Tuesday, October 25th, 9:42 P.M.
I'm going to try to get this down while it is still
fresh in my mind. I'm going to get this
down, not because I think I'll forget it, but because I want to remember it all
and remember it correctly. Tonight,
Rinoa Ann said something to me. In
saying this to me, I learned more about her than I had known previously. Also, in saying this to me, Rinoa said the
most significant thing I've ever heard.
When I got back to the hotel room Rinoa and I share
at The Redford, I poked my head into through the door and looked around. I walked a little bit into the room and
looked around. Then I looked around
again. Rinoa was nowhere in sight. "Rinoa?
Are you in here?"
"I'm in here, Hato." The general location and the faint echo I
heard coming from Rinoa's voice let me know she was in the bathroom.
"Oh, I'm sorry.
I didn't know you were in there.
I'll step out into the hall."
I had just touched the doorknob leaving back out to
the hall, when I heard Rinoa's voice again.
"Wait, Hato. I wanted to
talk to you."
"Okay."
I took my hand off the doorknob and started wandering toward the
bathroom door.
"What time is it, Hato?"
I took out my Hipster and looked at the time. "It's about quarter to four."
"I'm sorry, what time?"
"Three forty-three."
"Oh.
I've been in the tub that long?"
I had just reached the door to the bathroom when
Rinoa said that. "You're in the tub?"
I heard the sound of water being moved around as if
it were being moved around in a bathtub.
"Yes."
Reflexively, I started wandering back toward the
door to the hallway. "I can go if you want some privacy."
"No, Hato.
I want to say something to you."
I stopped wandering.
"Okay."
"But I don't want to talk to you through a
door. Can you come in here?"
What Rinoa had said stunned me. "In the bathroom?"
"Yes."
"With you?"
"Yes, please."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Hato, I am."
I felt a little weird about going into the bathroom
to talk to Rinoa. I knew Rinoa was going
to be naked and I knew it was wrong of me to take advantage of this situation
to ogle at her. As I entered the bathroom,
I looked up at the ceiling as I made my way over to Rinoa. Only when I sat down on the tile floor next
to Rinoa, lying in a tub full of water, did I look over at her. When I looked at her, Rinoa didn't look at me
at first. When she began to speak, Rinoa
was staring at the tile wall across from her.
"I’ve been lying here, just staring at the
wall, because I can't get the images out of my mind. The image I saw out of the window as we fled
Dha Chathair. The image I saw out of the
window of Gin's plane as we flew away from Trebyer. The image I saw of verbrechers pillaging their
nation’s capital. The brazen burning of
the buildings that held their government.
The unblinking murder of all those why they even suspect of aiding their
enemy. The still lingering chemical
cloud that marked their arrival. I saw
all of it, and all of it was horrendous.
It's not that I hadn't seen it before.
I have. I saw those same
verbrechers employ the same tactics on my family. The still lingering chemical cloud was there
when they attacked the home my family lived in.
Verbrechers burning and pillaging buildings and destroying property were
done to me and my family. My father was
made to grovel on his kneed, groveling for the safety of himself and his
family, before he was executed in front of me.
Through the mists of the chemical gas that enveloped my house, I saw a
group of verbrechers accost my mother.
As gasses were burning my eyes, I saw them violate my mother in multiple
ways, all while she was screaming, crying, bleeding, and begging for it to stop. Then the verbrechers made me watch as my
mother, naked and covered in the byproducts of their assaults, was executed
with her body falling right in front of me.
The verbrechers have remorselessly destroyed everything they see before
them. Person by person, family by
family, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city. My fear is that when the verbrechers have
accomplished their horrific goal, they not only will have destroyed a race,
they will have destroyed a country.
That's what I've been thinking of.
That's what I've been turning over in my mind as I've been laying in
this tub, and I've come to a decision."
Rinoa turned her focus from the point on the wall
she was looking at to me. "Hato,
I'm sorry. I'm sorry about what I said
Friday. I was deflecting my frustration
at being back in Trebyer, a place I swore I'd never return to, back on
you. That was wrong for me to do. As was the way I acted when we got back to
Gin's house. All I was doing that day
was deflecting my anger and my frustration.
I'm sorry. I am so truly
sorry. While I was lying here, in this
slowly cooling water, I decided that I don't want to just avoid Trebyer. This thing, this hatred the verbrechers hold
toward the opfers is not just limited to Trebyer. It's everywhere. It's in Moenia Prima, it's in Dha Chathair,
it's even here in Vierdestad, it's everywhere, this sick, venomous, corrosive
hatred is everywhere in Dolore, and I don't want to have to deal with it
anymore. I want to leave. I want to go.
I want to turn my back on this country and never return. And Hato, I want you to be there with me when
I leave. I don't want to go this alone,
I want someone there when times are tough.
I want you."
Rinoa looked at me and I looked at Rinoa. Rinoa had said some pretty heavy things, some
of which I was still processing, but in that moment I knew what to say. I knew how I felt and I knew what Rinoa
wanted to hear. "Rinoa, we are
going to Amcan. We are going to
Velas. When we get there, we will find a
place where we can live our lives in peace.
We will do this. Come tomorrow, I
will talk to Commander Lider about getting this done. Starting tomorrow, you and I will leave
Dolore for good. I swear, we will do
this together."
As I said that, Rinoa began to smile, a smile
brighter and wider than I've ever seen on her.
Then she leaned forward and kissed me.
Rinoa kissed me.
Afterward, Rinoa mentioned being hungry. I excused myself to the hallway while she
toweled off and got dressed. We went
downstairs and got some dinner from the diner this hotel has. Rinoa and I talked. I told her about going to see Grace at her
boutique. Rinoa commented about her
fingers still being wrinkled from spending the day in the tub. We didn't say anything different or talk any
different to each other, but something was different. Something changed. I don't know what it is, I can't quite put it
into words, but as I watch Rinoa dig into her hearty spaghetti dinner, I know
one thing. I love this woman. I love Miss Rinoa Ann.
Later.
Hato Shurtleff
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