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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)	By : shinigamiinochi Category: Gundam Wing/AC > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2207 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing AC or the characters from it. I am making no money from this story

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
A Stagnation of Love

Chapter 3

Part 7
　

"What happened yesterday?" Quatre finally asked me the day after I had had my fight with Trowa.

I hadn't seen or spoken to the upperclassman since I had stormed away from him. Worse, neither had Trowa. He was avoiding Quatre. I had thought that he was just avoiding me, pissed that I had let off at him like that, but he hadn't made any attempt to talk to Quatre, either. I didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Was he staying away because I had hurt his feelings, because I had given him an ultimatum and he had chosen the cowardly option, or was it because of what Relena had said? Was he staying away to help Quatre, help himself, or was he just ashamed? And which reason did I wish was the actual one?

When Trowa didn't meet Quatre after recess and my friend had emerged from the nurse's office, he had looked so sad. He had looked like a puppy that had just woke up from a peaceful nap, only to get kicked in the face. And when Trowa hadn't shown up to talk to him after any of our other classes or after the school day was over, that sadness only deepened. I felt guilty about what I had said to his crush for the first time, if only because Quatre was suffering, but the more mature part of me that was sometimes cruelly logical thought that that was ok.

I don't mean that it was ok that Quatre was sad that the other boy suddenly wasn't talking to him, but maybe Trowa staying away from him would be a good thing. It would hurt Quatre for awhile, and if Quatre found out what I had said to him, he would be angry with me, but there was more good that would come from Trowa leaving Quatre alone than bad. Relena wouldn't be able to use Trowa to threaten Quatre with anymore. Quatre wouldn't feel constantly guilty and awful that he might let it slip that he liked the basketball player and that he might give Trowa a bad reputation just by being friends. And maybe the two of them going their separate ways now would save them heartache later.

Or maybe I had completely fucked things up when I had told the older boy to either man up or go the hell away. All I knew was that Trowa was hurting my best friend, even if he hadn't meant. Quatre was happy around him, but he was also miserable, so I felt conflicted. And I was well aware that what I had done was petty, I had lashed out at him for being unable to do what I was also unable to do, and I was still incredibly angry at him over it. Yeah, it made me a hypocrite, but I felt better without him around to fuel my rage. I just didn't know what to do anymore, what was the right thing to do for Quatre, if I had just made things worse or if he would get over it.

A part of me wished that Trowa would stay away forever. Our lives were shitty enough without him giving Relena fuel and while I hated him, I also liked him enough to not want his life ruined, even if I was so angry that I didn't want to see his face at the moment. But another part of me wished that he would see Quatre. I hated seeing my friend so depressed and confused and hurt, I would even go so far as saying that he felt a bit betrayed by Trowa's sudden distance. I wanted to see him happy again and I knew that Trowa could make him smile so easily. And if Trowa came back, wouldn't that mean that he had decided to fight for Quatre after all?

I had too much to worry about in my own life between the regional test scores, my grades, my father, my mother, Relena, and Zechs to be worrying about what was going on with Trowa. I hate myself for that now. I should have been more invested in what was happening in my best friend's life, at home and in school, and I should have done everything that I could to make it easier for him and Trowa. Again, hindsight. I should have lied when Trowa asked me what had really happened. I should have stopped him going after Relena, and I should have backed him up instead of flipping out on him. I should have done a lot of things that I hadn't. But at the time, despite everything Quatre had told me, despite all of the warnings I had gotten, I was still too stupid to pull my head out of my ass and see how much Trowa meant to Quatre, to see that I was losing him.

"I don't know," I lied to him, "We ended up not going to lunch together, so I don't know what's going on with him. He might just be busy, you know."

I lied to my best friend in the whole world. I had never done that. Actually looked him in the eye and lied as cleanly and neatly as I did to my doctors and teachers, lied about something that was actually important to him. I hated myself for it, but what was I going to do? Tell Quatre the truth? Tell him that I was a piece of shit that had driven his crush away from him? Tell him that Trowa had let him down when it mattered, that he had let Relena threaten him and hadn't even tried to protect him after she seemed to have zero problems with almost killing him?

No matter what I said to him, it was going to hurt him worse. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't see the pain in his eyes when I told him what really happened. At the end of it all, I was a coward. I don't know. Maybe if I had told him what Relena had said to Trowa, it might have made things better for him to know why Trowa didn't want to be around him anymore, or maybe it really would have made things so much worse. Although, I don't think anything could have made it worse.

Quatre glanced at the scratches on my face that Relena had given me, but just nodded and accepted my story. Trusted me. I felt like he had ripped my guts out with that nod. After all, what reason did he have not to trust me? I had never lied to him like that before. So when I told him that Relena had scratched me as punishment for helping him and then I had gone to lunch without Trowa, he believed me. That he was still in pain from his arm and a bit distant because of the pain meds helped with my deception. I had stopped taking my own. My back was a total horror, and the pain was so bad I literally felt like slamming my head into a wall so I could just black out, but I clung to that pain.

I clung to it and lied to myself that it was my punishment for driving Trowa away, for being unable to save Quatre's arm, for ruining my parents' lives, for being slow and stupid and a coward. And if I wasn't sleeping at night, that was just a part of my punishment. I wasn't so stupid as to not keep my back clean and keep using the burn cream, but I took that bottle of pain meds and flushed them down the toilet. I didn't deserve relief.

The week passed slowly and tortuously. My knees were pretty much all healed except for the fact that they itched now and then. My back was healing, but slowly. I still couldn't go to gym class, big loss there, and there was still pain, but it was very bearable and I didn't have many sleepless nights after awhile. The day before the regional test results were posted, I got to use my gym period to go back to the hospital to get my stitches removed, the doctor praising that I was healing very well but there would be several scars on my back. I didn't care. It wasn't like I could see them.

I saw Trowa around the school sometimes, between classes and hanging out with his teammates. He seemed to be hanging out with them a lot more lately and I had to wonder if that was because he knew that Quatre was far too shy to approach him with the other boys around. I began to realize that Trowa wasn't just ignoring Quatre for a little while to give him time to make a decision, this was a permanent thing. He had made his choice. I had thought that that would make me happy, that this was the right choice. Quatre could move on, he could be safer.

But it didn't. Quatre was miserable and I was miserable watching him be miserable. And I hated Trowa even more for staying away. How stupid is that? I had been the one to tell him to go away and I was the one that regretted it that most. I wanted to take it back. I hated him for being a coward. I hated him for just walking away from my best friend like it was nothing, like it didn't even matter to him. Like it was easy. Maybe it had been. Maybe he had never cared that much for Quatre to begin with. Maybe I had only seen what I had wanted to see. It seemed like no matter what the guy did, I hated him for it. What was wrong with me? Was I really this kind of person, so filled with hate and bitterness that it was easy for me to find a target like that? I was supposed to be Quatre's best friend and I was taking all of this out on the boy he loved. I felt like the worst person alive.

I saw them fighting once. Quatre had gotten past his shyness enough to confront Trowa about why he wasn't around anymore. Trowa told him that it was a bad idea for them to be friends, and that he was just too busy with basketball to think about their friendship. He told him that when the season was over, they needed to talk about a few things, but that he just couldn't hang out with him anymore, and he shouldn't got to his games anymore, either. Quatre had asked him if it was because of something Relena had said to him. Trowa informed him that it wasn't, not really, that he had been thinking about their friendship for awhile now and had wanted to have this talk with him since that night we had gone to his game together. A talk about their future or, he subltly implied, the obvious lack of one.

When Trowa finally walked away, just leaving Quatre there, staring at the spot that he had vacated like he was frozen in time, I went to him and asked him what had happened at the game that I had known he had gone to the night before, just a small scrimmage Trowa's team had had with one of our neighboring towns'. Quatre, not meeting my eyes, had just muttered that nothing had happened, nothing at all, and I guessed that was the problem. I asked him if he was ok. He looked up at me at last and then had promptly burst into tears. I had never seen him like that, so open and raw, and it both shocked and frightened me.

I had held him, but I don't think that I had helped his overflowing emotions much. I asked him if he wanted me to talk to Trowa. I realized right then and there that if Quatre had asked me to, I would have begged Trowa to ignore what I had said to him, to be Quatre's friend again and not cared about the consequences. I don't think that they would have, but I would have let go of all my hatred for him for Quatre's sake. Quatre told me not to, though. He pleaded to me not to talk to Trowa for him, to just leave him alone. Trowa had hurt him with his coldness, but he still loved him, still respected him. It made me feel like the biggest asshole on the planet.

It was at that time, holding Quatre in my arms and seeing him break down in the middle of the science hallway, that I realized that there was more going on in Quatre's life than I was seeing. I mean, I had always known that. We didn't talk about our home lives and the bare glimpses I got of his relationship with his family only told me that he was very unhappy, but not to what extent and not why. Whatever it was, it made the situation with Trowa all the worse, tangled up in things that he never talked to me about.

I wonder now, if I had forced him to talk to me about it, if I had been an actual friend to him instead of worrying about keeping my own secrets close to my chest, if I could have helped him. I guess I've probably written that before, several times by now, but what else do I have to think about beyond all the ways I've fucked up? I can't fix a damned thing, but it's all I can think about. All I can see are my failures, how Quatre walked through that last week of school like he was in a nightmare. He was so depressed and despondent, so distant from me, and I barely tried to snap him out of it.

By the time our regional test results were posted on the bulletin board in front of the school, by the parking lot where the buses would line up at the end of the day, it was too late to change a thing.
April 13th, 2004
It took me five days to write all of that. And then it took me five days to pick up this journal again. I can't do it. I can't write about it. I tried every day this week. I would look at this composition notebook sitting on my desk in my bedroom and think about the words I would write. I thought about all the things that happened on that day, how sunny and bright and beautiful it had been, how all of my classmates had been too nervous about finding out their scores to pay attention in our classes, how agitated Quatre had seemed.

I had figured out for myself that it was partially the shit that was happening with Trowa, partially something that had happened between him and Relena on the way to school, and partially the pressure that his father was putting on him about his scores. I should have paid more attention to how he was that day, I should have asked him exactly what Relena had said to him, but I was too anxious about my own scores to have any other intelligent thought in my head.

I couldn't do it, though. I couldn't write those things. I just think about how it ended, how Quatre had looked at the train station that day, the sound of the train as it approached, his last smile to me before he turned and vanished from my sight forever. And then I can't write a thing. Yesterday, I thought about just coming out and writing it. One little sentence. What happened. A word, even. Just skip the reasons and write the facts. Then I had sat down on the floor of my room and cried. I hadn't thought that I had any more tears left to shed.

I have to keep progress reports with Mrs. Khushrenada. It's part of my condition for not being expelled since I hit Zechs, to let her know where I am with this stupid thing and that I'm actually doing it, even if she isn't reading it. She caught up with me yesterday, told me that I hadn't talked about the journal in awhile, if I was still writing about the truck accident. I told her I was past it. I told her what day I was on, what day I had been on for the past seven days. She had looked at me with pity when I told her that I couldn't get past it. I can't write about that day. She told me I have to. I told her I can't, that I don't want to think about it. I don't want to write about it, even if no one will read it.

I have thought about it every day since it happened and writing it won't help, it will only make it worse. I told her that, but she wouldn't listen. She pointed out to me, a bit sternly, that I can't just keep it bottled up inside, writing about it will help me, and I don't really have a choice. I have to keep seeing the school psychologist and writing in this journal if I don't want to be expelled for punching Relena, and I have to keep up daily entries, talking about my shitty feelings, if I don't want to get expelled for punching Zechs. If it hadn't felt so fucking good both times, I would wish that I had kept my fists to myself if only to not have to do this.

Mrs. Khushrenada said I have until the 15th to finish writing about Quatre. I'm trying not to think about it as bearing my soul or some stupid shit like that. I'm certainly not thinking about it as helping myself. I don't care what anyone says, writing about it has only made it worse so far. Instead, the only way I can think about this, the only way I can actually do it is thinking about it as telling the truth, letting there be one actual, true account of what happened. Because I never told anyone what happened.

Everyone thinks that they know, but they don't. They just believe what Relena said the day the cops came to school, asking the people who were the last to see Quatre Winner before he ran out of the school parking lot. She told everyone who would listen to her that Nate had always been sad, always different, always depressed. It was really no wonder why he had run off. He was gay and weird and didn't really have any friends. He had just gotten fed up with it all. Or maybe it was the pain meds and his broken arm. After all, Quatre had wanted to be a musician and his doctor said that he couldn't, that the break would always impair him.

None of it is true. Quatre didn't run that day because he was a bit loopy, or he was depressed because of being gay, though I suppose that was a big part of it. He ran because of what she did to him that afternoon, and I guess whatever she had said on the way to school. It was true that Quatre wanted to study music, and it was true that he had played violin in the school orchestra for a couple of years, and even that the double break to his arm and wrist wouldn't make him the best musician, but he had never been that interested in playing.

The violin was something that his mother had forced him into, because playing an instrument would look good on a college application, since, she had claimed 'playing a classical instrument shows discipline'. She didn't know that he had quit the orchestra last year and had never really enjoyed it. When he had told her his interest in music, she had thought that meant classical composition. Parents really don't know shit about their kids. What interested Quatre, what had interested him since his very first violin lesson, was how mathematics was used to make music.

"Mathematics," he had told me once when I had lamented my inability to understand my algebra homework, "are the building blocks of the universe. If God is real, He's a mathematician."

That something like an equation can translate into the world as music, this theme that both man and beast find beautiful, something to soothe the very soul, was incredible to him. He likened it to seeing God in a sunrise. He would go on about it for hours. With his intelligence, if he had kept at it, if he had bucked his parents' influence and gone to college to study math and art like he had wanted, he would have been a revolutionary, he would have done something amazing. I truly believe that. Sometimes, when I think about that, I feel so incredibly gifted to have met him, to have been his friend.

This will be my account of what really happened to my best friend. Everything I've written in here has been a testament to it, all the reasons why he felt the need to do what he did, everything that pushed him into that corner where he felt it was his only option. Or maybe none of it does. Maybe I just want there to be a reason and there isn't any at all. In any case, I made a decision last night. When I'm done writing about it in this thing, then I'm done. I'm never writing in here again. When I've written everything that I need to, I'm going to follow him. That's what I promised, isn't it? That I would always have his back? If only I had figured that out sooner. And if people read this and laugh at the things I've written, that's ok. At least I'll be with the only person who has ever given a shit about me. The only person that has ever believed in me, even if there is nothing in me to believe in, never was.

If someone does find this in my absence and reads it all the way through, please tell Relena Darlien this for me: Go to Hell. For what you did and continued to do to Quatre, to me, and to whatever kid you decide to replace us with, I hope you burn. I hope your entire world crumbles under your feet and you realize that you aren't any different than us, for all of your self righteous crap. If I weren't such a coward, I would burn it to the ground for you, but I can't seem to. I hope, if only for a day, that you meet someone like you and they show you what it feels like to be made to feel like nothing, like the way you made Quatre feel, and I hope that in that moment, you feel bad for what you did. I know you won't, but that's what I'll be hoping for, you malicious bitch.

The regional testing scores were posted on March 4th, 2004. They were tacked up on the bulletin board for everyone to see right before the seventh graders' lunch break. Quatre had been so distant the entire day, disheartened I guess I could call it. Even when he got called on during one of our morning classes, he had spoken like someone in a dream, forcing himself to speak. I was worried about him, but it never occurred to me to ask him what had happened on his way to school that morning. The closer we got to the lunch period, though, the more he seemed to come back to his usual self. He was anxious, just like I was, and agitated about something, but his worries about his test scores seemed to push back all the other crap in his head.

"Don't worry," he told me as we followed our class out into the parking lot, "I'm sure that you did great. I bet you did loads better than me in the first test, and we studied a lot for the second one. Even if you didn't do great on the second one, it isn't like these scores effect our grades. There's really no downside to getting a lesser score. They're just prepping for the tests we have to take in high school, colleges won't even look at them."

"I know," I said but I couldn't help my dejected tone.

I honestly didn't care that much that it didn't count. It counted to me. Just more proof of how dumb I was, and my father would not be pleased if I failed one of the tests after how many days of work I had taken off to study for them. Mostly, and this was pretty stupid, I didn't want my classmates to know just how much of a loser I was. Bad enough that I knew it myself.

It shouldn't have bothered me that much, everyone already thought that I was antisocial and stupid, just another stereotypical would be dead beat from South Nausten, and even if I aced both tests, they would continue to think that. But for some reason, I really hated that our scores were being ranked and posted for the whole damned school to see. It makes me laugh now that that was my biggest worry that day. Now it seems so petty. I don't even remember what my scores were. I can remember almost everything else about that day, but not that.

I knew something was wrong the second that we stepped outside of the school. At first, it was just a feeling, like a chill in the air. I felt like one of those water buffalo that go to get a drink of water. They can't see the crocodile in the water, but they just sense that there is something there, something that wants to eat them. Quatre seemed to sense it, too, his somber and apprehensive mood returning. I think the first time I realized that something was off with actual proof was the sheer amount of students clustered around the bulletin board. Only the seventh graders should have been there to check on their scores, but I saw kids that I recognized from the eighth grade classes, and even fifth and sixth graders, even though they had already had their lunch period and all of them should have been in class.

The first thing I thought of was a fire drill, but that was stupid. I hadn't heard the alarm go off and even if it had, we were supposed to meet in the field in front of the parking lot, a safe distance from the building in case of a fire or explosion or whatever. Everyone was standing in front of the bulletin board, staring at what was on their with rapt attention. Was there some event that had been posted there, I wondered.

But as we got closer to the throng of people, I saw that some were pointing and laughing, some looked disgusted, others were talking in hushed whispers. I felt this sudden sense of... doom and my heart fell into my stomach.

"Oh, my god, she wasn't lying," I heard some girl say in a scandalized tone.

"I can't believe," another murmur.

"Disgusting," another.

"I could never tell," yet another.

"Do you think he is, too-"

"Do his parents know?"

"Ugh, I took a shower at the same time as him!"

They wouldn't stop. Then, a hush fell over the crowd. One by one, their heads turned and they saw Quatre and I standing there. Those eyes were accusing, wide, frightened, disgusted, humored, and some were even pitying. I felt like I had just been dropped into a horror movie and at any moment they were going to start pointing at us and accusing us of not being one of 'them'. Next to me, Quatre was shaking at their stares and I realized with a sickening feeling that those stares were not directed at me at all. They were all looking at Quatre.

I was ready to grab him, turn around and run back into the school, but Quatre took a step forward, like he was being pulled toward that bulletin board by some siren call. The entire crowd parted for him. Some would say it was like Moses parting the Red Sea, but it wasn't like that at all. They didn't part because of some power that Quatre had, or out of respect. They parted like they would for a leper, for someone that had a disease that they didn't want to touch. They moved to get away from him. I walked with him, his partner as he walked to the executioner's block.

Someone had pasted photocopied pages of writing all over the bulletin board, over all the test scores. There were about thirty pages in total. I forgot about Quatre for a moment and stood in front of the board, reading one of the pages. Whoever had made the photocopies had blown up the text so they were easy to read and I quickly recognized the hand writing. I had been seeing it for years. That feeling of dread in my stomach as exploded with each word I read and if I hadn't felt so paralyzed, I would have vomitted.
'I saw him again today, walking past the library while Duo and I tried to find some research materials for our biology project. He was walking with some of his teammates, them chatting and him listening. He always listens. I would love to hear his voice some day. His friends were talking loudly enough to him that I was able to learn his name. Trowa. I wonder if he's the same Trowa that Chandra says is our school's 'rising basketball star'.'
'I wanted to say 'hello' to him today, but I just felt so shy. He's so handsome, and I'm sure he has a girlfriend, but I wanted to say hi all the same. I decided to risk it, I don't know why. I was feeling bolder than I usually was, so while Duo was talking with our history teacher, I walked up to him. I could never do this with him watching. If Duo ever found out how I felt, or what I am, I could never cope with that. I would rather anyone else in the entire world found out that I like other boys than him. What if he thinks that I'm so kind of pervert that's been interested in him all these years? What if he doesn't want to be friends anymore?

I bumped into Trowa and pretended that I didn't know where I was going. I felt so excited when he looked down at me. His eyes are so green, this dark, dark green that reminds me of evergreen trees. I thought he would yell at me for being so absent minded. I'm just a seventh grader, even one that nobody likes. But he didn't. He was so shy, stuttering and apologizing to me. This is dangerous. I shouldn't go looking for him anymore.'
'I saw a boy playing on the basketball court today from the homeroom window next to my desk. He was taller than the other boys and I don't remember seeing him before. Watching him play made me excited. I couldn't stop watching him, even when Mrs. Mallory yelled at me for not paying attention. He's so big and lanky, but he moves so fast! There is something about his shoulders and his hands that I can't stop admiring. There is something wrong with me. When did I get this way? When did I start looking at boys like this? I'm such a disgusting fool, but I want to see him again, just one more time, then I'll forget about it, I promise.'

'Dinner tonight went so well! All of my worries and fears were for nothing. Duo and Trowa got along so well! I think they could be friends if they just got out of their shells a bit around each other. Duo was in pain, but he seemed to be enjoying himself at dinner. I'm glad. I really wanted them to get along and I think Duo was able to gain another friend. That made me very happy. Even Relena trying to get Trowa away from me didn't ruin tonight. Best yet, Trowa still doesn't know. He hasn't guessed at all that the reason why we keep bumping into each other and why I go to his games is because I love him. I think things might work out.

I know it's foolish of me, but I just can't stop wanting to be with him. Even Duo thinks I'm crazy. He thinks I should just forget about Trowa and he's right. He's always right. But I just can't stop myself. What would I do without my best friend? I hadn't any right to drag him along tonight. He has so many other things to worry about, and I keep dragging him into my problems. I don't know how he can stand being around me.'
'Stupid. Why am I so incredibly stupid?! I love him. I thought at first that it was just a silly crush. Trowa is handsome and kind and actually listens to me when I talk, unlike everyone else in my life besides Duo. He doesn't treat me like a worthless child or a nuisance or nothing more than an asset. I thought if I could be near him for a little while, I could get over this, but it's gotten worse. I actually love him. And every second I'm with him, my stupid heart hurts. What am I going to do? Oh, God, why? Why did you make me this way? I just want this to stop.'
I blinked away tears as they dripped down my face at every word I read. As I turned to look at my best friend, his written words screaming in my head, all thirty plus pages of them, I saw Relena in the corner of my vision. She was standing away from the crowd, smiling that disgusting smile of hers. That knowing smile. Unlike the others, she wasn't pushing through the throng to try to read what was on the bulletin board. She didn't need to. She had been the one to photocopy each one of those pages and tack them up there.

How. How?! How had that cunt gotten her hands on what was obvious Quatre's journal? I hadn't even known that my best friend kept one. I guess that's why I loathe writing in this thing so much, since a journal was what destroyed my best friend's life. Had Quatre been stupid enough to put that in his locker? No, no he wouldn't do that, not something that talked about his sexuality, not with how frightened he always was that someone would find out about his secret.

Had she broken into his house or something? I don't know. I don't know that anymore than I know why he had felt the need to keep a journal in the first place. Maybe he was like Mrs. Khushrenada and thought that writing down his thoughts and feelings would help him in some way. I never got the chance to ask him.

Quatre's skin had gone the same sickly grey-white color of fresh ash. His eyes were wide and clear in the bright sun, like sea glass. He was so horrified by what was going on around him, he was actually shaking. I wanted to get him far away from the crowd, away from the snide remarks I heard people whispering that the both of us could clearly here, away from the hissed 'faggot's and crude remarks about Trowa and Quatre and even me, about if we had threesomes, about who fucked who, if Trowa was the fudgepacker and Quatre the pillowbiter or if it was the other way around, if Trowa really was gay, too, or if he just had a homo pining after him, if he knew, if I knew, if I was fucking Quatre.

It was endless, like clucking birds surrounding us. I felt like if I listened to those horrible, cruel, hateful things for much longer, I would go crazy and I wasn't the one whose journal had been exposed for every person in the school to see. I could even see some teachers now, milling about with the kids and teenagers, trying to see what was going on and doing absolutely nothing to stop it. Quatre just stood where he was, frozen stiff and looking like he was going to vomit right there in front of everyone. He looked like he was going to cry but didn't. His hands trembled and I saw the desire in his eyes to rip those pages off the bulletin board, but he knew like I did that that wouldn't make a single difference.

He turned then to look at the crowd behind us, to look at those staring faces. I thought that he would bolt, that he would run back into the school and try to find some safe place to hole up in until the school day was over and he could go home. But he didn't. He just stood there, his spooked eyes scanning the crowd. He was looking for Trowa, I realized. Even then, that was what he cared about.

Never mind that almost the whole school was out there, laughing and saying awful things about him, it was Trowa's reaction that he was frantic for. Even when his eyes met Relena's and her look of absolute triumph, he didn't seem to give her a second thought beyond a terrible kind of understanding, although he had probably known that she had been the one responsible just like I had.

Just by watching my best friend's expression, I knew the second that he had found Trowa in the crowd. His face turned dark red, but unlike all the other times when he looked at his crush, this time his blush was out of utter shame, not attraction. I looked in the direction of Quatre's gaze and located Trowa quickly. He wasn't far from us, just a few feet away, and had obviously been reading what was on the bulletin board. He had the same wide eyed, ashen look of horror that Quatre did.

He was standing alone in the crowd, the same sort of bubble of people back away from him that was formed around Quatre and myself. People were looking at him like they had already decided that he was a faggot as well. I felt sad for him then. I understood in that moment how Quatre had felt all those times he had claimed that he felt bad about associating with Trowa, that he was worried about pulling him down with him. Trowa had just been friends with Quatre, that was all, but everyone was looking at him with the same repulsion, pity, and nervousness that were in their eyes when they looked at me and Quatre. It wasn't fair. But I was honestly too worried about my friend to think much about Trowa.

Trowa looked like a man stuck in a dream, wondering how he had gotten stuck there, teetering precariously between numbness and complete disbelief. His dark green eyes were transfixed on the bulletin board an he looked like he both couldn't believe what he was reading and like he was looking for something in those photocopied words, something to tell him that this was all an elaborate prank at his expense, maybe, which of course that's exactly what it was, but not in the way that he wanted it to be.

Quatre approached him, taking tentative steps like Trowa was a deer that he dind't want to spook. The crowd parted for him, each pair of eyes watching the two of them like all of it was some great form of entertainment. I wanted to scream at all of them to go away.

"Trowa," my friend managed to say as he walked up to his crush.

The baseball player came out of his stupor and looked at Quatre with huge eyes, skittish and unnerved by the same boy he had been close friends with a week ago.

"Please," Quatre's voice shook, tears dripping down his cheeks and he reached one trembling hand out to the boy that he loved, "please, just let me explain..."

Trowa flinched from him. Actually flinched from this short and slender thirteen year old like he was some kind of hulking monster.

"Poor Barton," I heard some asshole mutter loud enough for the three of us to easily hear him, "If it were me, I'd be too ashamed to show my face in public again."

"I'd kill myself," someone else chimed in.

Trowa heard both of them and he looked at Quatre, horrified, like he was realizing what was happening for the first time. There was no reproach, hated, or disgust on his face, just horror, and that was so much worse somehow.

Before Quatre could say another thing to him, he whirled and pushed past the crowd and back into the school. He walked with the desperate, frightened swiftness of a man that suddenly realizes that his hair is on fire. When the school doors closed behind his retreating form, Quatre crumpled. Realizing that the upperclassman had abandoned him completely and wasn't coming back, and realizing the damage he had caused and only he knew what else, he sobbed into his hands. Someone behind me laughed and I whirled on them, an eighth grade girl.

"Shut the fuck up," I snarled at her and she stepped back, frightened of me. I was shorter than her and I had scared her. Good. I wanted her to be scared. I wanted all of them to be scared.

I walked to him, reading to pull him into a tight hug and comfort him, or pull him away from the crowd, whatever it was that he needed from me and fuck everyone that stared at us, when Quatre stopped crying. I remember thinking at the time that it was like his cord had been cut. He didn't peter off or sniff like most people would have after a violent cry, he just stopped. He raised his head from his hands. His skin was red and streaked with tears, but his eyes were just dead. Up until the last time that I had seen him face to face, his eyes would never lose that horrible look.

There was something else there in his expression that frightened me very badly, something that I had seen once before. It only took a moment to realize what it was. It was the same look Quatre had had that day when he had stood, not moving, in front of the truck bearing down on him. It was the same look he had had when he had decided that he just couldn't take any more pain and wanted to give up. Only this time, I couldn't push him out of the way of it, that hopelessness and surrender.

Before I could say a single word to him, Quatre bolted. He ran past the crowd, past Relena, past the parking lot, moving to the West, faster than I had ever seen him run in our entire friendship. I stood there, staring at where he had been seconds before, staring like an idiot. I watched him run away amidst the laughter and jeers of our classmates. I thought I saw a teacher or two laughing as well, but that could easily have been my imagination. I was so shocked by what had just happened, all of it, my entire world compressed to the memory of Quatre's dead, tear stained face.

It's stupid and childish, and I'm ashamed of it now, but for a moment I debated chasing after him. I thought to my self that he just needed time alone to pull himself together, but I vanquished that thought instantly and effortlessly. If there was ever a time that Quatre needed a friend, even if he had to settle for me, it was then. The reason that was really holding me back had seemed important at the time, but it never was, it couldn't hold a candle to the shit that Quatre was going through. It was the pre-algebra test I had to make up for during recess. If I left the school now, I thought, to chase after Quatre, I would never make it back in time and I really needed a decent grade on that test in order to pass my class that year.

I wish that I had taken after Quatre the second that he had started running. I'm faster than him, I could have caught up to him easily in a couple of minutes and dragged him back. And I wish that, if I had still hesitated, that I had just gone back into the school to take that make up test. It would have been better to have heard from someone else that Quatre had abandoned me instead of seeing that myself. I could deny it, I could tell myself that he's coming home. I could sleep at night.

But it didn't happen like that. After a few minutes debating what I should do, I nearly struck myself for what an ass I was. Some stupid test didn't matter as much as Quatre. I would catch him, I thought, and fuck school, I'd take him to some secluded place, maybe the beach or the courtyard behind the library, and we would talk. I'd hug him and let him cry for hours if that's what he needed. And when he was done talking and crying, somehow I would make him see that this wasn't the end of the world. I would make him see that there was no reason to get that look in his eyes ever again.

I took off after him like there were rabid dogs nipping at me. I didn't even stop to beat the shit out of Relena, or to so much as pettily shove her, I just ran. I realized, as I was chasing after him, how much I needed to catch up to him, that this was dire, although I can't tell you I knew that. I also can't tell you how I knew that he would continue to run West, only that I was positive of it. I think that, subconsciously, I had known before I had even taken off running exactly where Quatre was going.

I ran harder and faster than I ever had in my life and I have never ran like that since. I don't need to anymore. I ran so long and so hard that my back should have felt like it was on fire with agony, but I didn't feel it or the ache in my legs or the burning in my lungs. It would be a very long time before I would feel anything. It didn't take long for me to see Quatre's back as he ran ahead of me, but no matter how fast I was, I wasn't fast enough to overtake his speed or tackle him. This wasn't like before, trying to beat out a truck to save his life. My luck had run out, Quatre had had too long of a running start.

I got closer to him when he almost ran right into some guy carrying some groceries. The man swore angrily at the both of us, but Quatre kept going like nothing had happened, so I did, too.

When I saw the entrance to the train yard, I knew that my hunch had been right. I felt no relief, though, because somewhere deep down inside, I suspected why he had gone there and I felt an intense fear, but not even that enabled me to make a close enough grab for the back of his shirt. Our tram system is old fashioned, you don't need to pay until you actually get on the train, so the two of us ran through the train station, ran past the security officers screaming at us that there was no running in the station, ran past the flower vendors and food vendors and newspaper vendors and one guy playing a beaten up guitar for enough change to ride the train.

Then we were on the train platform for the train that would head out of town, all the way past the town border to Petersburg, the third town up from us to the North, far enough away for Quatre to get a running start ahead of me, his family, Relena, Trowa, and every other person in this shitty town. If I let him and I didn't intend to. The train hadn't arrived yet, but I knew that it would at any second, I could hear it in the distance. I had mere minutes.

Was that why Quatre had run all this way? Had he made up his mind to leave? But he couldn't, I told myself, they would never let him on the train, I would never let him! Only that wasn't true at all. I had little hope of stopping him. I couldn't even get on the train with him, to try to talk to him down. Quatre had cash in his pocket, he always did, and I didn't have a cent.

"Quatre!" I cried out in desperation.

To my happy shock, he stopped running and stood at the edge of the platform, in the red stripe that no one was allowed to stand on, right where I knew the train would stop when it finally reached us. I could see the faint smoke in the distance, above the trees. He was going to do it, I realized with horror and felt tears fall down my cheeks. I thought about what he had said to me in the hospital, how he had always wanted to do this, just go to the train station and run away from everything. But I had never thought that he would actually do it. I had never thought that he would leave me, but there he was, waiting for the train. Waiting to abandon me. My only friend. The only person in the world that had ever loved me, and he was going to leave me behind, just like my mother.

"Please, Quatre, please," I pleaded past a sob. I wanted him to turn around. I wanted him to look at me, see me, see that I still cared about him.

In that moment, if he had offered me to come with him, I believe that I would have. I just wanted to be with him, I wanted to stay his friend, I didn't want to go back to that school with those hateful people. Quatre was all I had. My parents didn't want me. I might love them, but they didn't love me, not in the way that Quatre did. So how... how could he do this to me?

"Stop running," I begged him.

He turned and for a brief second, I was so sure that he was going to laugh at me, yell at me, tell me to leave him alone. For a second I forgot who my best friend was and all I could see was Relena's laughing face. He turned and he still had that look in his eyes, that dead look, but those aquamarine eyes were bright with tears. His cheeks were soaked with them, making mine seem small and irrelevant. He looked so miserable. He looked like his soul... that part of him that always tried to make me smile, the part that had made me a birthday cake and helped me study for my math tests, was gone.

It was like he was dead, his corpse just standing there, waiting for the rest of him to follow. I wanted to run to him and hug him tightly and never let him go, but there was also something about those eyes that frightened me very badly. I didn't feel like I was looking at my friend anymore. I felt completely helpless in the face of his obvious depression, his sadness. What did I say? What did I do to fix this? I was useless, a failure, I couldn't do anything right. So how could someone like me put the pieces of Quatre's heart back together? How could I make what Relena had done to him out of nothing more than spite and her petty amusement better? I had known him for four years, I knew him better than I had ever known anyone, but I didn't know that.

"Please," I whispered, my voice hoarse. I extended my hand out to him, shaking as terribly as it was, and hoping more than anything that he would take it, "Please come back to school with me."

He faltered at my words and doubt appeared in those beautiful eyes of his. He seemed to come back to himself for a second, but it wasn't long enough. The train suddenly appeared down the tracks, barreling towards us. And then Quatre smiled at me. He smiled like he always had, that special smile that had seemed like it was only for me. A beautiful, warm, kind thing that only he seemed capable of. The smile that I had loved, that had made my life seem better just having it directed at me.

He smiled at me and I thought he would take my hand then. I thought that he would take that step forward and I would hug him and we would walk back together. I was looking into his eyes, but it was his smile I was seeing. I didn't see how his eyes didn't change, and I didn't see him notice the train as it got closer, only feet away. I didn't notice as he took a step back, the middle of his feet balanced on the very edge of the platform.

Smiling at me and tears pouring out of his empty eyes, he stopped balancing on that edge. As I looked him in his sea green eyes, Quatre let himself fall backwards. I watched as that beautiful blue-green turned into a smear of red. I stood there on the platform, my hand still stupidly reaching out to him, reaching out to a ghost. I heard a shrill scream, but I'll never know if that was the sound of the breaks of the train, some unknown onlooker, or if it had been me, screaming uncontrollably.
*****
I don't remember much that happened after that. Everything came to me in shades of white, grey, and occasionally red. My brain adamantly refused to believe anything that my eyes had told it, so it decided to wash everything out in white noise, even if that white noise was shrill and psychotic.

They say that when a mother watches her child die, she goes temporarily insane. Well, the same is apparently true for best friends as well. Watching Quatre die killed something inside of me and it has yet to come back. And watching the person that I cared about more than anything had driven my sanity right out of me, because the whole idea that Quatre would kill himself was insane. It wasn�t real.

Quatre Winner died on March 4th, 2004 (1). I don�t know the exact time. The police would rule it a simple suicide, but that was because they hadn�t known Quatre. They hadn�t been there when he had still been alive. Quatre hadn�t slit his wrists. He hadn�t jumped out in front of the train. He hadn�t laid down on the tracks. He had simply fallen backwards.

He had surrendered to gravity and let go of everything because of what Relena had done. There was more than just that that had made Quatre kill himself, but that had been the catalyst. That was what had made up his mind. The cops called it suicide. I called it murder. Relena might as well have pushed him in front of that train.

I stared numbly at the thick, red smear on the tracks as various employees fled like ants onto the platform, trying to make sense of the chaos and only adding to it. The train hadn�t even been going at full speed, the conductor had started to break to pull up to the platform. But that hadn�t mattered. The metal battering ram had been going fast enough to rip one, small, thirteen year old boy to pieces. The only kindness that fate did me that day as that I didn�t see the ruined wreck of Quatre�s body, or whatever had been left of it. I was rooted to the spot he had fallen from, like my knees had become a part of the red bricks and concrete I kneeled on. All I saw was that bloody streak across the tracks.

How? I asked myself that over and over again. It�s the same question that haunts my thoughts, my dreams. How could Quatre have done that? How could he have decided to take his life? This wasn�t some rash choice he had made just from being outted, he had been thinking about this, he had known where to run to and what to do when it had happened. How long had those thoughts been going through his head? Since Trowa had stopped talking to him? Since Relena had broken his arm? Since he had realized he was gay? Since we had met?

And how had I knot known? How had I not seen this? There had to have been something I missed, something I could have done or said to have stopped him from even thinking that that was an option! I had known that he was depressed, between dealing with being gay, the bullying at school, and his cold family life, but why hadn�t he talked to me about it?! Was I such a failure as a friend that I hadn�t seen that darkness in him, that he had rather kill himself than confide in me?

What hurt the worst was that he had left me behind. He had abandoned me. He had betrayed me. On the day that we had met, Quatre had hooked his pinky with mine and had promised me that we would always be friends. He had promised me that we would never abandon each other and I had promised him back. We had just been stupid kids, making a big, serious promise like that, but we had kept it for four long years.

We had always had each other�s back. Until now. Until that day at the train station. Quatre broke his promise to me. After everything, after knowing what he was abandoning me to, he had still left me behind. He had abandoned me to Relena and Zechs, to my father and mother, to loneliness, to nothingness. All without him there at my back like he had promised.

One of the employees that had come off the train grabbed my arm to pull me away. Maybe he had been trying to shield me from staying where my friend had committed suicide or maybe he thought I was going to try to kill myself, too. I bit him savagely on the hand, hard enough to draw blood and he went away. I didn�t want to leave. I wanted to stay there with Quatre, stay there until it was time for us to walk home together.

He had heard my voice. He had turned around on that platform and looked me in the eye. He had smiled at me like everything was going to be fine... and then he had killed himself. He could have taken my hand and walked with me back to school and killed himself some place private later. But he had let me watch the most important person in my life become nothing more than a red, gory smear on some train tracks.

The only person I had ever relied on, ever truly trusted, hadn�t even loved me enough to spare me that. What�s the most surprising is that it had surprised me at all. If it didn�t hurt so much, I would laugh at how stupid I am.

The people around me were disappearing and later I would realize that the train company employees were making them leave in anticipation for the police. I heard one woman mutter to someone asking if they had seen me push Quatre off the platform. If I had been there and not floating the grey haze that I was in, I might have screamed at her or tried to hit her, but I was gone, and quickly, so was she. Someone draped a jacket over me, but I never found out who. I wonder what the statistic is for people that have gone into shock twice in two weeks. Maybe I had broken some kind of record.

There were black spots intruding on my vision amidst the grey and white that my world had become. Those spots threatened to become black holes and swallow me alive, and I was all too happy to see me go down into them. Anywhere was better than where I was. Anywhere else was better than seeing Quatre�s very last smile or that streak of red. I kept seeing it in my head, that smile and the train colliding with his frail body. It hadn�t made a single sound. Not a thud, not a screech. Why was that so horrible to me?

The only thing keeping me from blacking out at that point had been the fact that my body didn�t quite know if it wanted to do that more or if it wanted to vomit. I was too shocked, too horrified to even do that much. All I could do was sit there on the cool platform, staring off into space like some inanimate object. My body was saved from either option when the cops finally showed up. I write �finally�, but I really have no idea when that was. I could have been sitting there for no more than twenty minutes, or it could have been hours.

There were two cops that showed up to investigate the call of a suicide. I didn�t see either of their faces. They were irrelevant to me. One of them said my name, just my first name. His voice sounded slightly familiar. I was sure that he worked with my father, but he wasn�t one of my father�s friends. All that meant was that he wasn�t going to talk to my dad about this. He placed his hand on my arm and faired better than the train employee. I didn�t feel like biting him. I didn�t feel anything anymore and didn�t even protest when he gentle grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.

I didn�t know what to do. I was lost and as pliable as an infant, not sure if there was something I should be doing now. What does one say or think or feel or do when they just lost their best friend? No one had ever told me, so I didn�t know. I just let the cop lead me to the one of the benches on the platform closer to the building and even sat down on it when he told me to. It seemed easier that way, letting someone else worry about me. He draped the jacket back around me. I hadn�t realized that it had fallen when I had stood up.

His partner suddenly appeared and pressed a steaming mug into my hands. The second it touched my skin, I jolted, color returning to my vision for a moment, and I dropped it on the ground where it spilled. My hands shook and I felt a wetness on my cheeks. I heard myself apologize to him, but neither of the police officers seemed annoyed by it. I think that they had been expecting it. The other officer disappeared again and I curled my hands into fists, laying them on my lap. They thought I had dropped the mug because it had been hot, but while the heat had shocked my cold, clammy skin, it had been the smell of what the mug contained that had made me drop it. Jasmine tea. Quatre loves... loved jasmine tea. Even with my hands curled up, I couldn�t stop them from shaking.

The familiar police officer asked me if I knew the kid that had jumped off the platform, if I knew why he had done it, what I had seen happen. I didn�t say a word. I just stared at the puddle of tea at my feet. The officer was very patient with me. I guess they had sent him because he had sensitivity training or something. Ten minutes later, his partner came back, this time with hot chocolate. I was able to hold it this time. I didn�t drink from it, my stomach hurt too much, but I liked the feeling of the painful heat in my hands. I willed that heat to travel up into the rest of me, because I felt horribly cold, colder than I had after almost getting hit by that truck.

It was another thirty minutes before I was able to answer their questions. Little by little, I felt pieces of me returning. The grey and white were slowly replaced by dull, muted colors. I shook and felt an intense chill, but no longer felt the threat of blacking out. I loathed them for taking that away from me. I wanted to retreat from reality, not remember it.

I told the police in a slow and flat voice that yes, I was Quatre�s friend. I told them his name and saw their surprise at his last name. I told them that I had followed him from school because he had ran and had been worried about him. I didn�t tell them about the bullying because, even in death, I would protect my best friend. I was sure that everyone would know, thanks to Relena, about what had happened at school, but not from me. No one would hear that Quatre had been gay from me.

It was when I had to tell them what had happened there at the train station that my emotionless tone faltered and I stuttered severely. But I still told it. Quatre smiling at me while he had cried, him falling back deliberately just as the train had been slowing down, the blood, the screaming. The familiar police officer took down my statement and said something about Quatre�s parents. He asked if there was a way he could contact my mother to get me home. I guess when you watch your friend kill himself, you get a free pass to get out of the rest of the school day. Or maybe it was so late that school was over.

I ignored him asking about my mother. I didn�t want to see her. I didn�t want to see her cold stare, how uncaring she was. I was holding on by my fingernails, through sheer force of will, and one look from her, or her outright ignoring me, would send me sailing over the edge. I didn�t want to go home, either. I didn�t want to go back to school, and I didn�t want to stay there at the train station. I wanted my best friend back, there was nothing else, and if I thought about that for too long, I was going to start crying again.

I asked him about my father instead, not because seeing him was going to make me feel any better, but because he would at least look at me with something other than contempt or outright hatred. Anger would be fine. Boredom would be fine. I would even happily take a beating from him. At least it would make him touch me, acknowledge that I was alive. And it was what I deserved. I didn�t have a scratch on me. Quatre had died because I hadn�t been paying attention. It was my job to protect him and I had been too worried about myself to really see him. I deserved every punch my father could deliver.

My dad was in charge of a stakeout in South Nausten, the officer said, something to do with rumors of a meth dealer hangout. He had no clue when he would be home. He said that I might be questioned again when I was feeling up to it. Even in my shocked state, I could read between the lines on that one. He thought that I was too freaked to be much help, that I might remember more details or be more reliable when I wasn�t mourning the loss of my friend. I can�t even call what I went through that day mourning, because I was trying so hard to be in denial, to just fade away. I just felt like I was dreaming the entire time. He put his hand on my forehead and flashed a penlight in my eyes for some strange reason. The officer left me to walk over to his partner and have a terse conversation with him. I heard them both say �hospital� several times.

�We can�t just drop him off at some empty house. You know procedure, he can�t be alone!� his partner suddenly snapped loudly, �Besides, I don�t want Maxwell on my ass for not taking care of his kid when he�s acting like that!�

What was I acting like? What exactly was so awful about me that they wanted to dump me at the hospital?

�He�s responsive,� the other officer argued, �his pupils are normal and so is his temperature for what I can tell. He�s shaken up, but if it were me, I�d get better a lot faster at home than being poked and prodded at a hospital. After what he just went through, he needs to be with his family, some place familiar, not stuck with some strangers that will just forget about him as soon as they decide he doesn�t need medical attention.�

I didn�t need medical attention. The only thing that was hurt was my heart, and no doctor was going to fix that. I wanted to scream at them to let me go home. At least it wasn�t here. At least I couldn�t see Quatre�s blood mere feet away from me here. Why couldn�t they just let me go home?! I wasn�t going to kill myself, I felt like yelling, and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do to help me.

�My mom is home,� was what came out of my mouth instead. Hearing my own voice shocked me. I hadn�t thought myself capable of speech, or to sound so frighteningly normal. I didn�t feel normal. I felt crazy. That I could lie so easily, like nothing at all had happened and I was fine was disgusting.

�She doesn�t have a car, so she can�t pick me up,� I told an ounce of truth in my cold, flat, and steady voice, �but she�s there.�

I wondered if they would even check. All they had to do was call my house phone or the place my mother worked at to know that she was there and not home, but when I looked at them, I knew that they wouldn�t. They wanted to get rid of me, not out of cruelty, but because the way I was was bothering them somehow. They were uncomfortable and pained just to talk to me. I imagined they weren�t looking forward to having to pay Quatre�s family a visit, either.

The two police officers traded some kind of private, nonverbal communication with each other and I understood just enough that I wasn�t going to a hospital. That was fine. I just wanted to be alone. What I would do when I got there was too far ahead for my brain to touch on, I just needed to keep moving and not think. The familiar officer touched my arm again and helped me to my feet. I followed the two of them off the platform and through the station. It was dead. There were another couple of police officers guarding the entrance, and when we walked past, they pulled some yellow crime tape over the entrance to the platform.

There was a small crowd of people outside, kept at bay by another couple of officers. I wondered if my father would be annoyed to have been kept out of the loop of this, if he would even know. Suicides weren�t his area, not since his promotion a long time ago. People would talk about the Winner�s only son killing himself for some time, but I doubted even then that my father would listen, or link me to it. He tended not to hear things that he didn�t care about if it didn�t involve him. The people in the crowd didn�t pay much attention to me. They were more interested in the boy that had died than the one that hadn�t. My two officers got me to their cruiser quickly and without incident.

They dropped me off at my house in short time. People, especially in my side of town, tend to move out of the way of police cruisers whether their lights are flashing or not.

"Hey," the familiar officer said as I got out of the car and reached his hand out to give me a card, "Give that to your father when he gets home. We'll be in touch if we need any more of your testimony," he told me and then, almost like it was an after thought, but a sincerity that wasn't forced, "I'm sorry about the loss of your friend, Duo."

The loss of your friend. That was right. I had lost Quatre. He was gone and he was never coming back. I was never going to see him again, I was never going to eat lunch with him, I was never going to walk home with him, I was never going to talk to him. Never, never, never. He was lost from my life. I had no one.

I couldn't handle those thoughts or that word, lost, like I had misplaced my best friend, like I had turned my back on him and he had just gone missing, that he was somewhere, trying to find his way home but couldn't, all because I had turned my back to him. Quatre had betrayed me, but I had betrayed him first. I couldn't hate him for killing himself in front of me, it was all that I deserved for not helping him, for not having his back like I had promised.

I felt tears threaten me and knew that it was a very short distance from those tears to violently sobbing right there in front of my house, so I stiffly nodded to the police officer and walked to my front door, card in hand.

I could feel their eyes on me as I touched the doorknob, checking to see if I had been lying about my mother being home. For a moment, I thought that they would get out of their car and escort me in, but when I opened the door without a key, they seemed satisfied and drove off. They had more important things to worry about than my state of mind or lack of, namely consoling one of the richest and more powerful families in town and figuring out if Quatre's death really had been a suicide, an accident, or if I was some kind of murderer.

The joke was on them. The lock on our front door was broken, had been for days. It was just one of a hundred things my father needed to fix around the house but didn't have the time or the money to do so. A broken lock was a lot more important to fix than a broken water heater or the black mold in the bathroom or the leaking dishwasher, but I didn't have the money or skill to fix it and Dad had been too busy at work. He kept saying that he would get to it Saturday or Sunday, so I guess we would survive two more days with a busted door. It wasn't like anything bad had happened so far.

Dad and I still used our keys when opening and closing the front door in case our nosey neighbors were watching, but even in South Nausten there weren't too many people stupid enough to break into a cop's home. That would be like an instant get into jail free card, or a death sentence since my father was armed. It wasn't like we had anything valuable to steal. The only people I could think of that would bother to break into our house would be those that hated my father for being a cop, or he had arrested them, their friend, or a family member, but they wouldn't exactly let a shitty, cheap lock deter them to begin with.

My house's silence, something I often loved coming home to, was chilling. The dishes from this morning were still stacked in the sink. Thinking at they had only been there since that morning seemed unreal to me, that that small amount of time had passed. That morning, the world had made sense. That morning, Quatre had been alive. I looked at the card in my hand. It was a business card for a psychiatrist specializing in trauma. I tore it into tiny pieces and dumped the pieces in the trash can.

I walked past the kitchen and up into the attic. I fell onto my mattress and closed my eyes. I saw the smear of blood on the tracks. I saw Quatre's smile. I saw his aquamarine eyes turn red.

"You always have my back."

Tears poured down my cheeks in a freaking torrent. It was like they had backed up in the time it had taken to get back home and now someone had opened a faucet in my face. I saw Quatre take a step back, his sneakers balanced precariously on the edge of the platform. I heard the rumble of the train getting closer and closer. I watched him fall.

A powerful sob escaped my throat. I pressed my face into my pillow but it didn't help. Just like that, my very tentative control snapped and I was sobbing uncontrollably into my already tear soaked pillow. Crying doesn't really describe it, but it's the only word I have. I sobbed and cried for what seemed like hours. I couldn't stop. I threw up, again and again, or I would have if my stomach hadn't been empty. My dry heaves became so violent that I spat out blood.

My tears and sobs wouldn't stop no matter how hard I tried to get them back under control. I remember actually frightening myself, thinking that they would never stop, that I would just cry myself to death, but I couldn't find a reason to stop crying, either. My best friend was dead and I didn't know how to deal with that.

Sheer agony filled my chest and my head as I cried and my memories of Quatre's death played themselves out over and over and over. It was too much for me and I eagerly sought that black hole in my head that I knew was still there. When I did, I tumbled inside of it quite happily and just let that blackness, that nothingness take me.
End Part 7

　

(1) For those of you who have been actually reading this story, these dates don�t make any sense, since Duo started writing this journal on March 3rd. I decided to change the dates a bit, so Duo would actually start writing these journal entries in April, not March. I�m ignoring the problem for now because it isn�t entirely a huge deal.
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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)