A Song For Another Time - A Hikaru Hitachiin Story

Chapter Eighteen - I Lie. I Try to Hide, But Now You Know It

When Rose woke up on Monday she struggled to keep her eyes open, thinking that she could use another whole Thanksgiving break. Two nights of sleep weren't enough to recover. Though she assured a certain pair of doppelgangers that she was alright, the night alone had been terrible.

She wasn't naive enough to believe that two days could wash away the pain of whatever had happened in that house, no matter how minor it may have seemed. This wasn't something new to life - after all, she had grown up in the system - but she had made it out and she thought everything about that life was behind her. Buried emotions have a way of resurfacing, however, and new trauma will always compound them.

Rose shivered thinking about the past and tried to find solace in sleep, though it didn't help. When she closed her eyes she could still feel Lance's hungry hands on her and she couldn't stop the shuddering. There was an urge inside her to crawl deeper under the covers, shroud herself in darkness and sleep the rest of her life away. What was the point in facing school, in facing other people?

The blankets were halfway up her head when her phone started ringing. She looked over at it on her desk, apathetically. Hikaru and Kaoru wouldn't stop calling her to check in but she refused to answer the calls or respond to messages. She just wanted any reminder of what happened over the weekend to disappear. What were they going to talk about anyway? How she was recovering? What they should do next?

It was all pointless. There was nothing to do next. There is no recovering.

The only thing those two boys had accomplished was convincing Rose to get out of bed long enough to swipe her phone off her desk and roughly push her finger on the power button. If they weren't going to stop, she'd make the constant onslaught of notifications end herself. She almost sighed in relief when the screen went completely black and she returned to bed quickly. If she closed her eyes, the day would be over quicker.

Hours later, Hikaru frowned and turned to his brother as they walked home from school. He had just tried calling Rose again without success. His phone was near his ear, ringing out the welcome of her voice mailbox for probably 150th time that afternoon. As he ended the call, his phone gave out a low battery warning that almost made him want to laugh. His phone was dying for want of contacting Rose.

"She still hasn't turned it back on," Hikaru sighed as his brother shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders.

"If she wanted to talk to us, she'd answer. At this point we're only calling to show her we're still here," Kaoru said.

"I guess," Hikaru responded. "But aren't you worried about if she's doing alright?"

Kaoru stopped walking, a pained look on his face. He grabbed his brother's wrist and stopped him in his tracks.

"You really are an idiot," Kaoru whispered. Irritation spread across Hikaru's face as he waited for his brother to continue. "Of course she's not okay. Did you really expect her to be?"

"But, before she left Sunday, she said she would be fine," Hikaru said hesitantly.

"Did you expect her to just fall at your feet crying and begging you to help fix the hole in her heart," Kaoru asked angrily. "I thought you of all people would know that she isn't that type of person. Of course she told us she was alright. For her, there wasn't any other response."

Hikaru stared at his brother in shock. The world was so simple to Hikaru but Kaoru seemed to see all of the grey in between the black and white. He didn't know when his twin had grown up so much and left him behind. He didn't know that Rose was the type of person to push away her pain. He didn't know.