Act 4 – Chapter One, First Branch: Nothing Left To Say

I can't be there. I just can't.

We're one day away now, I'm one day away from it and I just can't be around anybody, but he's the last person I want to see. I never said anything to him about how I feel and I don't know now if that was a good thing or a bad one. Damn it all, I can't even bring myself to say his name. I put everything of myself on him, allowed myself to finally believe that for once, just once in my life I could rely on someone and finally let myself feel as if I deserved help. And whether or not he meant to, he threw it back in my face. I opened myself up to him and got absolutely nothing in return. Nothing. Just as he made me feel.

Just as I should feel.

Could I have ever really thought that I was worthy of the help and support that was being offered to me by those I thought of as friends? I like Yuuko, I like Akira, but I was never close to them, not really. Lilly may as well have abandoned me to fly across the world. I understand why she did it, and I forgive her, but I can never avoid that feeling of betrayal. Still, she isn't the one who hurt me. He came along and made me feel as if I could be worth something, as if I could finally stop rebutting every attempt made to help me. Then when we were finally alone he broke me into nothing but fragments, and made everything worse.

I'm supposed to see Miss Yumi today but I can't bring myself to go. I haven't felt so low since I... I don't want to go into it. I was a danger to myself then, in the most literal sense of the term, and I don't want to fall back into that pattern, something that I know will happen if I leave this room, this bed. I have to be strong, but it's so hard...

The pillow is stained and soaking wet. I alternate between waking and sleep. I can't be comfortable but I don't feel as if I deserve to be. I have to push him out of my mind, to undergo my usual ritual and wallow in my own grief and self-loathing until all this passes and I can finally return to my semblance of normality. Even then, I know that I can't avoid the thoughts forcing their way into my head, of a life where he would be a part of it, such an important part that one day we... we...

I can't even cry now. I have water to sustain me, a lesson hard learned over years of mourning and misery, but even as I drink my body is purged and I cry again until whatever was taken in is completely gone. My mind races through so many possibilities of how and who and why. How I could have allowed myself to be taken in so deeply and so thoroughly, to fall for such a boy, such a man, and how I let myself lower all the defences I had spent so many years building even against the likes of Lilly. Who he could be, to let me trust him and then destroy that trust so cruelly. Why he would do this, and why I didn't see through him after everything else I've faced in my life so far.

I was blind. I realise the utter irony, but that's what I was. I was so in awe of the new and strange feelings that I didn't consider all sides to the story, and now it's too late.

Does he even care? I can't imagine he does. My life means nothing to someone like him.

As it should be. Why should I deserve to be treated like a person? Why should anybody see me as more than I am, as someone to respect, or talk to, or laugh with? Or love?

I don't know how long I lie there, fighting the impulse to drift away into the land of nightmares, so much worse than they have ever been before. Last night I saw him merged into the usual dreams, waiting as I watched my family burn. Never speaking, not even looking at me, just watching the destruction and the carnage as my life fell apart for the first, but nowhere near last, time.

My thoughts are everywhere and I can't even maintain my own consistency. Did he know how much I would break, like one of the fragile dolls on my shelf, when he said those words to me yesterday? It would have been nothing, no effort at all, to at least spend some time with me! Instead he callously left me to my own devices, expecting me to be at his beck and call yet showing no sign of interest in my own wants or desires, however few they may be. When Lilly bought me that doll for the day I dread, she couldn't have known just how much my life would come to resemble the gift.

Fragile.

They say that in many fragile things there is a level of strength, but whatever strength I had has been sucked away by him. I can't eat, I can't sleep, though I can't stay awake, and whatever I do I find myself reminded of him.

It's not even that I wanted the support that he was originally offering. I don't want that, I don't need it. Help, people doing everything for me and smothering me like some kind of needy child, that's never been what I wanted! But surely everyone needs some kind of company, someone to share their darkest secrets with, someone who can be a crutch when needed yet never expects that their help is vital. Lilly was never that for me. She tried, oh yes, but she couldn't be there all the time when I needed her, and she was there too much when I didn't, when I was trying to show my inner strength.

I still have that. I know it, I just buried it so far down that I don't know if I could recover it again. Maybe in my darkest moments, because this isn't my darkest moment, not by a long shot. It's been a long time since I felt this low, but I know that I can go even lower. As for the trigger, well, I won't know that until it hits me.

I realise I wasn't lying to him when I mentioned my homework yesterday. I don't have any drive now to finish it. It will have to wait, indefinitely. The day passes. Nothing happens save my ongoing hatred of the world, and one small part of it in particular.

Can I really blame him, though? I'm tough to deal with, I know that. Some people come with baggage, but who else has dealt with the kind of thing I have had to live with most of my life? If he was scared off by that, if he considered all the possibilities and decided it wasn't worth the trauma or the stress... but then he could have been honest! I'd have understood. Did he ever even consider how I might have felt about him? Or are his thoughts elsewhere, perhaps halfway across the world, with someone else...?

I'm startled from my reverie by a gentle knocking on the door. No, please, don't let it be...

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Hanako, it's just me. Mutou said to give you some stuff." No. I didn't want this, I didn't want this! However, if he's been sent here by Mutou-sensei then I have little choice. I wait as long as I can before emerging from the damp cocoon and checking that my nightgown covers everything. I slowly walk towards the door and unlock it, opening it just a fraction so I can see his face through the gap. I don't look at his eyes, in fact I deliberately avoid his gaze. I don't want to know what he might be thinking now.

"Hi, Hanako. Mutou wanted me to give you these since you weren't in class today." My shoulders slumped, I take the papers from his outstretched hand, barely glancing at them before my own hand moves away. I already know that this work won't be done for a while, I have no mood nor desire to study right now. He moves his head to look at me better but I look away, not wanting him to see me like this.

How pathetic of me, to still care what he thinks of me, of my appearance, after everything I've been through...

"Are you... okay? If you're feeling sick or anything, I could go get a nurse." This is the first time I look at him, the first time I can bring myself to say how I feel.

"I'm fine." The lie is so obvious but he doesn't question it. I honestly don't know if I even want him to, or if I'd rather he leave. At least he isn't trying to get into the room, to comfort me like some kind of hypocrite.

"I see." He accepts my words without question. Then... "Would you like me to stay? I don't have anything urgent to do at the moment, so it wouldn't be any trouble."

I look away again, determined not to let him see my eyes any more. "Hanako...?" I shake my head, the only response I dare give. I dread to imagine what words will burst from my lips if I open them, I can already feel them wobbling. "Okay. Um... good night, then." I close the door before he can continue speaking, and retreat to my bed. I remove the nightgown and try to sleep, dreading the dreams to come.

I wonder if he can dream well...?