The Heart Does Go On

An hour and a half later, I had somehow managed to write 4 pages of writing on the essay topic we were given. I packed up my pens and grabbed my bag, handing my paper to the teacher as I walked out the door.

I began to walk back to the motel. I was neglecting my car, so that I could save money on fuel costs. I was kind of regretting my decision right now though, because it was after 5, there was no sun and it was FREEZING.

I was muttering to myself as I began to walk on. Usually when I walked, my body began to get warmer as I was doing physical exercise. However, for some reason it was not right now. Maybe it had to do with a lack of food, well I don’t know about warmth but the lack of food was making me tired, from the lack of energy my body had.

I sighed as I began to walk through puddles. My shoes were very old, probably had them since the 7th grade, 6 years later they were pretty worn out. My entire sock became wet.
I kept soldering on. I could go home to my empty, crappy motel room and have a packet of crisps for dinner. I didn’t even have any ramen noodles to eat.

I think this was the point where I reached a sort of light insanity. This was when I realised my life was truly in the gutter right now. I had no home, I had little money, I had no food and I was getting maybe 2 hours of sleep a night.

I had tried to fix my situation, but I couldn’t do it. Life was truly hopeless at that point, and the realization sank in.

That’s probably why I sunk to my knees crying in the cold. If I were in my right mind, I’d at least wait until I got back to the warmth and shelter of somewhere before crying, so I wouldn’t get sick.

But no, at this moment I didn’t care. All I cared about was being able to howl my sorrows away. It did not matter what would happen to me, my life was already screwed enough as it was.

I don’t know how long I sat there howling. It felt like a long time, but in reality it may have only been a few minutes.

I came to my senses for a moment. I could smell people’s cooking. It smelled so delicious. But the smell of cooking must have bought attention to the fact I had barely eaten in days, as the world began to spin rapidly, and I could feel myself spin to the ground, as everything else spun around me.

***

I’m not exactly sure what time I awoke, but after a few seconds of waking up, I knew exactly where I was. Yugi’s room.

I sat up and tried to take a peek out of the closed curtains. I could see that it was night outside, from the fact that the light was off in the room and everything else was pitch black.

I went back to the bed to lie down for a while, deciding what to do. Should I wait for the others to come in before I announce that I’m awake, or should I go and look for them?

I decided to take the first approach, by just lying down and regaining energy. But after waiting a while and getting bored, I decided to get up and go look for whoever happened to be in the Kame Game shop.

I quietly opened Yugi’s bedroom door and stepped out quietly. I looked to the left; it was the hallway that leads to Gramps’ room, the bathroom and the spare room. It was completely dark, so if anyone were home they would be downstairs.

I headed down the stairs and heard the TV, as well as chit chat from the lounge room.
I appeared into the lounge room, and sat casually on the couch as if I was appearing from the bathroom, not woken up from fainting.

“Uh Ella, you’re ok?” Tea asked, confused at how casual I was being.

“Yeah.” I shrugged, trying to make it look that I was completely fine with passing out, before I would ask questions.

“Joey found you on the side of the road, and bought you over here. We called Tea and Tristan to come, we’re really worried about you.” Yugi said, sounding concerned.

“Thank you.” I said quietly, emotions overpowering me.

Some people in this world care about me, and actually worry for me. My life may be in a pretty bad state, but I still had great friends who cared about me.

“Do you know why you passed out?” Tristan asked.

“Yeah.” I said remaining quiet, looking down at the floor.

“Yes…?” Joey asked impatiently.

“My cash is very quickly deteriorating. I’ve been eating very little food, and been running on very little sleep, the motel is horrible. Therefore I guess my body had enough, and kinda just, passed out.” I shrugged as if it were no big deal.

I didn’t want them to worry. I was going to fix this situation soon, and I didn’t want them to make a big deal out of it.

“ELLA! THIS IS NO CASUAL MATTER. WE NEED TO FIX THIS!” Joey shouted, getting angry at how laid back I was about the situation.

“I tried. I can’t contact dad, he’s in the middle of no where.” I shrugged.

“The answer is pretty obvious.” I heard a voice behind me, and I turned around to see Yami.

“Well solutions are welcome, considering the severity of the situation.” I mumbled, showing ‘weakness’ for the first time tonight.

“Move in here.” Yami shrugged, as if it were the most obvious solution in the world.

“Yeah! Why didn’t I think of that?” Joey agreed.

Tristan and Tea also gushed about what a great idea it was.

“I can’t just move in here!” I protested, “I have no job, I wouldn’t be able to pay bills, rent, food, other expenses. I can’t just waltz on in here and move in. It’s irrational!” I complained.

Yami held up a finger to indicate ‘wait’ as he sprang on up and quickly went up the stairs. Joey, Tristan, Tea and I remained silent, as I looked at the ground feeling completely embarrassed.

I didn’t want them to know my problems; I didn’t want to burden them. Now they’re going to go out of their way to help me, when it was my problem to fix. I shouldn’t have made Seto- oops I mean Kaiba my everything, because now that he’s gone I’m left with nothing.

Yami returned a few minutes later.

“The deal is sealed. Ella, you’re to move in. Gramps insisted, and said he won’t take no for an answer. You’re to move out of the motel room tomorrow. No buts! Now, let’s talk about duel monsters again.” Yami said sounding dominant, sitting on the ground in front of me.

I guess there was no way of saying no now. But knowing Gramps was okay with it, I was okay with it. Having a real bed to sleep in, and real food on the table was nothing to knock back, and besides I could always just stay here until I sort things out with Dad.

I began to smile, probably the first genuine smile to be had on my face since Sunday.