In the Event of a Broken Heart
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Even broken hearts have to end up somewhere.
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Where exactly did hearts go when they break?
Dawn sighed as she let her feet bring her to wherever that was. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket for the nth time that night. There was no doubt that whoever was calling her would be one of her worried friends. It wasn't surprising that even with miles and seas between her and her friends, they had managed to figure out the news of her breakup. She wouldn't have been surprised either if the rest of the coordinating world - fans and coordinators like - knew of her current situation. Then again, when she first entered herself into a contest, she submitted herself to public scrutiny. It got worse when she became a renowned coordinator who was part of an elite (as spectators would call it, at least) group of your adults with Ash Ketchum and Gary Oak. However, the worst was when she admitted to the world that Paul Richards, then Sinnohan Elite Four in Training, was her (ex)boyfriend. Privacy then became only an option. Media followed such couples in their every move.
That was why not even half an hour after their breakup, Dawn and Paul had become the top trending topic in any and every social media platform there was. Not only had they become a trending topic, but hate posts from Paul-supporters attacked her almost every hour since then. She had no doubt Paul was getting the same flack from her own supporters.
She swore off checking her phone for a whole week. Hopefully her friends understood.
A light sound snapped Dawn from her thoughts. She turned around and saw a beautifly with a letter tied to one of its feet. With anxious steps, Dawn made her way to the pokemon and took the letter. She was a bit wary because, while Dawn knew her friend May owned a beautifly, there was no guarantee that the pokemon who brought the letter was actually May's. It could have been a hater's pokemon for all Dawn knew.
Hesitantly, she opened the letter and slowly brought it to her eye-level.
Dawn, the letter said, we're near the town where you are right now if you need to talk. You've probably turned your phone off so you haven't seen my texts and which is why you've haven't been answering anyone's calls, but we're...around (I guess?) if you need someone to talk to. Love, May.
Ps. We = me, Drew, Leaf, and Gary supposedly, but he's gone off somewhere.
A small, sad smile graced Dawn's face. The clean script handwriting was unmistakably May's. At least, Dawn acknowledge, May understood. The brunette had experienced something similar with Drew and Steven (Stone, of all people!) not too long ago.
Dawn looked up at Beautifly who seemed be waiting for a response. The bug pokemon tilted its head to the side.
"Tell them not to worry about me," Dawn told Beautifly, knowing the pokemon somehow understood her. "I'll look for them if ever I need to." The pokemon nodded and flew off back to its trainer.
Dawn sighed and continued her musing. Again, like she had been doing several minutes ago, she let her legs take her to wherever.
Two hours later (or so it seemed, since she wasn't really paying attention to time), Dawn found herself sitting at the rooftop of a building. She had the whole town and beach in her view. She breathed deeply, taking in everything – the air, her surroundings, her emotions, her feelings. When she exhaled, she breathed all of those out to the best of her ability. The air was breathed out, her surroundings were back where they were, but her feelings and emotions were still bottled up.
She closed her eyes and sighed. Her legs hung on the edge of the building. Her emotions bubbled up inside of her that she wanted, with all her might, to yell from where she was.
But she didn't.
Instead, her emotions forced itself out of her body when one tear betrayed her, and the rest followed. She was so caught up that she didn't notice someone else's arrival on the rooftop until a light fabric landed on her shoulders.
"Hey," the other figure said softly. Dawn looked up in surprise to see who had graced her with their presence. "Thought you'd be cold," he explained, gesturing to the jacket that covered Dawn.
"Drew," Dawn whispered. The green-haired male nodded before taking a seat next to Dawn.
"The one and only," Drew muttered under his breath. He looked towards Dawn's direction to find her wiping away the tears that were still streaming down her face. In a second, Drew reached in his pocket, took his handkerchief out, and offered it to Dawn. "It's clean," Drew reassured before Dawn took it.
"How'd you find me?" She didn't know why, but Dawn was almost a hundred percent certain that she was clear from the public eye at such a private space.
"Flygon." Unless of course people had flying pokemon big enough to carry people around and scout the area. "If you must know though, practically the whole town was was looking for you up until an hour ago."
Dawn groaned and buried her head in her hands. "I thought you were in the next town," Dawn accused. "Are they looking for me there too?" Drew didn't move, and that was enough of an answer for Dawn.
"In my defense though," Drew started, "I'm among the people whose reasons for looking for you don't involve spreading gossip. When May found out you sent Beautifly back without any note, she got worried so she kept tabs on social media. When social media said you went missing, she sent a search crew – which consisted of just me and Leaf, really – to find you. She's looking for you too, just so you know."
"How come you were the only one who managed to find me up here?"
"Because you're pretty similar to May when you want to be left alone," Drew said simply. "Even though you girls love attention, when you want to be alone, you really make yourself alone and find places where people wouldn't really bother looking at."
"This seemed like an obvious enough place."
"I mean high places. Nobody looks up. They search the ground. May and I found you on a tree once, remember? I thought she was crazy that time since she was telling me to look for you in trees. I really thought Ash would be the one we'd most likely find hanging on a tree." Drew paused. "She's probably looking for you in trees right now. She's cute like that."
She smiled softly as she remembered. That time, she had a shouting match with Misty about something so petty they had forgotten what they were fighting about. Misty went off to cool off by the shore, while Dawn climbed a tree.
"Why high places?" Drew asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Because," Dawn said, pulling her knees towards her chest and tucking them under her chin, "the view is different from up here. It's a temporary escape from reality. Nobody bothers you there."
Drew only nodded and followed Dawn's eyes that focused on the lights that flickered. An amiable silence fell upon the pair.
"You know," Dawn said, breaking the silence. "If the media finds us sitting together, a whole new bunch of rumors will begin. That whole love triangle thing you and May got caught up in a couple of months ago hasn't died down yet, and here you are with another girl. You'll get a reputation of a player if you keep this up."
Drew shrugged. "May would understand. People who have nothing to do with their lives would make up rumors regardless. Besides, I'd risk all the crap I'd get if it mean making sure you're okay, Dawn, and trust me, as your best friend's boyfriend, I can attest that she would risk it too. I don't want you hurt, she wouldn't either. I don't want to see you to feel alone, she wouldn't want to either. I'd take you to her, but you don't seem to want to be in the public eye, so this is the best compromise I could make." With those words, Dawn froze. She turned at Drew with a look to show how much she appreciated his presence right then and there.
"If you and May already weren't so in love with each other, I'd have dated you instead," she teased. Drew raised an eyebrow at her, but otherwise didn't respond. He'd been on the receiving end of comments like that ever since he got together with May, but the fact that he heard it a lot didn't make it any less awkward. Dawn sighed. "Are you guys looking out for him too?"
"Paul?" Drew asked, to which Dawn nodded. "I know Leaf tried looking for him. Last thing I knew before I flew over to find you was that he told her, over text, not to go looking for him. Gary probably is though."
"Typical Paul," Dawn remarked softly. Drew hummed in response before silence yet again encompassed the two, only to be broken by Drew.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, still looking at the flickering lights in the distance.
"About?"
"Everything."
A slight pause to his right made Drew turn his head to face Dawn. The girl was visibly trying her best not to cry, holding her tears in with all her might. With the topic brought back from where it had buried itself moments ago, she felt her heart grow heavy as if it were about to explode.
"Not in the mood to talk?" Drew asked.
Dawn nodded once and Drew did not push the subject. Instead, he took his hand and started patting Dawn's head. Overwhelmed by everything that happened to her in the span of one day, and triggered by Drew's action, Dawn wept for the second time that evening. The second time however, she willingly did so.
"Let it out," Drew whispered, his lips lingering on her hairline and his hand rubbing the small of her back. "Just let everything out."
And she did. They stayed there in that position until the sun began to rise.
Where do hearts go when they break?
Sometimes they'd get lost, linger a bit before they feel like moving.
And then they stop. They'd try to escape reality, even if it were just a temporary escape.
Until another heart comes by and pulls them back down to earth, prompting them to move again.
A/N: I tried to slip in some ContestShipping there. Hehe.