Chapter fifty-eight — I Know That

Note: mention of mental health issues in the chapter, so read at own risk. Thank you!

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-March 14, 1988-

I've been thinking a lot lately, about my future (or lack of). Nothing has changed in the last couple of weeks; I still hate my life and the idea of existing for another 50-60 years is excruciating for me to deal with. Plus, without my family, what life is that? I only have Citria and Clover, and although they mean a lot to me, I probably don't mean as much to them. So, what difference will it make if I'm not here to join their duo?

I've decided that I'm going to force myself to have the nicest day I possibly can with Citria today. Clover will stay home and prepare dinner for the evening, and I'm going to take Citria back to the roller disco we went to for our first and only date before we decided to be together. The same roller disco we saw each other at all those years ago, too. I know it'll mean a lot to her to go back there, even if it won't have the same atmosphere with it being broad daylight as opposed to dark in the evening.

It's a strange feeling to be doing something like this: trying to give myself a nice day even if I don't deserve to have nice things. I'm only doing it so that Citria doesn't become concerned or think anything's off. I just hope she doesn't decide she wants to eat lunch when we're there, because my eating is nonexistent still. If we do eat, I'll just have to make a trip to the bathroom and bring it back up, because I know that's what my conscience will make me do anyway. It would be nice to enjoy food, but it's one thing having no appetite; and another forcing yourself to have one for the sake of others. It's very difficult for me to eat without feeling sick to my stomach.

"Are you ready, Cit?" I ask, sliding a jacket over my long-sleeved shirt. I'm very lucky that it's winter (turning to spring), so long sleeves are justified anyway. Imagine if it were summer, and I had no choice but to wear short sleeves and expose all my scars? I'm no good at the talking stuff, so I'm glad for the time of year it is.

"Nearly!" she calls back from upstairs, not too long before I hear her footsteps coming down to the living room where I'm stood.

Clover is sat on the sofa reading, and looks up just as Citria enters the room. "My, don't you both look wonderful?" She beams, standing up to neaten Citria's coat collar, then my curls. "Now, you both go have a lovely time together. Make the most of being happy! It'll be a good day for you both. I'll make dinner for tonight." She grins and exhales simultaneously, before following us to the door. "See you both later!"

Citria and I leave the house, before beginning our walk to the roller disco. It'll take us around an hour to walk there, but we enjoy taking in the scenery, so it's all part of the adventure anyway.

-Clover's Point of View-

Now that Citria and Michael have gone away for the day, I can set out doing my plan. Since they've taken me into their home without a single complaint, I wanted to tidy the place a little, clean it and make it look nicer. I've kind of messed up the house a little with all my belongings, so I think it's fair I give it a deep clean to say thank you to them for all they've done for me. After all, they're family.

My first port of call is their bedroom. Some may argue that this could be an invasion of their privacy, but neither of them are really going to be hiding anything inappropriate are they? And besides, we all know each other inside and out. Hopefully they'll understand the gesture I'm making is a good one. Once I've entered the bedroom, I note that it's pretty much entirely tidy. Perhaps I could just polish the shelves, the bedside tables and any other wooden furniture. I don't want to intrude too much when it's already pretty neat.

I grab my trusty cleaning spray and spritz a small amount onto a cloth, making a beeline for a desktop with a framed photo of Citria's family, and a separate framed photo of Michael's. The sweetest thing about these two is their easily-identifiable love for the people closest to them. It's admirable; they're really perfect for one another. It doesn't take me long to shine-up the desk, so I move on to the front panels of the wardrobe. Once again, it doesn't take me too long to polish it up. My eyes scan the room for more areas to clean, and I find the bedside tables. The tops of them are a little grubby from having glasses of juice kept on them (when they've gotten up in the middle of the night to get a drink and been too tired to wash the glass again). I remove the glasses and place them on the floor as a temporary fix whilst I clean the table tops. As I start to clean Michael's, I can't help but notice an odd scent coming from the drawer, so I assume it's just old socks or a bedtime snack he forgot about. But how could he not notice that smell? It's beyond me.

-Citria's Point of View-

It's been a lovely day up to now for Michael and I; we've done some roller skating for a couple hours, and now we're in the diner next door for lunch. I've had to be careful not to do too much physically straining movement because of the baby; I'm planning on telling Michael about it today, so at least then I can find out what he thinks. I'm scared though, so I doubt I could stomach the idea of doing it this moment. Plus, if he reacts badly it could ruin the rest of the day. I'll wait until tonight.

"What are you going to order, Michael?" I interrogate playfully, prodding his arm as he scans the menu with his eyes. He looks a little panicked, but that's probably because of the sheer amount of choice this place has. There's so much to choose from!

"Uh ... you know, I want to save myself for dinner tonight. So I probably won't get anything. But you can choose whatever you want to have." He smiles at me, reaching his hand to stroke my arm lovingly. It's little things like that, which I love about him.

"Are you sure?" I frown, concerned about him being too hungry later. "We've got hours until dinner you know."

"I'm sure, sweetheart. Totally sure. You order whatever you want though, okay?" He gives another smile, this one being one of reassurance.

Still feeling a little hesitant, I nod. "Alright. But if you change your mind, you can share my meal with me."

"Of course. Thank you." He rises from his seat, taking his menu with him to go and order at the counter. His current habits haven't gone unnoticed; he's eating less and seems to be sleeping a little less too. He seems okay though, which is confusing. Maybe it's just that he can sense something is wrong with me: maybe he can sense I'm hiding something and once he knows what's on my mind, his mind will be put to rest and he'll go back to normal. But I'm just so scared to tell him about the baby. What if it makes him feel worse instead of better?

My mind is racing with questions about what will happen. Hopefully it'll be alright, and I'm just being a little paranoid.

-Clover's Point of View-

I'm still cleaning around the house, but the more I try to ignore the smell coming from Michael's bedside drawer, the more it bothers me. Perhaps I should just take the risk and try to get rid of the smell? I just hope there's nothing too private or personal in there. I shouldn't imagine there will be ... right? Either way, I'm about to find out what's causing the horrid scent.

With the cloth covering my hand to avoid touching anything potentially unfortunate, I open the drawer slowly, hoping nothing bad will come of me doing so. Inside his drawer, I find a scarf with patterns on it. My eyebrows furrow in slight confusion as I just look plainly at the scarf. How can that cause such a bad odour? Still covered with the cloth, my hand reaches to grab the scarf, and it's then that I realise it has blood stains on it. That will explain the smell: it was blood. Perhaps if I grab it by the corner, I won't touch any of the blood.

But how did it get there? It could be, that Michael had a nose bleed one time and the scarf was the only thing to hand? But why would he put it in the drawer instead of the washing machine? Maybe it was late at night and he was too tired to get up and then forgot about it the next day. That could explain it.

To avoid touching the blood, I pinch the corner of the scarf and lift it out of the drawer. As it's unfolding, I notice something fall to the floor from inside of it. My eyes snap down to the carpet to see a single shard of, what looks like pot from a vase or an ornament. In even more confusion, I bend down to carefully pick the pot up with the scarf to avoid cutting myself. It's then that I notice the pot has blood on it — a lot of blood, at that. My eyes widen as a horrible thought dawns on me. What if Michael has made himself bleed intentionally? What if he's been hiding how he really feels? Citria mentioned that Michael has been acting different since Uncle Reiss died, but could she possibly have known it was like this? I certainly wouldn't have figured this out without seeing the evidence.

I'm so shocked by this. I need to let Citria know what's going on, but how can I tell her something like this? But it wouldn't be right for me to keep this to myself. I'll have to try and tell her about it tonight when she and Michael return home.

* * *

-Citria's Point of View-

After a truly lovely day with Michael, we decide it's best to head home. After all, Clover will probably be waiting impatiently for us. I bet she's gotten lonely, being by herself all day. Plus, I'm sure Michael is looking forward to eating finally. He didn't touch any of my food earlier. He must really have wanted to save his appetite for tonight.

"Thank you for this evening." My body rotates to face his as we're walking past one of the fields near our home. It's getting to the point in the day where the sun is starting to set now, but it's not dark yet. There's a light spring breeze which is rustling our hair lightly. It's a beautiful evening; I almost don't want to get home just to make these moments last a little longer.

He looks back at me, a small casual smirk on his face. "It's been nice, hasn't it?" He pauses in his tracks for a moment, which causes me to stop opposite him too. He takes my hands in his, looking into my eyes, as typically as you would see in a romantic movie. "I love you a lot, Citria. You know that, don't you?"

Without even thinking about it, I laugh breathlessly, "That's a silly question Michael. Of course I know that."

His brows furrow a little, but his smile doesn't falter. "And what about you? Do you love me back?"

A sigh escapes from my mouth; my non-verbal way of saying how crazy his question is. "Of course I do! ... I love you more than you'll ever know, you know."

"Okay." He nods, almost seeming disappointed by my response. I doubt he is though. "Thank you."

Maybe now could be when I tell him about the baby? The mood is bittersweet right now; romantic and yet ... melancholy, almost. Perhaps it could lighten the mood, to tell him? But what if he gets angry? No; I'll tell him another time. When the time is right, I'll know.

-Clover's Point of View-

After what I discovered, I left the bedroom for a while to make dinner. It's now close to the time Michael and Citria should be arriving home, and I think before they do, I should check in Citria's bedside table. Again, potentially an invasion of privacy, but what if Michael has somehow managed to stash some other weapon in there without his own girlfriend even knowing? I have to find out to help him and Citria. If I were to leave Citria's bedside table unchecked, then I would be angry with myself for leaving something in there for Michael to harm himself further with.

I have already hidden the pot in my room somewhere Michael will never find it. If he finds out he could be angry, but I'd rather that, than him hurting himself. I need to make sure there's nothing else he can use to do so.

As I enter their room again, I almost feel nervous about what I could find. Slowly, I make my way over to Citria's bedside table and kneel down in front of it. I'm begging I don't find anything in here, but I just don't know what to expect. My hand reaches for the drawer handle, before pulling gently at it to reveal another scarf. This scarf doesn't have blood on it like the first one did, but the fact it's a scarf could mean there's something hidden within it. I have to be careful though, otherwise I could end up hurting myself with whatever's inside.

With every care, I unwrap the scarf to see what's inside, if anything is in there. To my total surprise, I don't find any kind of weapon in there. Instead, I uncover a secret that Citria has been keeping — it's a pregnancy test. I'll almost feel guilty for telling her about Michael; I don't want to put too much stress on her and put the baby at risk. Especially when Michael doesn't know yet ... but perhaps if they both know one another's secrets, then it'll help them both a lot. I have to think about this carefully; I need to figure out how to tell Citria about Michael first, but then she needs to tell Michael about the baby. It's so overwhelming; how much I've found out in such a short space of time.

Replacing the scarf and the test back as I found them, I close the drawer frantically, to avoid making it obvious I've been in here. It won't be long until they arrive back home, so I'll have to go downstairs and finish preparing dinner. I bet they'll both be hungry now.

By the time I've reached the kitchen and set the table with plates and cutlery, the back door opens. They both greet me with smiles as they slip their coats off and hang them on the hooks by the door.

"Hi you two; how's your day been?" I inquire, to try and seem unsuspicious. "Have a nice day at the roller disco?"

"It was fantastic Clover," Citria gushes, gliding almost effortlessly around to the other side of the table to help me with the dinner. "They played some great music there, we went for lunch—although Michael didn't eat because he was so looking forward to eating your dinner!—and then we had the most lovely walk back home, didn't we Michael?"

She's glowing, and it's pleasant to see. Although, I think despite her slight concern for Michael, she's pretty naïve about his real situation.

"We sure did," he smiles, walking around to the same side of the table as us. "What's for dinner, anyways?"

-Michael's Point of View-

Dinner looks good tonight; but no matter what I don't deserve it because it's too good. Either way though, I'll have to eat because Clover and Citria will become suspicious if I refuse to eat altogether. Plus, today is the last good day of my life; I may as well make the most of it whilst I'm still here.

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I'm sorry for the frequent changes in point of view! What do you think of Michael's situation, and Citria's? Also, what do you think Clover should do with what she knows about them both? I hope you enjoyed this chapter!