15-Mar-2000
::is going to get beaten up by Jess-chan for writing this one::: La de da da...Okay, this one is dark and angsty. It was writen on one of my darker days and is not suitable for small children or if you are already in a dark mood. Please don’t flame me too much for this fic okay? And Jess, no bashing with pillows because "I'm evil and I invaded into your own little world of non=angst" All bow down before Cleopatra, Queen of Denile!
Also....yes I know he’s OOC, but I’m evil and I decided to show his personality from a different point of view. But who is ‘he’? Sore wa himitsu desu, you’ll have to read the fic to find out who’s character I butchered this time. Humor the insane please. Also...as always I don’t own Gundam Wing, so please don’t sue, I have no money. ~_~
I stare down at my pale wrist, it’s smooth and unblemished aside from the pale scars that lay there. My other hand tightens on the razor blade I clutch there. I stare down at my wrist and then the other, stare at the scars that have gone white from age. They are old, and have been with me for many years.
Every since the war.
I wonder how the others would have reacted if they knew that /I/ had tried to inflict my own death, many times actully. But each time I stopped, never trully dug the razor blade down hard enough to kill.
Just enough to hurt, but never enough to kill. I smile slightly, that could almost describe my young life, filled with pain yet never the release of death. I’ll admit, back then I longed for death but never had the courage, or maybe cowardness to end myself. Which it was, courage or cowardness, I’ll never know, and in the end it doesn’t really matter.
But that is beside the point. All that matters is that I wanted to die but I couldn’t kill myself. Maybe if I’d had someone to talk to, maybe it would have been bearable.
But I had no one, no one to talk to, to reach out to. It reminds me of a song I heard once from an old Earth movie. But one verse truly sticks in my mind:
All of your sorrow, grief, and pain
Locked away in the Forest of the Night
Your secret heart belongs to the world
Of the things that sigh in the dark
Of the things that cry in the dark.1
That verse described me. None of the other pilots understood how I felt because I never let them see the true me. Never let them see through my façade. And in the end, my own barriers became a cage that trapped me in my pain.
I had to seem strong. If I didn’t, then they would have had no one to relie upon. But while I appeared to be full of life, I was dying inside.
Alone and dying with no one to reach out a hand to help me because they didn’t know I needed help. It’s also not within my nature to share my own pain and sorrows with others. But do not get me wrong, all that I appeared to be was true.
I do care, probably more then I should and that too caused me much hurt. And perhaps my unwillingness to hurt others is what ultimately kept me from confiding in them. I couldn’t allow myself to burden my friends, not when they themselves were having just as bad a time as me.
So I suffered silently, as was my choice.
I watched Heero emotionlessly self-destruct and was filled with such conflicting emotions. On one hand, his ‘death’ was like a stab to my heart that left a part of me dead. But on the other hand, I think in the back of my mind, I secretly admired him.
To be able to so effortlessly throw away your life, it both intimidated me and appealed to me at the same time. I think that was when I truly realised how much I longed for death. But I did nothing, in fact, I re-doubled my efforts to be happy and for a short while I thought I had succeeded.
But after my experience with the Zero system, I began to cut myself. I hated myself, hated all I had done, the people I had killed. I had killed the two people I cared for most, my father...and Trowa.
What a shock ne? I sure was surprised, I never truly analyzed my feelings for Trowa ‘till I thought I had lost him.
And when I realized my true feelings, the emptiness within me swelled up and swallowed me whole. I spent weeks hating myself and secretly inflicting as much pain as I could upon muself. A weird form of penance I guess. But no one ever noticed the welts and pink scars on my wrists and forearms because of my long sleeves. Just as no one noticed the hollow emptiness that filled my eyes. Just as no one noticed when I cried myself to sleep each night in my dark room. But then, if one were to get philosophical, I was surrounded by darkness always. Night and day, I was consumed by the darkness that no one but I could see.
And I have no doubt that if Duo hadn’t suddenly appeared one day with news that Trowa was alive, I would have eventually have killed myself. But I didn’t because Duo, an angel of light who called himself Death, arrived with not only news of my beloved being alive, but also a pardon for my soul.
And for that, I am eternally grateful to him, he doesn’t realize what he did. Or maybe he does, out of all of us, I think he is the one who would have understood my feelings. He would have understood how it felt when you had to hide behind a façade of life and cheerfulness, while inside you were crying.
If I had confided in anyone, it would have been him, but I didn’t, I couldn’t...
Yet even after I found out that Trowa was alive, finding out that he couldn’t remember anything, not me, nothing, it was like losing him all over again.
And it was all my fault, just as Catherine had angrily accused me. And that was why I left, because I couldn’t stand to see the one I so deeply cared for not recognize me. That night, when I was all alone, that was the night I came closest to killing myself.
I had nothing to tie me down anymore. Nothing, and the war be damned, at that point I doubt I could have cared less. But I didn’t die and I continued to suffer while I kept my cheerful mask up around Trowa.
I smiled encouragingly at him as he strived to remember who he was, while I secretly died piece by piece all over again. As I lost hope each day, and the darkness crept closer and closer, threatening to swallow me once again.
And even after Trowa did regain his memory, I still longed for death. And when I faced off against Dorothy on the Libra, I saw myself reflected back at me. She was similar to me, and just as alone.
I thought that maybe, just maybe I could save her. And that is why I stayed and fought her while I should have escaped, not because I actually /wanted/ to die. I didn’t realize that until after the war had ended.
I actually stayed to help, not to die. And after that, I never cut myself again.
And you want to know the funny thing? Now looking back on it all, I had people reaching out to me the entire time.
But it was my own blindess that kept me from seeing that. And this time, as I hold that sharp razor to my wrist, this time I am going to reach out.
With a disgusted sigh, I toss the piece of metal that once meant the difference between life and death to me, away and I stand up. I walk out of my dark room and walk to the study where my love and long time lover sits by a fire reading a book.
He looks up and his green eyes widen in shocks as he sees the tears staining my cheeks.
...Quatre, what is wrong? he asks as he stands up and wraps his strong arms around me. I sniffle and bury my face in his chest.
...Trowa, I need someone to talk to...
~owari~
Note:
[1] From the Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) Theme Song.
Author's Notes: I am NOT encouraging suicide, far from it. And if you do feel that suicide is the only option left for you, please, please tell someone how you feel. It may not seem that there is anyone out there that would understand, but there is. I promise. But I’m begging you, please confide in someone, a school counselor, or call a hotline. Just remember, you are not alone and please don’t think that there is nothing left for you but death, because there is.
-Sheira