Chapter 21
Twisted Sister

Annabelle had been an only child. So the supposed bond that existed between siblings had been unobtainable at best, and downright mythical at worst. She always wondered how a sibling relationship felt. How different was it from, say a bond with a friend or a bond with a cousin. It wasn't feasible to imagine.

She envied people with siblings. Even those who moaned about them. Siblings had shared memories, support from all sides even if you were in the wrong, someone who was always there to talk to. Someone made up of the same nuts and bolts. Another side of her. It was the big thing she was missing all her life.

But as she sat awkwardly between Paul and Kathleen, she had to consider that maybe she had been wrong about sibling relationships all this time.

They had ended up at Kathleen's apartment in Morningside Place, known locally as the place for the well-to-do and the hoity-toity. Annabelle hadn't heard the conversation between brother and sister that got them here, but she suspected that Paul's heroic intake of beer had somehow softened his inhibitions.

Kathleen served them perfumed tea in fine china. Annabelle's teacup had tiny painted birds on it. Handpainted, most likely. Paul didn't touch his. Nor did Kathleen, despite how much she had fussed while making it. Annabelle took a mouthful and struggled to swallow. Setting the teacup back in the saucer made it rattle.

"…lovely tea." She forced herself to meet Kathleen's eye.

"Thank you." came a stunted reply.

Paul had mentioned that Kathleen was a doctor. Annabelle didn't think much of her bedside manner.

She swept her gaze around, desperate for something to look at. Kathleen's apartment was immaculate and expensive-looking, like she was being charged just for the luxury of staring at something for too long. Paul had his head bowed and wouldn't look at anything.

There were photographs uniformed on top of the exquisite mantelpiece. Was it a normal girl thing to have so many photos of just yourself? There she was in a cap and gown, in a bikini on a beach, making a peace sign while steering the wheel of a boat, standing on top of a mountain, sitting astride a Rapidash holding some sort of wooden club. A grand total of two depicted her with other people. One of her posing with five other girls wearing exquisite ballgowns and one of her with a handsome, olive skinned man gazing at her like she was worth her weight in gold. A shrine to a perfect life full of opportunity. It made Annabelle's heart ache with envy when she thought of her own life, meagre by comparison.

"I'm getting married." Kathleen finally broke the silence.

"I know. Mother told me."

"… I'd like you to be there."

"Why?"

It took Kathleen a moment to breathe out "Because you're my brother."

"I suppose."

Silence fell again. Annabelle busied herself with the photographs. There was one wedged behind the photograph of Kathleen and her fiancé that she hadn't noticed until then.

This frame seemed to have the honour of sporting the only speck of dust that Annabelle had seen so far. Three children looked up at her from behind the frame. Kathleen was in the middle, there was no mistaking that haughty expression and pinched face even as a child. There was a little girl toddling on chubby legs, mouth agape in perfectly captured laughter. And then, off to the side, a young boy. A young boy with a head full of tight blonde curls and holding onto the hands of the youngest girl. He was smiling, showing off a gap in the teeth. It took her far too long to realise who it was.

"Look at how cute you are!" Annabelle burst out, causing a startled Paul to almost drop his cup on the wooden floor. "I almost didn't recognise you!"

"Annabelle, put that down!" Paul said through gritted teeth. When she didn't, he stomped over, yanked it out of her hand and slammed it down so hard the rest of the pictures rattled.

"Will you be careful!?" Kathleen barked and the two of them, admonished like naughty schoolchildren, slunk back towards their seats.

A slow minute dripped by. Paul sat with his hands folded in his lap again before announcing. "Bathroom."

Annabelle looked at him quizzically.

"Bathroom." He repeated when Kathleen looked at him.

She sighed. "Upstairs, third door on the right."

Kathleen waited until the sound of his footsteps on the stairs stopped before she sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "This was a mistake."

"Why?"

"Bringing him here. There's no point."

"Again… why?"

"Please." Kathleen snorted. "It's obvious there's no love lost between us. He won't even look at me. Been this way for years. He's impossible to deal with." She paused. "But he surprised me. Bringing a girlfriend here."

"I'm not his girlfriend." Annabelle said at once.

"Really?" Kathleen looked disappointed. "Pity… Having a girlfriend might actually sort him out. Help him deal with his issues."

"Being with someone or loving someone doesn't magically erase people's problems. You're a doctor, I thought you would know that."

Kathleen's eyebrows twitched. She took a long draught of tea. "Why are you interested in my brother?"

"I'm not. We're friends."

"Friends? That's even more confusing." She said with a laugh. "I mean, if you love someone, you're stuck like that. You can't help it. But actually choosing him as a friend. That's… that's messed up."

Annabelle struggled to keep her face calm and neutral. There was something about this woman that infuriated her, but she didn't want to give her the satisfaction of seeing that. "Paul and I are travelling to Cianwood, actually. I'm a Pokemon breeder. I have… business there and Paul is… helping."

"Pokemon? You're a Pokemon trainer?"

"Breeder." Annabelle corrected, but it went ignored.

"I'm surprised Paul keeps the company of an actual Pokemon trainer."

Annabelle was quickly losing her battle to keep herself composed. "Paul is an actual Pokemon trainer."

A look passed over Kathleen's face so quickly that she thought she had missed it. It was followed with a snooty laugh. "Please, you must be joking."

"Not joking. I gave him his first Pokemon myself."

Kathleen went very quiet. She stood up and turned her back on Annabelle, facing the photographs now askew on the mantelpiece. "He finally did it, then."

"Finally did what?"

"Nothing."

"No, that was certainly not "nothing"." Annabelle challenged. "Tell me."

"How much do you actually know about my brother?"

"He's an arrogant, loudmouth pain in the ass."

Kathleen made a noise that could have been a laugh. "Well," she said carefully. "You're not wrong. But I mean, what do you actually know about him?"

When Annabelle hesitated, Kathleen sighed and swept herself back into her armchair. She crossed her legs and fixed Annabelle with a stern stare. "You know our parents are really well off, right?"

Annabelle didn't. But it didn't surprise her.

"Father is a software engineer. One of the best in the country. Mother might be known, as she calls it, "professional arm candy" right now, but she used to be a high flying project manager. When myself, Paul and Meghan came along, she quit. I don't blame her. But by then, Father was making more than enough to support us anyway." She paused, not quite sure where to go from there. "Our parents had… have high expectations. They paid a lot for the best schools, extra tuition, proper hobbies. And Paul was smart. Smarter even then me or Meghan. He was the golden child."

Now that was a surprise. "Really?"

"Yes. And he was normal until he got to the age of ten."

"…and?"

"Well, then he did what every other ten year old wants to do, didn't he? He wanted to go and be a Pokemon trainer."

"What…?" Annabelle stammered. "But Paul… Paul… I mean, when I met him he didn't want to train Pokemon. Like, ever! He just cared about his game versions of them."

"Probably because he got the desire beaten out of him."

Kathleen's words held a darkness to them that hung thickly in the air. Annabelle found she couldn't say anything and instead waited for Kathleen to continue.

"Father was determined Paul would become something good. A lawyer, an architect, a doctor…" she said the last with a sigh. "Paul didn't want to. No, he wanted to be like the kids he watched on TV. A Pokemon trainer. But Father said no. Any time Paul asked or spoke about it, he said no. I remember him crying a lot. And his grades going down in school because he was unhappy. And then there was… an incident."

"Oh?" Annabelle's breath hitched.

"Don't ask me how he did it, but… he got a hold of a Pokemon. Some weird, obscure thing from Sinnoh. I think one of Father's credit cards was involved. Well, of course my parents found out, because as smart as my brother was, he was still a dumb eleven year old kid. Father went crazy. I remember hearing him shout long into the night and Paul didn't go to school for a week afterwards. He stopped talking about going to become a trainer pretty much overnight. He became withdrawn, he got angry over small things, he stopped seeing his friends. Now that I'm older, I know it was textbook depression."

The word "depression" felt like something had snapped deep within her. Yet Kathleen had delivered the verdict with a sort of clinical coldness, like it had nothing to do with her.

"My parents must have known that too because they started buying him games consoles. Well, it started as anything popular among kids. No price was too big. It just happened that it was games consoles that worked for him. His grades started going back up and that was all my parents cared about. They didn't care he was getting sadder, getting angrier, shutting himself up in his room all day. Course, this is when Father started working away more and Mother had a bigger social calendar since we were all old enough to not need babysitters anymore."

Kathleen paused to take a long drink of tea. She grimaced, setting the cup back down. "Cold."

Paul had been gone for a very long time.

"What happened after that?"

Kathleen twitched her shoulders. "You can probably tell. Paul wasn't being supported. Quick fixes are just that. Quick. His grades started slipping again. Instead he became fixated on those games. It was the only times I ever saw him happy. He told me once that he wanted to make the Pokemon in his teams perfect. Perfect enough that they wouldn't be scared. That they could stand up for themselves. And then they would be loved."

There were tears rolling down Annabelle's face.

Footsteps descended the stairs. Annabelle leapt to her feet, rubbing furiously at the tracks on her cheeks. As Paul pushed his way back into the room, she found she didn't trust herself to look at him.

"What are you two talking about?" he asked gruffly.

Annabelle's words failed her, but Kathleen interjected with "Oh, you know, just girl talk" and she was saved.

"Right…"

"That… that bathroom was third on the right, right?" Annabelle spluttered out. She didn't wait for an answer, but barrelled out of the room immediately, letting the door slam shut.

"I feel sorry for that girl, going in after you." Kathleen joked, but Paul's face remained unchanged. She tried a different tact. "She's nice, that Annabelle."

"She is." It sounded more of a question than a statement.

"Yeah. She is. I don't know why she likes you."

"And I don't know if you're trying to tease me or insult me."

"I'm upset you think I'd insult you for no reason."

"Yeah? Well I'm upset you're acting so… normal! You're infuriating!" Paul had never been good at expressing himself, especially when his emotions were all tied up. Words tumbled from him relentlessly. "I haven't even seen you in years and now I'm in your fancy apartment sharing tea? Huh! You never called, you never even bothered to send a text or a message. Then out of nowhere I hear from Mother you're marrying some guy you've barely known six months."

"Don't bring him into this. He's a good man and he can support me."

"Can't you support yourself, Miss Doctor at a Private Clinic? Or are you too busy getting fat and lazy off Father's money?"

"You know Father always said we wouldn't see a penny of his money until he passed away."

"Yeah, but it won't be you or your fiancé paying for the wedding, will it?"

"Oh, grow up, will you?" Kathleen spat.

"No, you grow up! You were always the favourite! What did you know about being in pain, being lonely, being sad! You had everything handed to you! You've never had to face normality in your life!"

Kathleen didn't know what to say. "Paul…"

"You were never there for me growing up! You just stood by and watched when Father yelled… or hit… or did whatever he thought he was entitled to do! You never helped. Even when I was sad. Not even now. You're a doctor. Surely you know, at least now, things weren't right. Couldn't you help?"

"I can't help you like that. I'm not your therapist, Paul. I'm not your doctor."

Paul's chest was heaving. "No. You're my sister."

Kathleen flinched like she was just hit in the face.

"And if you've only brought me here so that… I can be a ticked box on your checklist of "perfect wedding day" shit, you can go to hell. Because it's either that or to soothe some… inflated sense of guilt!" He let out a sharp breath. "I'm not interested. I'm sorry."

Then he was gone, barging through the house, hollering for Annabelle and they were gone, like sheets of paper scattered in the wind.

.-.-.

It was nearing midnight. Paul hadn't stopped walking until the posh streets disappeared behind them. Kathleen hadn't followed them but Paul still moved faster than Annabelle had ever seen him move. Eventually he sunk into a bench, sweating and panting with effort. But he didn't speak. Paul always spoke. Even if it was just an angry mutter under his breath or an unintelligible grunt.

The streets in this part of Goldenrod were quiet. Family homes surrounded them on all sides. White picket fences, manicured gardens, children's toys strewn on the path. Only a handful still had lights on.

"…What was the Pokemon?"

She hadn't wanted to ask questions. Everything Kathleen said had been self-explanatory. The last thing she wanted was to inflame him even more. She half-expected Paul to flinch, make some sort of movement, even yell at her to mind her own damn business. She wished he would, especially when he said "What Pokemon?"

"Paul, don't make me say it…" she whispered. "The Pokemon your dad took away from you."

She instinctively winced as if to protect herself from the inevitable fallout. But none came. Paul sat at the edge of the bench and did not even give the impression that he had heard her. Was it the wrong thing to say? Should she have just kept quiet?

"It was a Drifloon. And he didn't take it away."

He said it so candidly, with so little feeling that at first she dared hope it wasn't as bad as she feared. But Paul's face was clouded, his jaw set and his hands balled into fists. Annabelle swallowed back the threat of tears.

"I'm sorry…"

"Nobody's asking you to be sorry."

"I… I know. I just feel like I should be."

"Why?"

"Because somebody needs to be sorry!"

A minute slipped away. From inside one of the houses, a light clicked on as a baby started to cry.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Annabelle asked.

"No."

"Okay then…" Annabelle murmured. "But if you do… you know where I am, right?"

"You're right where I need you to be."

She smiled through watery tears. "Right where I always will be."

She slotted her arm through his and the two of them sat until the moon came under siege by thousands of tiny stars.

Author's Note

Hi guys, Spiral here! A slightly shorter chapter than usual but I crammed so much into it I didn't want to overload people

So yeah we finally unlocked Paul's tragic backstory! There'll be a bit more to see with it, some payoff to it happening in the near future.

The next chapter sees Paul and Annabelle on the final leg of their journey to Cianwood! I hope to close that arc within five chapters and then there'll be a lot of Paul-centric stuff happening (and maybe even a meeting with Dest) to contend with!

Anyway, until the next update!