Gracie Abrams is eking out a solitary existence, fighting day-in, day-out against the drain of working customer service and nursing two newborn kittens in her off time. Out on her own ever since her sister moved in with her boyfriend, the burden of...
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The Wolf Den.
As I drove into the only free lot in the downtown area—parking my brand new shiny vehicle to get smashed to bits in an open garage—I wondered how easy it would be to find this Bella person.
A name wasn't much to go on, and even if we found the elusive Bella, what would we even say? Sam pointing us in her direction wasn't a cure-all. It was more a stab in the dark. A dark we'd been stumbling around, bumping into random obstacles without ever seeing their real form.
It had been almost a month since Kakashi had landed on my version of Earth. A month since he'd been ripped away from his home, his friends, his duties. His purpose. How was the Hidden Leaf faring without him? How was the Land of Fire?
What if time moved differently there than it did here? What if Naruto was already a genin, awaiting his life-altering sensei? And Sasuke? Sakura?
With an almost dizzying rush, I realized I hadn't thought about the kids in—in—days. Maybe a week. Or more...
Life has been both wonderful and insane in the past month. First, the kittens. Then, Kakashi. My sister's move. Sam and Kirishima. My change to working mostly in Pickup at Meijer. And fitting into all of that, two separate instances with wacked-out anime characters hell-bent on destruction: Rengoku and Itachi.
All that in a month. It wasn't a surprise I had let the events pull me under their sway, ripping me down this exciting, eye-catching hypnosis like tantalizing movements of fabric being swayed by the wind.
I wasn't a saint or anything. Life before it became a mess was...dreary. Was hard. Felt pointless. I'm not someone burdened with a glorious sense of purpose like a certain mischievous deity, but maybe this little episode could be...something. Could be my moment to prove to myself that I am human. I can help others. I can make sacrifices. I can get the work done.
I needed to refocus my mind. My goals each day couldn't be about spending as much time with Kakashi as I could. No. I had to change it. Had to.
Kakashi needed to go home to where he belonged. To where people needed him.
Just because it's been—nice—living with Kakashi, didn't make me more important than the entire Naruto universe. They had actual life and death stakes. My problems were nothing compared to all of that.
I shook my head again for good measure.
My problems weren't even problems. Everything was fine; I was a lot better now. I will keep getting better. More and more until I can finally feel proud of who I've become.
Besides, a single man could not cure the issues wreaking havoc on my brain. That line of thinking feels false when I read books or watch shows, and it sure as hell doesn't pan out in the real world. Nobody should formulate their entire mental recovery around a single person.
