The Heart Does Go On

Life started to become a little better once I was moved in and settled into the Motou household.

Gramps and I had decided a system that would make everyone happy. I would work for the Game shop twice a week, so that Gramps could run errands whilst I was working. In exchange for me working, I was able to stay at the house free of rent, bills, and food, because I was paying that off with working for Gramps.

Without sounding unappreciative, I could see that this would only work out in the short term. I only received a small amount of money from Gramps as ‘pocket money’ but I would be in need of a lot more than what I was getting.

Prom was coming up in a few months; that would be a costly expense. There were also other small expenses, like going out and doing things with friends. What about my car too? Fuel was expensive these days. I was going to be neglecting my car for a while it seems.
It seems I’m being unappreciative towards Yugi and Gramps, but I knew this short-term fix was just that, short term. Money problems were going to arise in the future, and I was already feeling the heat.

Aside from that though, I felt a lot of gratitude towards them both though. Although life wasn’t going as smoothly as I’d like it, I was facing living on the streets, and a short-term fix was better than no fix at all.

It just meant that in the mean time I had to think of a better fix.

***
I had the house to myself for a while. Gramps was out seeing a friend, and Yugi was at the mall with Tea, Tristan and Joey. They invited me along, but I declined. I didn’t want to go window-shopping with the little money I had, it would be depressing.

But the main reason I turned them down was so I could study for my stupid maths test that was in a few days. It was killing me, maths was definitely my worst subject, and I needed all the studying I could get.

When I couldn’t figure out one equation I threw my pencil across the room and gave out a loud profanity. I was SO OVER maths homework.

I heard a loud chuckle from the back of the room, and I looked over to see Yami there looking amused.

“Oh uh, sorry, I’ll uh move to my room.” I blushed; I must have looked really unclassy.

He spoke up to protest, but I had already grabbed my books and pencil case and hurried off to my room.

I looked around the room before me. It wasn’t as spacious or as fancily decorated as the room in the Kaiba mansion I had, but it was still homely. The only thing that was really missing was the room held no memories. It had my picture frame on my bedside of Duke, Kathryn and I, photos of me and the gang on my mirror and I hadn’t even put the few band posters I owned on the walls.

Even though my memories had been taken out from one room to the next, it seemed different. The furniture was mostly white, with white walls contrasting against the furniture. The room really gave off a ‘guest room’ vibe and maybe that was why it felt weird to be in here.

I decided I had enough maths work for the night, and I pulled out my Economics book and began to revise the materials we had covered in class. After about half an hour, I heard a knock at my door.

Before I could mutter a ‘come in’ Yami appeared at my door.

“May I sit down?” He asked me.

“Yeah, sure.” I shrugged, moving my books to the floor to give him room to sit on the small single bed.

“What bothered you so much about moving in here?” Yami asked, looking concerned.

I kind of shrugged him off, not really wanting to discuss this with him. But Yami was persistent, showing he really wanted an answer.

“There was no reason to be bothered about moving in here. You don’t need to fear about not putting in your share. You’re working for rent, so it’s not like you should feel we’re treating you as if you’re some homeless person for charity.” Yami tried to explain.

“I still feel like a failure.” I blurted out, but had no way of retracting my statement.

“How so?” Yami asked concerned.

I shook my head, I didn’t want to reply but he was still persistent.

“I want to know so we can discuss it and we can get it through that thick head of yours that you are so way near a failure. Got it?” Yami smirked, and I sighed.

As much as I didn’t want to tell him, the thoughts of my head in my situation weren’t going away, and the sooner I told him the sooner I could forget them. That, and he wasn’t going to leave me alone about it.

I stayed silent for a minute or two formulating the words into my head. I decided to go against that, and just go with the flow.

“Remember how I said I used to quite uh, large?” I asked Yami, who nodded.

“When I was a little kid, my mother told me something, and she’d tell me everyday. She told me I needed to cling onto any rich guy I could, and do anything I could to make him stick around, including getting pregnant. She told me it doesn’t matter if he wasn’t a nice person, just as long as he was rich and could look after me.” I sighed.

“And this reminds you of Kaiba?” Yami asked, but I glared at him.

“Let me finish! Otherwise you’ll jump to conclusions. But yes.” I replied.

“Sorry.” Yami apologised.

“Anyway, she’d always blurt out stuff like that. When I got large, due to her force-feeding me junk food and not letting me get any exercise, she stopped saying it. Which was a good thing. But she’d always be like ‘well you have no hopes of getting ANY man now! Look at you. You’re a fat bitch. No one would touch you with a 10 foot pole!’ I ranted.

“No wonder why you never mentioned your mother to the gang.” Yami gasped.

“Sorry I kind of got a little distracted. Anyway after I lost all the weight, she began to say similar things. She told me that I must marry someone for their wealth and not love, because it was a tradition in the family. When I told her that I would have my own career and be making my own money she told me I was a disgrace to the family.” I muttered.

“She actually said that? You’re a disgrace to the family because you want to be a good citizen?” Yami asked.

I knew he was having a hard time believing that women like this exist outside television and movies.

“Yep, I’d never been more proud of myself in my life. Being a disgrace to that family of crime, drugs and everything on the wrong side of the tracks was being a a good citizen. But, now I feel bad. She only ever made something of herself because she used men for their money, my father included. My dad felt horrible he couldn’t kick her out of the house because I was a baby and he couldn’t kick me out also. So he cut off her money supplies and told her to get a job. She found a way to cheat the welfare system and left him.” I explained.

Yami just shook his head in disgust.

“Argh going off topic again. Anyway, the reason why I feel like a failure, was because I feel that the only reason why I’m surviving here is because I’m using people. I used Kaiba; he’s rich, just like my Mum said. Once he was gone I was SCREWED, he was the only person who was supporting me, and once he was gone I was all alone and helpless, like I actually needed him. Now I feel like I’m using you and Yugi, because without you guys I’d be screwed” I shrugged, trying to look casual and look down, when in fact this was killing me.

Yami grabbed me by the shoulders to try and look me into the eye.

“Ella, don’t be stupid. You didn’t ‘use’ Kaiba. You loved him, and he wanted to be close to his girlfriend so he asked you to move in. You didn’t only start loving him after you moved in with him. Everything happened all of a sudden so it’s no wonder you were knocked off your feet, if it happened to people like the disgrace of a mother you have, she would have even been in a worse position because she’s an idiot.” Yami snarled.

I instantly began to feel better. The way that Yami was articulating his words showed he had passion for this subject, and the choice of words weren’t the usual vocabulary that Yami would use.

“You’re the one who got yourself out of that mess though. Do you want to know how? You have friends. You made friends with the gang, so we wanted to help you. The network of people you support, decided to support you back. It’s a two-way thing. You care about us, we care about you. You’re the one who helped yourself, just as much as we helped you.” Yami smiled.

I thought about it for a second. He has a point…if I was in his position to help one of my friends, I would. I made friends with the right crowd, and it was my own decision to do so.

“Thank you Yami. I couldn’t have asked for better friends.” I smiled, giving him a hug.

Things were finally looking up now that black cloud over my head had disappeared.