To Live Is To Fight (#2)

Chapter 16

Today, my training continued to catch up with whatever we missed because of Klovski's visit. Mr. Huang thought it'd be a great distraction for me since I was so upset and I quote, "nothing fixes one's mood better than gardening."

Whatever that meant, I was sure it'd be able to take my mind off reality for a while. Gardening didn't seem to be so bad.

What got to me was that I soon realized he didn't have a garden. I didn't bother asking him any questions though, knowing that he probably had something up his sleeve. So I followed him deeper into the clumps of trees standing tall with its branches spreading out to create a high canopy above us.

There were trees that had some kind of fruits under them, some looked like they just fell off the trees and some looked rotten. The roots of the trees branched out under the forest floor, sometimes making its presence known by bulging out of the soil at some places, forcing Mr. Huang and I to watch out for them in order to not trip.

It wasn't far away but the supposedly "garden" was a good distance away from the cottage, making me think that Mr. Huang liked making himself go through all this unnecessary rough and long procedures. 

When we finally reached the opening, we got straight to business. Mr. Huang  started drawing sketches of how he wanted the garden to look on the sandy ground with a stick he picked up.

I got to work straight away after that. Rearranging the positions of the pots and where each of then stands.

You'd think that rearranging a garden would only take me an hour tops but I spent the rest of the day trying to finish up for two main reasons.

1) The garden was bloody huge.

2) Mr. Huang is not very good at decision makings.

One minute he wants the roses at the center of the field and the next he wants it to his right. It wasn't long until the sun was starting to set and the night approached. He finally allowed me to rest and guess what? The bloody garden looked as if it was untouched.

I gave Mr. Huang a small 'what the fuck' look. My back was starting to ache from bending down to retrieve the pots and setting them on the ground to where Mr. Huang wanted them to be. I spent the whole day picking up pots and moving them around one end of the field to the other just to come up with the same exact placements they were in before I touched anything on the garden.

Brilliant.

I finally decided on a quick walk and I found myself spacing out on the nature around me. I hated those times because I started thinking about friends and just about how many I've lost. I started wondering if there would be an end to all this friend-losing drama.

Unconsciously, I've stopped moving around displacing pots and rearranging them in the order shown to me by Mr. Huang. I soon realized that I was sitting on the ground with tearful eyes.

Mr. Huang walked slowly towards me and helped me stand up on both of my feet again.

"Come on Xiao Fu. You can do this." I shook my head weakly. I was so tired; too tired. I've had enough of the mental torture. The confusion built up in me and the reversed psychology that people who I thought were friends might be someone who's got a mission to make me suffer in the worst way possible. I felt the panic built up in me, the anxiety of mistrusting someone again and that was when my reflexes kicked in wildly. I thrashed around, arms flailing, legs kicking when I felt a light touch landed on my arm.

I heard them telling me to open my eyes and breathe. But I didn't want to. Here in my panic bubble, I felt a serenity that I haven't felt before.

I understood then, what they wanted from me. They wanted to break me in the worst way possible, implanting a new set of fear so big that I didn't even want to open my eyes in fear of seeing someone else that might come to leave me one day. That I would care about the person I see next just to break down once again when they left for the other party.

If all they wanted was to break me, they succeeded the day they took my only brother away from me. My Bryant. My shield, my rock and my whole goddamn world and they took him from me. Wrenched him out of my life in a quick step on the gas pedal and a steel grip on the steering wheel.

They took him from me and didn't think that was enough. They wasn't satisfied yet so they start taking my friends away and started making me question my own sanity.

I decided to curl up on myself, taking that small period of time for myself individually and not for anyone else. I laid on the ground, cheeks pressed up against the warm grass, knees tucked against my chest and eyes still closed.

What is this cruelty made of.

Greed? Anger? Devastation?

Was I going to turn like any of them if I hit that one point in my life where I'm desperate enough to make all of this pain go away? To decide that I don't want any of this fear of misplacing my trust on someone? Would it be my turn then to ruin someone else's life? Will I turn out to be like them once I let the darkness engulf me fully? Would that be what I'm going to be reduced to? A person who's so selfish, they wanted others to feel the pain that they were in.

Was that what drove Dom? The pain? Was that what he was thinking? I knew that was what the guy who challenged me into re-entering the competition was thinking.

I broke his brother's leg and mentality. I took away his brother's happiness and by doing that, I probably took his as well. That threat was an action driven by true pain and devastation. Have I done anything like that to Dom? Something so heart-breaking to let him surrender to the pain and be swallowed by it.

If I would say sorry for one thing to him, it would be for that pain. Because this was not something I'd pray on anyone. Even the murderer of my Bryant.

~•~•~

Sorry that this one's so short guys. I promise I'll write more next chapter.

I just wanted to thank all of you who have helped me like the video and I'm sorry for the delay in update.

I'm happy to say I got the +10! ❤️ Thank you so much for everything 😂❤️💕

I love you all and God bless ❤️ -J