Adult-FanFiction.org : Gundam, Beyblade, DBZ, FMA

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
- 34
- 35
- 36
A Stagnation of Love

Chapter 7

Part 7
December 20, 2007
Sometimes I wonder just how much my body can take, and how much damage I've already done to it. Let's be honest here, I don't exactly take care of myself. I don't sleep well or often, I don't eat three meals a day or as much as I know that I should, and a lot of times when I'm injured, I ignore it if I can. After all of the damage that my father and Zechs have done to me over the years, at what point do I stop healing? At what point is the damage permanent? I already have scars and random aches and pains from repeated breaks, especially my ribs and my left wrist.

I typically ignore these things as something I can't do anything about, but sometimes I worry about what is going to inevitably happen if I keep going on like this. Although lately, I've been more concerned about what's happening to my soul and personality than I've cared about my body. But now, as I sit in the emergency room of a cheap clinic with my mother with one of my broken ribs still healing, a concussion, black eye, and dislocated shoulder, I wonder if this is it. The moment where my body is just going to give in.

But the thing that really gets me, the thing that throws me for a loop, aren't the moments when I realize that I'm not thinking about my injuries at all as I sit here, waiting and writing this. I'm not even thinking how weird it is to be here with my mother instead of alone. I'm thinking about Heero, how much he would freak out if and when he finds out about this, and about a moment of clarity that I've had. Well, I don't know if realizing just how much of a fucking, disgusting coward you are is clarity, but who said that having your eyes yanked open through some stupid epiphany is supposed to be a good thing?

This week was one of those weeks that seemed to never want to end. I won't say that it was entirely terrible, because it wasn't. It's just that so much shit happened, by the time I got to... well, now, I just kind of wanted to lay down in the road and go to sleep for about ten days. I kind of had the feeling it was going to be this way when I got to school after blowing up at my mother and remembered with equal horror and frustration that my math final was in three days. Remember all that stress I went through with history final? That was absolutely nothing compared to thinking about my Calculus exam.

My mind played a fucked up game of ping pong on my walk to school, bouncing from my mother's bizarre behavior to my academic troubles until was stomach was in absolute knots. Not to even mention that I needed to take a couple days off from work if I wanted any chance of passing. Even then, chances were small. Math is easily my worst subject and it didn't really matter what Heero said about having faith in me or the good grade that I had gotten on the history final. I had no faith in myself to pull off another miracle.

But maybe... maybe Heero would be ok with me studying at his place again, I thought hopefully. I really hated asking for favors like that, but it was important and he and his parents had said that it was ok for me to come over whenever I wanted. So maybe they wouldn't mind? Even if my father didn't come home until after ten, I would get a lot more done at their house than mine. That was really my only hope, and Heero had the top scores in Calculus, so maybe he could help me. It still wasn't really in my nature to ask for help, but I knew when to admit defeat.

"Hey," Heero greeted me when I walked into the home room, still a bit too early for most of our class to be there.

"Hey," I greeted back, taking my seat next to his.

"You look better than you did yesterday," he remarked, "Get some sleep?"

"Yeah, I slept pretty well," I grudgingly admitted, not really wanting to think about the fact that my mother had slept with me like I was a little kid, only I had never had that experience with her when I had been young.

For a moment, I really wanted to talk to him about what had happened. I wanted to talk to him about how confused I was over her sudden change, why she was acting so weird. But most of all, I wanted to ask him if he thought that I was in the right, deciding not to do as she had asked and offer her forgiveness. Should I push her away in anger like I had that morning, or should I take what she was offering without even questioning it? Was I being safe or was I being cruel? Was I petty or unable to move past our history?

Was I turning my back on something wonderful, an actual relationship with my mother, something that I would never get the chance to have again, or was I being smart in thinking that she was just going to hurt me again? Was I just incapable of forgiving her? But how could I possibly have that conversation with my friend when he didn't even know about the rest of it, why she was asking for forgiveness and what she had done to me? I needed to talk to someone, to work out all this shit in my head, but how could I when I would have to admit what I had been living with?

"We have our first game today after school," he interrupted my turbulent thoughts, "It's nothing much, just a warm up and doesn't actually count for anything since the season doesn't start until March, but my parents are going to come watch and I was wondering if you could, too, unless you have work..."

"I would like to," I chewed on my lip a little, "...but... well, we have that big math final in a couple of days and I'm really shaky on a lot of the subjects. I desperately need to hunker down and study. I was actually going to ask you if it would be ok if I came over after school today and tomorrow and you could help me with that, but if you're busy-"

"I'm not!" he blurted out, "I would be happy to help you study for it! The game is only a couple of hours, we can study after it's done, and I don't have anything to do after school tomorrow."

"Are you sure?" I pressed, "I don't want to keep you from your own studying."

"Absolutely," he nodded, "I'm not much of a tutor, but I'll help you with anything you're having trouble with."

I couldn't keep the relieved smile off of my face.

"Thank you so much. I'm sorry I'm such a pain," I tried to keep my voice steady so he wouldn't know just how grateful I was, how everything that he did for me made me almost break out in tears.

"Nonsense," he snorted, "you're never a pain. Although I might ask you to look over our final essay for English tonight. I have it mostly done, but I'm struggling with the concluding paragraph."

"Sure," I beamed at him, all too happy to be able to do something for him in return.

School that day passed by very slowly for the both of us. Biology and Chemistry were studying periods for our finals on Tuesday, same with Calculus. Everyone, even Relena and her group, were too busy fussing over their own exams to really bother us at lunch, so Heero and I were able to enjoy our meal in quiet for once. History was a boring affair as Mrs. Kreskge went over our test scores and gave us a little bit of free reign to study for our other classes.

Our English final was divided up into two, a spelling and grammar exam that we took that day and an essay that we had to write connecting a single theme of our choosing over all of our reading material for the semester. I had no trouble with the exam and my essay was already done, so that was another class down. I had an A+ going into the final, so it was really the only class besides gym that I was completely confident in. Our French final was over as well, so we were treated to some French film that didn't really interest me.

We also had our Home Ec final that day, which entitled us using what we had learned in the class to make a full meal from scratch of our choosing. I stuck with something that I hadn't made for our teacher yet, Mrs. Koch, who had been my Home Ec teacher all through high school. Greek salad, moussaka (although I had to replace the lamb that the recipe called for with beef), and a strawberry toffee tart for dessert. I had never made moussaka before, but it wasn't that difficult, the trick is just time management. Mrs. Koch praised my 'thinking outside of the box.'

I tried to brush off her compliments. After all, how many dishes of macaroni and cheese or spaghetti with tomato sauce or tuna casserole could you try before even a slight deviation could make you relieved for some originality? But when she offered to enroll me in her advanced cooking techniques class next semester, I eagerly jumped at the chance. At least I wasn't completely useless in all of my classes.

I felt bad for Heero, though. He hadn't had it easy in that class ever since he had broken up with Relena. Our pairs are pretty much set in stone, you can't just switch off with someone, otherwise I would be all too happy to have been his partner. Instead, he was stuck with his ex-girlfriend for what remained of the semester. To her credit, and kind of mind boggling considering the shit that she usually did to me, she didn't once try to sabotage any of Heero's assignments. They still shared a station together, they just didn't communicate at all. She worked in one corner and he worked in another. While Mrs. Koch didn't suggest that they find different partners, she at least had the common sense to grade their meals separately.

So during the final, Heero, like me, was all alone. However, unlike me, he didn't have anywhere near the epitude in cooking that he did in baseball. He was one of the spaghetti makers that I mentioned, but he chose it not because he was lazy, but because it was one of the few meals that he was decent at. Part of the problem was that Relena had done most of the work before, so he hadn't really known what he was doing with some of the more complex recipies.

"God, that was abysmal," he complained when we walked out of class together.

"It couldn't have been that bad. I mean, you didn't mistake corn oil for olive oil or sugar for salt or something like that, did you?" I teased him a little, remembering one unfortunate classmate of ours that had done both of those things.

"No," he admitted grudgingly, "but I got a C+ for a passable meal with zero originality. The bread that I tried to bake got burnt and the sauce was too bland."

"You just need more practice with it," I tried to assure him.

"We are officially even," he vowed, "If you hadn't given me those pointers yesterday, I don't think I would have passed. I mean, I know how to boil pasta, but when it comes to knowing what kind of spices to use and how to cut in, I was clueless."

"I'm glad that I could do something to repay you," I said very earnestly, "I was starting to feel completely useless."

He looked at me for a second, his ocean colored eyes boring into me.

"You could never be useless," he murmured softly and quickly looked away.

I knew then that if I really studied his face, I would find a blush there and suddenly, I didn't want to know if it was there or not. At the time, I wasn't really sure why, I just felt very odd with that knowledge in my head. I just moved on to my next class and put his comment and that feeling some place where I wouldn't have to acknowledge either of them.

Gym felt entirely pointless to me, even more than usual. We don't have finals in gym class, not since those stupid fitness exams in junior high. Instead, we did our typical stretches and listened to Coach Horner rant for ten minutes about that day's baseball game and how we should all be there to root for our school and school spirit and all that shit, ignoring the fact that it was just a small, warm up game. He then ranted for another ten minutes about the following day's track try outs, which were not as big of a deal as baseball, but were still pretty high up on the coach's belt.

Horner shot me a brief glance as he talked about the great runners that were in his class and that the track team needed more participants, but I didn't rise to the bait. You would think that after all these years, that stupid tale of my mad dash to save Quatre's life would have died out, but the man was stubborn as fuck. In his head, I was wasting my potential by not being on any sport's teams, even with my poor record in his class.

Honestly, I have never given the track team much thought beyond it being something that made Horner a pain in the ass to me. Beyond that, it was just one of those things that I knew that I would either suck at or not enjoy. Add in the fact that Zechs was on the track team every year, and it was not something that I wanted anything to do with. I was sure that he was going to try out for the team again this year and he would undeniably get in.

While Horner wasn't swayed by Zechs's family name, and Zechs was the slowest runner on the team, the same people tried out for the team every year and most of them got in. Unless someone new joined the team that was faster than him, he would get in. And, well... who would be brave enough to try for the track team if it risked booting Zechs? That would be akin to getting a large, bright, red target mark painted on your back. Zechs was already on the football and hockey teams, so you wouldn't think that he would care about something like track, but it was the principle of the thing. When he had gotten kicked off the wrestling team for being too rough with his opponent, that had been bad enough. All the same, it would have been nice to see Zechs not get what he wanted for a change.

After the school spirit lectures were over with, we were treated to a game of dodge ball, joy of all joys. Heero somehow had the good luck to be on Zechs's team, making him safe from the onslaught, but I wasn't so lucky. I resigned myself to my fate, ready to face a barrage of bruises, when my friend shot me an apologetic look and threw his ball at me. It was slow and light, nothing like what I had seem him be capable of with his throws, and I could have easily dodged it if I had wanted to. My initial instincts were to simply twist out of the way of it, but in that split second between his silent apology and his throw, I had understood exactly what he was doing and stood perfectly still, letting the ball hit me in the arm. He had that expression on his face again as he watched the ball hit me, like he had just kicked a defenseless puppy, but I smiled gratefully at him to show that I didn't feel an ounce of betrayal as I walked to the bleachers to sit down with the other 'losers'.

I didn't have to wait long for Heero to join me. He had always seemed so competitive when he had been friends with Relena's bunch, but I suppose that was just to keep up appearances. Other than that, and when he played baseball, the only other times I really saw him go all out athletically was when he was paired off against Zechs. Even though he knew enough not to retaliate against our bully, he couldn't seem to help himself from trying to one up him in sports. But when he was on Zechs's team, he didn't appear to have any drive at all. He barely even tried to dodge any of the balls that came at him and actually looked a bit relieved when he got knocked out, despite Zechs's cruel taunts that he guessed Heero wasn't the hot shit that Coach Horner thought that he was.

"I am so, so, so sorry," he pleaded desperately as he sat down next to me, "I just-"

"I know," I snorted derisively at his attempts to apologize, "You wanted to knock me out before Zechs and his lackeys could have a go at me, I get it. It was smart. Come on, you didn't even hit me hard."

"I should hope not," he muttered, still looking a bit ashamed of himself, "It still made me feel like shit, though."

I couldn't stop the smile that blossomed on my face, knowing that he was feeling badly over such a small, stupid thing like that.

"So, why was Coach Horner giving you the stink eye earlier?" Heero asked.

I sighed heavily, having hoped that he hadn't even noticed that.

"It's nothing, really," I assured him, "He heard that I'm a decent runner and has been hounding me to try out for the team ever since I entered high school. He has this stupid idea that despite my average run times in gym, I have some untapped potential or something."

"He's right," Heero said, "you should try out for the team."

"What?" I blinked at him in astonishment, "Give me a break, you've seen me try to do anything athletic before. It never ends well."

"I've also seen you run before, when you really mean to. Usually away from me," he blushed guiltily, "But when you actually put your mind to it, you're pretty fast. What could it hurt to try out?"

"I'm not interested," I snapped, suddenly feeling defensive for some mysterious reason, "If I've ever run fast, it's to get away from something. It's not something that I want to hone into some kind of competitive skill. I don't enjoy it, so what would be the point?"

Bitterness ate at me. That was right, I didn't enjoy running anymore, did I? Maybe that was why I had gotten defensive, not wanting to be reminded that there was a time when, if I had just had a little bit of confidence in myself, maybe I would have tried out for the track team, just for the hell of it. Or maybe not, with Zechs on the team. And the idea of having people gawk at me turned my stomach, although not as much as the thought of failure did.

Or maybe I was defensive because of the knowledge that the only reason why Horner had gotten interested in my run times was because of the only times when I had ever been fast, when I had been running for my life or my friend's life. It was exactly like I had said to Heero. I'm a decent runner because I've been chased my entire life. I had to get good at it. What enjoyment was there for me to run for sport when I'm constantly running from my father and my bullies?

Even the things that I'm good at; cooking and running, are just reminders to me of the blank slate that I am. I'm good at running because I need to get away from things. I'm good at cooking because my dad makes me do it since my mother won't anymore. I enjoy reading because it takes my mind off of my own reality. What kind of pathetic person doesn't just like something because they enjoy it? If you took my need to do all those things away, who am I? Just a big nothing, like my father has been saying since I've been a kid. A loser.

We fell into silence for the rest of the gym period as we cracked open our respective textbooks and did a little bit more studying while the dodge ball game went on until the end of class bell rang.

"I'm sorry," Heero called to me when I left the bleachers to go to the locker room, "I didn't mean to make you angry. It's none of my business, I'll just drop it."

"No, I'm sorry," I sighed, "I keep snapping at you just for having a simple conversation about something that I don't want to talk about. It's not your fault I have a shitty temper."

"Apology accepted," he said, following me into the locker room, "Although I don't think getting a slight attitude at me counts as having a shitty temper."

I showered first and hurriedly dressed while Heero took his. I had to remind myself that I wasn't going to work that day, that I was somehow counted in the throng of my classmates that were already rushing out of the locker room to walk to the baseball field. It reminded me of Trowa's game, that feeling of doing this incredibly normal thing that was, none the less, a completely not normal thing for me. But I was excited to see Heero play again and even more excited at the prospect of going home with him afterwards.

When Heero left the showers and met me by the lockers, the second that I got a good look at him, my jaw practically dropped. He was wearing his new, baseball uniform, and goddamn was he wearing it well. Like all of our sports teams, the baseball uniform was silver, white, and dark blue, our school colors. The lighter colors mixed with the blue brought out Heero's eyes amazingly well and combined with his dark hair, he looked like the damned outfit had been made just for him.

"Does this look ok?" he asked me, seeing my expression and picking at his shirt, looking for something that he thought I could see.

"Y...y..." I stammered like the stupid, love struck idiot that I was.

'You look so handsome I could die,' I thought lamely and tried to find my voice, but it was hard with my throat as dry as it was and my heart racing about a thousand beats per second.

"Y-yeah," I managed after coughing, "It looks good."

He smiled and I thought that my entire brain was going to explode right out of my ears.

"Come on," I said after only a little stutter, "You don't want to be late."

"Yeah," he walked out into the gym to grab his things.

'Don't stare, don't stare, don't stare,' I chanted to myself in my head as I followed him out, keeping my eyes anywhere but him in case he might notice that his body was exactly where my eyes wanted to be.

I had never, ever felt this way about anyone. I had thought that I was attracted to Trowa because he was handsome, but now, the thought of me being attracted to him is laughable. Even when I had thought that he was good looking, it had never been like this. I felt like I was physically ill, like I was possessed by some kind of demon. How the hell do people live like this? Being in love with someone and feeling like there's this fever raging through you and nothing in the world besides touching them and being around them can cure it? It's insanity.

"You didn't put your bat in your locker, did you?" I asked him as we walked out of the gym.

The mere thought of someone like Zechs being able to break into Heero's locker and steal or, I thought with horror, breaking his bat made my insides go cold and it wasn't even my bat.

"No, my dad has it," my friend said to my relief, "He's going to drop it off as soon as they get here."

When we got there the bleachers framing the field were already half full with our classmates and people from the competing team's home town, their red and gold shirts clashing with those wearing Nausten's colors. While baseball wasn't as popular with our school as football, in a small town like Nausten, any event, even a small game, drew everyone out. And it was Winter, the varsity pre-season games were the only thing to really watch as far as athletics went. I saw that a few parents and teachers were starting to arrive as well. There was no big fanfare, not like at the basketball game I had seen, and I could already tell that it was going to be a low key event.

"I'll look after your stuff," I told Heero, taking his book bag from him.

"Thanks!" he said in gratitude and ran to the pit where his teammates were starting to gather.

I found an empty row on the bleachers to sit down on and watched as the bases were dusted and the coaches from both teams rallied their troops, giving what looked like last minute inspirational speeches. As I was looking around, I spotted Relena and Dorothy sitting with a bunch of their friends on the far right, bottom bleacher, the two of them laughing about something. I didn't see Zechs and his friends there, which wasn't really surprising. They were probably off smoking or terrorizing someone. Baseball wasn't aggressive enough for them to be interested in it.

"Duo!" I looked over to the entrance door to the field at the sound of a familiar voice and saw Mr. and Mrs. Yuy walking to the bleachers, completely forgetting all about Relena's presence.

I waved at them, feeling happy just to see them. They both looked like they had come straight from work, dressed in more formal clothing, and I realized that this was the very first time I had seem Heero's mother outside of their home.

"Heero didn't tell us that you were going to be here!" Mrs. Yuy exclaimed.

"He only just mentioned it today," I told them, "I took off work today and tomorrow so I can study for my finals, so I had a bit of time to watch the game."

"Well, I am very glad that he could convince you to come," she smiled warmly at me.

To my relief, Mr. Yuy sat down to my left and his wife sandwiched me to my right. I hated being surrounded by people, it made me feel cagey and claustrophobic, but their presence was comforting, like a barrier.

"Not a bad turn out for a football and hockey town," Mr. Yuy noted.

"There isn't much going on today," I told him, "There's a big hockey game tomorrow and we had our last football game last week. Fall and winter sports are more popular around here, but the baseball games are usually packed, too."

"I would imagine that a town like this would come out for just about anything," he mused.

"Pretty much," I nodded, "And, um, Heero said I could study at his house tonight, I hope that's ok?"

"Of course!" Heero's mother said with her usual, happy demeanor, "We can order pizza and you two can study at your leisure. What kind do you like?"

"You don't need to go through any trouble," I waved my hands in dismissal, still nervous when they tried to do things like that for me, "I'll eat anything that you order."

"I didn't ask what you would eat," she said in this almost scolding tone, "I asked what you like."

I blushed a little at her reprimand.

"Well... I really like vegetables on pizza, any kind, really. I'm not a big fan of pepperoni, meatballs, ham, or pineapple, but I'll eat it," I told them.

"The exact opposite of Heero, then," Mr. Yuy chuckled, "He always asks for the meat lover's ones when we order. He's not a big fan of things with lots of vegetables."

"I don't mind eating one with meat, if that's what he wants," I started to say, but Mrs. Yuy interrupted me.

"Nonsense. It won't kill him to try different things and something healthier will be good for him. Not that pizza is all that healthy, but the boy eats too much meat as it is. If you could get him to eat more vegetables, that would be great," she told me.

"And it's no bother at all for us to accommodate you for the evening, Duo, as we've said before," her husband chimed in, "I'm just glad to see that you kids are taking your studies so seriously. Heero barely used to study at all, he didn't seem nearly as interested in his grades as he has been lately."

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow in surprise at that, "But he doesn't seem like he's slacking off. He takes better notes than me and his grades are decent."

"Yes, his grades aren't bad," Heero's father confirmed, "and I don't mean to say that he slacks off a lot, but he's never had a lot of drive in school. Even before we moved here, he would only put in a very minimal effort into his school work and has been pretty apathetic about it. The interest for him just isn't there. When we first moved here, his grades dived, and I assumed that it was because he was trying to find his footing again. But lately, his grades haven't just gone back to normal, they've gotten better and he actually seems to care about studying and putting an effort into things. He wasn't like that until he befriended you."

Mr. Yuy gave me a very pointed look after that statement and I realized that he truly believed that I was the reason for Heero's change in behavior. Personally, I was completely baffled. I, obviously, had no point of reference for his study habits before we had become friends, but I could see why his grades might have gotten worse after coming here. I couldn't imagine how Heero had been feeling when he had first come here, the guilt knowing that he was responsible for uprooting his parents' lives, and how different our cold, quiet town was from where he had grown up. Add in his social problems and dating Relena, anyone would be in a funk.

I could even understand how his grades might have improved when he had broken it off with her, having one less thing to concern himself with. That made a lot more sense to me than my friendship having anything at all to do with it. But his new outlook on his education didn't make sense to me. What could have happened to him to have motivated him like that?

"He told me that he wanted to turn over a new leaf," I reasoned out loud, "That's why he broke up with Relena, so maybe that's the reason why he's trying harder in school."

"Maybe," Mr. Yuy said, but he didn't look at all convinced, "but don't sell yourself short, either. If your grades aren't the best, it isn't for a lack of trying. You genuinely care about how well you do in your classes and you're very hard working. If even an ounce of that has rubbed off on my son, I am very grateful."

My blush grew hotter at his praise and I focused my stare to the field where the players were taking their positions for the start of the game.

"I'm sure that whatever it is, it isn't because of me," I murmured.

The game started then and we fell quiet as a bunch of the other parents started cheering for their respective kids. Watching the try outs turned out to be very different than watching the actual game and Heero seemed a lot more into it. The game wasn't as highly charged or exciting as basketball, but I didn't enjoy it any less. Heero was completely in his element and I could tell from the beginning that we were going to win it. The other team wasn't awful, but they didn't have any hard hitters like Heero and a couple of the other boys on our team, and their pitcher made a few missteps early on. The game itself seemed very laid back, nothing more than a warm up and when the other team did lose, they lost pretty gracefully and didn't seem to care since nothing was on the line. I was eager to see what the game would look like when the season officially started.

At the end of the game, as Heero's parents and I left the bleachers to find him and go back to their house, I suddenly felt my hair stand up. You know that feeling you get when you just know that someone is staring at you or talking about you behind your back? I had that in spades. I glanced behind me and saw Relena standing at the opposite end of the bleachers, glaring at me with open hatred so heated and so powerful that it was amazing she hadn't set me on fire with it. She looked like she was contemplating ripping my eyes out with her nails.

It took me a moment to realize why she was looking at me like that. She had obviously seen me sitting with Heero's parents and I had to wonder what kind of message that sent to her. She knew that her ex and I were friends, but I can't imagine what she thought seeing me getting chummy with his family. To add more fuel to the fire, if the way that they talked about her was any indication, Heero's parents did not like Relena and hadn't been very warm to her while they had been dating.

They hadn't even looked at her once during the game or gone over to say hi to her at least. She obviously took exception to that and blamed me for it for some reason. Of course, she seemed to blame their entire breakup on our sudden friendship, so who the hell knew what the crazy bitch was thinking. I just hoped that one day she would wake up and realize that it was her own personality that had destroyed their relationship. Well, maybe not their romantic relationship, but it had certainly been the culprit of Heero's decision to break all ties with her.

I ignored her, knowing that she wasn't so bold or stupid to try something in front of Mr. and Mrs. Yuy, and met with Heero as he came out from the pit. Congratulations were thrown around, then the two of us were being ushered into Mr. Yuy's car. Heero seemed to be one of the only players going home with his parents, most of the rest on his team were piling into Coach Horner's beat up van.

"Where are they going?" I asked him.

"Celebration dinner," he told me, "Apparently Horner always takes his team out to dinner after they win."

"Don't you want to go?" I questioned, a bit puzzled.

"No," he muttered, "I think I've had enough of the coach for the day."

"He pushing you too hard?" Mr. Yuy chimed in as he started the car.

"Nothing like that. He's just very annoying and doesn't understand what 'no' means," Heero griped.

Mr. and Mrs. Yuy shared a confused look, but didn't ask him what that meant. I felt this immense happiness when we got back to their house. Heero's bedroom was a welcome sight and I tried to not think about how easy it would be to stay there forever and never go home again. I didn't even want to go home that night. I didn't want to deal with my mother or my father. They were like two extremes to me, and just thinking about all the things that their recent changes had made me feel threatened to tear me apart. If it weren't for Pepper, I think that at that point, I wouldn't go back home for a very long time, at least until my father dragged me back, for as long as the Yuys would have me.

"You were great out there today," I told Heero as we set up for our study session in his bedroom.

"Thanks," he smiled and then fell silent, like something was weighing on his mind. I waited patiently for him to decide to voice it or not, "You were right about Horner, by the way."

"Oh?" I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.

"He really wants you to join his track team. He tried to talk me into convincing you," he told me.

I felt a flare of irritation at the man. He really just didn't know when to fucking give up, did he?

"He had no right to do that," I said angrily, "If I don't want to join his stupid team, that's my decision, it has nothing to do with you."

"He's persistent, I'll give him that," Heero mused, "Irritating and rude, but persistent."

"Is that why you didn't want to go to dinner with them?" I asked.

"Partially," he admitted, "But mostly, I promised that I would help you study and I'd rather eat dinner with you than them anyway."

He grabbed his Calculus textbook and his notebook and sat next to me on the corner of his bed.

"Look, I know you don't want to talk about this, and if I piss you off, you can just tell me to fuck off about it, but maybe Coach Horner is right. I don't mean for harassing you, or because you might be an asset to one of his teams, but you keep saying that you suck at sports and that isn't completely true. You're a good runner and I don't think that you hate it as much as you say you do. I just think that, if you're not completely disinterested, you shouldn't let Zechs intimidate you or not bother trying because you think you can't cut it."

"I don't hate it," I murmured, feeling my stomach tensing.

He was right that I didn't want to talk about it, and some part of me wanted to snap at him again to just drop it, but I knew that that wasn't fair. He meant well and had no clue what the problem was, only that there was one.

"Actually, running used to be one of the things that I liked, when I didn't have to do it to get away from my dad or Zechs. When I didn't want to be home or I couldn't sleep, or just because I wanted to, I would go jogging in the park or at the beach to clear my head. It always made me feel a little bit better," I told him.

"What happened?" Heero asked in a very somber tone.

"I..." I looked down at my hands and suddenly felt very... not sad really, more like despondent, "Have you ever loved something a lot... a kind of food or song or... or an activity... and then just woke up one day and realized that you don't love it anymore? Like all the joy that you once felt in doing it has been sucked out of you, and it's not like you like it less, you just feel so... so nonchalant about it that it's like someone took it from you? And you can't even find the energy to make yourself do it just for the heck of it, like it's suddenly this heavy thing that's just a chore?"

"No," I looked up as Heero wrapped his hand around mine, squeezing it very gently, "What you're talking about... that's called depression, Duo. Is that really how you feel about running now?"

Depression. It's funny, I've know that I've been depressed for awhile now. I lost the only friend that I ever had and suddenly, the world became this bleak, nothing place. I knew that, but for some reason, I had never connected my sudden loss of interest with running, cooking, and reading with it. Had I just been incapable of putting a word to what my father's rapes had done to me? Why had it been easier to understand what Quatre's death had done, that immense wave of sadness, and not what being violated by the man that had raised me had?

"Yes," I whispered, "For a while now, and not just with running. I used to cook a lot, for no other reason than just because I enjoyed it. But lately, even though I still cook, it's just another chore that I have to do around the house. The weird thing is, I feel like it's still there sometimes, but like I can't reach it. I'll be making something new and I'll almost feel like it did before, but it's still muted. I don't know what's wrong. I don't know how to... how to like those things again."

"Maybe you should talk to someone about it," he suggested, still not letting go of my hand, "I mean not just me, but a professional. Depression isn't some easy thing to handle, it's a big deal. If you really are depressed, you should see a psychologist. It might even just be physiological. Either way, there are medications that you can take to help."

"I couldn't," I smiled wryly, "My insurance would never cover something like that, and there's no way my dad would sign off on it. He would just say that I was being pathetic and to grow up. Besides, it's not like I don't have the energy to get out of bed or I'm cutting myself or something. I just feel this... this disconnect from things sometimes. I mean, everyone feels sad once in awhile, right? I just don't know how to switch it off when I want to."

"I'm no expert, but I think that you need to try out for track," he told me, "or at least, you need to start going running again, even if you don't feel like it. It would help your self-esteem, and I think that trying to do the things that you used to like will help, even if it's just a little."

"I don't know," I murmured, "I don't think that it will make any kind of difference. As for track, there's a lot more reasons why I shouldn't go for it, even if I did have some kind of interest in joining the team. If I get on the team and Zechs doesn't, he'll kill me for one. Two, I have zero time to be on any kind of team or club. Three, maybe I'm not slow, but I'm not as good as you and Horner think that I am. I'm certainly not good enough to race anyone on a team."

"How do you know if you won't even try?" my friend pressed, "There's no penalty if you don't get in, and I think that you would. You're faster than Zechs is, I've seen you outrun him and half of his goons many times. Maybe you aren't the fastest kid in school, and so what? All you need is practice and I think that just getting in would do you some good."

I snorted.

"I've had all the practice that I can take," I said with a bit more bitterness than I had intended, thinking about all the times that I had been forced to outrun bullies and my father in order to save myself.

"I suppose so," he admitted, "As for the rest, well... Zechs wants to beat the both of us up on a regular basis, I don't think that you should let the risk of pissing him off keep you from trying out for track. Wouldn't it be worth it just to one up him for once?"

"As much as I would love to piss him off, I don't want you to get hurt because of it," I said, but I had to admit to myself that Heero had a point.

Zechs already hated both of our guts. Ever since we had become friends, he had upped his game. Pissing him off would just mean that we would have to be extra careful not to be caught by him, but I wasn't sure that I was willing to risk it over something so trivial as getting on the track team.

"You don't have to protect me," he insisted, "I know I'm new to this whole bullying thing, but you don't need to worry about me all the time. If he retaliates harder, then we'll just have to evade him harder, that's all. As for not having enough time after school, you'll only have to worry about that if you make the team, right? But maybe, even if you don't, you should consider taking some time off of work, even if it's just a single day a week?"

"Don't be ridiculous," I protested, "I can't take a whole day off just for some stupid sport."

"I'm not talking about sports," Heero said firmly before softening his tone, "I'm talking about you being overworked. You said that it doesn't stress you out, but I don't think that's true. I think worrying about helping your family and not having the time to study stresses you out plenty. I mean, just look at what happened today, you had to take off work so you could study for your math final. Doesn't that tell you that your work schedule is interfering with your grades? Whenever you get back from your Sunday shift, you always look so worn out. I'm worried about you and so are my parents. Working these kinds of hours aren't good for you! You need a day to just... relax and not have to worry about these things!"

"What do you expect me to do?" I demanded, "Sure, a day off sounds great, and maybe I am a little bit stressed between things at home and working double shifts five days a week and school, but so what if I am? It's not that big of a deal, and I've been handling it just fine. I can't risk losing that kind of money! My family-"

"Should learn how to take care of themselves," Heero shot back at me, "They're adults, and what are they going to do when you graduate and go off to college? Eventually, they'll have to stand on their own without you helping them out, so what difference does it make if you take a single day off now?"

I blinked at him in astonishment. In all this time... all these years that I had been working to help my parents pay the bills, that had never once occurred to me, that soon, my mom and dad wouldn't have me around to help them at all. What would happen when I turned eighteen? I've tried so hard my entire life to not think about my future as an adult. Every possibility is bleak and pathetic. But no matter what happens to me, whether my father kicks me out himself or I run away, I'm not staying at home when I become an adult. My parents will have no legal reason to put up with me anymore, and I've always thought that it would be a good thing for them, to have one less mouth to feed. But they were struggling with bills now, what was going to happen when I was no longer helping out? Heero didn't know that I had no plans to go to college, and he didn't know that I was using the money from my paychecks to try to save for a place to live, but he was right.

It really didn't make a huge difference if I lessened my work hours in the long run. A day's worth of pay was not going to make a difference in my life when I became independent. It was a weird feeling, seeing that for the first time, that for all my frantic desperation about my work, I had this leeway, not because I was making a lot, but because it was just a drop in the bucket. My sense of responsibility warred with that logic, demanding that I keep going at it, keep working as much as I could to make ends meet. But there was another part of me that was separate from the both of them, something that I had only just become aware of. The part of me that wanted to just say 'fuck it' and throw away all of my responsibilities and just do what I wanted to do. Tell my dad to fuck off and quit all of my jobs just so I could... I could hang out with my friend like a normal person instead of scheduling these moments between my work shifts. I wanted that... but I could never have that, could I? Even if Heero made sense, that responsible part of me was too deeply ingrained in me for me to just abandon it.

"Tell you what," Heero gave my hand one, last squeeze before letting go, "Why don't the two of us go running tomorrow morning. I'll get up early and meet you at the park at 6:30 before school as a kind of warm up. If you still don't feel like trying out for the team, I'll never bring it up again. Deal?"

"Deal," I said with a soft smile.

I was kind of amazed at how easy it was for me to agree to that. I still didn't think that trying out for track was a good idea, but I enjoyed the thought of going running with Heero. It was the first time in a long time that I thought about running and felt happy about it instead of sad. I had never even gone running with Quatre, it had never been his thing. The only times that I had were when I had fantasized him after his death.

We cracked open our textbooks and fell into silence as we studied. I poured over my notes for Calculus and read the chapters over and over again, but I quickly felt like the only thing that I was succeeding in doing was giving myself a headache. All the functions and equations seemed to be melting together into one, incoherent mess in my skull and every time I thought I had something memorized and understood, I would return back to it to find that it was all gibberish to me again. With a heavy, frustrated sigh, I slammed my text book closed and pressed my face into my hands.

"What's wrong?" Heero asked in concern.

"This is pointless," I said angrily into my hands, "I can read this shit for days before the test, but I'm not going to remember any of it! We've been doing these equations since September, and it's still nonsense to me! I'm too fucking stupid to get any better at it-"

"Don't say that!" he snapped at me and when I raised my head up to look at him, his blue eyes were fiery, "I hate it when you call yourself stupid. I told you before, you're not! Now, what is the problem?"

"I'm the problem!" I snapped in irritation, at myself, not him, "I've never been good at math my entire life. I've always been behind every one else and I can never catch up. Quatre tried teaching me, too, and he helped me for a bit, but in the seven years that I've been in school, I've never gotten any better at this!"

"You started school when you were nine?" Heero frowned.

That was right, I realized, he didn't know anything about that. Sometimes, this friendship of ours seems so raw and new, like there are all these things that I need to learn and know about him. But there are times, and lately, these times are becoming more and more prominent, that I feel like I've known him my entire life. I've shared so much of myself with him, more than I've shared with anyone before, that I feel like he knows everything about me and I forget about all the things about my life and my past that he isn't aware of.

"Yeah," I told him, "I skipped the first few grades. It was just a lot of little things. My dad forgot one year, then he misplaced my health forms another. When I was eight, I caught pneumonia really badly and was stuck in the hospital for the first couple of weeks, long enough that everyone thought it would just be better if I didn't go that year. Somehow I managed to get into the right grade when it was eventually time, but my dad had to brush me up on the math portions of the placement tests and even then I didn't do that well."

"Didn't your parents try to home school you?" Heero looked perplexed by all of this.

"They never had the time," I pointed out, "Making sure that I was up to date on my studies wasn't really a priority for them."

He shook his head in amazement at that.

"Well, if that's the case, it's no wonder why you're having a hard time in some subjects," he said.

"Not really," I argued, "It doesn't explain why I can't get things like this," I gestured to my text book, "I just don't understand it. Skipping a few years of basic math is one thing, but that was a long time ago!"

"You lost three years of learning basic math skills," he argued right back at me, "Learning those things when you're young is important, it ingrains things into you. It's like learning a foreign language. People who try to teach themselves Spanish as adults will never be as proficient as people that learned when they were children. I don't think just taking classes is going to help you get better at these things. You need a tutor or some extra lessons or something, but that doesn't make you stupid. If anyone is stupid, it's your parents for not understanding that holding you back those years hurt your education."

He was so logical. Every single thing he said made perfect sense to me. It was all so irrefutable. So why did I have such a hard time believing it? Why was there still this voice inside of my head that was telling me that it was utter nonsense, that it didn't matter what Heero said, I was stupid and unteachable and useless and all the other things that my father had accused me of my entire life? It wasn't like I wanted to believe it, right?

"Ok," my friend said and dug around in his book bag for a set of index cards that he thrust into my hand, "Don't believe me, I'll just have to prove it to you. Let's take this slowly, we have two days for you to get this down so we don't need to rush into it. Let's start with the vocabulary. You're good at that stuff. When you have that down, I'll make up some equations for you to work through."

"Alright," I said with a little half hearted shrug, "but don't expect much."

He just smiled at me, like he had this secret that only he knew. Despite my own feelings towards my failings and ability to pass the math final, the rest of the night was oddly relaxing. We sat on his bed as he quizzed me on terms like 'absolute convergence' and 'Newton's Method' over and over again until, after about an hour of that, I thought that I wasn't going to be able to think about anything else ever again. Even though it wasn't an activity that I would have chosen, it was still nice, being with him and after awhile, some of his stubborn confidence seemed to rub off on me.

Around five, we stopped to eat the pizza that Heero's mother brought up to us. To my surprise, his parents really had ordered a veggie's lover.

"Really, vegetables?" Heero complained to his mother.

"It was what Duo wanted to eat," she said cheekily before vanishing back downstairs.

I felt guilty about that, making him eat something that he obviously didn't want to, but he just raised an eyebrow at me and took a slice from the box.

"I never pegged you as a health nut," he remarked, taking a bite of pizza.

"I'm not," I assured him, snagging a piece that had plenty of onions, broccoli, peppers, and tomatoes on it, "I just like vegetables. And I really don't think that putting them on something that's loaded with cheese counts as a health food."

Despite Heero's preference, we managed to finish off the entire pizza in record time and then we went back to our studying. While he polished up on his remaining finals, I took a look at his essay for English. His writing wasn't bad, his grammar was nearly perfect and he understood essay format and structure, but I could definitely see some areas where he could use improvement. I pointed them out and gave him some tips for his conclusion paragraph, relieved that he didn't bite my head off for it.

"Also, you're using the wrong format for your citations," I told him when I was finished, "and these two sources are articles. They don't need to be underlined, just put them in italics."

"Oh yeah," he murmured and marked down my suggestions on the hard copy of his essay, "You're really good at remembering all these stupid, little rules."

"I've been reading since I was very little," I shrugged, "so stuff like this sticks in my head pretty easily. I've always had an affinity for words and literature."

"But you don't think that not getting into math when you were just as young, learning things like how to add and subtract and multiplication tables from just as an early age, didn't mess you up?" he pointed out, "Math really isn't any different than reading. Sure, maybe you don't have an affinity with it like you do reading, but it would come a bit easier to you. And you are good with some of it. I've seen you cook in Home Ec, you don't even need to think twice when you're measuring out ingredients do you?"

"I guess not," I admitted, "Fractions aren't so bad. It's one of the few things in math that I can do pretty easily in my head."

"It comes second nature to you because you learned how to cook when you were a kid," he said, "It's the same with anything else. Not being good with equations does not make you stupid, you just need to have more patience with yourself."

There was that logic again, and that confidence in me. Where the hell did it come from? Why could this person, who had only known me for such a short time, believe that I could do these things when I couldn't? Was it because I knew myself better than he did, or was he seeing something that I was incapable of? I didn't know what to think. It would be easy to believe him, at the same time that it was impossible. What did he know? I had been failing and falling short my entire life. After sixteen years of not being good enough, how did anyone expect me to change? But there was this kernel of me that clung to his words, wishing that they were true.

I didn't say any of that, though, since Heero apparently had a bug up his ass about my looking down on myself for some reason. We dove right back into my math studies, him quizzing me on the terms on his index cards. I was surprised that I was able to remember most of them after our dinner break, and even more surprised when remembering those terms actually did help a little when we got around to trying some equations.

We spent a few hours working the same twenty equations and formulas over and over and over. I fucked them up a lot and I often felt so frustrated that I just wanted to quit, angry that it was so difficult to me, but Heero just kept at it, patiently explaining to me what I was doing wrong and how to fix things. Usually when a teacher tried to help me, I felt so self-conscious, I just shut down and anything they said became like white noise. It was different with him. I didn't feel like he was judging me. He was just a friend who wanted to help me, even if that meant dragging me along and that was ok for some reason. He was the very last person in the world that I wanted to figure out how dumb I really am, but the more that we studied, the less uncomfortable I became with him tutoring me.

"Maybe you're the one that should be a teacher," I teased him when it was time for us to stop and for me to go home.

After several hours of studying, I felt... not really more confident, but the thought that I was going to have to take this final in a couple of days no longer had me tied in anxious knots. If I felt stressed about it, it was lighter and more like I was a bit nervous than I was terrified.

"You're the only person that I have any desire to teach anything to," he scoffed, "I wouldn't have the patience for it. Now, let's get you home, unless you've changed your mind about not sleeping over here? You could just feed your cat and come back, you know."

He sounded so hopeful that it actually pained me to deny him anything.

"I really shouldn't," I said mournfully, "I have to buy more food for her at the convenience store after I grab some money from my room, feed her, change her litter box and play with her... And you don't need to keep walking me home. I walk home late all the time by myself, it's not that dangerous. You have to be sick of doing it by now."

"Nope, I like walking you home," he said cryptically without giving me any kind of reason, grabbing his jacket from the closet.

It was another quiet and calm, if cold, night walking home with Heero and his dog. Although I wasn't exactly looking forward to being back home again, the prospect of facing either of my parents didn't horrify me as much as it did that morning. Just like always, being around my new friend made me feel lighter and less burdened, if only for a little while.

Is it weird that, when I walked into my house, it was my mother that I dreaded seeing more than my father for once? Her weird behavior was still fresh in my mind and I just didn't want to deal with it that night. The time since I had left the house that morning in anger hadn't gifted me with any kind of clarity about why she was acting that way, or why she had been acting strange for weeks now. I just couldn't handle anymore surprises in my life.

Thankfully, as I walked up to my room, I didn't see either of my parents. It was only ten at night though, so my father was just making his way home and my mother was probably asleep. I was about to grab some more money from my stash to go get Pepper some food when I immediately noticed that there was something off about my bedroom. That morning, my chair had been pulled out from my desk. Now it was pushed back in again.

I walked to my desk, puzzling over it, and saw a twenty dollar bill innocently sitting there with a post-it note on it. It didn't take a genius to figure out that it was the same, exact bill that I had thrown on the table in my rage at my mother. It was dog-eared in the same, top, right corner that mine had been. Childish pettiness made me almost toss it, note and all without reading it, and going for my stash, but I was too frugal to toss money, even in spite. I picked up the note and glanced at it, expecting a scathing message after the cruel things that I had said that morning and finding something infinitely worse.

'I'm sorry,' was written on the note in my mother's handwriting.

Fury filled me at those two, simple words. I crumpled the note into a ball in my fist and pulled my hand back, ready to throw it into my trash can, out of sight and out of mind, rendering her words exactly what they were: garbage.

But my arm froze as I cocked it in mid air, unable to move more than an inch. I couldn't do it. My arm fell limp at my side and I uncurled my fist. The balled up note fell back onto the desk. Very carefully and gingerly, like I was working with something as fragile as wet tissue, I painstakingly flattened and smoothed out the note. Even now creased and wrinkled, I could read the words there clearly still. I picked the paper up again cautiously, like it might burn me at any moment, and placed it in the top drawer of my desk.

I shoved the twenty into my pocket and left the house for the cat food, but all I thought about the entire walk there and back were those words, 'I'm sorry'. All at once, I felt very angry, very happy, and very sad and I don't know why. Or maybe I do and I just don't want to think about it. But that did nothing to stop me from wishing that my mother wouldn't find her way back into my bed that morning and it did nothing to stop me from hoping that I would never, ever hear those hateful words from her again.
End Part 7
Author's Note: Mostly just dialogue again, but the next part will have a lot more action, I promise.
- 34
- 35
- 36
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)