WARNING: This chapter contains scenes involving self-harm and suicide. If this makes you uncomfortable, please don't read it.
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Chapter Twenty Six
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"But... I don't understand..."
"Namine, it's nothing against you or anything. I'm just not interested," Roxas repeated himself, wishing that she would put her clothes on and go home.
The blonde girl sitting on his bed in lingerie huffed, "I just don't get it! You're a sixteen year old boy! Why wouldn't you want me? Am I not pretty enough? Is it Olette?"
"One, Olette is technically my sister... Two, you're gorgeous. You're just... Not my type," he tried to explain it to her, but she was very persistent.
"Just kiss me... Kiss me, and then tell me that you don't want to be with me," she grabbed for him, but he backed away quickly. "Roxas!"
He was starting to get frustrated. Maybe it was every other sixteen year old's dream to come home and find a blonde girl in their bed throwing herself at him, but it wasn't exactly doing it for him. "Namine, you need to get dressed and go home. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to date you. And you shouldn't be offering me anything to try and convince me otherwise."
"Why?! What did I do wrong?!"
Why did he always seem to attract unstable people? "I'm gay, Namine. I've been secretly dating Vanitas for the past couple months. Do you understand now?"
"What? No, there's no way... You're not gay!"
Roxas shrugged, "Hate to break it to you, but I'm definitely gay. No doubt about it."
"Just kiss me, Roxy..." she ran to him and flung her arms around his neck, pushing herself up onto her toes to try and reach his lips. "I can make you see that you're wrong!"
He shoved her away, "Damn it, Namine! Just accept that I don't want you and go the fuck home!"
She squeaked as if he'd hit her, tears welling up in her eyes and making him feel like a total jackass. "This whole time you just wanted to humiliate me! Why would you string me along if you never liked me?!"
"I wasn't stringing you along! I was treating you like a friend! For God's sake, Namine, you're fucking insane!"
"I'm in love with you, Roxas! Can't you see that? All I want is for you to love me back!"
"We're sixteen fucking years old, Namine! I'm not in love with anybody, and you shouldn't be either! Now I'm not going to tell you again, you need to leave!" Roxas hated how blunt he had to be with her, but he didn't know what else to do.
She crossed the room again quickly, this time without any warning, grabbing him by the face and kissing him deeply. He struggled against her grip, but he didn't want to hurt her. "See? You like it, right?"
He grabbed her wrists and held them inbetween them, trying to create a barrier that she couldn't break through, "No, Namine. I didn't like it."
"I'll sleep with you," she offered, "Just give me a chance. I can make you feel good..."
"You know what makes me feel good? Vanitas. A man," he let go of her wrists and walked away from her, "Now if you don't get out of here, I'm gonna get my foster mom to throw you out. We've probably already woken up most of the family."
She tried to grab onto him again, but he'd had it. In a flash of rage and frustration, he turned around and backhanded her across the face-harder than he'd like to admit.
She yelped and fell backwards, immediately becoming a sobbing mess. "Aww, shit, Namine... I'm sorry..." he immediately bent down to help her up, but she scooted away from him and curled up into a ball. "Namine... C'mon..."
"Why does everybody hate me?" she sobbed, "I never made any friends at my old school, and now everyone here hates me too..."
"I don't hate you, Namine... I just don't like you romantically. I'd love to have you as a friend."
She swatted him away as he reached for her again, "Leave me alone! I'm just some worthless slut anyways! I'm just insane, right?!"
"Namine, this is ridiculous... Let me take you home..."
"No!" she screamed, kicking at him, "Don't touch me!"
His foster mother was at the door now, which he ran over and locked, "Roxas, what's going on in there? Do you have a girl over?!"
"We're fine, mom! It's one of Olette's friends!"
"I hear crying and screaming! Let me in!"
Roxas was too preoccupied with his mom to notice Namine rifling through his desk now. "We're fine! We'll quiet down!"
"Let me in, Roxas! What did you do to that poor girl?!"
"I didn't do any-!" he was cut off by the sickening sound of flesh being cut open.
Namine had just plunged a pair of scissors all the way through her wrist and then pulled them out, blood starting to rush from the wound. "Now nobody needs to hate me," she whispered, slumping down onto the ground.
"Shit... Shit! Mom! Call 9-1-1!" he shouted, unlocking the door before running over and pulling Namine into his arms, grabbing her wrist and trying to keep pressure on it. Blood pooled over his fingers, continuing to run onto the wood floor in a river of red.
All he could remember after that was his mom running around the house screaming into the phone and Hayner asking him over and over what had happened.
Namine died in his arms that night.
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Roxas shot up straight in bed, panting and sweating as his nightmare stayed fresh in his mind. It'd been a long time since he had that dream... He thought he'd repressed those memories years ago.
But whoever was tormenting him seemed to have access to his laptop-including the story he'd written about that night. It was supposed to be some kind of therapy; write everything down and you'll be able to overcome it. Right. He was sure that the story was going to be the next thing leaked to God knows who.
He knew that it would haunt him forever. That poor girl had died because he was an asshole and couldn't see how unstable she was. The second he saw it turning into a shit show, he should have just grabbed Hayner and Olette and had them help him get through to her.
Axel would hate him if he ever found out about Namine... What kind of asshole drives a girl to kill herself like that? Vanitas could barely look at him for months after it happened. Hayner, Pence and Olette didn't talk to him for over a year. He thought that when Van and him moved across the country for college, it would finally stop following him everywhere he went, but apparently he was wrong.
"Roxas... Are you okay?" Axel turned over and looked up at him sleepily.
"I'm fine, Axe. I just can't stop worrying about this guy."
Axel sat up a little and wrapped an arm around him, "Rox... You've been screaming the name 'Namine' in your sleep for the past three nights. Who is she?"
"Nobody... It's just a nightmare I have," Roxas lied, his body starting to tremble a little.
"That you've been having since this guy stole the files on your laptop? What does he have on you?"
Roxas shook his head, "No... You'll hate me..."
"If whoever is doing this has the information, I'm going to find out eventually. You really think he'd just keep it to himself? Why don't you tell me now and take away his satisfaction?"
"Why don't we just go find Saix and beat the shit out of him? I know it's him, Axel. It has to be him."
Axel turned on the lights, narrowing his tired eyes on his boyfriend, "Tell me about Namine. I promise, nothing is going to make me hate you. That could never, ever happen."
"Okay... Let me get my computer. But once you read this, you need to give me a chance to explain before you panic and run away," Roxas crawled off the bed and grabbed his laptop, scrolling through a bunch of old, hidden folders until he found the file: " "
The redhead took his computer and started to read everything... Everything from how Roxas and Namine met, to how she died in his arms, to how he found out later that she had a delusional disorder that made her believe things that had never happened or weren't true. She believed so fervently that Roxas loved her that the rejection he faced her with drove her to kill herself.
Roxas sat down on the other end of the bed, watching Axel's facial expressions change from confused to shocked to horrified. His heart ached as he knew what was about to happen... Axel would throw him out, and he'd be homeless and alone.
"Rox..." Axel's voice choked up in his throat as he set the laptop aside, "All of this is true...?"
"Yes... When I was sixteen, I effectively murdered a girl who was in love with me," he whispered, pulling his knees up to his chest and waiting for Axel to start yelling.
But what he felt instead was a pair of arms wrapping around him, "Roxas, you didn't murder anybody... She did it to herself..."
"She was mentally delusional and all I did was make her feel worthless... I hit her, for God's sake... I might as well have stabbed her myself..." Roxas felt tears falling from his eyes now as Axel held him.
"Shh..." Axel tried to soothe him, "Roxas, you didn't know any better... You were a kid, and you couldn't see what was happening until it was too late..."
Roxas' chest heaved as he tried to control his breathing, "You must hate me now... I'm a horrible person..."
"I don't hate you, Roxas. In fact, I love you even more for willingly sharing that with me," he said, pressing a kiss against his boyfriend's cheek. "I do understand why you don't want this getting out, though. You don't deserve to have your past dredged up like this."
The blond sighed, "Can we please just confront Saix about it?"
"No... Not before we talk to Luxord. I still have a feeling that he's behind this," Axel told him, "We'll go pay him a visit at the casino tomorrow. If it really wasn't him... Then we'll go to Saix."
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A/N: So if you were able to make it through this chapter, you might be hating on me a little for killing Namine. I'm sorry! I like her just as much as everyone else, but she fulfilled her purpose for me.
All right, so I know that this story has turned into a very fast moving ball of drama, and I just want to clarify a couple things because I realized that I was a little lax with the details.
One: Currently, it has been three days since the video was leaked. That happened the day after the truck was vandalized. The truck was vandalized two weeks after Axel and Roxas started dating. Axel and Roxas started dating one week after his surgery. His surgery happened three days after the seizure. All in all, it's been a little over a month since the seizure.
Two: They've now known each other for around four months. Before you say that you can't fall in love in four months, let me counter that. I fell in love with my fiance in like a day and a half, and we're still together two years later and about to get married.
Three: I'm sorry that I didn't add in enough detail to keep this all sorted out in the first place. My brain moves a little faster than my hands can type, so I tend to skip through a bunch of stuff because I'm afraid I'll forget the new idea I just had. And I tend to get a little excited when I come up with my plot twists and just shove them into the story before I have a chance to really build up to them.
So now that you know all of my flaws as a writer, let me just say that I'm sooooooo eternally grateful for all of my faithful viewers. You guys are amazing, and you're what keeps me writing.
To everyone who sends me a review on every chapter, thank you. You have no idea what it means to me, and I hope you keep on reviewing until the end!
That's right... It's nowhere near over yet.
See you next time!
Simply Rexene
