Patches tried to take a deep breath. It was shaky and burned his throat. He could feel Eoleo trying to make himself vanish and Kisegawa just barely keeping him in place. You need to hear the rest, she said. Please. Please don’t disconnect. Not if you’re going to forget all over again.
“Geiru…s-said she thought we were involved with Shisho’s p-plans. Like w-we were out to g-get her or s-s-something,” Patches croaked. “She said– She s-said she wanted to des-stroy everything. That no-othing meant anyth-thing anymore. It’s like– It’s l-like– we n-never existed. O-Or we’re suddenly a different p-person to her.”
He tried to wipe at his face but the tears just kept coming back. It hurt. It hurt, it hurt– “We loved her…s-so much…She was everyth-thing to us. Was it– Was it all one-s-sided? W-Was Owen the o-only one she c-cared about? Why him? W-Why couldn’t she love us, t-too?”
She’d hurt them. She’d discarded them. She made it look so easy.
“Are we…A-Are we really s-so worthless…?”
“No way! You are not worthless, none of you are! S-she can’t have meant that!” Right?? Not if they were real friends. And even though she didn’t know them very well....she didn’t think Uendo, any part of Uendo, was an idiot either. No way they got so close if it was just about Owen...she had to believe that.
“Sometimes, when people are angry, or scared...they say things they don’t mean. And Geiru was both of those things, from what I heard during that trial. She thought she was worthless, that everything she’d worked for meant nothing. And I guess she thought, you were trying to take that away from her. I proved that wasn’t the case, but I couldn’t take those feelings away from her. When she left the courtroom that day, there was still so much sadness in her heart....”
“But that doesn’t mean she meant what she said! I’m sure of it!”