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Post by Arihant on Aug 4, 2008 16:48:07 GMT
“It does,” said Arihant as he winced at Kennedy’s blunt words. “I know it shouldn’t, but it does. If I stay here and I fall… the whole way with her then I won’t be able to stay away from her, and then it’s only a matter of time.”
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Post by The Delaney Twins on Aug 4, 2008 16:48:39 GMT
“No it isn’t!” shouted Kennedy, his temper officially lost. “My God, you’re a whiny bítch, aren’t you? You’re not going to hurt her just by being near her! I mean, for God’s sake, Arihant! Since when were you so flighty? Since when were you such an insensitive bloody b*stard? There are people here who depend on you! You can’t just leave and expect everything to be OK – like it or not, Ari, you have responsibilities here. If you knew that this was a risk, you shouldn’t have stayed in the first place. It’s too late, now! You have to stay!”
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Post by Arihant on Aug 4, 2008 16:49:13 GMT
Kennedy’s words hit him like a slap in the face.
He was right. Again. He shouldn’t have stayed here in the first place. He should have left as soon as Nurse Gornray had told him that there was no cure.
They had told him that he could have a life here, though, hadn’t they? Kira had told him that he could have a life here, and she had been right, and he had. But he’d always had this thought in the back of his mind to quell his guilt, he’d always known that as soon as something went wrong – and he’d been so certain that it would – that he would be able to leave. That he would be able to run away and keep everyone safe. That he wouldn’t hurt anyone.
And now he… Well, he’d reached quite the little impasse in that plan now, hadn’t he?
The realisation came on him now as he looked at Kennedy’s furious face. He could see that Lynn would have the exact same expression when she found out – despite the fact that their faces didn’t really look like each others’, their facial expressions were uncannily similar.
And there were other people, too. There was Isolde and Misa, too, wasn’t there? He wasn’t as good friends with them as he was with the twins, but he knew them. He liked them. And chances were – and his self-disgust squirmed in protest as he thought of this – that they liked him back. Why else would they put up with him?
And there was Madeleine. He hadn’t really spoken to her face-to-face since the first time they’d met, but he saw her regularly in Battle Training. Anyone who had ever seen her lead one of those meetings could easily tell how much this war meant to her, and if Arihant left, that was one soldier less. And one less soldier could potentially mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Even the thoughts of Nurse Gornray and the as-yet-unseen headmaster filled him with guilt.
And then… Then there was Kira. Even if he was leaving to protect her… Well, he had to face facts. If he left without telling her why, he ran a good risk of hurting her. And if she knew why – well. Based on the last time he had tried to run away, he was pretty sure she’d kick his ass.
But still…
“I… I know all that,” he said, even though he’d only realised it just a second ago. “I do. But… but if I kill her because I stayed – How can I justify that?”
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Post by The Delaney Twins on Aug 4, 2008 16:49:49 GMT
“God, Arihant, you won’t hurt her,” he snapped. “You won’t have to justify it because you’re not going to do it, OK?”
Arihant remained silent for a second, chewing on his lip, and Kennedy’s mind ran at a hundred miles a minute. This was absolutely bloody ridiculous. He was going to have to call Sally if it got any worse.
“You realise,” he started again, as he was freshly irritated by his lack of reply, “that we’re not letting you go without a fight? If you walk out of that door, me and Sally will follow you. We’ll bring Madeleine into this – we’ll bring Kira into this, she’s not leaving until tomorrow, if we have to. We’ll put the whole school on red alert. You’re not just leaving like this. You can’t.”
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Post by Arihant on Aug 4, 2008 16:50:25 GMT
Arihant stared up at Kennedy. He’d never really noticed before that his friend had at least a good two inches on him. Something about the self-assured way he delivered his threat made Arihant suddenly extra-aware of the fact that Kennedy and Lynn were probably perfectly capable of stopping him from going even without the help of the heads.
Part of him thought that Kennedy was acting like a psychopath, but a much, much larger part realised that it wasn’t him who was acting madly, it was Arihant. Kennedy was understandably angry. Arihant was being ridiculous.
And they wouldn’t let him leave. He could see that now. It was too late. He couldn’t just leave without any repercussions.
He’d made his mark on Orchid Hill, and, try as he might, he couldn’t erase it. Even though right now he wanted nothing else, he couldn’t do it.
He was, in layman’s terms, screwed.
“Fine,” he said lamely, dropping the ball of socks he had been holding on the bed. “Fine, I’ll stay. You don’t have to call out the guard.”
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Post by The Delaney Twins on Aug 4, 2008 16:50:55 GMT
Kennedy held onto the bag a moment longer, not quite believing that he had just given up like that. But when Arihant sat on the floor beside the chest of drawers and started shoving his clothes back into the opened drawers, he permitted himself to relax his grip on the satchel and let it fall to the ground.
Good. He was being sane again. He was being Ari again. That was good.
“Good,” he said. “This – Arihant, you know this is the right thing to do, don’t you?”
He didn’t know why, but he had to know that Arihant saw his point of view on this. If he didn’t… Well, how could Kennedy know that this wouldn’t happen again?
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Post by Arihant on Aug 4, 2008 16:51:36 GMT
Arihant looked down at his hands for a moment, then slowly nodded. “I’ll hurt more people by leaving than by staying,” he said. “I understand.”
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Post by The Delaney Twins on Aug 4, 2008 16:52:48 GMT
Kennedy slapped his palm against his forehead. God. This low-self-esteem-feeling-sorry-for-yourself thing got old tremendously fast.
“And you also understand that people want you to stay?” he said, enunciating each word so slowly that he sounded like he was talking to a deaf man.
Screw this. Next time Arihant freaked out he’d send in Sally. She’d be able to handle this a hell of a lot better.
And even if she wasn’t, she’d be able to scare him into submission sooner. It was really the same thing, in the end.
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Post by Arihant on Aug 4, 2008 16:53:59 GMT
Arihant looked up at Kennedy, exasperated. “Yes,Ken, I understand that too,” he said, using the exact same tone as he had.
Then an ear-splitting sound pulsed through the building. It took a moment for Arihant to recognise it as the bell calling them down to dinner.
When the sound ended, he looked back at his friend. “Here, you go on down and get dinner with Lynn. I have a lot of tidying to do here – I don’t want to stop you two from getting the edible stuff.”
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Post by The Delaney Twins on Aug 4, 2008 16:54:41 GMT
Kennedy raised an eyebrow. If Arihant knew what he was talking about, he would, of course, realise that the ‘edible stuff’ was restricted to the stuff that was sold in shiny wrappers, and that no matter how early you got there, it was impossible to get there before a hundred other grasping hands had cleared the shelves completely.
So it was pretty obvious that Arihant wanted him to leave.
“OK,” he said, biting his lip briefly. “Fine. I’ll see you later, then?”
Hopefully you’ll be acting like a reasonable human being by that time.
“Yep,” said Arihant briefly, stuffing a jumper back into the corner of the drawer he was dealing with – a drawer that was seeming steadily more overstuffed by the second.
“Bye,” Kennedy said, swiftly walking out the door. As soon as the heavy wood swung shut, he heaved an almighty sigh.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to be dealing with that again anytime soon.
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