*************

“There’s nothing sadder than someone who doesn’t know what love is.”

That’s what he used to say.

Ryo Sanada was one of the most alive people I ever knew.  He wanted to show everyone how to live like that.  He was so vibrant, so full of force and energy.

When I was little, he’d show me everything he could and teach me everything he knew about it.  I remember a time when I was six or so and I got real sick.  He came and picked me up out of bed and carried me out into the woods behind my house.  Mom and Dad were okay with it because they trusted him totally.

He set me down beside a little brook and pointed out all the beautiful, wonderful things about it.  I was so intrigued by everything he said that I forgot that I was sick and that I didn’t feel good and then I felt better all day, even after he took me back home and Mom put me to bed.

Dad and Ryo were really good friends.  When I was older, Dad explained about the yoroi and the war and all.  I was allowed to call Ryo my uncle, even though we weren’t related.  Sometimes my other “uncles” would come over and talk about when they were younger.

“And then your father got all grumpy because we dumped water on him to wake him up,” Kento would say.

Then Sage would add, “More like he tried to kill us.”

Dad usually started growling right about then.

Ryo once told me about how Dad was always saving their skins in a fight, shooting enemies they hadn’t noticed.  Dad blushed.  Ryo and I laughed.

***

When I was 16, Ryo and Cye volunteered to teach me to drive.  They said Dad would get me killed.  Mom stopped Dad from pounding them to death.

Ryo’s pick-up truck was a little beat up, but it was in good working order and, of course, it was red.  I loved that pick-up almost as much as Ryo did.  We drove out to the zoo a lot.  Ryo didn’t like seeing caged animals but he worked there because he loved them and wanted to keep them healthy.  He was a veterinarian.  He told me once that the reason he went into that line was because of White Blaze, a big white tiger that was his dearest friend.

White Blaze was killed in an accident of some sort years before.

But he was supposedly a mystical tiger and so, I think, he wasn’t really completely gone…Ryo still missed him, though.

***

One day, while he and I were carrying food to the bear house, I saw a man sitting all alone at one of the tables in the dining center.  He looked like one of those people who are always cross or down in the dumps.  Later, I mentioned this to Ryo.  He smiled sadly and said that the man was probably very lonely.

Ryo told me I should always be very kind to people like that man.  “There is nothing sadder than someone who doesn’t know what love is,” he said.  “Those are the people who always seem miserable, and, for that reason, no one really wants to be around them, so they’re all the more miserable.  It’s one of those vicious cycles.  They need someone to care about them.”

I saw the man again just before Ryo and I left and I sat down across from him.  “Hey, why the long face?” I asked him.

He kinda stared at me for a moment, like he didn’t believe I was talking to him.  “Just feel a bit down, I guess,” he finally said.

“Oh?  Any particular reason why?”

“Not really.”

I went on instinct and grabbed his hand.  I smiled at him and said, “Well, maybe you just need somebody to cheer you up.”

He bit his lip and smiled hesitantly.  “I guess.”

“Tell you what,” I suggested.  “I’ll give you my phone number.  You call me tomorrow and we’ll talk for a while, ‘kay?”  I scribbled out the digits on a napkin with a pen and folded it into his hand.  “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Ray.”

“Do you have a last name, Ray?”

“Kinyard.”

“Well, Ray Kinyard, I’m—”

“Lessa!  Time to go!” Ryo shouted from across the center.

I laughed.  “I’m Lessa Hashiba.  Don’t forget to call me.”

Ray Kinyard smiled genuinely.  “Sure.  Bye.”

“Bye.”

When we were in the pick-up, Ryo asked, “Who was the guy you were talking to?”

I told him it was the man I’d mentioned earlier.

“Well, he certainly looked happy that you were talking to him.”  He kept talking and said he was proud but I’d had a long day and didn’t hear much since I was quickly falling asleep.

I sleep the way Dad did when he was younger.  Once I’m out, I don’t get up again for the world, not until near noon.  So, someone must’ve got stuck with the job of carrying me inside and putting me to bed that night.  When I woke up the next day, Ryo was gone.  He had to catch a plane to Japan, where he and Dad and my other uncles—except for Uncle Kento, who was from China—were from.  He was visiting an old friend and wouldn’t be back until after my 17^th birthday in 4 months.

***********************

25 days before my birthday, Mom and Dad went to a party.  Dad hated parties but he loved Mom.  He’d rather jump off a jet plane without a parachute than go to a formal affair.  Yet, if Mom wanted him to, he would.

I was playing a game on my Playstation with one of my “cousins,” Kento’s oldest son, Ben.  We could hear Mom coaxing Dad to get ready for the party.  I was giggling my head off.

“But, Allie, it’s gross!” Dad was saying.

“Shush up.  Put it on…Can’t you do anything right?” Mom exclaimed, sounding exasperated.  “Oh, let me do it for you.”

“Is this party gonna be on till late?”

“I told you already: until 11:30 probably.”

“Maybe we should have one of the guys come over to stay with Lessa.”

“She’ll be seventeen, soon!  She doesn’t need a babysitter, Rowen!”

“I just don’t want anything to happen to her.”

I rolled my eyes at Ben, making him laugh.

Mom was growling about Dad being overprotective, but she relented.  “Fine.  When Kento comes to pick up Ben, you can ask him to stay.  But if he says no, Lessa gets to stay by herself.”

“Deal,” said Dad.

“Hey, don’t I get a say in this?” I called.

“Uh…” Dad thought about it.

“Oh, never mind!” I shouted in my best imitation of Mom trying to get Dad to do something.

“Hey!” Mom pretended to be angry at my mocking.

I just giggled and grabbed more pixie sticks from the bag Ben had brought.

***********************

Kento agreed to stay.  That meant Ben and I would probably trash the house, since Kento isn’t very good about being strict with us kids.  I liked that idea.

Before they left, Dad kissed me on the forehead and said he loved me and Mom ruffled my hair and said she loved me too.  She also said I’d better stay out of the kitchen.  Dad and I both made faces at this.  After all, it’s not our fault that we can’t cook worth a flip.

We burn jello…Don’t ask.

So, Mom and Dad left.  The moment the car was out of sight, Kento clapped his hands together and asked, “Okay, who’s up for wrestling?”

I beat Ben but I couldn’t beat Kento.  We had 7 rematches and I would’ve called for an 8^th, but just then the sugar-high I’d gotten from the pixie sticks wore off and I crashed.

Ben pulled me up off the floor, walked me to the couch, and let go of my arm.  I just fell onto the sofa and I don’t even remember my head touching the pillows before I was asleep.

***********************

I woke up around 1o’clock in the afternoon the next day.  Ben was sprawled on the floor, still asleep.  I sat there, trying to figure out why this was wrong.  Right after I wake up, I can’t tell you what one plus one is unless you’re willing to wait ten minutes.

I finally figured it out.  Ben was supposed to have gone home with Kento the night before as soon as Mom and Dad got home.  Why was he still here?

Kento snores.  I mean, he really SNORES.  But I didn’t hear him so it took me a while to find him.  He was in the “off-limits-to-Lessa” zone.  In other words, he was in the kitchen.

I was still a little muddled in the head so I stood in the doorway for a bit.  I think I was wondering if it was okay to go in the kitchen if Mom had said not to.  One day rule.  If the order was issued yesterday, before midnight, it doesn’t apply to today.  I walked into the kitchen.

Kento was at the table that Mom chopped stuff up on.  His back was to me and his head was in his hands.  I dropped into the chair on the other side of the table from him and laid my head down with my cheek to the wood.

Kento looked up at me.  His face was tear-stained and his eyes were red.

“Whuz wrong?” I slurred.

Kento rubbed his eyes and looked at me with the most mournful look.  “You look so much like your dad,” he said.  That’s true.  I don’t have my father’s weird hair, though.  Mine’s black, like my mom’s.  But that’s pretty much the only difference.

I grunted, confused.  “Y’kay?” I mumbled.  I was trying to summon enough strength to lift my head from the table but I couldn’t.

Kento stood up and got me a cup of coffee.  He wrapped my hands around it.  Then, he put his hands on both sides of my face and sat me up.  He managed to get me to take a decent sip of the coffee.  “How many times I had to do this to Rowen,” he said.  He made a kind of half-laugh, half-sigh.

The caffeine had helped me wake up a little.  “Huh?”

“Lessa…” He hesitated.

That was when I got the first hint that this wasn’t just a little thing.  Something was really wrong.  I went cold.  I couldn’t speak.

“Lessa, last night…they were on their way home…there was a drunk…and he hit them…”

I stood up slowly.

Tears streamed down Kento’s face.  “Oh, Lessie, they…they…”

I gripped the table’s edge.

“They’re dead.  They were killed instantly,” he choked out.

I don’t know much about what happened next.  It was like something exploded in my head and all I knew was this awful, hellishly hot feeling.  It felt like I was burning from the inside out.

I was screaming but I didn’t know that at the time.  I have a vague memory of throwing my coffee cup at the wall.  I picked up the table and flung it through the French doors that led to Mom’s vegetable garden.

I couldn’t see.  I was blinded by red.  I started pounding my fists into the wall.

The last thing I knew was something was wrapped around me so I couldn’t move and there was a sound like a bunch of people talking but I couldn’t hear what they said and another sound like a dying animal that was half human that would make your blood freeze and everything was burning hot…

Then there was only black.

***********************

I was warm.

That was my first thought.  I wasn’t hot, just warm.  I decided against opening my eyes.

Gradually, as I became more awake, I was aware of other things.  Hunger.  Something covering me…<i>Pain</i>.

I moaned.  Somebody immediately clasped my hand.  I gave a tired scream.  The somebody let go of my hand quickly.

“Les?”

I opened my eyes a tiny bit.  Squinting, I could see black and red, but mostly white.  “W’am I?”

“In the hospital.  How do you feel?”

I used my favorite morning phrase.  “Like a Netherworld hell.”

“Mmm,” laughed the person.

Now, I could see past the light.  Ryo was the black and red.  The white was the hospital room.  I looked at my hand, the one Ryo had clasped.  It was bruised terribly and there was a scab across one knuckle.  I moved the fingers and discovered that this wasn’t a good idea.  I looked at my other hand.  It was in a cast.

I grunted.

Ryo smiled.  “Rowen used to do that when he was annoyed about something, same tone and everything.”

I squeezed my eyes shut at this, finally remembering that my parents were dead.  I felt tears roll down my cheeks.

“Why’re you here?” I asked. “You’re supposed to be in Japan, visiting what’s-her-name.”

“Mia understands.  She wanted to come, too, but she’s got work.  And I flew back here yesterday morning…I knew about your father before Cye called me.”

“How?”

“The yoroi are connected.  When one of us gets hurt real badly, the rest of us know.  Your father dying was like…like losing a part of myself.  The others are taking it hard, too.”

I tried to move my feet and found that my whole body was sore and cramped.  I must’ve been lying there for a while.

“How long’ve I been here?”

“Counting the evening you wrecked your kitchen and the guys had you admitted, three days not counting today.  It’s only 7 a.m.”

“Three days…I’ve never slept that long before…”

“Well, you woke up yesterday afternoon but you tried to shred the place so they sedated you.”

“Oh…why’s my hand all wrapped up?”

Ryo looked at his hands in his lap.  “When Kento broke the news to you, one of the things you did was try to pound the wall to death.  You broke half the bones in that hand…You also bruised three ribs and partially tore a tendon.  You even managed to cut the back of your shoulder and all along the right side of your jaw.”

I grunted indifferently.

Ryo searched my face.  “Lessa…were you trying to kill yourself?  Kento could barely hold onto you, even with Ben’s help.  If Cye and Sage hadn’t shown up, you might’ve hurt Ben and Kento.”

I couldn’t shrug because my ribcage was bandaged up, so I just shut my eyes, went limp, and said simply, “I don’t care.”

And I didn’t.  As far as I was concerned, there was no reason for me to bother with this dull game called “life” anymore.  My mom and dad were dead.  Why shouldn’t I be, too?

I opened my eyes again and looked into Ryo’s eyes.  “I wanna die.”  And I closed my eyes again.

I heard the door open and someone walk towards my bed.  They stopped beside Ryo’s chair.  “I thought I heard you talking,” said the person.  The voice was that of Kyri, Cye’s daughter, who’s a year and a half older than Ben and me.  “Is she awake?”

Ryo didn’t answer.

“Ryo?” Kyri asked.

“Yeah.  She’s awake.”  He sounded like he was about to cry.  “Look, Ky, I, um…I have to go.  Could you stay with her?”

“Sure…Is something wrong?”

“Yes…but I’ll tell you later.  I’ll call your brother to come pick you up, okay?”

“Yeah.  Bye, Ryo.”

“Bye, Kyri…See you later, Lessie.”  He kissed my forehead and left.

I didn’t give a damn.

***********************

I never spoke to any one after telling Ryo that I wanted to die.  I opened my eyes occasionally but didn’t look at anyone.  I refused to eat or drink, so the hospital put me on an IV thingy.

Three days after I’d spoken with Ryo, the doctors decided that I was fine except for my lethargy and listlessness, which they could do nothing for.  So, they released me.

Sage took me home with him.  Everyone thought Ryo would’ve wanted to take me because it’s always been obvious that out of all his nieces and nephews, I’m his favorite, but he’d only come by twice since our conversation and left in tears a mere ten minutes after he’d arrived each time.  Kento and Judah, his wife, didn’t think I should stay with them because they had four kids and their home was always in a clamor.  Cye and his wife, Tachiku, only had Kyri and Sori, but all four of them were away from home nearly all day.

Sage and Maya had one son, Rusty.  Their home was usually reasonably quiet and had a soothing atmosphere.  Maya had set up a guest room for me.  It had a balcony and its own bathroom.  I sat down in a padded rocking chair in a corner and went blank.  That was the place I spent most of the next two days.

I can’t explain much about what was going on in my head.  I guess there really wasn’t much going on in there, really.  The problem with me didn’t get too bad until the third day I was in the Date home.

***********************

On that day, the weather was wonderful.  It was warm and sunny, with only the slightest breeze.  The kind of day I used to love and revel in.

I hated it.

I wanted the skies to be dark, the air cold.  I wanted the wind to blow at gale force and howl the way I had when I found out about Mom and Dad.

But the day didn’t care about the angry wishes of a depressed, desolate girl.  It remained splendid.

I decided to ruin it.

I got up and walked out onto the balcony.  I crawled up onto the railing, ignoring the pangs of pain that shot out of my broken hand.  I looked at the perfect sky and hated it.  I looked down at the perfect lawn beneath the balcony and hated it for its beautiful, lush greenness.  And I loved it for what it was about to give me.

I stepped off the railing.

***********************

Yes, I honestly tried to commit suicide.  “Tried” being the key word.

Rusty grabbed my shirt as I fell.  He had come to bring me my breakfast, which I wouldn’t have eaten that day.  I tried to slip out of the shirt but Rusty leaned over and got both hands under my armpits somehow.  He couldn’t haul me up, though, because I struggled too much.  So, he started to holler like the end of the world.

Maya came running up to my room and out onto the balcony.  She grabbed hold of one of my arms, while Rusty gripped the other.  Together, despite my screaming and fighting, they managed to pull me back onto the balcony.

I wrenched free of their hold and socked a good one to Rusty’s eye.  I then attempted to leap off the balcony again but Maya grabbed my hair and yanked me back.  Rusty held my arms and they dragged me into the house.

Once we were inside, I went limp again and indifferent to the world.  The only difference was that tears slipped down my face.

***********************

When Sage came home that night, he found me tied to chair, with his son watching my every move.  He raised an eyebrow in question at Rusty.  My cousin sighed and Sage walked on to the kitchen, where Maya was preparing supper.  Their voices were muffled but I could hear Sage exclaim once.

Sage returned to the living room and glanced at Rusty, who got up and left the room.  Sage sat down across from me and we were silent.

“Lessa, why did you jump off the balcony?” Sage asked finally.

I remained mute.

Sage sighed.  “Did you know that your father wanted one of the other Ronin to care for you in the event of his and your mother’s death before you were an adult?  Ryo, Kento, Cye, and I are your legal guardians…We love you and we don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Those last 7 words struck a cord somewhere deep within me but I didn’t really hear them.  In fact, I didn’t really listen to a word he said.

That night, I was moved into Rusty’s room, which had no balcony and whose only window couldn’t be opened.  All potential weapons with I might harm myself were removed and the door was locked from outside.

My only satisfaction from the day’s events was the black eye I’d given Rusty.

***********************

The thing about people who honestly want to die is that once they figure out that suicide is an option, there is no way to keep them from continuing to attempt it until they succeed.

Two days after the balcony episode, I broke a vase in the hall and slashed my wrists with the pieces.  I only succeeded in ruining the carpet because Sage found me and used Halo to heal me.

Of all the households to choose to die in, I’d picked the worst one possible.

During the following week, I tried to drown myself, slice my wrists again, and I cut my throat twice.  These attempts were foiled by Rusty performing CPR, Maya taking the knife from me before I cut too deep, and Sage using his yoroi’s healing abilities.

I had thin, white scars where I’d cut myself on my throat and wrists and they would be there for the rest of my life, but these weren’t good enough.  I was almost desperate to die.  Over two weeks had passed since my parents’ deaths.

I hated them all.

Ben visited a couple times.  He and I had been best friends since we were little.  Ben doesn’t look much like his father, more like his mother.  He’s a good 4 ½ inches taller than me and I’m five-foot, six.  His hair is a rather dark brown and his eyes are medium brown.  He isn’t quite as stocky as Kento either, but he does have some nice muscles.

Ben has always been good at making me laugh and I was always in a better mood around him than with most people I associated with.  It upset him a lot to see me so low and miserable.

But he did manage to get me to eat halfway decently.  I had continued to refuse all food until he got mad.

The day after I went home with the Dates, he showed up.  Ben spent over two hours trying to coax me into eating a sandwich without result.

Finally, he lost it.  “Dammit, Les!  You have to eat!” he’d screamed at me.  He’s usually not that loud.  In fact, he’s usually about as quiet as Cye.

Still, I ignored him.

“Shit,” he growled.  “Alright, have it your way, then!”  He grabbed my arm and threw me to the floor.  I lay there, a little surprised at his uncharacteristic roughness, but otherwise, unmoved.

Ben pinned me to the floor by setting his knees on my upper arms.  I kept my mouth firmly shut.  He pried it open and stuffed some sandwich in.  He held my mouth closed with one hand and one of my eyes open with the other.  Then, he blew on my eye.

Now, if you’ve ever had that done to you, you’d want to kill the person who did it.  My eye stung terribly, as if someone had stuck a bunch of needles in it.  It teared up so bad I couldn’t see, and the whole time, I was trying not to swallow the sandwich.  That can’t be done.

I swallowed.

Ben did that to me two more times before I agreed to eat my own.  I ate three sandwiches in one hour and then I ate supper three hours after that.  Ben was watching me the entire time.

The day after I tried to jump off the stairs, I stopped eating again.  Maya had Rusty call Ben up and have him come over.  Ben forced me to eat again.  Then, he called his parents and told them he would be staying the night at the Date house.

I don’t know why I didn’t hate him.

***********************

Ben stayed for a week.  Since he was watching me almost constantly, they didn’t keep me tied up after the second day of his stay.  I spent most of my time sitting in a window-seat, staring at my feet.  Dad had liked to sit in the window-seat at home after working for 10 hours, although he looked out the window, not at his feet.  He said that it was nice to look at reality after staring at a computer screen for so long.

I guess that was when I decided that I wanted to go home.  Dad’s computer might have something for me.  He stored everything on that thing, and he and Mom had always been a couple steps ahead of the game, planned on just about everything.  So, I thought, maybe they would have left something for me in case something like this happened.

This was the last day of Ben’s stay and he was occupying a chair a couple feet from the window-seat.  But the night before, I hadn’t slept, so Ben had stayed awake to keep an eye on me and was, consequently, very near asleep now.  It was a mere few minutes before his face was pressed to the pages of the magazine he’d been reading.

Maya was upstairs somewhere and Rusty had gone to buy some groceries his mother needed.  Sage was across the city, which was 20 miles away, working at a dojo, one of many he owned.  So, with Ben sleeping soundly, no one was there to stop me.  I simply got up and walked away.  I didn’t even stop to put my shoes on.