Bloody Tears

Sasuke’s POV.

 

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It felt like hours ago that I had walked away from Star and Naruto, declining their invitation to the party when, actually, it had been just minutes ago. I had taken off running in a fit of anger, but I was not going back. I wouldn’t go to that stupid party. Why should I? It was going to be filled with people I despised.

I settled down at the base of the tree, carrying Star’s black notebook in my hand and opening it up to read once more. This notebook held a story inside it, one I hadn’t known until I’d stolen it. A story of a girl’s family that was murdered, a childhood that was stolen. There were things in this notebook that enraged me to the point I had to train to get the anger out. For instance, what was written in it about her grandfather.

From the beginning of the notebook to about the middle, there was a story about a girl. At first, I’d thought the story had simply been one borne of Star’s imagination, but I’d come to realize it was about her life. I’d read that she’d been molested, but it didn’t have anything about her being raped or sold, like she had informed me. I was glad about that because if it had, if she’d written that down, I don’t think I’d ever have been able to stop training. Just thinking about what she’d said, about the look in her eyes when she’d said it, almost enraged me enough to kill her grandfather. Well, not almost.

As for now, I opened the notebook and began to read again. I had finished reading the notebook, had finished looking through it, but I wasn’t ready to give it back, yet. I still read it from time to time. Like now, for instance. In my mind, I could picture a young Star, twins, brother and older sister watching their parents be murdered. I wondered, often, whether or not Star’s siblings were still alive. I doubted her brother was. There was something about what she’d written about him that made me think he would’ve fought alongside her father. I didn’t get very far when I laid my head back against the tree and closed my eyes to imagine everything that had happened. It wasn’t long before I was sleeping.

I was standing in the middle of a large house, one like the house that Star had written about. I saw the cloaked man run past me, chasing a woman like the way I’d imagined her mother. I followed him into the room and I looked around to see if I could find the secret panel. I found it, a moment before a red-haired, green-eyed boy about my age now ran through me, toward the woman. It caught me off guard. He didn’t run passed me or around me. He went straight through me. I stumbled, catching myself on the wall. “What the hell?” I said it loud enough anyone could hear me, but nobody even twitched. I walked over to the cloaked man, just as Star had described him, reached out and tried to touch him. My hand went straight through him.

I dropped my hand and Star’s mother fell, blood splattering the room as she did. The man chased the red-haired boy out and I went back to the secret panel, kneeling beside it, waiting to see if I was right and if she would come out. I didn’t want to stand in front of it in case I stopped the door from opening. It was hours later, after the screaming had finally ceased, the door to the secret panel eased open. Turned out I was right.

Out stepped a small girl. She barely came up to my knee. She wore a light blue, floor-length gown with long, flowing sleeves. Her silver hair was piled in a messy bun. It looked like it hadn’t been messy before she’d gone into the little hiding place. She looked around, stepping passed me. A small sound came from her when she saw her mother on the floor. She dropped to her knees and crawled toward the dead woman, reaching out a small, pale hand. Before she even touched her, she leapt to her feet, whirled and ran from the room, yelling, “Daddy!”

I followed her. She wasn’t very fast as a child. I could easily keep up with her just by walking. If I went too fast with walking, I’d pass her up, though, so I had to go pretty slowly. She ran up some stairs and I followed her to a bedroom. On one side of the bed, there was a man lying facedown in a pool of blood. His eyes were wide and glassy, silver as Star’s eyes. Star knelt beside him, careful not to get her gown bloody, and tried to touch him, touching his hair. She leapt to her feet as though she’d been pushed. “Daddy? Get up, daddy. Get up.”

I knelt, by the door, just so I could see her eyes. There were tears running down her cheeks. It was the first time I’d seen her really cry.

She put her hands over her eyes, shaking her head wildly and turned, running. I started to stand to get out of her way and she slammed into my leg, falling back. She looked up, eyes wide and frightened, and scrambled to her feet.

I met her eyes, not moving. Part of me was afraid if I moved, she’d run.

A few minutes passed and those wide eyes still stared into mine. She flung herself forward and grabbed a fistful of my shorts, reaching up to do so. She tugged weakly. “Daddy,” was all she said. “He won’t get up.”

I looked up, toward her fallen father. “He’s not going to get up, Star.”

“How do you know my name?” It was a little hard to understand her, but I was pretty sure that was what she’d said.

“I, uh, knew your brother.”

Her eyes went wide again. “Big Brother!” she yelled, running around my leg.

I followed her again, keeping pace with her.

She ran down the stairs, tripped on the hem of the dress and I grabbed onto the back of the gown, lifting her up, off her feet before she’d actually fallen. A moment passed and she hung there, suspended.

I reached out with my other hand and pulled her to me, balancing her on my hip with my left arm around her waist. “Let’s go find him, okay?”

She nodded, eyes wide still. “Big Brother,” she mumbled, looking away from me. “Gotta find Big Brother! He’ll know what to do!”

I started down the stairs, walking quickly while she clung to me with her legs locked on my side and tiny fists clenched in my shirt. I had a moment to think, Wow, she’s always been tiny, and we were at the front door. I pushed it open with my free hand and walked out, looking around. On the far left side of the house, I saw something that made me turn to the right. Something I didn’t want Star to see.

Her brother was dead. Lying face-up. There was no blood under him, but I could see the blood on his face and clothes. I walked to the right, carefully making sure she would not see him.

“Where is he?” she asked, looking around wildly.

“I don’t know, Star.”

“Down,” she said, “I want down.”

I knelt, let her down.

She looked around, ran a circle around me and came to stand before me again. “I don’t see him. . . .” She started to cry again.

I pulled her into my arms without thinking about it, holding her against my chest. “It’s okay, Star. It’ll be okay.”

“Big Brother is gone.” Her voice was faint, filled with pain, fear and tears. She pressed in against me, holding tight with her hands fisted on my shoulders. “He’s gone.”

“You don’t know that,” I said softly, thinking about the lifeless body of her brother.

“Daddy’s gone,” she said softly. “He’s gone. He won’t get up.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Why won’t he get up?”

“Don’t worry about that. Just think about now, okay? It’ll be fine. You’ll be okay. You’re going to grow up to be strong, right?”

She nodded against my chest.

“Then don’t worry about it now. Just wait. You’ll see. Everything will turn out okay.”

It was at that moment the dream faded and I jerked awake, sitting straight up as I did and glancing around. No sounds, nothing moved. Everything seemed . . . normal, quiet. “Star,” I whispered, feeling the need to see her. There was something about the dream that bothered me and I stayed as still as I could, thinking. Everyone in that dream had gone straight through me, hadn’t affected me in any way, except Star. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what that meant. It meant, even in the real world, that Star had touched me. Star had managed to really make me see her. She hadn’t just seen the front I put off, or what the other girls saw. She’d seen straight through to me, when nobody else had. And she’d touched me, made me really feel her. I understood that part of the dream almost instantly.

But what about her brother? There was nothing in the notebook that had said her brother had tried defending her mom, at least not in front of Star. And there certainly wasn’t anything about him lying dead beside the house. Somehow I thought that there was something Star remembered, something she knew, that she couldn’t quite get to. I knew, at that moment, that Star had seen her brother, but that she didn’t remember it.

I touched the notebook where it lay on my lap, flipping it to the last page. It was empty. There was a pen in the spine of the notebook, probably put there by Star. I pulled it out quickly and wrote, “I like you, too.”

With that, I snapped it closed, stood up and, with a glance at the darkened sky above me, set off to Star’s place. Without even thinking about it, I knew the party was over. I knew she’d been in her house, probably readying for bed. So I set off.