end of the summer holidays and the parks are still full of yummy mummies and screaming children, but the waterways are peaceful enough to set my murderous four-year-old free to roam. Demyx told me that it was best to start preparing Larxene for school early, to the extent of buying her a stack of story books I must have read to her a dozen times each, but sitting indoors doesn't really interest her when she could be splashing about in a foot of water, pretending to be a kraken and occasionally attacking unsuspecting seafarers (AKA me). I try to focus on the fact that she's imaginative and active. Maybe she'll grow up to be good at team sports. Well, maybe not team sports, but… something. As long as she's not an utter failure at everything, I'll let myself off.
When it rains, we draw big messy pictures on greaseproof paper I acquired from a fish and chip shop in a long and complicated sequence of events. She draws monsters and killer barbies and princesses driving trucks (at least, I think they are driving trucks, but they might be elephants). One day she draws me in my jeans and t shirts holding hands with her, who is holding hands with me in my skirts and make up. "That's Daddy," she says, pointing to the me on her left. "And that's Mummy." It makes me want to cry. I buy blu tack and stick it to the wall. This gives Larxene ideas about what can and can't be on walls, and I come out from a quick shower the very next evening to find her scribbling on the peeling wallpaper. I physically pull her away.
"You can't do that, Larxene," I say in my most authorative voice, putting her back in the middle of the room. She looks at me.
"Why not?"
"Because," I say as slowly as I am thinking fast, "Because there's this thing about walls, whatever you draw on them comes to life in the night..." I pause for dramatic effect, revelling in the ways Larxene's eyes grow wider. "And tries to kill whoever drew it in their sleep."
Larxene lets out a shriek and runs around in circles until I catch her. I look her seriously in the eye. "But if you wash it off before dark, it won't come to life."
"Why does it want to kill me?" Larxene asks, leaning around me to look at her scribble. I have no idea if it's supposed to be something, but knowing Larxene if it is it's meant to be highly lethal.
"Because if it doesn't kill you then you can still control it, because you made it! So it can't do whatever it wants unless you're dead." This is a fantastic piece of ad-libbing, if I do say so myself. At least, I thought it was until I come back from a hasty shopping trip to find a dinosaur drawn with great care and attention on the wall.
"I want a pet T Rex," says Larxene, sitting in front of her masterpiece with neither guilt nor shame. "I'm going to call it Doggy." I realise in that moment that trying to scare my daughter into submission is probably always going to be a futile task. At least, not unless I really scare her. So I pretend that I'm terrified and I make a half-hearted attempt to wash it off but conclude dramatically that "It's stuck there forever" and make a huge show of "protecting" Larxene at night from the inevitable monster attack that she herself will have unleashed. I wait for her to fall asleep (in spite of her best attempts to outwait the dinosaur) then I carefully wash the dinosaur before sneaking into the kitchen area and dousing myself with tomato ketchup. Oh, the lengths I go to for discipline. I pick up a chair, testing its weight in my hands. Then I creep back to Larxene, turn my back, and let out a very loud yell of "Take that!" simultaneously with swinging the chair into empty space. Larxene wakes up with a scream, sees me brandishing the chair and promptly dissolves into tears. My job fighting the "dinosaur" complete, I conspicuously drop the chair and rush over to her. "Oh, Larxene," I wail theatrically, pulling her into my arms. "I really thought it would get you. It was this close-" I lean in to her face so she can see the ketchup in my hair and on my cheeks. "I'm so glad you're safe."
I realise that Larxene is hyperventillating. Maybe I overdid it a bit. I turn the light on and show her the empty patch on the wall where the dinosaur was. "Don't worry, it's gone now," I say. "I fought it off."
All right, it's an absolute pain scraping the ketchup off the floor and my white pyjama shirt is more or less ruined forever (although that doesn't stop me wearing it, casually reminding Larxene of the "blood stains" every time I do), but I never have problems with my daughter drawing on walls again.
Finally, I get a couple of interviews and manage to blag myself into getting a job tagging clothes in a "product assembly department" or, as I would call it, a factory. By this time, Larxene is starting school, her new uniform baggy around her skinny limbs and her hair conspicuously unkempt next to her spoilt classmates, so I no longer have to worry about childcare unless I need to work overtime. But I sit down and calculate everything very carefully (and in most cases twice, because Larxene keeps distracting me) and decide that I don't need to, at least not for a few more months. I settle into the work with an attitude of resignation, which leaves me for eight hours every day alone with my thoughts. I cope by, no joke, planning gardens in my mind. I start with empty grass rectangles, picking a type of soil, mean rainfall and compass orientation, and fill them with plants, spending ten, twenty, thirty minutes memorising each species so I never have to write anything down. I take into account how much shade they need, how much water, their average and tallest heights… it is truly pathetic, but it passes the time by. I surprise myself with how much I remember.
Larxene doesn't fare so well at school. She's not good with other kids, or indeed other adults, a shortcoming that becomes increasingly apparent as I find myself pulled aside by her teacher almost every day for some act of petty wrongdoing by my daughter that I, being her mother, am supposed to somehow magically prevent her from repeating. I try to explain to her that she is her own autonomous human being, but somehow that just doesn't cut it.
"Your daughter punched Cloud Strife," says the teacher disapprovingly, Larxene having already explained that it was because he wouldn't let her play football because she was a girl. I think that this is fair enough behaviour, but I make up a lie about how I'll thoroughly lecture her at home for her misdeed.
"Your daughter knocked a pot of paint over Ienzo Lillyford's family drawing," says the teacher with a long-suffering sigh. I privately wonder if that might have something to do with the fact that Larxene only had one person to put in her family drawing, and not Mum and Dad and Grandma and Grandad like all the other kids, but of course I promise that by the next art lesson she will have better ettiquette.
"Your daughter got into a fight in the playground today," says the teacher on Friday. She looks as tired of this as I feel. Having spent a total of thirty eight hours planning fantasy gardens while tagging jeans this week, I ask how many other children were involved in the fight. "Three," says the teacher. I ask where their parents are. There is a long silence. I know I shouldn't, but as soon as I am excused I take Larxene out for an ice cream.
"This isn't for getting into a fight," I say, handing her the chocolate cone with strawberry sauce drizzled on top. "Even if I don't think you started it anyway. This is because the teacher is a-" I almost say bitch, but catch myself just in time- "A horrible woman who doesn't like you. But don't tell her I said that."
Larxene grins at me. She always likes me when I give her sugary food. "I swear on my life," she promises solemnly. Then we talk about school on the way home. I try to engage in what she's doing, partly because it gives us something not related to death and violence to talk about, but also because I read a news article the other week about how children whose parents don't care about their education become severely disadvantaged in later life and given how I - and most of the people I have ever called friends - turned out, I am inclined to believe it. So Larxene sings half of the alphabet to me and we count up to ten and back down again (which confuses her, because for at least five minutes after we do she thinks that nine is now more than ten and eight is more than nine, and so on and so forth). I want to tell her to wait for negative numbers and algebra, but her head would probably explode. Minus one apple? B equals every number there ever was? Mindfuck to the highest degree. For now, I will preserve her innocence.
"And then we did a science where we made things sink and float," Larxene finishes. Her eyebrows wrinkle in concentration. "The things that sank were a paper clip and ball and pencil and the things that floated were a cork and an apple and a paper. But then the paper sank so we put it in the middle. I don't want to walk any more."
"But I thought you wanted to go to the park," I say, picking her up anyway. Larxene doesn't see the contradiction in this, and just hugs me like a baby koala bear until I drop her unceremoneously in the grass. "Tag!" she yells, and flees, squealing. "You're it!"
Having never quite stamped out my competitive streak, I find it very difficult to lose to Larxene. It takes enormous mental restraint not to catch her when I'm it, and when it's her turn she usually throws a fit and refuses to play any more because I have always stayed just a foot or two out of her reach. The swings make a better game, because I win when I push her very high and so does she; then I sit with her on the deserted roundabout and pedal her in big slow circles until she tries to jump off and falls over instead, literally flopping face first on the floor. She gets a graze on her knees and her nose, which make her cry all the way back home and lash out angrily at me when I try to wash the dirt away with an antiseptic wipe and apply plasters. But once I've stuck out this ordeal she decides she likes the rugged, boyish look the plasters give her, even hitching up her school skirt so they are proudly on display.
"I'm telling them that I drew a dragon on the wall and then he came to life and I fought him and I won and now I have a pet dragon who has to do whatever I say and if they don't like me I'll get my dragon to burn them to death and I'm calling her Pussy and she's going to be yellow with spots," says Larxene all in a rush. I pat her on the head and ask if she wants to do more sink-or-swim science, which is a really, really sneaky way of getting her to help me with the washing up.
Life goes on. I get more and more pregnant, and also more and more convincingly female. Larxene doesn't get into trouble at school any less, but her teacher gives up trying to enforce every single little rule and just focuses on the basics like standard empathy and respect for authority instead. It's an uphill struggle for everybody involved, because empathy and respect for authority are not exactly things that I am much good at, either.
My biggest issue, in fact, is not with my soul-crushingly dull work or even Larxene's school, but rather the parents who linger around it at home time. Just like their precious children, they form cliques and, just like my daughter, I am instantly excluded from all of them. I had naively believed that the rumours that I was a wanton slut surrounding me in Traverse Town were just a product of the toxic environment I lived in, but nothing could be further from the truth: although the language used by the mothers gathered like chauffers by the school gate is less crass, their words are just as cruel. I tell myself that I didn't want to talk to them anyway as I shuffle Larxene away, hoping that the dark undertones of their whispers will pass her by. One day one of them actually comes up to me and asks me how old I am, and because I feel so intimidated by their flawless motherhood I lie, shoving Larxene behind me when she begins to protest "But you're only twenty-". Not content with this humiliation, the very same mother has the gall to ask me whether Larxene's father is the same as the man who conceived my unborn child. Either I don't want to give her the satisfaction of a reply, or my throat has choked up so much I couldn't if I wanted to: I'd rather not remember.
So I keep myself to myself, and Larxene follows my example, failing to make any friends at all in or out of school. I don't really register this consciously until one day Larxene says to me in an unhappy voice "Everybody in my class got invited to Yuffie Springfield's birthday party except me," and we both sit there looking at each other until Larxene ventures on, tremulously: "Everybody hates me".
"That's okay," I say, "Everybody hates me too."
Larxene not-so-inconspicuously climbs into my lap and makes herself at home there, pulling the spare folds of my skirt around her bottom. "Why does everybody hate us?" she asks. A lot of different answers pop into my head all at the same time.
"Because we're different," I settle for eventually. Larxene looks at me inquisitively: yeah, it wasn't really a good enough explanation for me, either. But I don't want to elaborate, so we just cuddle in silence for a few more minutes until Larxene gets bored and hops off, deciding that she wants to build a castle out of Duplo. I step over her construction site to the kitchen and start making supper, an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I miss Aqua and Demyx and Terra and the boring next-door-guy and everyone else in Hollow Bastion who made life just a little bit more worth living. The loneliness of Radiant Garden with its middle class, distainful inhabitants, hits me like a slap in the face. I feel like an outsider again, and it hurts.
I try the double-dinner trick on my new next door neighbour, but it's just an old woman who smells of urine and doesn't speak a word of English except "piss off". Upstairs in the bigger flat is a couple with about a hundred children who are so unruly that they make Larxene, my demon daughter, look docile. So all that happens in that department is that Larxene and I end up eating lasagne for breakfast the next morning, instead of cereal.
"You need a new coat," I say to Larxene as we walk to school, playing jump-the-crack to stop ourselves shivering in the cold air. It's December, and while Radiant Garden is a little more temperate than Hollow Bastion, the biting air isn't exactly pleasant on the lungs. Larxene is wearing the same coat from last winter, but it barely reaches her gloves, so a gap keeps opening up between her sleeves and her gloves, revealing a rapidly cooling strip of flesh. Unfortunately, I do not exactly have enough capital to buy Larxene a new coat. I've been making losses since I moved here, because my benefits are tangled up in red tape and needless beaurocracy and haven't come through yet. Almost all of my earnings disappear into that sink trap that is rent.
By the time we reach the school our teeth are chattering and Larxene's fingers are so stiff she can barely hold her book bag. I hurry her off up the path towards the school building, hoping that her hands will thaw before she has to do any writing. Usually at this point as soon as she disappears I turn on my heel and hurry to work, but today I make the mistake of glancing at the ensemble of mothers seeing their little darlings off at the gate. I try so hard to make my eyes sweep casually over the crowd, but they stick where a few Mums are chatting to each other, smiling at their gaggles of children, their breath coming out in smoke when they laugh.
I purse my lips and am about to tear myself from this tableau before the glass wall between us feels too thick when I suddenly notice a teenager fussing over a girl about Larxene's age. I must be staring at her for too long, because she happens to look up and waves nervously when she sees me. I quickly escape down the street, too frightened of actually talking to her to linger, but I keep catching her in the crowd morning and afternoon after that. At first I think she's another teen mum, like me, but I soon settle disappointingly on the only logical conclusion: she's got to be the little girl's sister, or else the elder mothers would be stigmatising her just like me.
In the end, I don't manage to summon up the courage to approach this pretty blonde girl in pastel clothes: she does it for me, sidling up to me with her daughter one afternoon while I'm still waiting for Larxene (or at least, a teacher come to talk to me about Larxene's latest misdeed). It's late December and soft freckles of snow are beginning to spot the ground, the children starting to come home with handmade Christmas decorations - in lieu of a tree, Larxene has been hanging hers on my ivy - and the mother's conversations are deviating even further from any contribution I might have made as the festive season progresses. Christmas dinners? Larxene and I have already decided to sleep in until noon then make pancakes. Presents? I can't even afford things that she needs right now, let alone wants. I hate these women for living in such a cosy, sheltered world, for complaining that they can't find a reasonably priced turkey with which to stuff their spoilt children, but I am also violently jealous of them.
I'm not in a great mood when this girl comes up to me and says in a gentle voice, "Hey?". I'm facing the very real possibility of being in debt by the time I have to quit work to have my next baby, because my benefits still haven't come in. I called up the relevant authority and they told me there had been problems with the photocopy of Larxene's birth certificate that I'd sent them, which I believe to be utter bullshit since apparently my passport - my passport that explicitly states that I am male - went through without a hitch. If this issue still isn't sorted by the time I need to go back to work, I won't be able to afford childcare for my baby. I've been fiddling and fiddling and fiddling with finances all day, to no avail, which has made me tense and jumpy.
"Hey," the girl says again when I don't reply, her accent as crisp and sharp as a frosty morning, "I just saw you around, um. So I thought I'd introduce myself. My name's Naminé, what's yours?"
I find myself admiring her eyes. I don't know why, because I don't exactly make a habit of liking things about females, but there's just something wise and melancholy in those deep blue eyes that attracts me to them.
"Marluxia," I say in my usual whisper. "I'm Larxene's mother." It still feels strange to think of myself as Larxene's mother and not her father; saying it out loud sends a shudder down my spine.
Naminé chuckles. "Yeah, Selphie's told me about Larxene." My response is automatic. Without even the slightest pause I go: "Oh dear." This is the kind of expectation I have of my daughter. By Naminé seems to think this is a joke, because she lets out a tiny little laugh again.
"I just thought I'd say hi," she says after an awkward pause. "I couldn't help but notice that you don't really talk to anyone." Is it really that obvious that I'm not part of Them? Evidently so.
"Well, thanks," I reply, mostly because I can't think of anything else to say. We look at each other. Naminé's clothes are quite obviously designer, from the way they flatter her figure even when designed as they are for the brutal depths of winter. I am just nurturing the usual jealousy inside my ribcage when a skinny little bundle of hate hits my legs, going "Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, I'm cold, carry me" in an insistant voice. I pick Larxene up and rest her on my narrow hip.
"I'd better go," I say to Naminé; "Our clothes aren't exactly made for this kind of weather." The falling snow has thickened since I arrived at the school gates, and I can feel it melting into my hair and sleeping through my cheap, holey shoes. I am already walking away by the time Naminé says goodbye, Larxene clinging to my coat like a baby sloth.
"Are you making friends?" She asks accusingly as I turn the corner, speedwalking in the hopes that I might produce enough energy to keep myself from freezing solid before we get home. "I doubt it," I reply; "She was just being polite." Larxene nods, satisfied by my lie. She's beginning to take pride in her status as a loner, deliberately shunning anyone who might try to approach her. I think she's using the fact that I'm the same to justify this, so understandably she doesn't want me to have any friends other than her. But unfortunately for her Naminé says hi to me the next day, and the day after that, and so on until by the time Larxene breaks up for Christmas I am actively seeking her out, an ally in this sea of hateful, judgemental mothers. She is, as I suspected, Selphie's big sister: their parents both work full time, so Naminé takes on most of the parental responsibilities. She's sixteen years old. I find myself looking at her more closely when she says this. Was I really so young - so tiny - when Larxene was born? Naminé is barely more than half my height; she looks far too slender and delicate to bear a child.
"So, are you planning anything for the holidays?" She asks while we wait for Larxene and Selphie to come out. I shake my head.
"I'm just taking the day off work, that's all. We might go for a walk if it snows."
Selphie appears from the open doorway of the school hall, waving at Naminé as she hurries down the path. "Larxene got in trouble for biting Zack Fair, she'll be out in a bit."
Naminé and I glance at each other. Larxene gets into fights a lot, but she's never actually bitten anyone before, at least not that I'm aware of. Before I catch myself I ask in a surprised voice: "Where?"
"I didn't see it," Selphie says in that ponderous way that four-year-olds talk, letting Naminé fix her scarf and pull up her gloves. "But Ienzo says that she made him bleed."
Forgetting that there are children in the vicinity I say "Oh, Jesus Christ", the hair on the back of my neck already prickling. I hurry towards the gate, saying "I'd better go check everything's okay," to Naminé as I do. She offers to wait for me, but I flap her away. "Don't bother. I might be a while, if this is serious."
She looks at me with those deep, sad eyes. "Have a nice Christmas," she calls out. I want to say "You too," but I'm too far away for her to hear without raising my voice, so I just think it very hard as I push through the last few homegoing children towards the school. I already know from many past experiences where the Headmaster's office, and sure enough sitting in front of this stern-looking middle aged man are Larxene, Zack Fair and Mrs Fair.
"Ah, Miss Braefern," the Headmaster says when I appear in the doorway. "Please, take a seat. I take it you're aware of the situation."
Several snappy retorts pop into my head, but I bite my lip as I pick Larxene up and put her on my lap. She wriggles on my thighs and goes "You're cold, Mummy." I hug her tighter than she might have liked, trying to absorb some of her warmth.
"Please, Miss Braefern, try to take this seriously. Your daughter's behaviour is absolutely unacceptable, and at this point the consequences we have been discussing are severe."
I glance at Zack Fair, noticing that under his hat he has a bandage wrapped around his head. Larxene bit his head? Privately, I'm impressed: and maybe this shows in the way I raise my eyebrows, because Mrs Fair shoots daggers at me and actually pulls Zack closer to her, as though I might bite him too.
"What actually happened?" I ask; "I haven't heard the details."
"Your vicious little daughter seriously injured my son," Mrs Fair says venomously, which actually isn't an informative response at all. I'm about to say "I gathered that," but thankfully the Headmaster stops me making even more of an enemy of this woman by interrupting: "As I understand it, Larxene and Zack had a heated argument in the playground, which escalated into physical violence-"
"Physical violence," Mrs Fair spits angrily, "It was nothing short of a brutal attack."
"Larxene wouldn't "attack" anyone unless provoked," I say petulantly. The Headmaster gives me a Look.
"Miss Braefern, I understand that when disagreements occur it is rarely the fault of only one party, but Larxene seriously injured Zack. If she were at the age of criminal responsibility the police would be here with us now." The gravity of this situation is really not helped by the fact that Larxene glances at Zack and sniggers. I shake her a little, hissing her name to shut her up.
"I'm sorry," I say through gritted teeth, admitting defeat at long last. "I'll talk to her about it."
The Headmaster dismisses Zack and his mother, who are both apparently more than eager to leave our company, before continuing: "I know your situation at home isn't…ideal, Miss Braefern, but there is only so much we can do at school to discipline her daughter. These behaviours stem from outside of school. Now, I try to give all of the children at my school as good a chance as I can, but this isn't the first time Larxene has gravely injured a classmate, and I am inclined to believe that it won't be the last. As such, I have had to seriously consider whether or not I am happy to welcome her back to this school in the new year."
"You're expelling her?" I ask disbelievingly; "But she's four!"
"I'm sorry, Miss Braefern, but I can't put my other pupils in danger for the sake of your daughter."
My heart sinks: even I didn't get expelled from school until I was in my teens. I didn't even think that Larxene was doing too badly, considering the walls I was up against. Am I really that bad a parent?
"Give her one more chance," I say eventually, amazed at how choked up my throat has become. "If something like this happens again, I'll find somewhere else for her. I'll do what I can over the holidays." This last promise is a hollow lie: my only plan while Larxene is off school is to literally leave her at home alone while I work overtime. I've given up hoping that my benefits will arrive any time soon, and if I want to keep a roof over my head after Christmas then I've got to earn more money the hard way.
But the Headmaster just glances up at his clock. "I'm afraid we can't discuss this now," he says; "I have an important meeting to go to." More important than Larxene's education and future? I bristle inside, only just controlling my anger long enough for the Headmaster to finish while he rustles papers: "I will contact you in the forthcoming days."
"So is she coming back or not?" I demand disbelievingly. "Can't you tell me now?"
"Miss Braefern, I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation. Your daughter is, quite simply, uncontrollable. She has no respect for authority, no consideration for her fellow classmates, and takes absolutely no interest in anything her my staff try to teach her. This is not a decision I can make now."
The worst thing is that Larxene is still on my lap, listening to every word the Headmaster says to write her off. I instinctively pull her closer to me, until my bulging stomach feels uncomfortably compressed. I feel so sick that I don't say anything until the Headmaster has the documents he needs and has reached the door.
"Miss Braefern," he says. The word Miss hangs in my mind, stinging. Larxene wraps her arms around my neck so she doesn't tumble to the floor when I stand up, and out we go, into the empty corridor. It isn't until I step into the cold outside air and Larxene tucks her face under my hair that I realise she's crying.
"It's okay," I murmur gently, "It's going to be okay. I won't let him kick you out." I know I should be chiding her for biting Zack Fair, but right now I couldn't care less about that prissy little kid and his even prissier mother. We'll talk later when our breath isn't visible in the snowy air. And also when we're alone: in spite of my instructions to Naminé she's still waiting at the gate with Selphie, a worried look on her face.
"Hey," she says as I approach, putting Larxene on the floor so I can wipe her face. "What happened?" I'm about to explain that Larxene might not be coming back to Radiant Garden Primary School for another term, but Larxene interrupts me, saying in a loud and angry voice: "He said you were a slut."
My hand, sleeve pulled over it, freezes halfway up to Larxene's face.
"He said you were a slut," Larxene repeats more loudly, fuelled by our shocked silence, "And I said that was stupid because you don't even have a boyfriend! And he laughed at me and then I bit him."
Suddenly my insides have turned to ice. The world presses in on my skin and suffocates me. My spiteful, eloquent mind comes up blank when I try to think of something to say: all that happens is that the air in my lungs tumbles out as though my ribs have crushed it out.
"Nobody says stuff like that about you," Larxene says in a lower tone, sounding murderous. "I won't let them."
And I think, but people can throw that kind of abuse at me, because I'm alone and vulnerable and I don't have anyone to back me up except a grumpy four-year-old. But I can't say that to Larxene, because children are supposed to think that the world is still a benevolent place where wrongs are righted and dreams come true. So I just wipe the tears and snot off her face and say, very quietly, "Let's go home, okay." But Larxene just wails at me. She yells; "Why do you let them say stuff about you! Why is that okay! If I said someone's Mum was a slut I'd get into trouble!"
I say: "Don't use that kind of language, Larxene."
"Why not?" screams Larxene. And then she pulls out the ultimate small child complaint: "It's not fair! It's not fair!" And she cries openly and messily, head tipped back and eyes scrunched up tight against the snow falling on her face.
Welcome to the universe, Larxene. It's not fucking fair. Every odd that exists is stacked against you and the moment you try to fight against them you get accused of being unreasonable.
I glance up at Naminé, who is staring at both of us. I don't know what's going on behind her melancholy eyes and I'm not sure I want to. I'm pretty sure I can forget about making a friend of her. So I just scoop my distraught daughter up into my arms and walk past her without another word. What can I say? I'm already afraid that if I so much as open my mouth all this black tar that seems to be poisoning my chest will just pour out.
"Wait," says Naminé, jogging after me, "I wanted to ask if you wanted to come over for a cup of tea or something this afternoon." I shake my head, speeding up. Maybe I'll summon up the courage to talk to her in January, after this latest incident has faded into the great pool of insults in my memory. Maybe I won't ever see her again, if Larxene's not allowed back at school. I'll move again, somewhere cheaper and further away, to have my baby. I think I have about two months left; maybe I can just stay in Radiant Garden until then, and when I move I can go back to being their Daddy.
I leave Naminé behind at the school, ducking into an alleyway to shortcut through the town centre. I feel so exhausted, my babies weighing me down and pressing me on my mind. Eventually it's only the perishing cold that gets me home to a flat that isn't much warmer. I pull Larxene's wet clothes off and wrap her up in the warmest things I can find, ultimately turning her into a marshmallow huddled up on the bed. Then I put the kettle on and leave it boiling while I strip down, draping out wet coats over the barely-functional radiator.
"You're really fat," says Larxene from the bed. I look down at myself: I can't even see my feet if I stand up straight any more. "Yeah," I admit, resigning myself to my fate, "Yeah, I am."
I put on my pyjamas, which haven't fitted me for a while. I'd buy maternity clothes, but I don't have the money. Next time I'm heavily pregnant I want it to be in the summer so I can just let my belly hang out rather than worrying about the way my coat squashing my unborn child. Then once I've made tea for us I give Larxene her cup and settle down next to her under our duvet. These routine tasks have calmed me down a little, enough to say, "We need to talk about this, Larxene."
Larxene huffs audibly and turns away. I don't let her obstinate behaviour put me off, continuing: "I know people say horrible things about us. But that doesn't mean you can hurt them back. We have to play by their rules whether we like it or not." Larxene doesn't say anything. I think she's trying to pretend that I'm not telling her off. "Look, if you don't stop doing this then they won't let you back to school. And we'll have to move again."
"Well, I don't like it here anyway," Larxene grumbles. "I want to go back to Traverse Town."
Admittedly, I don't like it here either, and I also want to go back to Traverse Town: but that's not an option any more. So I start lying.
"Come on, Larxene, we have to stick this out. You're at a really good school right now, and you probably won't get that opportunity again." I sigh. This is probably an argument lost on my hedonistic daughter. "Do you want to be somewhere even worse?"
Larxene finally turns to face me, lying against my side. I wrap my arm around her to show her that I still love her. "I know it's hard. I'm the same. But when people say things you don't like, you just have to step back and control yourself."
"He deserved it," Larxene says. Suddenly she's animated again, almost spilling her tea all over herself: "And I'll punch him when I see him again!" I quickly push her back down.
"No, you can't do that," I tell her desperately, "This is exactly what I mean, Larxene. You have to calm down. You can't break the rules even if someone says mean things. Even if they hit you." And we look at each other, both knowing that it's not fair and it doesn't make sense. "I know it sucks," I venture on tentatively, "But that's just what you have to do."
"It sucks a lot," Larxene says sourly. She tucks her head up against my swollen chest, and there we stay together until I realise that I desperately need to pee.