I hate it when people say you don't need someone else to complete your life. They only say it because they are afraid. Oh! You don't need a man, but you do need a family, you do need a sister, a brother or a friend, but not a man, no, God forbid. You may find somebody who complements you, because complementing sounds awfully better than completing. It has more letters after all, and it is better, because reasons. But the real fact of the matter is: you cannot survive on your own. Not biologically, not sentimentally, not ontologically. You can't.
This was one of the first real lessons I learned in life. Learning it made me sad, but I reflect not knowing it made me even sadder. To learn it I had to be alone for a while, made a world which can't stop talking finally shut up by getting away from it a little bit, which, I recognize, is painfully necessary to learn what is truly inside you. I don't wish I could survive on my own anymore, there's no point to it, and life wouldn't be life without all its limits.
Deep into the night, Ash, the little one, and I, were all wide awake, chatting and laughing and eating and running all around Ash's house, where I found my heart. He and the little one were safekeeping it for me, I had no idea. There, they put it back into my body, my love reserves were re-established, and I was able to resume my life as a professional lover. Of course I was not getting remunerated for my services with money, but with love itself, which I find to be immensely more valuable than any physical currency, even if I'm the only one who holds such a cheesy view.
After that fateful night, when I decided to extend my stay in Kanto for a few days, earning a few 'I told you so's' from friends and family, I went back to my hotel room just in time for the telephone to ring. It was the little one, who at that point only knew I was staying somewhere near the park were we first met. Firstly she apologized, albeit only on her father's orders, as it seemed to him inappropriate to call at that moment—apparently the boy-at-heart Ash was hiding a well developed, capable and prudent, adult side. Then, after my assurance which she seemed not to mind at all, she invited me for a play date the next day. I recognize my newly-regained feelings got the better of me and I said yes, yes, yes! Right after pretending to hesitate for one second, and our next encounter was then set.
Of course, when the time to meet again arrived, my idealized idyll met its tragic finale, which was filled with an incommensurable amount of awkwardness, embarrassment, confusion, and defeat. A truly unexpected individual opened Ash's door, and proceeded to show me why my idealistic indulgence in my renewed love for love itself was greatly misplaced, and why I shouldn't have allowed myself to dream.
Dawn, was just as surprised to find me outside as I was to find her inside Ash's house. I genuinely couldn't help blurting out "What are you doing here?" As soon as I saw her, with a primal sense of urgency. She, unlike me, was in full control of her body and her voice, if not her eyes. I saw it in them. I saw her restrain herself, I saw her ordering her mouth to give me a smile full of condescension, before she said: "Excuse me, who are you?" And I felt so dirty, so small, so defeated when I answered her: "Hi I'm Serena, I'm a friend of -redacted- and an old friend of Ash (I said this sporting a stupid smile muddied with embarrassment and fear, why did I start by saying I was a friend of his daughter? Dear reader, is a question that has not left my mind since, even after the matter has long been resolved)."
Her eyes mocked me, she owed me. She said Ash was out helping Professor Oak, as in Gary Oak, whose grandfather was long dead (I could've had more tact and respect when writing this, but the mere remembrance of that particular encounter brings me a wide array of feelings, none of them pleasant). It was not until the little one saw me that Dawn released me from her clutches, she certainly didn't have to be so mean. I fell victim to a mugger's trade one time, and I swear the hyperbolic state in which the tragedy left me was not different from that moment where Dawn looked straight into my eyes.
It was the supplice I had wished for just the day before. The little one, as I seem to have failed to notice then, was still a child, with an impressionable mind and a capricious memory. She stayed glued to the couch on the living room with her eyesight equally glued to the big screen in front of her, which currently showed the adventures of a charismatic aipom and his friends, all of whom happened to be speaking the same language as the little one. As such was the case, she couldn't miss one second of it.
"It's her favorite show," Dawn said before escorting me to the kitchen, pulling out a chair from the breakfast table, just for me, and serving me a cup of her rendition of mother nature's revitalizing beverage, which, as my present self can attest in past tense, was spitefully delightful, and the three cups that I consumed while sitting on her domains colored my entrails of a maudlin brownish crimson for the rest of the afternoon. The ensuing conversation wasn't so much a friendly banter as it was a subdued and restrained boast from her part:
"We were thinking about going shopping today, weren't we?" (I am the master of her appearance, I dress her to my liking)
"She loves my mushrooms bathed in tamato sauce, it's her favorite, but today I was thinking of making mac and cheese, she loves that too." (I nurture her and this has been my domain for a considerable amount of time)
"I was just talking to her teacher the other day, she's brilliant, albeit a bit restless." (I am ingrained in their routine, so if you had the faintest idea of changing their status quo and inserting yourself into their lives, think again)
"She'll be a great pokemon coordinator one day." (She already has a mother figure, so if you were hoping to exploit that angle you can forget about it)
"I'm so sorry I didn't remember you at first glance, of course I know you Serena, and Ash has told me a lot about you." (That's right, Ash and I talk so much even your picayune name somehow appeared in our mouths)
I mainly just listened.
Once I revealed that I was only staying in the region for a few days her sight became to my anxiousness significantly smoother; appeasing. And I realized two things: one, Dawn is a very pleasant and sanguine companion, and two, I really am a coward. When I was eight a kid from my neighborhood and his furfrou stole my bike. Just a week after their criminal act was committed they had become my best friends. That was the first public display from Serena la petit lâche.
Not long after the change of humors we were laughing out loud, tongue and teeth at full display. The little one joined us after her tv show ended and an all-female variety show took over, at which point she promptly turned off the tv. The idea that never arrived to me, for more than one reason, did arrive to Dawn some time after the tragedy, but I could tell she hadn't acted in an opportunistic, advantageous, or malicious manner, because of how happy the little one was under her care. Dawn had already become everything I had spent the entirety of the previous night dreaming. She had accomplished what I whimsically calculated would take me months to achieve.
In that house I took back my heart, and it told me one thing: it needed a specific father-daughter combo to be appeased. I took my heart to them and discovered they didn't need (want) me. So it was obvious to me, during that moment, that the logical next step in Serena's journey was to rip her heart out and send it far, far away. Afterwards little coward Serena would finally be at peace, if not happy.
