24. Rinoa
THE AIR SMELLS stale and the walls are a yellowing shade of off-white. Deling General, I've decided, is a miserable place, one that I could probably go without visiting again for a long time. Gone are the sounds of rain and thunder, replaced by the incessant beeping of monitors, the annoyed chatter from the nursing staff, and the sliding hiss of automated doors that can't decide whether to stay open or closed.
Three other people are waiting besides Rinoa and me: an elderly woman and her fifty-something daughter, and one drugged-out guy who won't stop moaning. The former, I worry for. There's a look in the daughter's eyes as she tries her best to keep calm. I can tell she's thinking about her mother's mortality. How many more hospital visits until it's the last? And will the end feel like a tragedy, or a relief?
The latter, I feel nothing for. He was brought in here an hour ago by a nurse who already looked to have had enough of his shit. I'm sure it's not the first time she's had to deal with this man. His pockmarked face, his arms covered in hypodermic constellations—they tell the story of a spiral gone too far. (Sometimes I wonder if I would have ever gotten to that point had I carried on the way I did, falling beneath the floor I'd once convinced myself was the bottom.)
It takes twenty-two steps to get from one end of the waiting room to the other. I count Rinoa's strides as she paces back and forth, her eyes focused down at the scuffed up tiles, all red and puffy from tears. It's almost as if she's running some sort of marathon; over the course of her race, she stops only four times: once to ask the nurse how much longer, once to use the bathroom, twice to cry.
I still hate it when she cries.
I'm sitting in one of the hard blue plastic chairs, watching the time tick by on the bottom corner of the TV screen, while the twenty-four hour newscast covers the blackout that's hit nearly half the city. It's been forever since we got here, hours that have piled up into this massive blur in my head. I don't remember much of it. After the initial panic, I've been mostly on auto-pilot, trying to just get through this without having a complete meltdown, which of course, is easier said than done.
I don't think either of us could ever fathom how difficult it would be to see Harper hurt. Really hurt. A bloodied up cut on her head in need of a dozen stitches. A broken arm, the bone shoved out of place to the point where you could see a lump; it'll require surgery to reset, the doctor said. All because of the storm.
When Harper woke up to the sound of thunder, she was afraid. Everything was pitch black, her nightlight unable to keep the monsters away without power. She fell down the stairs after she'd gotten out of bed to look for Rinoa. And Rinoa, well. She blames herself. She shouldn't, of course; she had no way of knowing this would happen. Still, I get it. I would've blamed myself, too, had the roles been reversed.
Neither of us like idling. I've had two cigarettes so far, my phone's dead. Rinoa's chewed millimetres off her nails. It was almost easier when Harper was with us (and not just because we were in a room with a bed instead of stuck in some godforsaken waiting area). She gave us something to focus on and take care of. We did whatever we could to keep her distracted: cartoons, music, games on Rinoa's phone, a pen and paper she could draw with. No food—even though she asked repeatedly to have some kind of snack, neither of us were prepared to delay her surgery and prolong our time here.
It takes twelve more minutes (according to GNN) before Rinoa finally gives up on her marathon and sits down next to me. Up close, I can tell how tired she is, the ashy circles under her eyes, the droop in her shoulders. I'm sure I don't look much better myself. My skin feels oily, eyes strained from lack of sleep. How fucking long does it take to set a broken arm? It's been over an hour since they took Harper back to the operating room.
"What time is it?" Rinoa's voice sounds more like a croak.
I gesture to the TV. "04:52."
She shakes her head. "I still can't believe this happened. I'm sorry."
"Stop saying you're sorry," I tell her.
"Whatever." She slumps down into the chair a bit further, lets her arms spread across the armrests.
I clasp my hands and rest my elbows on my knees. It doesn't feel right, being this close to her anymore. It hasn't felt right since our bond deteriorated. I know that sounds strange; for so many years, I've pined after Rinoa, hoping for a chance to fix things between us. I thought that was what I needed to do in order to finally climb back from my spiral.
And not only that. I thought maybe if Rinoa and I got back together, I'd finally have a chance to be the parent I always should've been for Harper, and not just some lame weekend dad. The fact that Rinoa even called me to the hospital is surprising. I figured she would've had the paternal role covered already.
"Where's Adrian?" I ask.
"In Timber for work," she replies dryly.
"Ah."
She nudges my shoulder. "I would've asked you to come here either way."
I nod. "I guess I just—"
"—You worry too much, Squall," she says.
That gets a half-smile out of me. "Probably. But so do you."
She smiles back. "Touché."
We sit around for another twenty or so minutes, long enough to watch the too-cheery morning broadcast come on, its polished presenters wearing big fake smiles and touting even bigger coffee mugs. Normally, I'd find a way to feel some sort of disdain for them, but right now, I don't feel much of anything. I'm just…exhausted, drained. I sure as hell don't have any energy to spare for talking heads.
Rinoa's own tiredness doesn't prevent her from fidgeting. Even as she stares blankly at the TV with half-hooded eyes, she's still unconsciously picking at her nails, playing with her hair, the nerves finding different ways to express in lieu of pacing. I don't think I've seen her act like this since the days leading up to our break-up. Back then, I would find ways to be annoyed by her, angry at her inability to contain herself. But that's practically ancient history at this point. Now—I just want her to calm down for her own sake.
She finally does when the doctor comes out. For both of us, the sight of her washes over like relief. "Mr. and Mrs. Leonhart?" she asks.
Now there's a pronouncement we've never heard before. We look at each other. I'm tired to the point where I let out a laugh. Rinoa shrugs.
The doctor gestures for us to move. "Your daughter is out of surgery. We've got her resting in her room while the anaesthesia wears off. Please, come with me."
We get up and follow her through the sliding doors, round the nurse's station, down the sterile hallway, past a pair of empty gurneys. Room B17 is dark, save for one white light above the bed. Harper looks so small and still, sleeping in the middle of the mattress, her arm wrapped in a cast and her head bandaged (in much the same way mine was after I was scarred by Seifer). I absently trace my fingers along the faint white line spanning across my forehead and wonder if she'll have one of her own, too.
Rinoa starts crying again. She buries her face in her hands and tries to muffle her sobs, but they just come through stronger—ugly, raw sounds that cause tremors to ripple through her entire body. I'm worried that she might collapse. (Did I mention that I fucking hate seeing her like this?)
Before I can think to tell myself no, I reach across, put an arm around her shoulders. She freezes, inhales sharply. For a second, I think she might freak out, but then she lets her head fall onto my chest and keeps crying, her tears soaking through my t-shirt. I draw her in closer, rest my chin on her head, rub her back. It's been years since I've done this, and even more years since I've seen her cry without being the cause. I feel like I'm holding onto a ghost, this vague idea of what might have been.
"It's okay, Rin," I say. "It's okay."
—
BY THE TIME we leave the hospital, the sun has risen, at least presumably so, the cloud cover brightened to a lighter shade of cool grey. Rinoa asks if I'll come over to help Harper get settled in back at her place; I agree without much thought, following her car past Wilburn Hill, up Gotland Lake Parkway, and back toward Galbadia Heights.
The power has come back on. As I step back into her house, I can hear the hum of appliances, the whirring of wires. Rinoa carries Harper carefully back up the same stairs she fell down and tucks her into bed.
"Can I have a snack now?" Harper asks, still groggy from the effects of the anaesthetic.
"Of course, babe," Rinoa says before turning to me. "Need anything? Water? Coffee?"
I smirk. "Coffee. And a phone charger, if it's not a pain."
She nods and disappears back downstairs. I take a moment to look around; Harper's room is so different at Rinoa's house, not at all like I'd pictured. It's a lot more girly. There are posters of unicorns and cartoon characters, the walls are painted blush pink. She's still got plenty of things to play with, of course, but instead of wooden trains and miniature cars, her toy box is filled with mostly dolls, and a few stuffed animals.
It's almost as though I'm seeing her through a different lens, the way Rinoa sees her. Nurturing, full of big dreams—not terribly unlike Rinoa herself. I wonder what Rinoa would think if she walked into Harper's room at my place. Would she see her the way I do, a girl who's curious about the world, a girl who loves music and adventure? What would she think of the shelves of books, the big container of art supplies, or the Yellow Submarine poster?
I sit down on the edge of the bed. Harper looks up to me with tired, pale eyes and gives a faint smile. I can tell she's wanting to steel herself, to put on a brave face. So often, she reminds me of her mother, but in this moment, seeing her resilience as she tries her best to tough out the hurt, she reminds me of someone else—me.
"Rough night, kid," I say as I push errant strands of hair from her face, careful not to disturb the bandage on the top of her forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"Daddy, lie down," she commands. I do. The moment I hit the mattress, she's right there, snuggling up close, her head coming to rest in the space between my neck and my collarbone. She lets out an adult-sized sigh. "Better, now."
I give her a quick kiss. "Good."
Selfishly, it feels good to be in a bed, even if it's a twin-sized one. I've been awake for over twenty-four hours; my body would probably surrender to a wooden table if it was the only option available. I close my eyes for just a minute.
"—she'll be okay. God, I feel so terrible… Yes, he's here. It's alright… I just want what's best for Harper, you know?"
When I open my eyes again, there's a cup of coffee on the nightstand, my phone is plugged in. Harper's snack—apple slices and peanut butter—is still on its plate, uneaten. In the corner of the room, Rinoa sits half-enveloped by a bean bag chair, talking to whom I can only assume to be Adrian while Angelo lays at her feet. She finally looks a bit more relaxed, her lips quirked into a small smile, her hands no longer fidgety.
I slowly sit up, easing Harper off my chest and onto her pillow. My glasses are crooked from falling asleep. I straighten them out and grab my phone. God. It's somehow after ten in the morning. There's a text from Quistis, asking how Harper is. No mention of my confession, no word on whether or not she feels the same. Still, it's better than the silence that sat between us for weeks after our…incident.
I keep my reply direct, letting her know that Harper is okay, that she made it back home and is resting after her surgery.
She seems to be in the same mood. She sends back a quick message. "I'm so relieved."
Honestly, it's probably for the best that we don't get into it. I can't mentally handle any detours right now; whatever happened—whatever's happening—between us will have to be put on hold.
Beyond the message from Quistis, the number of notifications I've gotten is, well, it's not good. Six missed calls from Garden, dozens of texts from Xu. All to ask where I am, why I've missed every single meeting I've had on my calendar, why I'm not answering my phone. Each message is progressively bitchier than the last, and she ends her tirade with a threat—that she's going to talk to the Headmaster, and this time, she's going to recommend more than a suspension.
I heave out a long exhale and leave her on read. Fuck it. She can go right ahead and tell on me if it suits her. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters more than being with Harper. Not her, not the Headmaster, not SeeD, not Garden. But she'll never understand. She's never had anyone like this to care about. And even if she did, part of me wonders if she'd be at all capable. Like Seifer said—Michele Xu is stone cold.
"Work?"
It takes a second to register that Rinoa's question is directed at me. "I'm…" I stop, shake my head, slough off a half-laugh. How many times have I said this exact phrase to her? I'm sure my words sound about as empty as my promises. But I have nothing else to offer, and for what it's worth, I'm telling the truth. "I am just so done with this place."
She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her chin on top. "I've heard that one before."
"I know." I take a sip of lukewarm coffee. "Laguna thinks I should quit."
"Well, Adrian did say he'd offer you a job if you needed one," she reminds me.
I put a hand up. "No offense, but I'd rather find my own way."
"I know," she says. "But it's on the table, at least. You know, if you get desperate."
"Thanks."
I stare into my coffee cup, Rinoa looks to the floor. There's a weight in the room, heavy as an anvil, sitting squarely between us. There are just so many things that have been left unsaid, so many things that remain undone. She knows it. I know it. But what exactly are we supposed to do with that information? I don't fucking know.
It's pretty goddamned ironic, honestly. I think about the speech I had memorized, the one I'd mostly written out just before I'd moved to Deling. I love you. I'm sorry. I'm trying. Even though I'd never figured out the right way to end it, I still wanted to share it with her. At the time, it felt important. I felt like I needed to tell her everything that had been on my mind since the day she left. Because maybe then I could make her understand that despite everything—all the problems I'd created, all the pain I'd inflicted—I still loved her. Deeply.
If there ever was an opportunity to recite it out loud, it would be now. With Harper sound asleep, it's just me and her. The walls have been lowered, the razor wire taken down.
Instead, I keep quiet. The words just don't feel right anymore. I'm not exactly sure what's changed. Maybe it's the fact that my focus has shifted, that my heart's settled somewhere else. It'd be easy to boil it down to that, but it's not exactly the right answer.
"You alright?" Rinoa asks. She's never been great with any sort of prolonged silence.
"Yeah, you?" I say.
"I will be," she says. "You know, after I carry that mom guilt around for a few years."
I shake my head. "Please don't. If anyone should be carrying guilt, it's me."
She looks almost childlike, the way she's sitting there in that bean bag chair, lightly rocking back and forth. She doesn't want to agree with me, but she knows she can't disagree, either. I'm the one who actually fucked up, the parent who was absent for nearly half of Harper's life. That fact alone says everything, and it's undeniable.
Still, Rinoa wants to try to smooth it over and make some kind of peace. Her words are soft around the edges. "Maybe we should forget about guilt altogether."
Forget about it, huh? She says it so easily, as if guilt is something I can just dust off my shoulder, or blow away like seeds off a dandelion. She doesn't know the depth. I've lived with this burden for so long that it's become a part of me, as ingrained and as damning as my Griever tattoo.
"I don't think I can forget," I say.
She takes a thoughtful moment, her gaze focused down on Angelo, but ultimately, she concedes. "...Yeah, I can't forget, either." I don't know if her concession is about herself and Harper's injuries, or about me. It stings either way.
"I'm sorry I wasn't better," I tell her quietly. "All those things that I did, you know? I…I wish I could take them back." I fold my arms across my thighs, let my weight fall forward. "I understand why you couldn't trust me. Why you still can't."
Rinoa looks away. "I'm sorry, too."
"Don't be," I say. I look over to Harper, still sleeping, thankfully oblivious. Her purple-casted arm drapes heavily across her pillow. "I just need you to know that I love her. I'd do anything for her."
She nods. Her eyes look hopeful in spite of how jaded I've made her. "I know."
"Good."
Rinoa moves from the bean bag then and finds a spot at the foot of the bed. Angelo follows, flopping down onto the floor below. In that moment, we look like a picture-perfect family, Mom and Dad and daughter, the dog waiting dutifully on watch. Mr. and Mrs. Leonhart. What once might have been, and will never be. It feels a lot like the song For No One by The Beatles; we're both sitting here in the wake of our relationship, too many years later, still mourning the loss of a love that should've lasted years.
"I never doubted that, you know." Her voice barely hovers above a whisper. "Even when things were at their worst."
"I just didn't want to hurt her," I say. "I thought being around her would cause more harm than good. There was…" I pause, reconsider. "There is just something that's still broken about me…but I'm trying to fix it."
Rinoa shakes her head. "Broken or not, she needs her dad."
"I realize that now," I tell her. Whether from the gravity of the conversation or from sheer tiredness, I feel my own tears start to form. I wipe at my eyes with the heel of my hand to stop them from charting paths down my face. "I don't want to lose her, Rin."
"Squall, the only person you lost in all of this was yourself."
The words cut through me like knives. But she's right. I did lose myself. When I hit the bottom of my spiral, I broke apart into a million different pieces that scattered in just as many directions. I forgot what mattered, who mattered. All I knew was the version of me that couldn't function anymore; I'd spent so much time burying myself underneath pills and powders that it had somehow become a singular focus.
But sometimes it takes falling all the way down to the bottom to appreciate the climb back up, and as I've started to surface from the wreckage, I've picked up some of the pieces along the way, shards that make up the person I was meant to be.
Of course, I'm still anxious, still a fucked up mess more often I'd care to admit. Not to mention I've got plenty of vices, and a handful of demons that never seem to get off my back. But I'm not a foregone conclusion. As time has gone on, as I've created some distance from that cold floor, I've been able to put myself back together, maybe not in exactly the same order as before, but together, nonetheless.
It's taken a lot of trial and error. Toiling over empty notepads, dating the wrong people. Reconnecting and reconciling. Hell, just the basic act of trying. But I've gotten so much in return. I've become a dad and a son. I've found love where I least expected it. All of these things I would have never imagined—things I thought were beyond me—started happening, all because I didn't give up on the ascent.
"I won't lose myself again," I tell her.
"I hope you don't." Rinoa says quietly. "…I missed you, you know. The guy I fell so hard for all those years ago."
"I missed you, too," I say in equally hushed tones. "I never stopped missing you."
She quirks an eyebrow. "...But?"
I sigh, shrug. "But things change. You changed. And I did, too."
Rinoa leans back against the wall, her smile as thin as one of Renoir's mademoiselles, yet childishly nostalgic. "We had fun. Some of the best days of my life were with you."
"Same." The quiet part, the bit that we won't say out loud, is that some of the worst days of our lives were with each other, too. But I don't want to think about that right now. I'm pretty sure she doesn't, either.
"Remember the arcade?" she asks. "To this day, I can't believe how good you were at all those games."
I grin. "Loner kid with no family, stuck in Balamb for his entire childhood? What else was I supposed to do?"
"I dunno," she says. "Brood? You always seemed so serious when I first met you."
I offer her the exact same words I said to Quistis all those years ago: "I'm more complex than you think."
She laughs. "Well, I figured that out eventually."
She figured out a lot of things, eventually. I still remember that one night together, right after she'd awoken from the clutches of Ultimecia, her power fresh, foreign. How she held onto me while we sat surrounded by the stars. She told me then that I'd become the one who gave her the most comfort and happiness. But it was paired in the same breath with a nod to her disappointment.
At seventeen, we were both so naïve. She didn't even know what disappointment was, not really. She didn't have any clue of the depth, how far it would ultimately go. My smoking, my drinking, my constant need to escape. Whatever happiness I could give her, I always managed to rip away with twice the ferocity. I hope she knows now it was never on purpose. It was just my default.
"Adrian…do you love him?" I ask.
The question takes her by surprise. It takes me by surprise, too. For a second, she stares at me, looking for some sort of underlying motive. When she finds none, she lets out a small breath, and an even smaller nod. "Yeah…" Her admission comes out low. "I love him."
I pull my knees in close, rest my head on top. "Okay."
"...I wanted to wait for you. In the beginning, especially," she tells me. Her eyes look almost longingly into mine. "I thought maybe you'd come back better, and then we could put our differences aside and finally do this whole parenting thing." She lets out a sad laugh. It sounds more like a choke. "But you didn't, not for a whole year and a half."
"I'm sorry." Fuck. An apology is such a flat gesture, but I don't know what else to say. There are no other words.
"When I started dating again, it was hard," Rinoa continues. "But Adrian… He's a great guy. He loves me. He loves Harper. And I know he'll always try to do right by us."
"I know he will, too." Although it still pains me slightly to say it, it's the truth. And doing right by Rinoa and Harper—isn't that all that really matters?
I look over to our daughter. She's so much bigger than the day she left Balamb with Rinoa. And yet, I can still clearly picture how she was back then, how small she looked all bundled up in that strawberry pink blanket. In that moment, I thought for sure that I'd never see her again. I'm so glad I was wrong. I lean over, kiss the unbandaged part of her forehead once, twice, before getting up.
"I should get going," I say. "Let me know if you need me to do anything else for Harps. Am I still good to pick her up tomorrow?"
"Y-yeah," she says.
"Okay. I'll be here." I start to head out the door.
"Wait."
Before I fully realize what's happening, her arms take hold, wrapping over my shoulders, pulling me in tight. At first, it feels like a shock. It's not like back at the hospital, where her crying had me reaching for her out of necessity. This is different. I actually don't really know what it is. Still, almost as if on instinct, I find myself drawing her closer, my cheek landing in her hair, my fingers threading along the small of her back. I swear I can smell her Guerlain Shalimar perfume, the lingering scent of sea salt. Her breath comes in waves like low tide in Balamb, slow and easy, draping warm across my neck.
"I trust you, Squall," Rinoa says into my ear, "and I forgive you."
I can't help it. The tears well up, breaking down my cheeks and into her long dark strands. I realize now that it's all I've ever really wanted from any of this, the revelation that I could be forgiven, that I could be trusted again. And while the damage between us is absolute—our divergent paths, the shared hurt, all those empty promises, our broken bond—there's hope now that maybe I can become more than the sum of my mistakes.
I hold onto Rinoa just a bit tighter as I finally let her go.