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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
- 19
- 20
- 21
A Stagnation of Love

Chapter 4

Part 6
　

We didn't break up. Don't shake your head at me, ok? Hindsight is perfect and all that shit, but even after our latest, disastrous fight, even after I had something stupid and basically threw all his attempts at patching things up in his face, and even after Trowa had informed me that not only was he only using me and didn't want me, he would throw me under the bus again and again because I wasn't important enough, and then punched me when I had lashed out at him in anger, we didn't go our separate ways. I didn't know who was more of an idiot for putting up with the other at that point.

I wasn't even entirely sure how to feel about the fight, after I had trudged home, soaked to the bone, miserable, and finding that the worst of my anger at him was in some mystifying place that I couldn't access. I wished that I could stay pissed at him for telling me all that shit, it would have made things easier. But, as usual, my emotions were a wind storm, sending me from pissed to sad to guilty to ashamed in mere minutes.

I walked into my blessedly empty house and made a beeline for the shower. It was counterproductive, showering that early in the day when that night I was going to come home smelling like pizza sauce, cigarettes, sweat, and dust from the factory at the very least, but running water helps me think, whether its the ocean or a stream or a shower. I have no clue why, and it's not always a welcome thing if I'm depressed. But taking a hot shower, or a cold one if our water heater was acting up again, would make me feel better.

I shed my wet clothes in the bathroom, reminding myself to put them out on the clothes line before I left for work so they would hopefully be dry by morning, and caught my reflection in the mirror. My cheek was already bruising a dark black, tinged red at the edges. Touching it or moving my mouth at all made it hurt like hell, but I was so used to getting hit that I didn't even notice it's presence that much. He had really hit me, I realized with dumb amazement. After all the times I had wondered if he would, all of our fights, that moment in the garage when he had realized that I hadn't gotten hard... but deep down, I had never actually believed that he would hit me. I couldn't imagine that the boy that Quatre had fallen in love with would do something like that, forgetting that the boy that I was dating wasn't that boy anymore.

I had felt angry about that punch at first. I suppose that seems strange, considering that I keep writing that I'm used to getting knocked around. But Trowa isn't my father. I care about him, but I don't love him like I love my father. Trowa reminds me of him sometimes, how quickly he can lose his temper, but my dad has been knocking me around almost my whole life.

When I was little, I just took it for something that dads did, and even when I found out that that wasn't true, I just understood that it was something that my father did and there was nothing that I could do to change it. He had a temper and no one was going to change that about him. I loved him, whether he hit me or not, because he was my father, so I just dealt with it. What choice did I have? I loved him, and still do, despite that. Did I hate him for it? Yeah, as much as I loath to admit that some part of me hates my dad. That's just the nature of our relationship. I hate him with all of my heart. And I love him with just as much of my heart as well.

But Trowa is different. I don't love him like that. I would like to say that I don't hate him like that and I don't, really. That's not to say that I don't hate him after everything he did to me during our relationship... but I'm getting ahead of myself here. The point was simple to me. I took those beatings from my father because I didn't have a choice, because of his power over me, because I am his son and he takes care of me and at least cares for me in his gruff way, and because I love him enough that my love can survive the physical abuse.

There was no reason for me to put up with it from my boyfriend. It frustrated me and depressed me, remembering him hitting me so easily. I was sick of being a punching bag for my father and Zechs. So yeah, I was pissed off at Trowa over it. What really got to me was the fact that he knew that my father was beating on me. He had to know it.

Trowa was the only person who gave enough of a shit about me to notice my many bruises and injuries. Or maybe care was the wrong word. But he would have had to been dense and blind to not notice that. What did he think, that it was all from Zechs? I didn't buy that, not with the way that he had said that my father was an asshole. There had been guilt in his tone and I had understood that it had finally dawned on him what I had meant when I had said that he was getting me into trouble.

He knew about the physical abuse, just like Quatre had, but he never confronted me about it, never seemed to mind it. That should have relieved me, knowing that I would never have any awkward conversations with him like I had with Quatre, when he had gotten sick of saying nothing about my wounds and had tried to get me to tell on my father. But it bothered me. Although, given what he had said to me at the boardwalk, I guess it made sense. Quatre hadn't been physically abused and Quatre was the one he cared about, not me.

What bothered me more was my wondering if he had done it... if he had hit me because of that knowledge. Had he thought that I would tolerate it from him, simply because I was used to it? Because he thought that he would be able to get away with it, or had it just been an honest, angry reaction that he hadn't thought much about at the time? I wasn't about to become his punching bag, too and if he thought that I would... well, what the fuck would I do about it? After everything, I still hadn't made up my damned mind about whether I wanted to break up with him or not, let alone if I would.

When I was done being mad at him about the blow, and my anger over it had left me very quickly, I felt stupid for my anger. I was pissed at him for hitting me, but I didn't have anymore right to feel mad at him than I felt mad at my father. Just like my father, I had caused this. While I couldn't say that I had ruined Trowa's life like I had ruined my parents' life, or that I was directly responsible for his temper, in a way I kind of was. Because of me... because I hadn't been a real friend to Quatre, Quatre had taken his life.

And yes, I know that Trowa is just as much to blame for my best friend's death as I am, maybe even more so, and for that, I will always hate him, but he had to hate me for my part in it, too, didn't he? I had known how he felt about Quatre, how his own choices and the loss of someone he had loved had fucked him up, permanently. I knew that, knew how sensitive he was about it, and in a moment of anger, I had shoved his face in it.

I had reminded him of everything that he had lost. If someone had done the same to me, wouldn't I have taken a swing at that person, too? Fuck, I had taken a swing at that person. Trowa. Three years ago, on the day of Quatre's funeral, I had slapped and punched the same person that I was mad at for hitting me. Couldn't you just call that payback? Karma? So why was I mad? Was I just a huge, immature hypocrite for my anger? How could I possibly stay angry with him with the memory of my fist striking his own, younger face? It was impossible.

I didn't know how to feel about him telling me that I wasn't the person he wanted, either. I felt sad and hurt and betrayed, but just like my anger, I didn't feel that those feelings were justified. I had known, from the moment that he had first kissed me, that he didn't loved me. Every date we had been on, ever time he had looked at me and kissed me and held my hand, I had suspected that I wasn't the one that he was doing those things with. I had known, even back then, that I was a shadow, a substitute. I had believed it. Him confirming that for me didn't change a damned thing. Even knowing it for sure didn't make it easier to break up with him, because it had been like that between us from day one. It just hurt a lot, knowing with absolute certainty, that he didn't care about me at all. It made me feel even more like a whore, letting a john fuck me so they could live out their fantasy. Worse, it made me feel like I wasn't even a human being. I was just an empty shell that Trowa could fill with all of his memories of Quatre.

If there was one thing about our fight that I actually felt I could be angry about, it was Trowa's admittance that he would scream rape if we were ever caught. I don't know why that hurt me that much, either, because he was right. I wasn't worth it. My reputation was already shit. After all, if he accused me of rape, everyone would believe it, even though he could easily overpower me, and didn't that say it all? That all of our classmates could easily find it more believable that I would have sexually assaulted my best friend's crush than Trowa was gay and trying to make excuses for it?

I wasn't worth ruining his life in this town, not to him and not to me. But it still made me angry to know that he would stoop that low, that he would readily betray and hurt me that much. He really didn't care about me. I was just a blow up doll to him, one that wouldn't even put out, so I was pretty worthless no matter which angle I looked at. I thought endlessly about the last thing that we had said to each other. He didn't love me and resented that I wouldn't have sex with him. He had to be pissed that I had brought Quatre up.

But when I had asked him why he wouldn't break up with me, all he had said was 'I don't know.' That meant that he had thought about it, too, didn't it? That wasn't surprising, either. But just like me, something kept him from doing it. He was just as confused as I was. So why were we still together? That would have been a perfect moment in our relationship for the both of us to just throw up our hands and walk away. But we hadn't. We had hurt each other and betrayed each other, but when we bumped into each other at the library two days later, it was like none of it mattered.

I won't say that things were magically fine between us, that it was like none of it had ever happened, because that would be bullshit. We didn't come to blows and we didn't scream at each other, which was something. I kind of wanted to hit him and I could tell just by looking at him that he wanted to walk right by me. I don't know if we didn't fight because we were at a public or if we just didn't have anymore fight left in us, but I was grateful.

The library is the only place in town that I can go to without having to worry about Relena or Zechs ambushing me. It's the only place where I can feel peace and sanctuary and I sure as hell was not going to get kicked out over a spat with my boyfriend. I can't say what Trowa was feeling or thinking to see me so soon after our fight. He just kind of glanced at me, looking annoyed and frustrated, but not angry. Then something in his expression changed and he looked down quickly.

He would do that for the rest of that week, look at me briefly and then look away. At first I thought that the mere sight of me angered him before I realized what that expression was. It wasn't anger, it was guilt. He was looking at the bruise on my face and regretting that he had hit me. That one expression, no matter how brief, soothed the last of my anger over him striking me. My father had never felt regret over anything he had done to me. I know that doesn't make it better, it doesn't change the fact that Trowa did hit me, but I chose to believe that he wouldn't do it again, or at least he didn't mean to.

"I'm going to pick up a pizza later," he had said to me in the library after noticing that there was no one close enough to hear us, "want to come along?"

I thought about blowing him off, but I guess I'm just a masochist. It's not like I'm an optimist, so there's no other reason I can think of for willingly sticking my hand in the fire over and over and over. I didn't want to see him again, to go eat with him, to be that close to him, not so soon after the things that he had said. But I didn't want to be alone even more. So I shrugged, checked out some books as he left the library, and then followed him out to his car after enough time had passed that no one would think we were leaving together.

The ride to the pizza place was terse. It occurred to me almost like an epiphany during that ride that, even if you took out Quatre's role in things, my sexual hesitance, and Trowa's issues with his sexuality, we were still shit for each other. Even this new Trowa, full of anger and bitterness and grief, was still just as shy and socially awkward as the old one had been. He was the kind of person who waited for someone else to talk first, the kind of person who hesitated, even when they needed to speak, and would hold off until they had to say something really important.

And I didn't like to talk about anything personal. I didn't like being noticed or letting anyone see what I was thinking and feeling. Not since Quatre. I was quite happy to not say anything and let people think that I was someone to be wary of. Together, we were a disaster, neither of us talkative or willing to deal with our issues. We wouldn't drag the other person out of their shell, we just catered to it. It was no wonder why we never solved anything our entire relationship, we were too much alike, too antisocial and bitter and too pathetic to risk anything.

I think I saw the future in that car ride. I saw where things between us would end. The things that we had said to each other at the boardwalk, and the things that we had never said to each other during our entire engagement with each other, would end up rotting us apart. We would keep withdrawing more and more into ourselves, pushing each other away in our own methods, mine quite literally and his by taking his anger out on me, until we stopped talking to each other entirely and just drifted apart. I wish it could have been like that. I wish that that vision of the future had been real and things hadn't happened in the way that they did.

Getting ahead of myself again. It's hard sometimes, writing in this journal about certain things. It's kind of like writing a story where you know exactly how its going to end and you just want to jump right to it. I guess that's because I don't want to write about what happened two weeks after that fight, because it still hurts just thinking about it, let alone writing it down. But I survived writing about Quatre, so writing about this should be no problem.

We did better after Trowa walked into the pizza parlor to grab our food. He drove out to the drive in theater in North Nausten, in some shady corner where we wouldn't be bothered, and we ate in silence. The place he had gotten the pizza from wasn't a dive like the one I worked at and the pizza was actually pretty good, although my stomach was in such knots just from sitting next to him that I barely noticed the taste at the time, other than it wasn't even a third as greasy as the shit I had to sell.

When we finished our food, we sat there, struggling for things to say to each other. We apologized for the wrong things, Trowa for hitting me, me for bringing up Quatre, neither one of us exactly honest or that much apologetic, secretly hating the other, but we apologized anyway. It was better than saying goodbye and I think we both realized that we needed to say it if we had any hope of staying together. He didn't apologize for any of the things that I wanted him to, and I didn't apologize for what I had accused him of. But it was something, I guess.

I don't think that either of us actually moved on from that fight. I won't say that it was the thing that ended up breaking us up, because it both was and wasn't, and I won't say that things got back to normal afterwards, because it didn't. It just kind of got worse, but at a snail's pace. There was this... this black pit between us all of a sudden. I had started to notice it the day that Trowa had convinced me to have sex with him and after the fight at the boardwalk, it had grown into a gaping chasm.

I don't know how long we might have kept that up, going out on dates while not talking, feeling bitter and confused and angry the way that we were, but something had to change or break. I just never thought that that something would be... fuck, I can't even write it without laughing. I guess I can see the ironic, fucked up humor of it now. I sure as hell hadn't been able to then.
*****
I was having a shitty day before I even left the house for school that morning. You ever have one of those days that is so bad, so unlucky, that you actually fear for your life going outside? One of those days when you count yourself lucky to just not get hit by a bus? I was having one of those days. I suspected that it would be from the moment that I woke up with a screaming headache at five am. From that moment, it was just downhill.

My one, clean pair of jeans was missing a button. The shirt that I had been planning on wearing that day had a tear in it that had magically appeared since the last time I had worn it. I rushed to get into the shower before my father would need it, only to find that our archaic water heater was broken again and only ice cold water was coming out. There was only a tiny sliver of soap left and I was too tired from tossing and turning all night, and in a foul mood already, to dare my father's anger if I used up too much of it, so I settled for using the lather from the cheap ass shampoo we had instead. I washed quickly, shivering by the time that I was done.

When I put on my socks, I realized that there was a huge hole in one of them. I threw them in the trash in disgust, only to dig them back out again. I never throw out clothes that have holes and rips in them because I can always use the material for something. That was probably where those socks had come from, I had forgotten to put them in my scrap pile and had accidentally put them back in the drawer. I combed my hair and when I went to fix my braid, the hair tie, my last hair tie, by the way, snapped.

I was about ready to scream in pure frustration. I ignored my hair for the moment and ran out of the bathroom, almost colliding into my father.

"Watch where you're fucking going, you idiot," he growled at me.

Oh joy, he was in a mood, too.

"Water heater's busted again," I warned him, keeping moving towards the steps so I would be a moving target if he started anything that early.

He glared at me like he thought the broken heater was my fault somehow. I wished that I had just let him find out about the arctic water on his own.

Upstairs, I dug out my sewing kit. Yes, I have a sewing kit, shut up. It has nothing to do with being gay or feminine or any of that crap. I don't care what anyone says about it, even Pat or my father, being able to sew is not only useful, it saves us money. I've taken enough home ec courses to know how to do it well and while my father uses it to attack me with, I've noticed that those insults magically disappear when he loses a button on his trousers or the comforter on their bed has a rip in it.

The fact is that, between getting roughed up by Zechs and my father, the hard labor I do at the factory, the food stains I often get at my other two jobs, how seldom laundry gets done, and how cheap and secondhand all of my clothes are, they take a pretty significant beating. Unlike kids from middle class and upper class families, I can't just ask my dad for new socks or a new shirt because mine has a rip in it. My getting clothing from him is contingent on a few factors; one, if it's a holiday or my birthday, two, his mood, and three, our finances. We could be having a good month money wise, but if he's in a bad mood, he'll just tell me that if I took better care of my things, I wouldn't need to bleed him dry, even if he was the one to rip my clothing.

It's just easier to mend things than to beg for new clothes. A bunch of the blankets on my bed are ones that I made out of scraps, too. They're nothing pretty, but it helps in the winter, and it keeps me occupied in the dead of night when my nightmares and insomnia keep me up.

I dug around in my sewing kit for a new button for the jeans that I was wearing and sewed it on. I was able to find a thick piece of thread to tie up my hair, too. The socks and shirt would have to wait until later. I grabbed a different pair of socks, inspecting those ones for holes before putting them on, and ran back downstairs for breakfast. I was hoping for some scrambled eggs or something else a bit filling, only to find that my father hadn't gone grocery shopping the previous night like he had said that he would.

I had the choice of bread that was almost too stale to eat, butter, grape jelly, cereal, two eggs, oatmeal, ham, and a banana. I didn't touch the eggs of ham, my father would want those for his own breakfast and there wasn't enough for two people. I had been eating cereal for the last week and a half and just couldn't stomach it anymore. The oatmeal I wanted to save for when it was colder out, which narrowed my choices down to toast.

I put two slices of bread in the toaster and while I waited for our beat up, silver and rust colored toaster to do it's job, searched for something to wash it down with. There wasn't anymore orange juice or bottled water and hadn't been for days. I had really been looking forward to having juice for breakfast again. With a grimace, I poured myself a glass of tap water from the kitchen faucet, the sight of the cloudy water turning my stomach. I took an experimental sip and at the horrid taste of burnt pennies, I immediately spat it out into the sink.

I had been drinking that nasty water for three days straight, biding my time until grocery day, and every day that water had tasted worse and worse. Who even knew what crap was in it to make it taste like that, but I just couldn't force myself to drink it anymore. I took a second look through the fridge, hoping to find some secret treasure trove. A juice box, maybe, or a cup of water hiding in the back. But no. All I found was the last bit of milk, barely enough for a half a glass. I shook the container a little, verifying how little was in there. Dare I?

Normally, I wouldn't ever chance taking the last of anything out of the fridge unless it was something I knew that my father had no interest in. Normally, I would have noticed how low the milk was and shrug and drink some of the crappy tap water. But, as I should have made abundantly clear at this point, that was not a normal day. It was a particularly shitty day. In my defense, my dad doesn't usually use milk unless he's making something, which is rare because he hates cooking even omelets. My mother and I are the milk drinkers in the household, one thing that we have in common, while the only things that I had ever seen my father drink were his poisons of choice, water, and coffee, black.

I was sure that he would have coffee that morning, like he did every day. What I didn't know was one of the reasons why my father was in such a bad mood that morning was that his precious coffee maker refused to turn on. I wasn't the only one having a shitty day. Honestly, I should have noticed it, since the machine was sitting unplugged on the kitchen counter and by that point, my father would have had it brewing. I cite my headache and remaining grogginess and that I was quickly getting late for school for my lapse in judgment. Or maybe I was just in one of those rare moods of frustration that I get in where I stop giving a shit about things like that.

My morning went from bad to abysmal shortly after that. I ate my toast with butter and jam at the kitchen table and drank the last of the milk. At some point when I had finished and had just been about to get up to do my dishes when my father came in to make his own breakfast. He opened the fridge, saw that the bottle of milk had migrated from the door to the trash can in the kitchen, and immediately lost his shit at me. He screamed at me about my gall at drinking the last of the milk and then slammed his fist into my stomach.

With that one, powerful punch, I was doubling over in agony and vomiting what I had just put into it. My father gave me a look of disgust, either at my throwing up or my stupidity or just how weak he thought I was, and stormed back out of the kitchen. When my guts were done spasming in pain, I took the time to clean up the mess that I had made. In a fit of anger, I almost just left it there for my father to clean up, but I knew that he wouldn't. He would just become enraged that I hadn't cleaned it and leave it there for me when I got home or make my mother clean up after me. And then beat the shit out of me later, of course. None of those options appealed to me. I easily decided that I would rather be late for school than have to deal with any of that later.

I went to school with an aching stomach, my throat burning with the taste of bile, my head absolutely pounding, and wanting to just stay home and scream. I had this looming feeling of doom, knowing that my bad day was not going to suddenly disappeared at school. I was really surprised to walk through the front door of the high school without stepping in a pot hole, getting hit by a car, or having a brick fall on my head.

I ended up being twenty minutes late and got yelled at by my homeroom teacher for a good five minutes. 'Brat' and 'juvenile delinquent' came up several times along with 'loser' and a few others. Everyone in that classroom was staring right at me, some of them giggling. Once upon a time, I would have felt incredibly embarrassed and would have wanted to find a hole to crawl into, but I was used to it by then. I just sat there, crossed my arms over my chest defensively and, without saying a word, glared at my teacher. After his rant was done, he looked unnerved by my silent stare and finally went away.

The first half of that day went pretty normally for me. Zechs caught me between my first and second periods by pulling me out of the middle of the hallway by my braid. He looted through my back pack, got pissed when he didn't find any money or a lunch and insisted that I paid a toll for it. The 'toll' was him ripping up my homework and smearing the front of my shirt with ketchup. I guess I should have counted myself lucky that he didn't beat me up. I was more upset about my homework than the ketchup. Zechs wouldn't let me clean it off or I would incur a worse punishment, but I was used to being made fun of and jeered at for looking like a slob, and I could just change shirts before work at home.

During third period, calculus 1, Dorothy put a millipede down the back of my soiled shirt. How she got one, I had no clue, but I was immediately glad that it wasn't something worse like a spider or a centipede as I felt it crawling across my bare back. If there is a person I hate more than Relena and Zechs, it would have to be Dorothy. Sure, the three boys that Zechs always hangs out with, Alex Williams, Bran Mueller, and Daniel Trant, are only a couple levels less worse than Zechs is himself, but they don't share Dorothy's creativity or sadistic streak. Or her outright hatred of me.

To her, I was a doll, something fun that she could stick needles into, but one that personally offended her as well. Part of that hatred came from me turning down her best friend, but I think there's more to it. I don't know if it's all because of Relena, or if she's just so homophobic that she can't stand the sight of me, but Dorothy hates me more than just a bully would her victim. Some days I think that she would happily stick a knife in my intestines and not feel an ounce of guilt for it.

To make things worse, somehow she ended up sitting right behind me in Calculus, the one class I have all year instead of for just one semester. Just like every other class, our seating was decided at random to keep friends apart and we couldn't change them, so I was stuck with the bitch until my senior year. She loved to torment me during class, from pulling my hair, to sticking gross things in my braid or down my shirt, to stabbing me with a sharpened pencil in the back of my neck.

Telling her to stop or telling the teacher would be pointless. Dorothy would just sneer at me and do something worse. My Calculus teacher would tell me to be a man about it and stop tattling on girls who were just 'teasing' me. Mrs. Harkins had nothing but disdain for me. She didn't outright hate me for my attitude like some of my teachers did. Her feelings about me were worse than that. I disgusted her, specifically the rumors that I was a faggot. She was seventy-two years old, should have retired ten years, ago, and had lost both her sense of smell and her hearing in her left ear. She was also about as conservative as you could get. One of those older women who sneered at how short girls' skirts were nowadays and didn't socialize with anyone that wasn't upper middle class and white, preferably from an old family. She thought that girls like Relena walked on water like boys like me were maggots. If she had her way, every one of her students from my side of town would be instantly failed and kicked out of school. That math was my worst subject did not help me, I couldn't afford to do less than my absolute best in that class.

I waited until the end of class to shake out my shirt, satisfied when I saw the large, black bug curled up on the floor in a defensive maneuver. I thanked my luck that I'm not squeamish about insects and stuff like that. The last thing I needed was to freak out about a millipede and give people another reason to call me a girl. I even made sure that everyone else had left the classroom so no one else would see me do it. I wish that I hadn't. I wish that I had never minded the stupid millipede and just gone to lunch or to the bathroom to take care of it there. If I had, would I have remained blissfully ignorant? I doubt it. But at least I wouldn't have found out about it that day.

I hurriedly shoved my books in my bag and left the classroom. I walked towards the library, another thing that I regret now. If my stomach hadn't still been hurting, I would have gone to the cafeteria like everyone else, but even though I was hungry, I just didn't feel like eating. What would be the point of surrounding myself with my classmates when I could read a book in peaceful silence? If I had gone in the opposite direction like everyone else, I never would have noticed Trowa, but I did. That close to the lunch block, there weren't a whole lot of people in the hallway and I actually debated waving hello to him when I saw him lounging by some lockers, but it just wasn't worth the risk.

Then I had to ask myself why he was just leaning against the row of lockers like he was waiting for someone. That was his lunch period, too. I slowed my gait out of curiosity. I was starting to think that he was just meeting with one of his friends, maybe one of the ones that had almost discovered us a couple weeks ago, when a girl walked up to him. I stopped walking without realizing it, thinking that she was just another one of his many admirers, trying to get a date with him, when she touched his arm. To my astonishment, instead of brushing her off like I had seen him do every single girl that had ever dared to talk to him, he smiled down at her.

Something inside of me went icy cold. I knew that smile. It was the same smile he gave me when he was being sweet to me. Soft, warm, affectionate. And he was looking at a girl that way. For just a moment, those dark green eyes of his darted along the hallway, as if checking to see if anyone was watching, which confused me. It wasn't in the way that he did when we were together, it was something different, not like he was wary of being seen, but the opposite. He wanted to be seen? That was bizarre. But then those eyes were looking fell on me and I watched all the color drain from his face. He looked shocked. He looked frightened. Just what the fuck was going on?

I should have just walked away then. Someone would see us looking at each other, it was too big of a risk just to sate my confusion. I could just ask him about it later... The girl tugged on Trowa's shirt, something that I couldn't imagine anyone would do to someone that they weren't close friends with, and she gained both mine and Trowa's instant attention.

She was a pretty girl, a stranger to me beyond knowing that she was in Trowa's grade. No, scratch that, she was beautiful. She was as pale as I was, with long red hair. Not that cherry red that a lot of teenage girls like to dye their hair, but a natural red head with hair that colored like fire, all dark reds and orange and gold. She was taller than I was by only a couple of inches and had this slim, long legged figure that probably had all the boys in their grade salivating over.

In my opinion, she was much prettier than Relena, with more natural looks that reminded me of Lily. But it hurt too much to think about her, and wonder where she was, if she was safe, if she had gone back home yet. Then I saw the girl's eyes and I felt like I was getting sucker-punched in the gut all over again. Her eyes were round, perfectly round and big, like a doll's. They were blue-green, a very specific shade of blue-green. She had Quatre's eyes, I realized and felt this very intense sense of foreboding. She said something to him. I could have read her lips easily from where I was standing, but I was too focused on those eyes and the pit in my stomach at the way Trowa was looking at her. I felt this hot thing inside of me start to well up. It was like my anger, thick and nasty, but I wasn't angry. That was when my boyfriend leaned down and kissed her.

A knife stabbed my heart over and over and over. My stomach churned. My head exploded with pain. I didn't run away like some cheesy romantic film or soap opera. I just stood there in the hallway like an idiot, watching Trowa kiss some girl like all of the times that he had kissed me. Those cool lips pressed against hers, done in sheer pink lipstick. Her eyes closed like mine did sometimes when he kissed me, and a fine blush spread over her cheeks. Trowa still looked so pale, but he didn't look over at me when he kissed her. I was glad. I don't know what I would have done if he had glanced to me then.

I felt so cold. I felt... lost and alone and confused. Trowa was kissing a girl, and from the way that that girl was reacting to it, it was not the first time he had kissed her. Just... just what the fuck? He was cheating on me? And not even with a boy, but a girl? Would it have been more forgivable if she had been a boy? I suppose I could have understood it better if it was some boy who looked like Quatre, someone better looking and nicer than me, someone who could give him what he needed. But a girl? I was very certain that he wasn't bisexual, so what the hell was going on? What was I seeing?

I understood several things just then, with perfect clarity. I had no clue how long this had been going on for, how many times that he had kissed her, but I suddenly realized that I hadn't seen Trowa in the cafeteria for weeks. Was this what he had been doing? Kissing this girl during a time when people would be coming and going from their classes to the cafeteria? Because that was one of things that I had had an epiphany about. The way he had looked around the hallway before he had kissed her, the guilty expression he had had on his face that day at the boardwalk when I had accused him of never having a girlfriend... she was a smokescreen. Who among Trowa's friends and classmates would dare accuse him of being a fag when he had a pretty girlfriend like that? All he had to do was insure that at least one person saw him kissing her on a regular business and he was free of suspicion no matter what he did. If we hadn't been dating, I might have even applauded him for it, for finding a sure fire way to look normal in front of everyone. It was a tactic that I had never considered myself.

But really, even if I had considered it, could I do that? Could I pretend to like some girl in my grade just so people would stop calling me a fag? I didn't think that something like that would ever work for me. For one, what girl would want to be seen dating me? Just because Relena had confessed to liking me once, it didn't mean that I was desirable.

I wasn't handsome and semi-popular like Trowa was. I was Zechs and Relena's verbal and mental punching bag, the resident faggot, poor, dirty, and a loser. Even if by some miracle I could find a girl to date, I didn't think that I could go through with it. I hadn't tried to kiss any girl after Relena, so as far as I knew, even that was beyond me. I didn't think that I could fake being into it like Trowa. Beyond that... I didn't think I could hurt anyone like that. My boyfriend, obviously, had no problems hurting both this girl and me.

And it did hurt. Even though I understood why Trowa was doing it, it hurt like hell. He was using her and he was using me. Did he feel anything at all? Did he even give a shit that he was cheating on me? I wanted to hate him so badly for it. I wanted to walk right up to him and hit him for kissing her. What made it really painful were those eyes of hers. If she had just had brown eyes or grey or even straight blue, it would have been more ok. But that girl... she looked more like Quatre than I ever would, minus the male part.

She had his eyes and she had his skin. Even her smile almost looked like his. She looked different enough from him that no one would be able to put two and two together, but to me, to anyone who had spent most of their time around Quatre, she looked too much like him. Trowa could have picked any goddamned girl in his grade to make out with, but he had chosen her, she wasn't even a boy and he was still using her as a reminder. A reminder that was, obviously, better than me. I couldn't smile like that.

We sure as hell couldn't kiss or hold hands in public. What did that make me? Just the boy that he was seeing, to cater to his sexuality and not his heart. Just someone to get his rocks off with and I wasn't even that. So yes, I wanted to hate him for it, for all the pain and jealousy and guilt and feelings of inadequacy that I felt in that moment, watching them kiss each other, but I couldn't. Because that's what homosexuality is. It isn't perversion. It isn't filthy or wrong or sinful.

Homosexuality is pain. Being gay is watching the boy you care about locking lips with a girl and not even have the ability to yell at him for cheating on you. It's knowing that that boy knows you're right there, watching, and that you can't do a single fucking thing about it. It's not being able to hate him for cheating on you, because how could you hate someone for wanting to be normal? How can you hate someone that you care about, someone who used to be a friend, for wanting the very same thing you've wanted your entire life and actually has a shot of getting it? I didn't even have the luxury of that.

The two of them started to break apart, but then the girl grabbed the front of Trowa's shirt and pulled him down for another kiss, this one more heated than the one that he had given her. She liked him, I realized, a hell of a lot more than he liked her. I didn't know which of us to feel sorry for at that point. When they broke away again, the girl's eyes still closed in an expression of contentment, Trowa looked at me.

The guilt in his eyes didn't make me feel a single bit better. He mouthed 'talk later' at me. I wanted to flip him off. I snapped out of my shocked daze and hurried along my way to the library before they could kiss again. It wouldn't do to have all of his hard work to go to waste by someone seeing me looking at him like my heart had just broken. I wasn't even sure if that was the pain that I was feeling. I didn't love him enough for that, did I? Or was the pain in my chest just betrayal?

I sat down at one of the tables in the library without a single book to retreat into. I hung my head and hid my face in my hands, but I didn't cry. He wasn't worth it, I told myself, and my pain over it sure as hell wasn't worth breaking my vow to myself. I sat like that the entire lunch period and wondered when the hell that terrible day was going to be over.
*****
I guess the universe decided that that little moment in the halls before lunch was horrible enough that it didn't need to fuck with me anymore for the rest of the school day because I didn't get suspended or lose any more of my homework or choke to death on the lasagna we made during home ec. Although Zechs did trip me right into the wall at gym while we ran laps, one of the only activities we could do with the string of on and off again thunderstorms we kept getting. But my collide into the stone wall was just as much my fault as it was his. I hadn't been paying much attention at all to what was I doing ever since lunch ended. My mind was focused on more turbulent thoughts than where Zechs was in relation to me and how many tomatoes one should use to make homemade sauce.

I didn't even think about Trowa's urge to talk later until gym class. I had no desire to talk to him. There was nothing he could possibly say to me that would make me feel better, like something better than trash. I felt like he had gutted me hollow. I had already been feeling lousy about all of our fighting, and then he had done that. It wasn't something that I was going to recover from. No one wanted me. My parents didn't want me, Quatre hadn't wanted me enough to stay with me, and now Trowa had not only confessed that he didn't want me, he was making out with some girl, two timing the both of us. At least I was aware of it. What's lower than trash, because that was exactly how I felt.

I skipped showering off after gym so I could leave right away, putting on an extra layer of deodorant and rinsing my hair in the sink. It would have to do. I didn't want to hang around for the school to get empty and have Trowa corner me. I didn't feel bad at all about leaving him behind, waiting for me or whatever he would end up doing. My bitterness and pain was overflowing. If he wanted to talk to someone, he could talk to his girlfriend. And didn't that word just make a new agony burst in me. Girlfriend. My boyfriend had a girlfriend.

Maybe he would break up with me now, unless this had been going on for longer than I thought that it did. If that was the case, why the hell were we together? I obviously wasn't satisfying any of his gay urges in the sex department. Of course, hadn't he said the same thing to me? If he didn't know what the point of me was, then how the fuck should I know?

I would like to say that the incident had helped to make up my mind about breaking up with him, but I can't. I didn't know how to feel about it, really, beyond the hurt. I didn't see how him having a girlfriend changed our relationship at all. It didn't make it better and it didn't make it worse. He probably could have pulled the wool over my eyes for awhile and I wouldn't have noticed anything different in our relationship. So to me, there wasn't any greater reason to break up with him than before, beyond the fact that he was cheating on me, sort of. I don't know if you can count making out with another person as cheating, can you?

When I left the school and started to walk home, the sky cleared enough that I didn't get rained on. I was foolish enough to take that as a sign that my horrible luck was over. Stupid me. My shitty day wasn't done with me quite yet. My walks home from school are not what anyone would call scenic, or even nice. The first half of South Nausten isn't so bad, I guess. That's where most of the businesses are and the nicer homes. But the other half... well, that's where things get dirtier and more dangerous.

While my house isn't really located in the worse parts of Nausten, it's kind of on the border between the condemned building and meth lab center of town, and the business area of South Nausten. From school, there are two ways to get to my street. The first is the long way, through the residential district. The second is a part of town that would make people like Relena turn white. There's this little side street that takes you to a street that my dad gets called to quite frequently, usually for drug busts and chop shop raids. It's the kind of place where people who don't live in the South go to if they want something a bit stronger than pot. It's also a great place to walk if you want to get mugged.

All that being said, that street takes a good twenty minutes off of my walk, so yes, I take it. I've never had many problems, between looking like a poor bum myself and who my father is, but I always feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I walk by there. This time was no different. I stepped out onto that derelict street and immediately felt on edge, like something bad was going to happen. Given how my day had been going, I almost took the long way around. I really didn't need to get shot.

It was my hunger that spurred me to take the shortcut. By that time, the pain in my gut had subsided enough for me to really feel all those missed meals. If I walked back the way I had come to take the longer route, I wasn't going to have the time to make myself anything before I had to start my first shift. I was halfway down the street when I realized that prickling feeling wasn't just paranoia this time. Someone was following me. Before I could freak out and start running, I glanced in a nearby convenience store window. The reflection revealed a very familiar, navy blue car tailing me. I fought the urge to throw a brick at it and just stopped walking. It pulled up along side me, stopped, and the driver's side window slid down. I wondered about my chances of outrunning the car if I suddenly made a go of it. Not good.

"Get in?" Trowa urged, his voice small and pleading, but I wasn't falling for that again. I didn't care if he felt guilty or upset or whatever, I wasn't going to let him lure me into a false sense of security.

"No," I said, refusing to look at him and pointed to an empty lot a few blocks up from us, "pull in there."

I thought that he might fight me about it and I finally dared a look at him. He looked guilty, alright, but also annoyed. He looked nervous, too, and I couldn't tell if it was because of the part of town we were in or he was nervous about being seen with me. He had probably never been this far into the South part of town before and was worried about being car jacked. Good, he should be. While his car wasn't exactly great, it ran. That was enough for the people that lived in that section to want to take it. To my relief, he didn't argue, but pulled ahead of me and into the lot.

I took my time walking to it, not wanting to have it out with him, especially out in the open like that. But that was why I hadn't wanted to get into the car with him. If we fought, I would be vulnerable. At least in the lot, he wouldn't try to draw attention to us and I could leave whenever I wanted.

The lot actually used to belong to a liquor store, but it burnt down a few years ago and they had just let the space go to hell. There were broken bottles, used cigarettes, condoms, and syringes littering the place. It was a popular location for drug deals and prostitutes to take their cheaper johns, or so I had heard. Given the trash 'evidence', I could believe it. Trowa was leaning against his car, waiting for me, when I walked past the wire fence to where he was. I looked around nervously to make sure that not too many people could see us. I wasn't scared of someone seeing the two of us together and thinking 'faggots'. I was scared of someone seeing us together and thinking 'drug deal'. That was the last thing I needed, a rumor that I was a drug addict. It was a lost cause, though. While I couldn't see anyone staring at us, I had the feeling like we were being watched. In a place like that, we probably were.

I leaned with my back against his car in a mirror of his own pose so I wouldn't have to face him eye to eye.

"I'm-" he started to apologize.

I was so sick of hearing him say that he was sorry after he had hurt me. Apologizing is great and all, but unless you change, unless you stop doing that thing that you claim you're sorry for, what's the point? And are you really actually sorry if you refuse to do that?

"Don't," I interrupted him, "Don't say it unless you really mean it."

He fell silent. Even though I had known that he wasn't actually apologetic, that while he was sorry for hurting me, he wasn't sorry for what he was doing with that girl, it still disappointed me.

"You two dating?" I asked

"Yes," he confirmed, stabbing that knife a bit deeper into me.

"How long?" I couldn't stop myself, even though I desperately wanted to.

"Since the first week of school," he said and actually sounded a little bit ashamed of himself.

The first week of school. This... whatever it was... had been going on for almost a month. I hadn't even noticed it until then. All that time that we had been going on dates, making out, being with each other... and he had been with someone else. A girl. I had let him fuck me and he had had a girlfriend. He hadn't even respected me just that tiny bit enough to tell me. I felt like he had lied to me that night he had finally managed to badger me into sex. I felt like I was going to be sick.

Neither of us spoke for a long time. My head was swarming with all these questions that I wanted to ask him, but I was terrified of his answers. I didn't know what to say to him. 'So which one of us is the other woman' didn't seem like an appropriate thing to ask, especially when I knew it would come out seething with bitterness and hatred. So I stayed silent, waiting for him to say something in his defense. But he wouldn't.

We knew each other too well at that point, even though we never talked about anything personal. He knew that I had figured out what was going on with him and that girl, why he was doing it, so explaining was just a waste of words. It still would have been nice to hear him confirm it, to know that he wasn't bisexual and two timing us instead of just using the both of us. Honestly, I don't know which scenario is worse. I kicked at a broken bottle and watched it roll across the lot.

"Just say it," Trowa suddenly snapped in cold frustration.

See what I mean? He knew me well enough to know the one question that was foremost in my mind, right on the tip of my tongue, and the one that I dared not to ask.

"Have you fucked her yet?" I asked and was incredibly relieved that my voice came out with the same cold, detachment as his did.

"No," he said and had enough decency to blush at my question, but it was slight and barely noticeable, "But she wants to."

And didn't that just say everything? His words were an accusation. She wanted to. I didn't. She was eager and willing, not just to put up with having sex with him, but she actually wanted to have sex with him. I couldn't even force myself to pretend to want it, or grudgingly let him have sex with me. Sure, she was the wrong gender, but she would let him stick his dick into her. Did she have any idea that he had no interest at all in her pussy or her breasts? Would she let him do her from behind, in her ass like he had done to me so he could pretend that he wasn't having sex with a girl? I rubbed at my forehead, trying to banish the horribly ugly and cruel thoughts. She wasn't the one that I hated.

"Will you have sex with her?" I asked bitingly.

He looked away from me and down at the asphalt in a steely, guilty silence. He didn't need to say anything, the answer was splashed all over his face. I stood up from my lean against his secondhand car and walked away, continuing towards my house. He didn't call out to me or try to follow me. He had said all that he had needed to say.

A dark cloud of depression followed me through all three of my work shifts. I somehow managed not to think about any of it as I worked, but the feeling remained. It was something like being pulled into muddy water. I didn't even feel like I had the right to feel that way. I had done this to myself. I couldn't blame Trowa for wanting someone who would actually have sex with him and not act so cagey and frightened when he initiated things, even if that someone was a girl.

All I did was remind him of all the things that weren't what he wanted. I was sure that when he looked into those large, aquamarine eyes, it was easier for him to pretend than when he was looking in my violet ones. I had agreed to be his boyfriend knowing what this relationship was, knowing who he really wanted. And when we had started to get more intimate, I had known what I couldn't give him. Even when I had tried, I had failed, just like at everything else in my life. I should have broken it off with him a long, long time ago, before it hurt.

That was where my head was the rest of the day. When I was opening cans of tomato sauce, I was thinking about how I had pushed my boyfriend into the arms of a woman because of my own inadequacies. When I was unloading cargo, I was thinking that I should be feeling sorry for him, not mad at him. I was thinking about all of the reasons why our relationship was a failure, all the reasons why we needed to stop. The hurt was getting to be too much, and the good moments too little. That we had lasted as long as we had was a miracle.

That night, I laid on my bed and thought about that. How had we stayed together for so long? It mystified me. It had been so nice at first, just being with someone, having that someone look at me with something other than coldness. What frightened me was that even then, I wasn't ready to give it up. I wasn't ready to break up with Trowa and go back to nothingness.

I knew that I should, I knew that I had to. I mean, what was I going to do? Go out with dates with him one night, kiss him goodnight and know that he was leaving me to go have sex with someone? Could I do that? If I asked him not to, would he? I doubted it. And I didn't feel that it was fair to ask him to do that. Why should I ask him not to do something that he obviously needed when I couldn't give it to him? Was all that was keeping us together our mutual history and stubbornness?

Every bit of common sense that I possessed told me what I needed to do. But right when I thought that I could do it, all of my memories of the times that Trowa had made me happy assaulted me. My own mind was betraying me, reminding me of what it was like right after Quatre had killed himself, how lonely I had been, how gray everything had been. It reminded me of what it had felt like to lay in this very bed, in this very room, in this very house, with absolutely nothing but my books and the sound of my parents screaming at each other.

I didn't want to go back to that. I wanted to have one person by my side, helping me forward, even though the logical part of me knew that that person was slowly killing me inside. I didn't want to be alone. But I wanted to break up with him, I wanted that very badly. I didn't want to hurt anymore every time I thought of him, thought of how horrible we were together, how we were using each other, how seeing him now only reminded me of my own grief, my own guilt. I just wasn't capable of dealing with him hurting me anymore. It was so hard, just being with him, finding reasons to stay that made any kind of sense. I felt so tired of it. I rolled over on my side and looked at Quatre lying next to me. His aqua eyes seemed to glow in the dim light, so much like hers...

"Tell me what to do," I begged him.

The Quatre that I had known and loved as my best friend... would he have comforted me? Would he have told me to get out of this relationship no matter the cost? Of course, I thought bitterly, if he had lived, this never would have happened. I would still be a virgin and I would never know how any of this felt. I wouldn't know what true grief and pain and loneliness feel like. This Quatre wasn't even that Quatre, just a shadow of him, born from my neediness. In the face of my guilt, he couldn't be much of anything. He just smiled at me and touched my arm, then he was gone.

I felt betrayed all over again, which was stupid. Of course he wouldn't be able to give me any advice. He was just a ghost in my head. It was just as well. I felt disgusted at the notion of him finding out that the boy that he had loved was cheating on me.
*****
Trowa and I saw each other one last time after that. It was that Saturday, the very last day of September. Both of my shifts at the factory Friday and Saturday had been cancelled thanks to a train derailment. You can't unload what you don't have, so I got at least two nights off while it was all sorted out. I sure wasn't complaining. I saw Trowa with his girlfriend more and more that week, necking the halls, holding hands, talking to each other. I guess now that I knew about it, he didn't have to restrict their public meetings. It must be nice.

I knew it, the very day after it had happened, when they had had sex with each other. Every time I saw one of her friends talking about Trowa to the redhead, she had blushed darkly and smiled prettily where she hadn't before. Trowa, on the other hand, seemed very tense and cagey. His friend ribbed him about his relationship, but he didn't blush. He seemed to go a bit pale, even from my brief glances at him. From his girlfriend's reaction, the sex had been good and it hadn't been awkward, but I don't think that Trowa had enjoyed it nearly as much as he had hoped that he would. Good. I bitterly and angrily hoped that he was suffering for it. And yet, while I can't say how I knew it, I knew that he would have sex with her again. I wasn't even sure if it was about satisfying an urge anymore or if it was just him keeping up the act of a heterosexual, teenaged boy.

When I passed him in the hallway Friday, he passed me a note to meet him after school. It was a bold move for him, but I guess he didn't have too much of a reason to worry about being pegged as a homosexual anymore, just for talking with me. He was still overly cautious, though, and we met in the upstairs computer lab that wasn't being used. He asked me if I wanted to meet for dinner on Saturday. I said that I wasn't sure. It was all I could do not to snidely ask him why he wasn't asking his girlfriend out for dinner, at least they could sit in a restaurant together.

I tried to leave and he grabbed my wrist to stop me. He pleaded and begged, saying that he wanted to spend some time with me. He made me feel weak and pathetic because I couldn't outright tell him no. There was a voice in my head screaming at me that this was a bad idea, that I should stay away from him, not go to some private place to eat when I was sure that he had more in mind. His hand was lingering on my wrist for too long, his fingers stroking my skin intimately. I wished that he really was bi and his girlfriend was enough for him.

Even then, knowing where we were headed and where my prudishness had brought us, I didn't want anything to do with sex, with what he wanted. I was getting tired of being the one that he wanted, just because I was the only gay boy he could date. I was tired of feeling like his sex doll, knowing that he didn't really want me, but he needed me anyway. But I couldn't ignore how his desperation made me feel. Being wanted, even if its just for a quick lay, is a powerful thing. If I listened to that tone as he begged me, focused on that desperate look in his eyes, I could lie to myself and say that he loved me. Like I said, weak and pathetic.

I gave him the address of an abandoned building that I knew of in my side of town. It was actually abandoned and the last time that I had snuck into it a few weeks ago, there hadn't been any squatters in it. He blanched, obviously not wanting to go back to South Nausten, but it was the best place to go for someone who didn't want to be seen.

I know what you're thinking. How stupid am I to take someone that wanted to have sex with me to some abandoned building, when I had no intention of letting him lay me? Well, I've always been my worst enemy and honestly? I had always been more scared of what I would let Trowa do than what he would do to me. If he tried anything, I would just tell him no, like always, we would fight and scream at each other, but we would have a few minutes of peace, a few minutes where he would buy me dinner and I could eat with him and pretend like it was back when we had first started dating.

So I told him where to go and said that I would think about meeting him there. If I didn't show up, he could just go home. He had looked angry at my flippant attitude, but I think he understood that it was the best that he was going to get from me and had gone away, leaving me wondering if I had lost my damned mind. Not that I had had much sanity left to lose. Saturday saw me sneaking into the abandoned building a full thirty minutes before I had agreed to meet Trowa, and I wasn't even sure why I was there. I guess that's kind of sad, that I had gotten to the point in our relationship where I didn't know why I was bothering anymore.

The house might have been nice once. It reminded me a bit of my own, if no one bothered to take care of it, and it had probably been built around the same time with similar architecture. I turned on my lantern so I could find someplace to sit. There was a glow from the neon lights coming from outside, but all the windows were boarded up, and I just didn't feel like stepping on a nail or someone's used needle. Someone had left a soiled, aging mattress on the floor that had once been a kitchen. When I sat on it, dust flew up everywhere. I tried not to think about the kinds of things that were in and on that mattress, namely human fluids and bugs, but it was more comfortable than sitting on the floor. That I couldn't tell if what I was smelling was old piss or just old age bothered me.

As I sat there, reading a book that I had brought with me, I wondered if I was punishing myself. What other reason could I have for keeping this going? I obviously hated myself and just wanted to suffer. I snorted in the silence of the house at my own melodrama. Of course I hated myself, what was there to like? I suppose, in a way, I really was punishing myself for what had happened to Quatre by dating the boy that he had loved. Every time we saw each other, I remembered my loss and it was kind of a poetic justice that Trowa was the one hurting me. But at this point, what would punish me more, staying with him or breaking up with him.

I rubbed at my face and decided that I was just overly tired. I hadn't exactly been sleeping well, even for me. That was why I had agreed to this stupid date, I decided. I was just sleep deprived and stressed from trying to decide what to do about this mess. I heard Trowa coming in the front door, rousing me from my thoughts, walking carefully and slowly towards the only source of light that I had brought. The powerful aroma of pizza assaulted me, but the not the cheap, noxious smell of the kind that I had worked with all day. I could smell fries, too. My stomach turned inside out, reminding me that it hadn't been fed since early that morning. I just hoped that Trowa would let me eat the food that he had brought before we fought.

In the light of my lantern, his green eyes were wide and shocked as he saw me sitting there.

"You're here," he said with surprise.

I eyed him for a moment. He hadn't thought that I was going to show up, but he had come anyway. I shrugged at him, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. He looked so shy as he approached me, I almost felt bad for him. For just a moment, I felt like ass. We were boyfriends and he had had to beg me just to hang out with him for dinner. But then I remembered why I was so upset and I pushed my sympathy for him away. Maybe I had done this to us, but he wasn't exactly a victim, either. At least he had someone, I thought angrily, maybe he didn't love her or even lust after her, but he could still talk to someone when we were fighting. I didn't even have that.

"This the only place you could find to sit down?" he asked me when he saw how shitty the mattress' condition was.

"Yep," I said curtly.

Let him stumble around the place looking for a chair or a sofa if he liked, it wasn't like they were going to be in any better shape. Despite his obvious disgust, he sat down next to me and handed me a container full of fries and an ice cold soda. A root beer this time. I eagerly accepted a slice of pizza from him and devoured it in about half a second. It was a meat lover's. It went like that for a little while, just the sound of the two of us chewing, the lantern lighting up the room pretty well.

I slowly realized that Trowa was getting closer to me. When he had sat down, he had been a couple of feet away from me, but after my third slice of pizza, our arms were touching. I almost brattily shifted over, away from him, but I liked the skin to skin contact too much. I forgot about that sometimes, when I was mad and hurting, how much I loved the feeling of his skin against mine, a simple touch, a reminder that I wasn't alone.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out as I took a bite out of a fresh slice.

I glared at him, realizing he had timed that for when I was eating so I couldn't cut him off again.

"I told you," I snapped after I had finished swallowing my mouthful, "don't say that shit unless you mean it."

"I do mean it," he said earnestly and I couldn't figure out if he really did or was manipulating me, "I'm sorry, ok? I didn't want you to get hurt."

"You're sorry that you got caught," I said, annoyed, "but you're not sorry that you're seeing her, are you?"

"You told me not to apologize for things that I'm not really sorry for," he snapped in exasperation, "You want the truth? Fine! No, I'm not sorry about... about dating Karen. You don't know what it's like, Duo, to not have people look at you like your a freak, to not wonder every time someone whispers when you walk by them if they're talking about you, if they're gossiping that you might be gay, just because you don't have a girlfriend, because you've turned down every girl that's ever tried to ask you out in the last four years?! I was tired of it, ok? And Karen's nice, she's not a bitch, and she genuinely wants to be with me, not just because I used to be some star basketball player.

"What do you want from me? You think that I don't want to be able to hold hands with you in public, at the very least? You think that it isn't painful for me, too? You won't even let me touch you anymore without pushing me away, so yeah, even though she's a girl, I like it sometimes. Is it so horrible to want to be wanted by someone, even if they're the wrong gender?! I won't apologize for that. But I will apologize for hurting you. I didn't want you to know," he rubbed at his face, his tone softening, "The truth is, even if I make out with her and have sex with her... I... I like you better."

"Right," I snorted, not believing him for a second. Like me better than that pretty girl? The only thing that was more likeable than her was that I had a dick, "That's why you told me that you don't want me, right?"

Even in the dim light of the lantern, he looked pale and withdrawn at that memory.

"That's not t-... I never should have said that," he murmured remorsefully, "I like you, more than I will ever like her. I like kissing you more than I ever will her, even just being with you. I don't want to have sex with her, I want to have it with you!"

He reached over and gently touched my cheek with his hand. After all of the fighting and pain and anger at each other, it felt wonderful. When he pulled me forward into a soft kiss, I didn't protest one bit. He curled his fingers around the back of my neck and kissed me like he wanted to suck every last breath out of me. I couldn't even tell if he was lying to me anymore, but right then, I didn't care if he was. Because he was right, it felt good to be wanted. Him saying that he liked me more, that he liked being with me, was the most amazing feeling. I was like an addict and I couldn't get enough of it.

When he shoved the pizza box off of the bed so he could lay the both of us down on that filthy mattress, his mouth still insistent on mine, his tongue smoothing over my lips, warning bells went off in my head. I ignored them, even when he pushed my legs apart so he could slide between them, as smooth as silk, or even when I felt his bulge pressing against me, as hard as a freaking rock. I knew what he wanted, what he was going to do, but for some reason, I didn't make a move to stop it.

I just wanted to forget. I wanted to forget about all the pain in my life and drown in him for a little while. I wanted to pretend that those kisses meant that he loved me. My hands found his chest in the dark, my fingers mesmerized with the feeling of his muscles through his thin shirt. He felt warm.

"Oh, God, Duo," he panted against my mouth and I felt his large hands slide down my back until he was squeezing my ass through my jeans, "I want you so much," and I could hear it in his voice, that desperation, that need. It frightened me just how much he wanted, "Please let me..."

Keeping one hand on my rear, another sneakily went to the front of my jeans, unzipping them. Just like it always had when Trowa got that far, fear slammed into me and rousted me from all the good things that he had made me feel. Memories like sharp shards of glass pierced me, all of them from the night that I had given him my virginity. I remembered the pain, the terror, and that look of repulsion that he had given me. That that Trowa and this one were the same person seemed impossible and I had to remind myself that they were. I had to remind myself that if I let him go any further, how I would feel afterwards, how it was going to hurt and make me miserable.

"No," I heard myself say and I pushed at him, "I'm not going to have sex with you."

To my dismay, that push made Trowa stop, but it wasn't enough to remove his hands from under my waist. He glared down at me in rage, but I could still feel his hardness and that neediness in his expression wasn't going away.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!" he snarled at me, his grip on the front of my jeans tightening, "That's it? You're just going to push me away again?! What the hell is your problem?! You didn't have an issue with it that other time!"

I didn't point out to him that I had had a problem with it that time and he goddamn well knew it.

"It means," I informed him icily, "that I've finally made a decision. I'm never going to have sex with you again. I don't want to and I'm not going to let you push me into it just because your girlfriend isn't good enough for you!"

I tried to get up, expecting Brian to just scream at me and walk away like he usually did when I told him no, but this time was different. He shoved me back down and planted his knee on one of my legs, pining me there, and grabbed my left wrist in an iron grip. I felt panic grip my heart as I realized that I couldn't move.

"This is all a game to you, isn't it?" he sneered at me, "You're doing this to me on purpose!" his hand pulled at my jeans and the spare button that I had sewed on there before finally popped off, leaving my jeans open, "Are you even gay, Duo? I don't think you are. I think that you're just trying to copy Quatre! He was always better than you could ever hope to be, if anyone had to have killed himself, it should have been you! Even when you're trying to be like him, you're nothing but a knock off! You can't even be a fag correctly!" he squeezed at my crotch and I felt his other hand go down the back of my jeans, far too close to the one place that I didn't want him to touch ever again, "But you know what? I don't give a fuck what you want! What about what I want?!"

I felt his fingers touch me down there and ground his bulge against me. I bucked against him, enraged at his insults and terrified of what he was doing, but he was too strong. I was helpless in the position that we were in to do anything to stop him.

"Stop squirming!" he hissed at me and started to twist my hips to get me onto my stomach, "If you would just lie still, this could be all over, ok? Just let me..."

There were tears in his eyes. Were they tears of frustration, anger, desperation, or did he realize that what he was doing was wrong, and he just couldn't stop himself? It didn't matter to me. Maybe at some point in my life, I'll be able to look back at that moment and feel sorry for him. I don't know what it's like to be in lust, to need to have sex. I don't know how difficult it was for him to always have me pushing him away.

I don't know the kind of anger and darkness he was feeling to drive him to that point, to accuse me of the things that he had accused me of, but I understood one thing. It didn't matter how Trowa felt about me personally. He was going to rape me and that he might feel bad about it later did nothing to stop my sudden flash of furious rage at him.

"Get the fuck off of me, you disgusting pig!" I screamed at him.

When he had started to turn me over, he had lifted up his leg, unpinning one of mine. It gave me just enough freedom to curl up my lower body and kick at him. I may not be strong, but I'm pretty flexible. I got him right in the throat. Where my words had failed, that kick succeeded. Choking and gasping as he lost the ability to breathe for all of a single second, Trowa reared off of me. I wasn't going to waste time then. I got to my feet and pushed at him with all of my strength, watching in satisfaction as he fell and nearly hit his head on a nearby window ledge.

It didn't take Trowa long to get his sense back. He took deep, gulping breaths and glared at me with a more hideous expression of anger and disbelief than he had ever thrown me, grabbing at his injured throat.

"Fucking bitch," he croaked and took a swing at me.

The last time Trowa had punched me, it had taken me completely by surprise because I had never thought him capable of hitting me. This time, I was expecting it. Trowa wasn't exactly a fighter, and he didn't hold a candlestick to my father.

The thing about my father is that he never broadcasts what he's about to do unless he is stinking drunk and in the middle of a rage. Otherwise, getting hit by him is like getting grabbed by a crocodile. You don't even see it before it's too late. My dad is like that. He can look totally relaxed one second, and the next you'll be on the floor with a black eye. I never know exactly if I'm safe when I'm around him. Sometimes I can tell just by looking at him that a beating is about to happen, but even then, I don't know exactly when or how.

Trowa, on the other hand, had no clue how to hit anyone. He reacted with his anger and literally nothing else. I knew the exact moment he decided to strike me because his entire body tensed and his right hand curled into a fist well before he raised his arm. Also, my dad is a lot faster than he was, even thought Trowa was lighter than him. It was an easy thing for me to duck under his blow and slam my own in his face. My dad had taught me that, too. In a fight, you don't waste time just looking at your opponent, or your victim. If you want to lay someone out, all you have to do is shock them or confuse them. All you really need is one opening. He has done the same thing to me a thousand times, daze me so I don't see the real blow, the one that usual knocks me unconscious. Police training at its finest, I guess.

I'll never be as strong as Trowa or my father, but I was flaming pissed at that point. I couldn't even pinpoint the exact thing that had made me snap, if it was him trying to rape me, his insults, or him trying to hit me again, but my punch sent his back slamming against the wall. The sound of it was oddly satisfying and I felt this disgusting pleasure when I heard the sound of my fist hitting his cheek. It reminded me of that day at the train station. My rage was just a drop in the ocean compared to what I had felt that day. A part of me hated how good hitting him had felt, but another part reveled in it.

"I am not scared of you," I hissed at him, "I am not your punching bag and I sure as hell am not your fucking whore! I'm not some convenient hole for you to get your rocks off with. I'm sick of your shit. I am done with all of this! I don't want to see your face or hear from you again, got it?! If you call my house or bother me at school, work, whatever the fuck, I'll make your life as much of a hell as you've made mine!"

I didn't wait to see what he would do, for some kind of confirmation about my breaking up with him. I snatched my lantern from the floor and left him there, in total darkness.

*****
It hit me when I was about a mile away from my house. I had just broken up with Trowa. After all of my frustration trying to make a decision, I had done it in the heat of the moment. But by the time it hit me, my anger at him had diminished. Did I regret it? Did I suddenly have the urge to run to him and take it back? I think that a part of me did. I felt a deep sadness in me at the realization that I was suddenly single, but did I want to tell him that I hadn't meant it? No. At some point during the walk home, I think I came to terms with the fact that, even though I had been angry at the time, my actions hadn't been spur of the moment or impulsive. They had been brewing for a very long time. Trowa had just pushed the right buttons at the right time, and I was mostly relieved. I had just come close to being raped and beaten by my boyfriend. I'm not such a masochist to not realize that was the time to get the fuck out. I didn't care about Trowa's reasons, I only realized that I couldn't do it anymore. It hurt too much for me to even think about.

When I got home, my mother was in the kitchen eating a late dinner, but my father nowhere to be found. He was probably at a bar with Pat, I thought and wondered at the bitter anger that thought came with, shortly breaking through my depression. I trudged upstairs and threw myself down on my mattress, hugging one of my pillows to my chest. I buried my face in it, feeling the quiet of my bedroom like a grave.

I was alone again. I nearly laughed at that. Maybe that was my fate, to always lose the people that I cared about because of my own failings. I had lost Quatre by being a shitty friend and I had lost Trowa by being a shitty boyfriend. Who would I lose next? Was there even anyone else to lose? Or had I lost everything when I had lost my best friend? That was the only reason why Trowa had given me the time of day, after all.

In that moment, laying there in my room, I missed him. It was stupid, I had just broken up with him not even an hour ago. What was there to miss? But I did. I saw my life unfolding before me. I saw a life of loneliness and emptiness and for the first time in three years, I thought about suicide. Not seriously, understand. It was just a thought, a single thought that I wished that I had succeeded when I had slit my wrists. I never would have known how hopeless everything was, what a coward I was.

I felt this empty pit in me where my was supposed to be. I desperately wanted someone to talk to, but there was no one. There was never going to be anyone again. Who the hell would want to be friends with me? I didn't deserve friends. I didn't deserve anything. I felt a poison in me, a poison of hate and fear and anger and loneliness and I desperately wanted to cry to let it out. I had promised myself that I never would again, but at that moment, I tried. I tried to force my tears out, to cry and sob, but to my fear and frustration, they wouldn't come. My eyes were empty. Familiar arms wrapped around me.

"Ssssh, Duo, it will be alright. You did the right thing, you know that," Quatre said in my ear.

I clutched desperately at his arms, pretending that I was doing a hell of a lot more than grabbing my own shirt and tried to use his voice to make the tears come. I had killed this boy that was comforting now, I told myself, and all I can do is pretend that he's still alive. But there was nothing. I couldn't even let those feelings go. I had to let them rot inside of me.
*****
A loud noise woke me up. I don't even remember when I fell asleep, but when I did wake up, I felt like absolute road kill. My dinner, which had tasted great at the time, then tasted like what I imagined rotting meat must taste like. My body was twisted around and sore from sleeping weirdly. I wasn't even sure of how long I had slept. I had the impression of waking up a lot and if I had dreamed, I couldn't remember what about. My head pounded and half of my hair had escaped my braid, sticking up this way and that. The overhead light bulb was still on from when I had turned it on coming home and I swore at my stupidity. It was very early in the morning, only three am, and the sun wasn't even up yet. If my father saw that my light had been on for the most of the night, he would have killed me.

Another loud noise had me sitting up, my heart pounding in fear. It sounded like a crash, something metallic. At first I thought it was my father, throwing things around downstairs, but I was used to that kind of noise and this sounded different. I relaxed. The sound had come from our front yard, I realized. That spurred me into action, getting up and walking quickly, but quietly, towards the steps. If my father had been up all night drinking with Pat, he was going to be in a foul mood if anything woke him up. I heard the noise again, a bit softer that time, and recognized the sound of our metal trash bin outside rolling around on the cement sidewalk.

"Fucking raccoons," I swore under my breath.

Don't get me wrong, I like animals, but we have a lot of problems with possums, raccoons, squirrels, and stray dogs going through our trash. When I was little, I had thought that raccoons were neat and liked to watch them knock over our garbage can through the kitchen window. Then, when my dad saw me just watching it happen, he made me go out and chase them off and one of them had almost bit me. They kind of lost their appeal after that. There was some talk around town about giving us some poisoned traps to put in our garbage to get rid of the problem, but in the end, it was a South Nausten problem and it just got swept under the rug.

I grabbed a broom on my way out in case it really was a raccoon. If it was a dog, I wasn't going to bother with it. It wasn't worth getting my face ripped off. As I passed by my parents' bedroom, the door was wide open and I only saw my mother, sprawled out on their bed. Dad hadn't come home that night. He was probably at Pat's, sleeping off a hangover. I didn't feel angry at him for that, just relieved that I wouldn't need to worry about waking him up and I wouldn't have to deal with him for awhile.

Sure enough, our trash can was knocked over, but it was rolling back and forth thanks to a strong wind. The wind was probably what had knocked it over in the first place, I thought, and was about to go back inside when I heard a rustling inside of the trash can. Maybe the wind had knocked it over, but some animal was making use of the opportunity. I walked quietly over to the trash can, ready to hit it with the broom and send the pest running when I saw a tail poking out of the can.

It wasn't the thick, striped tail of a raccoon, or the long, hairless one of a possum or rat, or even bushy like a squirrel. It was thin, as small as a finger, and covered with mostly black fur except for about three inches on the tip which was stark white with grey spots on the white and a little bit on the black. It was a cat, probably a young one, maybe even a kitten from the size of the tail. I quietly placed the broom down on the ground and crouched down near the opening.

"Hey there," I cooed softly, hoping that I wouldn't startle it.

I wasn't even worried about it clawing me or biting me, but there was just... something in me that didn't want it to run off. I can't explain it. I hadn't had much experience with cats beyond Mrs. Liddle and her hoard of her feelings, being the town's 'crazy cat lady', and the times that I passed by the pet shop in Central Nausten and had seen some kittens in the window being advertised. I had always wanted a pet when I had been a kid, but with my father's hatred of animals, it had been another dream I had given up on.

To my surprise, a small kitten poked it's head out of our trash can and stared at me with large, gold eyes, like miniature moons. Any of the feral cats that I saw now and then on the street would have bolted or hissed in warning at me. This little thing mewed at me and walked, almost boldly, up to me. I felt this sense of wonder as it stared me down. I could tell, just by watching it's reaction to me, that it had had a proper home at one time. There was a little indent in it's neck that only happens on animals that had worn a collar for a long time.

I wondered what had happened to it, if it's owner had abandoned it for some reason or what. It couldn't have just run off if it's collar was gone. Whatever had happened, it must have been recently if it still wasn't skittish of humans and that indent was still there. The kitten had been pretty once. With the exception of it's tail and the white tip of it's right ear, it was a pure, sleek black. Or it would have been if it wasn't covered in dirt and it's coat wasn't so mussed. It was thin as a rail and looked like a runt. None of that mattered to me when I reached out my hand, daring a bite, and the cat nuzzled my fingers.

"Aren't you a cute thing," I continued to coo, not wanting to scare it, "Are you hungry? You're not going to find much food in there, I'm afraid."

It meowed at me, as if in agreement, and let me run my fingers down it's back. It gave this tiny, happy purr and I could actually feel my heart melt.

"I think I can find something for you to eat," I told it and looked around at my neighborhood nervously. There was no one to see me at that hour.

I can't tell you what possessed me to do it. It was stupid and childish and I couldn't stop myself. I gently picked the kitten up, my actions bolstered by it letting me do it without so much as a nip. It actually relaxed in my hands, giving credence to my theory that she was used to people. Against all of my better judgment, and memories of my father's rants about 'smelly pets', I picked up the broom and brought the cat inside.

Later, I would feel guilty, like the worst sort of person on the planet. I can't even lie and say that I had planned to just give her a bit of food and put her back outside. I think that, the second I had seen that kitten's curious face, I had known that I was going to keep her. My dad would kill her if he ever found out, I knew that, but no matter how much I told myself that I was risking her life, I couldn't force myself to let her go.

If I analyze it with enough self-awareness, I think that I needed her. I needed someone or something in my life to wake up to. I won't say that if that dumb cat hadn't come along, I would have offed myself, but I think that the second that she had purred at me, my heart had realized what it had been missing all those years after Quatre's death. Someone to look at me like that again... like I mattered, like I was needed. Like I wasn't just a resource.

I nervously checked on my mother when I got the kitten inside of the house. She was still sound asleep and, judging by the empty bottle on her nightstand, she would be for awhile. Even a meowing kitten wouldn't wake her. I dared to put the cat on the counter and rooted around in the fridge for something appropriate to feed a young feline. I came up with a bottle of water and some turkey that my father had just bought. It would have to do, until I bought some kitten food. I felt anxiety just then, suddenly realizing how stupid this was.

How the hell could I keep a cat? Even if, by some unholy miracle, I managed to keep her a secret from my parents, which seemed impossible, how could I possibly afford her? I had a little bit of money tucked away, but I was going to need food and litter and a collar and who even knew what else! I could afford a small bag of food, but how was I going to keep on feeding her? That wasn't fair to the cat, to keep her and not be able to take care of her. But when I glanced over at her and saw her looking around at her surroundings with huge, adorable eyes, I knew that I would try.

'If it gets to be too much, I'll give her to the adoption center,' I promised myself, 'or I'll find her a nice home.'

I put a small amount of the turkey in a bowl and put a little bit of water on it, mushing up the meat until it was soft for her, and then I poured some of the water into a separate bowl.

"I know it isn't much," I told her, "but I hope you like it."

She apparently did because she took to it like she had never eaten anything in her entire life. I felt a relief watching her wolf the turkey down. I didn't know what I would have done if she had dietary problems and refused to eat anything. At least I could hold her over with turkey and water before I needed to buy her actual cat food. What would I do if she didn't like the kind of food I got her? I pushed that worry away. One thing at a time, I told myself. For all I knew, Dad was going to find her and I would have to let her back outside to save her life.

I eyed her as she ate. She really was filthy. I hoped she didn't have fleas. I left her there on the counter for a moment to dig up a washcloth and towel from the bathroom. When I came back, she had finished both the turkey and the water and was looking like she wanted to jump down. I snatched her up and placed her in our sink.

"You're not going to like this," I warned her, "but I promise you'll feel much better after ok? So please don't claw my eyes out."

I used the little spray attachment we had on our sink to test the water. When I was sure that it was the right temperature, I doused the kitten with some gently. She didn't claw at me or try to get out of the sink, even when I put some liquid soap in the washcloth and cleaned off her fur. She just sat there, looking like a wet rat, and meowed pitifully, almost sounding like she was crying and pleading me to stop.

I was worried that the noise would wake my mother, but I didn't hear any sound from the bedroom, so I kept at it until I was satisfied that the kitten didn't have any bugs on her, as far as I could tell, and that she wasn't dirty anymore. The poor thing looked so miserable sitting in the deep sink, reduced to half her size by her wet fur, but perked up when I rubbed her fur dry with the towel and wrapped her up in it.

"See?" I soothed, "Now you're clean and as soon as your fur finishes drying, you'll feel great."

I carried her, wrapped up in the towel, to my bedroom and began to worry about exactly how I was going to pull the wool over my father's eyes. Cats smell. Not as much as rodents and wet dogs, but they do have a smell to them that is pretty recognizable. I could probably hide it with air fresheners and by keeping her contained in my bedroom, but even that seemed problematic. If I kept the door closed, she couldn't wander off and be discovered, but what about when Dad came into my room?

I would have to find a place to hide her and hope she wouldn't make herself known to him. What if she cried to be let out when I wasn't home? I could try to take her out when I was, but I didn't want her to remain an outdoor cat. There would be no one to let her in, and it would look suspicious if she stayed by the front door. Not to even mention that Winter was quickly approaching and I was terrified of her getting attacked by a dog...

And what about her going to the bathroom? Mrs. Liddle broke her arm once a few years back and my father had, grudgingly, made me take out her trash at her request. I can easily say that cat shit smells worse than dog shit. How was I going to hide that? I would have to clean her litterbox every day to keep the smell down. I didn't have the money to buy that litter that's supposed to keep things smelling fresh. I didn't even know how I was going to afford litter.

It all seemed so impossible to me, but I bulled forward. When I went up into my room and saw the little hole in the wall that I had made, a plan began to form in my head. Keeping my cat in my arms, I scrounged around for some things I could use to make her a bed. I removed my CDs from the shoebox I kept them in in the floor and filled it with the softest fabrics I had in my scrap pile, placing the kitten in the box.

"How's that? I know it'll be small when you get older, but is it ok for now?" I asked her, not feeling the least bit silly for talking to a cat.

I was pleased when she made a soft mrrr sound, kneaded a little at the cloth, and immediately curled up in the box to fall asleep. At least I could that much right.

"I guess that's a yes," I chuckled and was shocked by the sound.

I couldn't remember the last time that I had laughed at anything. I took the time while she was napping to clean out my hole in the wall. The opening itself wasn't that big, but the space in the hole would be big enough for her to go into without feeling claustrophobic. I put her and her bed in the hole, hoping she wouldn't feel scared in such a dark place, and made quick work of tacking up a piece of cloth in front of the hole.

The cloth was the same color as the wall, so it didn't look too noticeable, and it would give her a nice hiding place. I wished that I had the expertise to train her to go in there if my dad ever came upstairs. I laid down in my own bed, suddenly feeling very tired and drained, but I was shocked to find that the dark cloud of depression that had been hanging over my head since I had caught Trowa cheating, and had intensified when I had broken up with him, while not completely gone, had diminished to a tolerable level.

I woke up a couple hours later, surprised at hell that I had been able to go back to sleep. Usually nowadays, when I wake up, that's it, I can't fall asleep again. I must have been more tired than I had thought from the day before. I opened my eyes to find that my newly acquired kitten had migrated to my pillow and was curled up, asleep, close to my head. I felt this warmth in my chest looking at her tiny, napping form, and couldn't stop the smile as I petted her ears. Her gold slid open a tiny fraction and she yawned widely.

I won't say that I felt happy, or that she was some kind of replacement for Quatre. All I know is that in that moment when I saw her next to me, I felt more than I had in a long time. Since Quatre had died, I felt something positive that wasn't mixed up in something terrible. That one, blissful, peaceful moment was gone all to quickly when I heard the front door slam close and the heavy footsteps of my father go into the house moments before I heard something getting thrown.

"Fuckfuckfuck," I swore under my breath, getting to my feet and automatically putting on my jacket.

He sounded pissed at something. Or maybe he was still drunk from last night, I didn't know, but the sound of him swearing and carrying on down there was the clue for me to get up and bail. I scooped up my cat from my pillow. She gave this little huff that sounded a bit like a sigh. It would have been funny and cute if my heart hadn't been racing with terror.

"Sorry, little one," I tried to keep my voice steady, "but I think it's time for us to take a walk."

I felt oddly protective over a kitten that I just taken in a few hours ago, but I did. There was no way I was going to let my father find her and hurt her because he was in a mood. I carefully placed her in the pocket of my jacket. She fit in there perfectly, thanks to her diminutive size, and despite looking confused, she didn't try to crawl back out. I crept by the door, making sure not to give off so much as a single creak on the old floorboards to alert my father of my existence. I waited patiently, listening to his every move until I heard him go into the bathroom and shut the door with a bang.

I moved quickly down the stairs, past the bathroom and my parents' bedroom where my mother was now wide awake and looking like she was considering making hasty retreat as well, and to the front door. My sneakers were on my feet and tied in less than three seconds. When I was free and out of the door, I walked as quickly as I could without jostling my precious cargo and made my way to the beach.

It was low tide when I got there and the stone wall that framed the hill where those that had four wheel drive parked and a mile of the beach was far enough from the water that I could sit down in the sand and brace my back against it. My cat poked her head out of my pocket, sniffing at the sea air with great interest, but was content to stay in there with the cool wind, especially when I stroked her head. 6:30 am on a Sunday was prime time for joggers, so I wasn't exactly as alone on the beach as I had hoped, but it was too cold and early in the morning for a crowd.

One woman jogging by me gave me a weird, put out look and I realized that I probably looked a bit... scruffy still wearing the clothes that I had fallen asleep in and my hair a mess. I waited for her to pass, then undid my half unraveled braid, combed my hair with my fingers, and then bound it up again. I stayed there for several hours, just watching the waves and the sea gulls as they fought over some crabs, and didn't think about anything; not my father, not Quatre, and certainly not Trowa. At least until the stray thought popped into my head that I wondered what he was doing with his Sunday, making me scowl at myself.

Just as I was thinking about leaving so I could get home and get ready for my first shift of the day, I saw them walking towards me. Relena was easy to spot. I had spent the last seven years getting used to noticing the bitch out of a crowd of people, and her long, light brown hair and expensive, light blue dress that matched her eyes perfectly was like a warning light to me. I cursed myself for not leaving sooner. I could imagine her trying to hurt my cat to get at me and thought about different ways that I could get away from her, but I couldn't without walking past her.

The person that she was with was harder to pinpoint until they got closer and when they did, I grit my teeth. I had hated Heero Yuy from the first moment I had seen him. Ok, fine, that's not exactly true. The first time that I actually saw him was the day that he had transferred into our school, but I hadn't thought anything about him beyond 'transfer student' and the fact that he was already popular.

I might have felt a bit bitter at that. After all, I had been screwed over from my first day of school because Relena had accused me of lying. I had thought that it was because I was the new kid, but no one else in school had ever been treated like that. At most, my feelings towards him had been neutral, the same way they were to every other popular kid in my grade that I didn't interact with.

I was too busy dealing with my problems with Trowa to actually notice him, at least until he started hanging out with Saren. We had never really met face to face, and to his credit, it wasn't like he bullied me like Relena and Zechs did, but that didn't make him a good person. For one, he fell in with their crowd like he fucking belonged there. I saw him all the time with her and Dorothy, acting like they had been friends forever instead of just having met.

Then they started dating. Boy, was that no kind of shock to anyone. Heero is the kind of boy that someone like Relena can go for: rich, handsome, a bit of a bad boy but not too much, athletic, and with her same values. I'm mature enough to admit that I was a bit jealous of the two of them, Relena in particular. Why did she get a boyfriend, one that hung off of her every word like she was the fucking queen, when my relationship had turned to shit? It wasn't fair, but I didn't dwell on it. I had figured out that fairness and Relena Darlian did not go hand in hand at age nine. Why should this be any different?

I think what got to me about the two of them was that Heero makes her genuinely happy. I'm not saying that her bullying of me and her foul attitude have gone away, but when they're together and she smiles at him, it's not an act. I thought it was at first. Heero is the kind of boy that every girl fantasizes of, no matter what her type is.

He's not overly tall, only an inch or two taller than I am and I'm average height for a boy my age. He has a tan that's a shade darker than Trowa's (I heard he moved here from Florida, but I don't know if that's true. Why the hell would anyone move from a nice, warm state like that to a grey, cold place like this?) and his thick, chocolate brown hair is in this wild style that's a bit messy, but it makes him look more like some rocker than unkempt. He's not muscular and he doesn't have Zechs's wide shoulders, but he's fit and looks pretty strong for a baseball player.

Handsome face, deep voice, the kind of guy that even other boys can't hate. But the most striking the thing about him is his eyes. Yuy has this deep, deep blue shade of eye color that I've never seen on anyone I've ever met. It's smack in between azure and admiral blue. Go ahead, look it up. They're the shade of blue that I imagine the ocean must look like in tropical areas of the world where the sand is like silk instead of coarse like it is here. One look at those eyes, and I knew that Relena would make a go for him. But I never thought that she would actually be serious about him, beyond snagging a guy that everyone else wanted, like a shiny toy that she wouldn't tolerate anyone to play with first. I couldn't stand him, and I especially couldn't stand him with her, laughing at her cruel jokes, looking at her like she deserved any kind of happiness in her life. He made me think of Quatre and what she had done to him when he had dared to fall in love. I hated Heero for that.

They got close enough to see me and I placed my hand over my pocket so they wouldn't see my kitten. Heero's eyes were intense as he looked at me, like blue fire. He opened his mouth to say something, probably some comment about how grungy I looked. He was Relena's boyfriend, after all. Just because he didn't know me, it didn't mean that he wasn't above slinging some insult. Or maybe he did know me and knew who I was to his girlfriend.

"Now, now, Heero," she cooed, "don't get too close to our resident faggot. He might bite and we'd waste this nice day taking you to get tested for diseases."

Those blue eyes went wide and he stared at me in shock before they narrowed in guarded suspicion. I was amazed that he didn't take a step back in revulsion.

"You have people like that here?" he asked in disgust.

Relena laughed daintily and hooked her arm around his, drawing him away from me and closer to her.

"Don't worry," she soothed, sneering at me, "he's just useless trash from the South end and he's the only one in school. I'll make sure he doesn't bother you."

She pulled him away and they continued down the beach, but not before Heero looked back at me, looking at me curiously like a fucking exotic animal in a zoo. I guess he had never met a fag before.

Rage and hatred swirled in my gut for the both of them. I hoped that they got their eyes pecked out by sea gulls.
　

　

End Chapter 4
Oh my god. I didn't think I was ever going to finish this chapter *collapses*
While Chapter 3 was difficult to write, this presented a whole new challenge for me in Duo and Trowa's relationship. Chapter 5 is also a struggle, but for different reasons. I hope you guys liked this chapter for what it was. I'm going to take a break for a couple days to get wind back in my sails for the next chapter.
Thank you again to everyone who has reviewed and favorited and bookmarked. I have only gotten this far because of you guys ;_;
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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)