We're all characters in unrefined plots. There is no narrator to neatly explain things, no omniscient voice that details the important people in our lives in one, hefty paragraph. Some people think of their lives as fiction. We build up to some climax–that turning point in our lives–and resolve ourselves into solution. “And they lived happily forever. The end.”
Some people are constantly looking for that happy ending. I'm just looking to be happy.
...
Species Name: Dawn
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Chapter Seventeen
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Around her left wrist was a pearl bracelet. Lucas hadn’t noticed it until now when he looked down at her hands and saw her playing with them, sliding the bracelet off her wrist and letting the cold pearls wrap around her fingers. He watched as she pressed her finger against one pearl before sliding down to the next one and repeating the process, like they were beads of the rosary. Her mouth seemed to be invisibly chanting something – a silent prayer.
She turned away from the window they stood in front of and saw that his eyes were watching her hand movements, the silent mutterings to herself. She pressed her lips together and looked up and down from her bracelet to his face. “A force of habit,” she said as she directed her attention toward the window again. “I actually don’t realize I’m doing it until someone notices.”
“I hadn’t noticed until now,” he said.
She smiled to herself. “Maybe my force of habits became yours, too. The way you run your finger down the brim of your beret when you’re nervous was mine.”
Lucas hadn’t realized his lifted hand was midway between the right side of his cap and the left. He immediately dropped his hand, finger brushing against his nose as Dawn giggled lightly. “I didn’t notice you did that until we got on the island. You were doing it after we took that one picture together. You better have not deleted that. I want it emailed to me.”
“I didn’t. And okay.”
Dawn nodded and moved her bracelet around her wrist. She pressed her hands against the cold, metal windowsill, the bracelet sliding down and stopping before her knuckles. Her eyes were busy – the room she was watching was busy but gawkily still at the same time – people who weren't sure how to react but knew they should.
“What were you muttering?” he asked.
“He’s awake,” she said.
It was the strange, how everything just
happened. There was solemnity in their entrance of the hospital room, the disappointment weighing on everyone’s shoulders at their lack of anything new but the grace to pretend there was the semblance of something there. Yet within seconds of Dawn depositing one of her key chains into Lane’s hands, Lane awoke, blue eyes weary but at the same time alert, focusing on the bewildered girl, and then, with a flick of the iris, the dilate of the pupil, focusing on him: Lucas, the boy who did ... nothing. He did nothing for once. No titles to follow that up with. A someone turned him into a nothing. Who was this someone?
She was a human female, a fourteen year-old bordering on fifteen. One who was five foot, one inch and on the lighter end of weight in comparison to other human weights. Her hat was white, dark-blue hair clipped back with white-gold barrettes. She wore a red scarf – he always found it awkward that the pair of them had red scarves they had carried with them for years now – with a pink, ruffled skirt that she loved to wear, so much so that she would walk in biting, freezing wind just to show off, to quote, her “fabulous legs.” A personality that was nosy, interested in the things around her, refusing to allow her “subject” to get away without finding her answers. Someone who was determined, focused, confident in the face of adversity but still prone to weakness. Able to read into things, into the slight of movements, the smallest of expressions. A lover of sweets. A lover of cities. Sometimes forgetful. Means well. Overall confusing. Her name was Dawn.
He realized quickly that it was the feather that awoke Lane almost the very instance Lane’s eyelids flickered open. He had no idea why; what properties in feathers would be able to awaken the boy from the sleeping spell that they still haven’t pinpointed the reason for. He could make hypotheses. The feathers, which could be run under tests to see if they are from the cresselia breed, may contain some sort of material, a cure, which immediately entered Lane’s body through his pores. The feathers could help alleviate future problems like this; perhaps it could even be used to create new remedies for those often fatigued. A new source of energy.
But when Dawn asked him, “How did he wake up?” he couldn’t bring himself to answer her with his assumption. He was about to tell her that, could remember the answer burning on his lips, but suddenly stopped himself and said, “Who knows?” and tacked on a, “Maybe it’s magic,” a few seconds later, not to be condescending but because that’s what it was: magic. Now, anyway. Maybe he wanted to humor her. What good would it have done to tell her it was the feathers when his theory was just as ridiculous as the myth this entire ordeal was possibly based on?
The feathers have some shit in them that did something to wake Lane up. I have no idea what. Right. Good one.
There was an onslaught of questions when Lane awoke and after Dawn murmured, “Hello, Lane.” How are you feeling? Are you okay? Did you call the doctor? Someone call the doctor (okay, that's not a question). But it was Lucas's ominous question that was answered first: “Did you dream?” He asked it so tersely, so alarmingly, that it startled everyone to stop talking in order to hear the answer.
Lane looked at him, confused. “I think,” he said. “There was a castform in it. Oh, and I dreamed I failed my trainer's test.” He scrunched his nose at the same time Lucas raised his eyebrows. “Then there was this thing with Julie and a train and some weird game. And Julie's mom's memorial”–Dawn noticed Alyson close her eyes tightly at the lackadaisical way her son said this–“and me being in Lance's cartoon. That one was neat.”
Lucas dreamed of Barry's death, Cyrus chaining him to a pillar before killing him, and Dawn doing very friendly things. He told this to no one, lied about it to Dawn, and he vaguely wondered if the boy was lying too. He wouldn't pry into unwanted territory, though, and left it at that with a nod. Maybe Lane got off easier than Lucas did. Most people do.
Dawn brushed her fingers against Lucas’s back as she passed him by. He turned away from the window to look at her, and she motioned him to follow her with the nudge of her head. “Let’s leave them alone for tonight. It is late after all, and we had a long day,” she said as they walked down the hospital’s narrow hall toward one of the exits. The glass doors spotted with drops of rain opened when Dawn’s boot hit the entrance mat, the cold, moist air engulfing them. Lucas crossed his arms, grasping his upper arms with his fingers while Dawn tugged at the ends of her scarf. She exhaled, watching her breath turn into condensation. “I used to pretend I was a smoker when it was this cold and you could see your breath.”
“How healthy,” he said dryly, fiddling with his keys, fingers brushing against the feather key chain Dawn gave him earlier. They walked down the ramp and hit the wet asphalt. Lucas kicked a nearby stone and watched it skitter across the pavement before coming to a rest near a marble water fountain topped with a blissey statuette. The wet walk reflected the streetlights, and they were entwined in the gold. He could see why Lane enjoyed the imagery.
Dawn locked arms with him as Lucas pocketed his hands in his jeans to keep his fingers warm. He felt her lean into him as he pointed his head up briefly and looked at the night sky still patched with clouds. He focused straight ahead toward the buildings where lights bled out the windows. Dawn had pressed the side of her face against his arm, comforted. It was only when he asked, “Now what?” that she pulled away and looked at him, bewildered. She didn't answer him, but he noticed her grip his arm tighter, like she was afraid. “I mean ... Lane's awake.”
“Mhm,” she said in agreement as she twisted the ball of her foot and let the loose asphalt crunch. She pulled her head away and turned her sight toward the black sea, letting her hair drape behind her back.
“So now what?” he repeated.
“That's up to you, really,” she said.
“Huh?”
“That's up to you,” she repeated.
“Why?”
“You had other plans before this, didn't you?”
“The Battle Frontier–”
“So you'll be going to that now,” she interrupted as she turned her head straight, nostrils flaring.
He was taken aback by the fierceness in her tone. She didn't sound upset or angry but determined, focused on something. He didn't know why, but when he looked into her eyes, he quickly pieced together the reason. The tears were starting to form; she was determined not to cry. “What's wrong with you?” he asked, perturbed.
“What?”
“You're crying.”
She wiped at her eyes with her free hand, nose wrinkled. “I am not,” she said in the same firm tone from earlier.
“You're trying not to.”
“Am not.”
He grimaced, lips pursed. “Okay.”
“Don't 'okay' me.”
“Fine.”
“None of that either.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “You're avoiding my question.”
“What question?”
“Why were you about to cry?”
Dawn released Lucas's arm to cross her own, fists pressed into her armpits. They wandered aimlessly down the street. It was only thirty-five minutes past nine, but the city was hushed – he amounted it to the rain. He separated the sounds. A car honked in the distance. Past the sound of the waves crashing into the docks were the kricketot hums. He turned his head toward the right to stare into the shops then turned back to the left and saw that the tears had returned. She sniffled, wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, and did her best to look stoic than broken.
“It's dumb,” she said, stopping.
He fidgeted with the brim of his hat. “What?”
“That I miss you but you're still here.”
“Miss me?”
Dawn exhaled slowly, watching her breath dissipate. “I like you, Lucas.”
She said it slowly, or maybe time slowed down, like that one time when they almost kissed in Harbor Inn. (Apparently one of Dawn's many powers includes the slowing down of time.) He could make out each syllable, could see each slight shift of her mouth: the way her mouth smiled with the “I,” the way her tongue flicked past her top front teeth with the “like,” and the way her lips puckered with the “you.” I like you. He liked the way she said it: so honest, rhetoric so simple, yet there was complexity with the mouth motion.
“I know,” he said, blinking. He felt his nerves kick up, and he suppressed that energy into his feet as he rocked back and forth.
“I don't mean that in the stupid 'just as friends' way either. I really like you.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
She stopped in her tracks, staring at the tops of her boots as Lucas stared at the top of her head. He gently pulled on her elbow to move her away from the street and onto the sidewalk when the two of them were caught in the headlights of a passing car. They stood in the warm light of a bakery. Lucas looked inside, staring at the cakes positioned on clear pedestals, and tried to ignore the hunger pains that kicked up whenever the breeze blew and let the scent of baking bread drift in their direction. Dawn's left hand had dropped from her armpit so her fingers could slide around her pearl bracelet.
“Dawn,” he said. He felt like he should do something. If they were in some sort of corny romance movie, he assumed he was supposed to raise her head by gently lifting up her chin, stare into her eyes, and tell her that things, whatever those things are, would be all right, but real life dictated that his attention should be more on the cakes than the girl. He wanted to do something – he felt like he should – but his limbs didn't obey his corny thoughts. All he could say was her name. He suspected she was waiting, probably waiting for him to say it back, but he couldn't even do that. It was frustrating.
Dawn lifted her head and twirled her bracelet around her pointer finger. Her eyes were no longer watery. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “that isn't enough to make you stay here.”
He laced his fingers behind his neck, ripped his eyes away from the cakes to look at her, and said delicately, “I'm afraid not.”
He watched her sharply intake breath as she paused. “I know,” she finally murmured. “I figured I should try. I had to, you know? Just so I wouldn't wonder.”
“It's what
I like about you.”
He noticed Dawn look at him curiously at this statement, but he didn't bother clarifying. He dropped his hands, letting them swing by his side. They continued to walk down the pavement patched in wet and dry because of the striped awnings that hung above the shop doors. As they walked, he felt Dawn's fingers brush against the back of his hand before entwining themselves with his. He stared at their moving, distorted reflection in the window of a darkened shop lit by a streetlamp across the street.
“I guess,” she began, looking at Lucas, “in a way I'm sad this is all over. Don't get me wrong – I'm glad Lane's awake. But ... it's just ... I feel like something is over. It's silly. Nothing is over. Nothing is ever over. Nothing has even happened. But repeating that in your head doesn't make that feeling go away in your heart. I don't want what whatever we have to be over, Lucas.”
Lucas awkwardly looked away from Dawn's face and toward the sea, noticing rope curled around the railing. He desperately tried to change the subject; Dawn's current rambling was the last thing he wanted to talk about. “When I was little,” he began, lightly pressing his fingers against the back of her knuckles, “my mom brought me to some amusement park. You know, one of those historic things. She said it would be educational. I think Barry came with us.” He mentally scratched his head at the randomness of this conversation.
She was looking at their hands, and Lucas knew that she was thinking about why he ignored her last statement and began his own train of thought. She played along. “Sounds cute,” she replied without looking up. “What did you do there?”
“I learned how to make rope.”
“Yeah?”
“It was the most boring thing ever. Then the guy made the rope into a lasso and pulled me in with it, and I dropped my ice cream. Not a fun day. Evil stuff, rope.”
Dawn brought their entwined hands up and pressed her cold nose against the back of his hand. “I don't get you,” she said, her lips brushing against his skin. “One day you treat me like I'm some sort of swamp thing and the next day you're telling me bouts about your childhood.”
They stopped at a street sign lit by a nearby streetlight. He knew he should be leading them back home before it got too late and too cold, but he found that he didn't want to leave. Something strange washed over him, like that one guilty feeling in the library except it rested more in his throat than the pit of his stomach. Was he feeling sad that this was all over, too?
He tried to rid himself of the emotion. “Does that bother you?”
“It's what I like about you.”
The wash hit him harder. They stood next to a streetlight. Lucas ran his free hand down the concrete pillar while Dawn gripped their entwined hands tighter. “Besides,” she added with a tight-lipped grin, “I like a challenge.”
They stood there as Dawn swung their hands back and forth and Lucas pressed his hand harder against the streetlight, staring up at the golden bulb that drenched his face in its light. It had started to drizzle. Dawn lifted her face and let the light rain sprinkle down on her, bangs sticking to her forehead. Lucas mused that during this point of a corny romance movie, he was suppose to cup her face in his hands and kiss her, but he didn't have the balls to do anything but seduce the streetlight with his strokes.
He was fine, you know, fine with the way he was. He knew he was alone; he didn't mind that he was alone because things are better off that way for him and for everyone else. He hated hurting people because he had to leave all the time, and it's better to cut ties in one clean, but painful, swoop.
It's me caring for others by not caring for others. But in such a short span of time, Dawn took years of carefully crafted logic, made it look apeshit retarded, and flipped it onto its head, and suddenly he cared for someone else. Goddammit. He had to get over it. It's for the fu
cking best, Lucas.
“Let's go home,” she said as she dragged the top of her boot in circles across the pavement while letting go of his hands to curl hers into the sleeves of her jacket. “I just wanna go home and put on warm pajamas and cozy up in bed with a cup of tea and a book.” Her eyes followed down the concrete path that slowly stripped away Canalave's civilization the further away she looked. “Don't you wanna put on dry clothes and just bask in the relief of this finally being over?”
No, that was the last thing he wanted. They weren't soaked–yet, anyway, and they wouldn't be if Lucas could pull his stupid hand away from the sexy, sexy lamppost and get out his umbrella–but he would rather stay wet than give into the future dooming him to be alone and the thought process that kept telling him that him being alone was a good thing. He had no idea what that had to do with umbrellas. His thoughts were all tumbling around in his head like jeans in a dryer, thick and heavy and filled with loose change that rattled around or something. He had no idea what the hell he was thinking anymore other than corny thoughts that didn't match his interactions in real life. And laundry.
“Yeah,” he finally said. He pulled his hand away and curled it into a fist. That wasn't what he wanted to say. That wasn't what he was thinking.
Dawn smiled at him and nudged him in the arm with her elbow. “Come on, you dork. Let's go.” She started to walk forward, toward the future (enough with the corny metaphors that pass as thoughts, Lucas) while he lingered in the past (what did I just say about this metaphor?), or what was going to be the past but was still currently the present, and now more rambling brought to you by Mr. Mime Floor Cleanser™. He had to say something.
“Dawn,” he said, mouth tugged down, eyes squinted as he took a step forward when she was already five steps ahead.
She stopped and turned her head, hair swinging to the side. “What?” Her eyes caught the golden glint of the streetlight. Lucas started to breathe heavily for some reason – he had no idea why – as his nerves maneuvered back up his legs and rested in the back of his throat and noticed that, hey, these tonsils make good punching bags: let's practice boxing with them. What was so hard about saying what he wanted to say, that she wasn't all that bad to be around? That he, too, didn't want to leave behind the “whatever” they had built up to do his own stuff and for her to do her own? He wanted her to use that timing slowing power she had.
She instead used another power. Lucas wondered how she did it sometimes, how she could read into people's facial expressions and assume–usually correctly–the things a person was so concerned about. He assumed she would have giggled in glee about his new feelings toward her and bug him with whatever schoolyard taunt she could think of, but her empathy overrode all, and maybe she needed the comfort, too. She knew he was worried about time. She knew that he ... that he ... Disgusting stuff. That's all you need to know. Disgusting, cutesy stuff. How pathetic. He couldn't even say it in his head.
Get over it, he repeated in his head. Get over her. You have to.
“We do need to come back tomorrow,” she said as she took two wide steps forward to stand next to his side again. “To check in on Lane and all that fun stuff.” She pulled on his arm to make him start walking down the gold, empty streets like he was a stubborn jackass, and he obliged.
“Yeah,” he said.
“And, you know, you do need to pack up for that Battle Frontage–”
“Frontier,” he muttered.
“Same diff. I mean, that's an extra day or something, isn't it?”
Not really. “Yeah.”
“So don't worry about time,” she said.
“I'm not.” He was.
The concrete stopped and the long grass started, tangling around their ankles. She let go of his arm and walked ahead, stretching her hands over her head and grasping at the air. “Hey, question,” she said, stepping on a twig and cracking it in half. “Important question!”
Lucas put his hands on top of his head, elbows extended out. “What?”
“There's a fair coming to Jubilife in a couple of days, and since you're going to be here still for a couple more days, I thought you'd might like to go with me. It'll be super fun. We'll get hyped on sugar and we can both vomit it up on the zipper ride.”
He looked at her funny as she stopped in her tracks, smiling. “What do you say?”
“I ...” He was expected to be at the Battle Frontier in a couple of days–they were angry enough that he had put it off for so long–and as much as he wanted to stay, he knew he couldn't. He was about to say no, tell her that he had things to do, people to see, pokémon to battle, any excuse he could muster so he could unfortunately return to the life he had become so accustom to, and that he could go with her to something else later if she still wanted to–maybe, if they were lucky–but her eyes suddenly snapped up towards his and quickly swept back and forth, reading his face. And like that, a light hope disappeared into heavy disappointment.
“I keep forgetting that you've got other stuff to do,” she said with a forced laugh, trying to ease the tension. “Sorry. Don't worry about it. I mean, I've got other stuff to do too and ... yeah.”
She was the one making excuses now? “Well, I'm glad you understand, I guess. I do gotta get out of here as soon as I can,” he said, dropping one hand to run it down his pokéball belt. Torterra, Lucario, Magmortar, Honchkrow ...
Honchkrow ...
Sh
it. He made a promise to the damn bird that he would take her out. The damn bird knew saw this coming. Lucas would have to thank him later.
“Well, wait,” he sighed with fake exasperation. Might as well pretend that he wouldn't enjoy it for now. “I guess I can go if it means that much to you.”
She opened her mouth, surprised. “Really?” she asked. “I mean, I was just throwing it out there, and I thought you might want to, and if you have to leave, I don't want to stop you–“
“I want to,” he said. For once, the thought matched the dialogue.
She wrapped him into a hug and clung around his shoulders as she kicked her legs up, and he melted into her.
Dawn swiped Lucas's hat off his head and threw it on top of her own. “Come on!” she said gleefully, skipping backward, his hat bouncing. “If we make it home fast enough, my mom might make us something to eat!”
Free food was all the motivation he needed to hurry him up. Before he could chase her down, something vibrated in his pocket. He pulled out his cellphone and read the text on his screen.
From: 011-555-5215
To: 011-555-2134
Fwd: Hey, it's Dawn! Hope you don't mind that I got your number from Lucas's phone. I think me and Lucas are going to Jubilife's annual festival in a couple days, though I still gotta ask him. I was wondering if you'd like to come join us if you're in the area! It'll be super fun! Call or text me back so we can sort out stuff! <3 Dawn
You fucking jackass. You told me you didn't have her number. I will see you there. And I'm fining you a million dollars for that. – Barry
“Lucas!” Dawn stamped her foot and pouted. She was already a few feet ahead. “Hurry up!”
She really couldn't stop meddling with things, could she?
He groaned and chased after her.
He'll get over her another day.
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And they lived happily ever after. The End.
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