Disclaimer: Pokémon and its related properties are copyrighted to The Pokémon Company and Nintendo, respectively
A Yearning for the Mud
Chapter Forty-Four – Dangerous Love
Footfalls echo in the memory – T.S. Eliot
Armed with a student work pass, a crisp pair of cobalt blue scrubs, and wavering certainty, Wallace walked through the doorway of his and Cole's visitor room in the Clinic.
Water running drew his attention to the bathroom where he saw Cheryl, hunched over the sink, her shoulder blades working in circles. Across the room, on the other side of the bed, stood Cole, the bottoms of his scrubs hanging loosely from his hips as he worked on cinching the waist strings.
"You're late," Cheryl said, emerging from the bathroom, hands raised and dipping water. "I said be here at eight."
With slow intent, Wallace turned to the wall clock, its thin black hands assuring him he had time to spare. "I'm fifteen minutes early," he said, dryly.
"When you work here, you're never early," Cheryl said. "Get changed, we've got a lot of work ahead of us to clear tyrogue's lungs today." Cheryl's dark, intelligent, eyes fell on Wallace as she crossed the room and exited through the door into the lab.
"Ignore her," Cole said, pulling his shirt off and slipping his issued top on. "I got here five minutes ago and she told me I was late too. How do I look?"
Wallace nodded in approval at Cole's appearance. Something about medical scrubs, like a doctor's signature white jacket, seemed to change everything about a person. From Cole's normal appearance of an average unkempt student, the scrubs turned him into something of a ruffled medical student with bright eyes ready to tackle his next patient's problem head-on.
Wallace looked at his folded up scrubs as he dipped into the bathroom and wondered if they'd work their same magic on him. Inside, he dumped his scrubs onto the edge of the sink, dotted with water spots, and started to undress.
As per Chery's request, Wallace left his team at home, because she claimed having elgyem floating overhead during the operation would be distracting. Still, not wanting to leave any form of defense behind in his room, he transferred spinarak's ball from his jeans into the pocket of his scrubs as he changed.
Wallace balled up his clothes and while pulling a pair of paper covers onto his shoes, his phone buzzed on the sink, vibrating near the edge. Glancing at the caller ID, Wallace picked up as he stuffed his clothes under his arm and exited the room. "Antionette?" he answered, his tone implying his surprise to hear from the Kalos champion out of the blue.
"Hi, Wallace," Antionette said. "How are you?"
"I'm okay," he said, catching Cole's eyes on him from where the upperclassmen stood in the doorway to the lab. "Is everything okay? Is something wrong with Andrew?"
"No! He's doing great, actually, he's been taking his mom to lunch everyday since you left," Antionette said. "I'm calling about you. Some people came by your house today with a letter. I didn't open it, but the address says its from an insurance agency."
"I was waiting for the insurance money from the cabin and my father's life policy," Wallace said, a torrid taste filling his mouth at the thought of cashing in on his father's murder.
"Really?" Antionette asked. That's weird, it didn't come through the mail, it was dropped off by two guys in suits. Wonder why it's just now getting to you."
"The insurance company told me the process couldn't be completed while my father's death was still being actively investigated," Wallace said, lowering his voice as he noticed Cole's attention being drawn his way again. "I guess they finally got word from the police that the investigation is over. Can you open it for me?"
"Ooh, looking to know how much richer you'll be?" Antionette asked over the sound of paper tearing.
"Kind of," Wallace said, sighing into the phone as he walked a circle. "I used a lot of the company's money to repay the people my father defrauded. I was hoping the insurance money would be enough to cover what I used and offer incentives to the remaining workers as incentives to stay on with the company," Wallace said. Despite wanting little to do with the business, part of him hated seeing his father's work and legacy suffer and had tried to do whatever seemed possible to keep it afloat.
Waiting for Antionette to read the letter's contents to him, Wallace broke his circle of pacing and joined Cole in the doorway to the lab. The upperclassman stood, shoulder touching the doorway with his arms crossed as he watched Cheryl's chimecho use its powers to lift tyrogue from his bed onto an odd-looking chair. The chair, a shiny black plastic, had a short back and an armrest that extended across the front. Chimecho laid the motionless tyrogue into the chair, propped so that his arms draped over the armrest.
"Uhh," Antionette said as she ruffled papers through the line. "This isn't – I don't think this is what you were waiting for."
"What is it?" Wallace asked, his eyes flicking to Cole as he backed out of the doorway, not wanting Cheryl to catch him on the phone as the clock ticked closer to eight.
"It says your claim to the insurance money for the burned cabin is being withheld because another party has requested the money," Antionette said. "I guess the cabin didn't belong to your dad?" she said. "It says the cabin was owned by the Pearce family as a whole which means another living relative can claim it. Your request to receive a payout for your dad's life insurance is being blocked by another party under the grounds of mentally instability," she said, reading verbatim.
"What?" Wallace barked into his phone.
"Funds relating to Arlan Pearce's life insurance policy have been contested under a state of conservatorship by reason of mental limitations by their intended recipient," Antionette read. "They're saying you're not capable of handling the money?"
"Who?" Wallace asked, pacing from the bathroom to the laboratory door.
"Nolon Pearce?"
Just as Wallace turned to face Cole again, he froze. Enthralled by Antionette's words, he gripped his phone until the volume keys dug into his skin. Wallace clenched his jaw and focused his eyes on Cole's back, willing a hole to burn through everything in his line of sight.
"Better hurry up, Cheryl's coming," Cole said, glancing over his shoulder, but his cool demeanor fell away, and he looked worried for a second. "Something wrong?"
"Wallace?" Antionette asked. "Who's Nolon?"
Without another word, Wallace ended the call and shoved his phone so deep into his pocket he heard the fabric rip as he charged toward the lab.
At eight, on the dot, Cheryl applied a brown-orange cream to tyrogue's abdomen while explaining what purpose the odd chair served, to stretch out the spaces between his ribs and give her proper vantage points for insertion. Once everything was prepped, Cheryl attached a needle to a long hose and inserted it through tyrogue's back while giving Cole and Wallace verbal walkthroughs of her every action, the first being to drain tyrogue's pleural space of fluid.
Jimmy, her chimecho danced in the air over their heads as Cheryl worked. As Wallace understood, it was Jimmy's job to sedate patients and keep their vitals up during operations with its psychic powers. Though the latter didn't seem necessary as Cheryl, with precision, cleared fluid, bacteria, and various kinds of build-up from tyrogue's lungs, section by section for hours.
Wallace and Cole had simple jobs, aside from observing, Cole was responsible for controlling the foot pump that sucked fluid from the lungs and Wallace had been tasked with discarding the waste and applying a new bag to the tube.
At Cheryl's request, they stopped for lunch, to which Wallace didn't realize he needed. Despite having a relatively easy job, as Cheryl worked deeper into tyrogue's lungs the weight of the waste began to take a toll on him, even Cole complained of a cramp in his leg from pumping. When they resumed Cheryl assured them there would be no more breaks until they were done, a promise she made good on as the last bit of gunk inched through the tube just past two o'clock.
According to Cheryl, the operation went well, despite its infuriatingly slow pace and the fact that Cole kept finding his way across the operating area to end up at Wallace's side, asking him about the phone call.
"You're shaking," Cole said.
Wallace looked up from the trashcan of waste marked with a hazardous symbol to find Cole hovering over Cheryl as she pressed herself against one of the walls. Even though she was a trained medical professional, maneuvering needles and drainage tubes through tyrogue's body for six hours seemed to have taken its toll on her as she massaged her fingers.
"I'm fine," Cheryl said, wiping her forehead with the sleeve of her jacket. "Listen," she said, gesturing to tyrogue with her elbow.
Wallace moved back in toward the center of the room. Tyrogue still laid over on the chair, several small pads of bandaging on his side and back, all wrapped in place under gauze. Wallace strained to hear something besides the beep of machines, and only when he was standing next to the fighting-type could he make out he sound of his clear breathing.
"It's not – it's," he paused, "it's different," he said, unable to verbalize how it sounded to breathe normally.
Cole nodded and moved in closer than Wallace. "He doesn't sound like he's in pain anymore, like maybe he's getting in some actual solid breaths. Good shit."
"He's not out of the woods yet, there is still some strain to his breathing, I noticed it when I removed the last tube," Cheryl said, shaking her hands at her sides. "But he's improved, in part because of your help. I'm very pleased."
"We didn't do much," Cole said, shrugging. "Changed bags and worked a pump."
"This operation would have taken me much longer on my own, because you followed my direction on when to pump, we got out all of the blockage in a short session." Cheryl's eyes flicked to Wallace. "I've had registered nurses faint at the sight of internal blockage once its out and they have to dispose of it. I'm proud of both of you, today showed me you have what it takes to take this program seriously and that I can depend on you for more important procedures in the future."
Cheryl grabbed a clipboard from the row of counters and started to jot things down as she walked circles around tyrogue. "I apologize for taking up most of your day, but that's the nature of the beast here. Still, I hope you two can find some way to relax. You're still required to visit each day to receive updates on our patient, I should have a date for our next procedure soon."
"What's next for him?" Wallace asked.
"I'm going to spend a few days observing his lungs, now that I can see them clearly, but if I'm right our next job will be reconstructing his lungs," Cheryl said. "The silica dust is known to rip small holes in lungs and with how long tyrogue has been ill, I can't imagine the damage being anything but intensive."
"So, we're patching up holes in his lungs?" Cole asked, ripping his gloves off.
"In the simplest way, yes," Cheryl said, glaring at Cole at the sound of the latex gloves snapping. "I have cell and tissue samples from tyrogue that Jimmy and I will use to create new cells and by organizing those cells we'll be able to craft small structures that are like pulmonary tissue. After that our challenge will be connecting those individual pieces to the salvageable bits of tyrogue's lungs."
Cole blew air through his lips and shook his head, causing Cheryl to glance up from her notes.
"What?" she asked, a look of concern overtaking her matured features.
"Nothing," Cole said, shrugging. "Just, real shit going on in here. That's all."
Cheryl smirked. "Yes, Cole, very real – shit," she said, as an afterthought. "You boys are free to go, get changed, wash up in the other room if you want. Like I said it's yours to use as you like."
Wallace and Cole left Cheryl to her post-op notes as they trudged back into their assigned room. Wallace dragged his feet toward the bed, but a shuffling Cole rushed past him and though they collapsed toward the bed together, Cole landed in the middle and as they bounced back knocked Wallace off balance and onto the floor.
"Sorry," Cole sighed. "Man, I thought that would never end. I can still hear that little pump, it's like ringing in my ears."
Wallace folded his arms across his chest as he leaned back against the bed, too tired to get off the floor and hummed in agreement. Closing his eyes, Wallace focused on the buzzing sensation in his arms, his limbs tired from hours of hefting around pounds of tyrogue's fluids and gunk.
Aside from the tick of the clock, the room grew silent, peppered only by the sound of the boy's breathing in unison until Cole's flat voice.
"Are you still thinking about what we talked about?" Cole asked, the bed creaking as he leaned over the edge, peering down at Wallace. "About the people you say are missing."
"Yes," Wallace said, eyes still closed. "But I don't know what to do about it. I've hit a wall. I don't know where to look for clues, or to find evidence that what I'm thinking is real anymore. There's too much to think about," he said, his mind reeling back to his conversation with Antionette.
"So, your theory is what? People are vanishing and leaving behind no trace or memory of themselves?"
"Yes," Wallace said, struggling to focus on a single thought, a result of the mind-numbing surgery and his general lack of sleep. "How do you find or make people remember someone who they can't remember ever existed?"
Cole went silent at that, until he turned on the bed and stepped over Wallace as he stood up. "It's you."
"What?" Wallace asked, trying to follow Cole's movements around the room with his ears.
"I told you that people don't just vanish, they always leave something behind, it's you," Cole said, louder. "They left you behind, or their memories in you. Make sense?"
"No," Wallace said, opening his eyes to watch Cole walking in front of the door.
"You say you remember the people that vanished, that means their memories are still around, just in you," Cole said, shrugging. "You're their relic, what they left behind. It's up to you to figure out how to bring them back."
Wallace rolled his neck and narrowed his eyes on Cole who moved onto gathering his school clothes up from the table. "But I have no clue how to do that," he said under his breath as he got to his feet and made his way into the bathroom.
Not bothering to shut the door Wallace ripped the paper covers off his shoes and changed at the sink. Though it felt like a burning weight in his pocket, one he wanted to ignore, he pulled his phone out to find that Antionette called twice during the operation, as did Eleanor, the latter the only call he intended to return.
As he pulled on his jeans, Wallace focused on himself in the mirror, but noticed Cole in the background, in the middle of changing as well. Wallace thought he felt Cole's eyes linger on him for an unusual length of time but chalked it up to his imagination.
With the promise that his student work pass excused him from classes for the remainder of the day, Wallace left the clinic with no clear destination in mind. He released spinarak from his ball and the pair followed the first path they came to, letting the winding red brick walkways lead them east toward the stadium.
With wild curiosity, spinarak skittered in every direction along the path, nosing into the business of wild bunnelby and fletchling, catching up once his trainer moved too far ahead. Following the path past several classroom buildings and under a sky bridge, Wallace's crossed onto the grass surrounding the Origin Center.
Several glass doors on the side of the building were propped open as students spilled from inside, all chattering with excitement as those on the outside seemed hellbent on getting indoors. Those that weren't trying to push through the throng of students pressed themselves against the windows.
Following the path, Wallace and spinarak looped around the Origin Center and headed for the entrance, but a low cheering and a small group of trainers gathered around the gates of Styrax Stadium drew him away from the doors and up the twisting ramp into the stadium.
In the late August heat, the bleachers of Styrax Stadium were fervent with spirit as students and pokemon cheered and stomped in unison against the metallic stands. With one hand guiding him by the railing, Wallace kept his eyes on the crowd. In his first year, Wallace recalled the bleachers being packed whenever a school tournament was scheduled, but today the sun reflected off much of the vacant seats as only small packs of students filled the stands.
Wallace bent down and pulled spinarak up to his chest where the bug-type crawled up and buried himself into Wallace's shirt, leaving his head poking out. Turning to the scoreboard, Wallace saw the screen held the pictures of four students, two on top of the other, all of them faces he knew well.
Don and Tempest's student ID pictures were side by side over the faces of Neo and Garret. Smaller icons of their pokémon were set along the borders of their pictures, a croagunk icon sat in the bottom of Don's picture while an icon of a flareon sat nestled in the corner of Tempest's. Their opponent's pictures were marked with an ampharos for Garret and a starmie for Neo.
Focusing on the battle screen in the middle of the scoreboard, Wallace watched the four pokémon dancing through the middle of the arena field, the air over them filled with clouds of dust and steam. Wallace wasn't sure how late into the battle he'd joined the spectators, but judging by the condition of the field, riddled with pockets of missing earth, filled with pooled water, and burned grass that formed arcs across the field, told him the match had far from just begun.
"Amber, charge in and get ready to discharge." Garret's voice came loudly from the loudspeakers around the stadium, the scoreboard screen focusing on him in an instant.
Though the Garret he remembered had a few negligible inches on him, he wasn't threatening by appearance alone, but the boy he saw on screen seemed somewhat intimidating, which was hard to glean, but the longer he stared the more the differences stood out to him.
Garret's face didn't look as round as he remembered, his jawline more defined and the bones in his cheeks more prominent, all of which chiseled away his youthfulness. His hair, no longer passing his eyebrows with light brown strands that concealed his eyes, pointed straight out from his scalp in soft spikes.
Wallace wasn't ever sure where the cameras in the stadium were located, but they always seemed able to getting the best shots no matter the scenario, but as the scoreboard's camera zoomed on Garret's face, the brunet seemed to know exactly where to look as his eyes flicked in the camera's direction, his electric blue eyes shining on the large screen.
"Shit," Wallace breathed, feeling an immense disturbance in the eyes that seemed to be staring right back at him, unable to make the connection from his meek former roommate to the stern-looking trainer before him.
Garret wore a pair of crystal blue shorts and a matching tank top with a darker blue jacket overtop, the open ends of it flapping in the breeze as he swung his arms, commanding his ampharos forward.
Last he'd seen Garret, his ampharos was just a cuddly mareep who enjoyed leaping into her trainer's arms. Now, if Amber tried that he could imagine her toppling Garret over, but as the camera shifted from Amber then back to Garret, he wondered if Garret would even be affected by the light pokémon's weight.
"He's changed."
Wallace's ears perked up at a familiar voice coming from behind him. Turning, he scanned the bleachers, many people were walking on the steps, some moving to seats closer to the front and others moving further away from the action. One figure climbed down to the bottom with slow steps, her brown and blonde highlighted locks bouncing with each step as her arms cradled a large orange egg with messy scarlet colored swirls across the bottom.
"Eleanor," he said, unable to take his eyes off the egg, feeling a pang of longing for the days he cared for elgyem's egg, and even Wink's. "What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Watching my boyfriend," she said as she joined Wallace at the railing.
Wallace nodded, finding a bit of edge in her reply, though he didn't comment on it. "So, you got an egg?"
Eleanor smiled and bobbed her head, lifting the egg to her chest. "My parents gave it to me before I left to come back to campus," she said, smiling at her egg. "A going away present after a rough summer," she sighed. "You know."
Wallace pursed his lips and looked back to the field, following Garret's ampharos as it charged across the turf. At Garret's side stood Neo, one of the reasons he knew Eleanor's summer vacation hadn't been the relaxing return home he knew she needed.
Though distance kept them apart, with the internet on Neo's wrist, Eleanor was only an email or a video chat away, a feature he used often to harass and inquire about all of Eleanor's daily activities while they were separated.
Wallace, being an unwanted third party in their relationship ended up on the other end of those emails, usually getting the forwarded version from Eleanor with her own comments tacked on about how Neo wouldn't let her go one day without responding and insisting they meet up in Driftveil, a midpoint between their towns. On three rare occasions Eleanor called him while chatting with Neo on her computer, leaving Wallace to sit in silence as he listened to their arguments.
Though, as he watched Eleanor's hooded eyes lazily watching the battle, he knew there were more problems that plagued Eleanor's summer than just Neo's constant emails, but just like him, sometimes there were things they just didn't talk about.
The crowd gasped and Wallace focused on the battle to find Neo's starmie shooting a beam of blue and white light across the field that turned the grass in its wake into sheer frost, aimed for Don's croagunk.
"Solanine, they're both coming your way, watch out," Don said.
The battle's camera paned out, focusing on Garret's charging ampharos, streaks of white electricity dancing across her body as Neo's starmie pushed ahead, its ice beam spreading further ahead to its target. The moment before starmie's ice beam reached croagunk, it danced backwards and jumped into the air.
"Amber, push forward!" Garret yelled.
Ampharos curled her body in before extending and propelling herself forward. "Pha!"
Wallace watched ampharos curve around the field, seemingly trying to predict where the airborne croagunk would land.
"Larkin, it won't do much, but see if you can throw ampharos off course with your iron tail," Tempest said, the camera finding her on the field, close by Don's side. With her dark tanned skin and muscled limbs on full display with her tank top, she looked like the closest match in terms of physical strength to Garret.
At her feet, a flareon with its yellow mane trimmed into a perfect circle around its neck, charged forward, its bushy tail flashing white as its four legs carried at ampharos.
"Not so fast!" Neo called out, tapping away on his tablet screen before he focused on the battle before him. "Starmie, cover the field, use brine!"
Starmie jumped into the air and spun, sending its ice beam off course and into the path of ampharos and flareon. When it landed, the ten-limbed pokémon used its ice trail to skate into the fray, a spray of water gushed from its vertical arm, covering the ground around them.
Don and Tempest backed away from the spreading water as Garret's ampharos moved in to strike as croagunk landed just outside the range of the brine. But rather than retreat, croagunk jumped forward, carrying itself over the water as it met ampharos mid-way.
Ampharos tightened her form, the electricity focusing around her body, but before she could release it, croagunk delivered a precise punch to her head, knocking the electric-type off balance. Ampharos fell, splashing into the sheet of water covering the ground and her discharge exploded, showering itself, croagunk, and starmie with sparks.
Tempest's flareon skidded to a stop just outside the range of the water pool and watched, its tail losing its glow and returning to its base yellow hue. "Flare!"
Perhaps because ampharos's attack hadn't been targeted, releasing it didn't seem to do as much damage as intended, still starmie seemed to struggle to walk away as the discharge effects lingered and even croagunk stayed on the scene for a moment before it leapt away back to Don.
"Starmie, recover," Neo called out, triggering starmie's jewel core to glow and pulse.
Ampharos rolled to her feet, eyes narrowed on croagunk as the camera focused on a dark spot on her face. What looked like a dirt scuff or a bruise stained the yellow skin between Amber's eyes, but unlike a dirt mark or a bruise, it grew outward with each passing second. Whoever operated the camera noticed this and zoomed in, enabling the spectators to see the flesh of Amber's nose turning red on the borders of the mark.
"It looks like Garret's ampharos, Amber, has just been poisoned after that sucker punch!" a woman's voice announced over the speakers. "An unfortunate consequence of coming into contact with croagunk's poison touch! Garret is down to his last pokémon which means this match is on a time for him and his ampharos."
Panning off of ampharos, the camera found Don sharing a laugh with his croagunk who looked too pleased to have successfully poisoned something. "Solanine, go in for some damage with poison jab," Don said, sending his pokémon off.
Solanine punched the air like it was reloading its fists and darted forward, splashing through the water toward ampharos. Without her trainer's commands, Amber slid away from several punches and a kick for good measure. Croagunk leapt into the air and spun, gaining momentum for another punch that ampharos blocked, but buckled under the force of the smaller pokémon's blow and fell to her knees.
"Don, Larkin won't be able to do anything against that starmie, let him take on ampharos," Tempest said as her flareon dashed through the pool of water, heading for Amber with bits of fire dancing between his fangs.
"Deal," Don said. "I've already poisoned one of them, time for the other. Solanine, poison jab on starmie now!"
Croagunk let out a grunt of exertion as he pushed off from ampharos, but not before delivering a blow to her head again, striking the same spot of his poison injection again. As he jumped again, flareon charged in, trails of fire following behind it from his jaw before it leap for ampharos, jaws yawning open.
"Amber, get ready!" Garret called out as the camera found him. The trainer tugged at a chain around his neck and fished a necklace chain connected at its base with an iridescent orb from under his shirt.
Before flareon could latch onto ampharos, the electric-type let out a horrible scream as light and what looked like static energy exploded from her body sending flareon flying away from her.
The crowd gasped and cheered in unison as the light around ampharos faded, revealing a similar-looking pokémon, though thick strands of wool sprouted in seconds on the back of her head and around her tail.
"Amber, electro ball!" Garret said. "Flareon is right where we want him!"
Eleanor leaned into Wallace and nudged his shoulder. "Have you seen a mega evolution before?" she asked.
Wallace nodded, recalling watching Johnny and Carl battle it out in the safari last year, their scizor's mostly evenly matched until Johnny's mega evolved and changed the tide of the battle. As Wallace watched Garret's mega ampharos charge a ball of yellow light and electricity that it hurled at flareon, he wondered if Garret had just done the same.
In a heap, its fur wet, Tempest's flareon looked up in dismay at the incoming attack and despite his trainers command to get out of there, flareon only managed to get to his feet when the ball struck him. There was an explosion and a sheer cry of pain followed by flareon being launched across the grass until it tumbled a stop, his fur burned and sizzling.
"It would appear Tempest's flareon is unable to battle," the woman announcer said as the camera found flareon lying face down on the ground.
Tempest raced onto the field and dropped beside her flareon, ball in hand to recall him. Rather than do so, she scooped him into her arms and carried him away to the sidelines where the camera lost sight of her.
Without missing a beat, as if his partner in the match hadn't just been eliminated, Don's croagunk charged starmie with glowing punches that held the promise of potent poison with each jab. To dodge, Neo's starmie used the natural shape of its body and cartwheeled out of range every time croagunk threw a punch.
"Signal beam!" Neo said.
Starmie spun away from croagunk, giving itself the time and space needed to charge its move up before it fired a multi-colored beam of light at its target. Croagunk hit the ground running and slid across the grass, avoiding the beam and closing the distance between him and starmie in a second as he prepared another jab.
"Amber, use power gem!" Garret said, spreading his arms wide.
Croagunk landed a solid blow to starmie's core that knocked the dual-type back a few paces, though it showed no indication of having injected any poison, when he turned his focus to ampharos. Garret's mega evolved dual-type spread her arms as each of the red orbs throughout her tail, as well as the one on her forehead, glimmered with light. With a swing of her tail, Amber sent a barrage of lights flying toward croagunk like sharp projectiles.
Croagunk twisted and flipped away from the attack, but as they cut through the air they exploded like shrapnel, splitting into smaller and faster lights that honed in on croagunk. Any one of the lights moved fast enough to appear fatal, so when several struck croagunk's chest the crowd gasped as the toxic pokémon groaned and lost all momentum, slamming into the earth moments later.
Neither ampharos or starmie moved as the dust settled from croagunk's landing, but the camera zoomed in and caught the first glimpse of Don's pokémon, tongue lolled out from his mouth, lying motionless on the ground.
"Croagunk is unable to battle, the winners of this double battle are Garret Baker and Neo Spring, congratulations fellas!" the announcer said. "As our battlers clear the field, we'll move right into our next match-up."
Below, Don collected his croagunk and jogged to Neo and Garret, offering them handshakes before he left the field. Neo and Garret congratulated each other with high-fives before recalling their pokémon and exciting the field together.
The pictures were wiped from the scoreboard as the school logo, along with flashing screens advertising other school events popped up. Wallace listened to the sound of the students pounding down the bleachers and turned to find many of them gathering near the front, all in excited chatter about the battle. The scoreboard changed again, as cameras focused on the figures taking the field. Class pictures filled the edges of the screen and Wallace recognized the newest faces as well.
"I hope you enjoyed that last battle, what a conclusion! Next up, by random entry, we have an underclassmen battle!" the woman's voice announced through the stadium speakers, cracks of dead air filling the space between her words. "Calvin Thompson and Ignatius Mercer are taking the field as I speak!"
Wallace's eyes darted from the field to the screen as the camera shifted from a wide view to a split screen, each side focusing on the faces of the boys meeting in the middle of the stadium field.
Ignatius looked the same, his thin build beneath a round face, topped with a dark red snapback, all felt familiar to Wallace. Calvin looked, somewhat the same, if not bigger and more muscular than the last time he'd seen him. His dark hair was buzzed short to his scalp and a shiny pair of red headphones rested over his ears, his head bobbing along to what Wallace guessed was music to pump him up for the battle.
The sight of the two of them, relatively the same as the last time he'd seen them, settled Wallace's mind, for the fact that perhaps not everything had changed in his absence, but also for the simple fact that Calvin and Ignatius, like Neo and Garret, were still there, and not vanished, missing, or forgotten.
The screens changed back to an angle that fit both trainers into view as they stepped back into a rectangular boundary marked with white paint on the field. "Trainers, release a pokémon of your choice," the announcer said.
"Did you see that?" Neo asked.
Wallace turned to find Neo bouncing down the walkway toward him, well, not to him, but to Eleanor. She nodded her head and welcomed him with a wide smile, though when she made no motion to cradle her egg with one hand to hug him, Neo stole a kiss on her cheek, his eyes falling onto Wallace as he sneered.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
Wallace inhaled and let it out through his nose, though he didn't exactly blame anyone for how they felt about him, everyone had their own just reasons, he wondered if the mere sight of him really made people angry, or if they played it up for effect. "Nothing, I just saw the crowd outside and came to check it out."
"There are lots of battles happening here today," Eleanor said, glancing over her shoulder to the stadium floor. "Both outside and in."
Wallace turned his attention back to the field for a moment. Calvin had sent out a breloom while Ignatius had his lucario on the field. Calvin's breloom moved in a back and forth motion, fists raised, then struck with two slow punches, one left and one right, each landing squarely into the pit of the lucario's palms.
"Go for another one, Breloom" Calvin said, his own fists clenched and raised in front of him, mimicking his pokémon's actions.
Breloom nodded and delivered another punch without hesitation, his fist smacking into lucario's left hand block. As if looking for approval, Breloom glanced over his shoulder to Calvin who rewarded him with a thumb's up, though it lasted only a second as Calvin's jaw dropped.
Breloom whipped around to find lucario barring down on him. Lucario's arm slammed into the side of Breloom's head and had the pokémon stumbling to the side before lucario's other arm connected and dropped Breloom to the ground.
Wallace tensed as a string of 'oohs' filled the bleachers and Calvin urged Breloom to get back on his feet.
"Better keep your eyes on Slate," Ignatius said, snickering as he punched the air. "Go!"
Lucario barked and charged forward, closing the distance between him and Breloom and punched down at the fallen pokemon, but Breloom met him halfway with his guard. Pulling back, lucario swung outward, his arm cutting through the air over Breloom's head as he ducked.
"Slate, go for the combo again," Ignatius said.
Lucario steadied itself as Breloom stood up, fists clenched again at the ready. Before lucario could strike Breloom delivered two blows that lucario deflected, then a follow-up, but just as quickly as Breloom struck, lucario struck too, smacking Breloom's forehead and took the opportunity for a follow-up of its own that dropped Breloom to the ground.
The camera zoomed in on Breloom as it lifted itself from the ground on its hands and knees, its body waving from side to side as it shook his head.
"Uh oh folks, it looks like those consecutive blows to the head has rattled Breloom," the announcer said.
"C'mon, get up," Calvin said, gritting his teeth, stomping his feet like a primeape.
Ignatius punched the air again and shouted. "Aura sphere!"
A flash of blue light erupted from the fist of Ignatius' Lucario's fist just as Breloom got to his feet. The light, the shape of a large bullet slammed into Breloom's gut and sent dual-type flying back to another chorus of oohs from the crowd.
Rejoining the conversation, Wallace looked back to find Garret wandering up behind Neo, a small smile on his face until, like Neo, his eyes fell on Wallace. Those differences Wallace made out on the scoreboard screen were far more jarring in person as he noticed Garret was much bigger up close than he looked on the screen, his eyes narrowed in slits and a scowl resting upon his mouth.
"What do you want?" Garret asked.
Wallace swallowed his initial reply, as nothing seemed satisfactory to say to a guy he'd walked all over and played a messy hand in his girlfriend's death. "Nothing," he said, unsure which slab of thin ice he wanted to trample over. "I was just surprised to see you here, Amber looks good, stronger."
Garret nodded and shrugged, his attention drifting to a passing group of students. "I had a lot of time with nothing to do but put my energy into my pokémon."
Wallace bit the inside of his cheek, hearing the words Garret excluded, a lot of time after Arlette's death. "And yourself," he said, finding himself not only looking at Garret, but staring.
A gentle breeze brushed over the stadium and Garret pulled the neckline of his tank up to wipe sweat from his face, a motion that looked unquestionably cool. Seeing his former friend without any signs of meekness, in a body toned by grief and a desire to overcome, Wallace, for a moment, found him attractive. "I'm sorry, Garret," he said, the words tumbling from his lips without thought.
Garret's chest filled with air before he sighed and locked eyes with Wallace again. "For which part?"
"Garret," Eleanor said, stepping in.
Wallace shook his head, his hand coming up to stop Eleanor from separating them. "For treating you like I did, I was going through a lot last year, none of which I had a healthy way to express, so I took it out on everyone around me." Wallace curled his toes inside his shoes and shifted his weight from foot to foot as he found it hard to hold Garret's cold gaze. "I took that out on you, and Neo, and Arlette too, and I'm sorry – "
A hand cupped Wallace's neck, crushing his next word in his throat as another hand gripped the front of his shirt, their combined force knocking him off balance and backwards. Unable to process what was happening in real time, Wallace's mind sorted what happened in snapshots.
Garret's fair face burned red as his hands gripped him. His feet struggled to keep him upright against Garret's added weight and then the world flipped as he fell.
Wallace coughed roughly as he connected with the ground, Garret's weight pressing him into the hard dirt. He winced, staring up at Garret's red face, huffing air through the gaps in his gritted teeth, he expected a punch or to be shaken like a doll.
Eleanor ran to their side, holding her egg in the crook of one arm, the other came down onto Garret's shoulder, but could do little to him off. From inside Wallace's shirt came spinarak, his mandibles clicking before a stream of webbing blasted Garret in the face.
Garret gagged and the pressure vanished from Wallace who wasted no time in getting to his feet. Garret shot up and brushed the webbing off his face, plucking at strands in his mouth as he staggered backwards, still breathing heavily.
Wallace moved away from the crowd and molded his body to the wall of the concessions stand, hoping to melt into the shadows, for the pigment of his skin to shift in order to perfectly camouflage him from everyone. Packing his chest full of air, Wallace held in the instinct to breathe as he listened to Garret's groaning.
"What makes you think you can say her name around me?" Garret snapped, dragging his hands down his face, still missing a few strands of web. Garret pushed past Neo and Eleanor to Wallace, his footsteps reverberating across the aluminum stands.
Wallace squeezed his eyes shut so tight pain throbbed in his forehead as Garret's voice drew nearer, but before anything came of it, before a punch connected, or Garret grabbed him again, a whistle cut through the air, one of he was upset to recognize.
Wallace peered through his eyes to find the crowd parting behind Garret, and Reed emerging from the pack with Don at his side, their hands clasped together. "What's going on here?" Reed asked, his tanned skin glowing under the direct sunlight, accentuating his splatter of dark nose freckles.
"None of your business?" Garret asked, his footsteps slowing, the metal groaning under his weight as if he had become indecisive about where to go.
"Well, it is actually, I can't allow my colleagues to fight if it's not on the battlefield," Reed said, touching a hand to his chest. "It's against school policy."
Garret made queer sound in his throat and Wallace watched Reed's face drop.
"Are you some kind of hall monitor?" Garret asked, straightening up and turning his attention to Reed, which Wallace was about to take full advantage of and run, but he thought he saw Don's eyes on him for the briefest of seconds and the possibility of that was enough to root him in place.
"No," Reed said, smiling. "I'm the founder of the NRR, a school organization who hopes to unify the student body through education and prayer. If you and Wallace are experiencing problems, you should attend our meeting tonight in the Religious Life Center, it might prove helpful."
"You should come."
A voice near his shoulder sent Wallace tumbling away from the wall and spinarak on high alert, a string of web shooting out at random, hitting no one. Looking back, Wallace found Julian standing there, having come around the corner in Wallace's blindspot.
"By way of thanking you, come to the meeting tonight," Julian said, his dark curls sticking out from under his cap. "We're holding another séance tonight as well, Garret, this might be helpful for you."
"Thanking me for what?" Wallace asked, wondering briefly if Garret knew anything about their séances to contact Arlette. Considering he didn't attack Julian for even mentioning it, he guessed not.
"When my mightyena was hurt your elgyem helped out and I was able to get to the clinic in time," Julian said.
Wallace narrowed his eyes in on Julian, trying to recall such an event before the memory slammed into him. Elgyem hadn't helped his mightyena, he stopped Nat's bisharp from killing it, but without Nat around and his memories apparently not existing in anyone besides him, Julian wouldn't know anything about that. The thought formed dark clouds around Wallace's heart as he looked to Don.
"Consider it," Reed said, to Garret and Wallace. "We meet at nine."
Later that night, while Wallace had no time to put into considering what it was the NRR did exactly, or what their goal was on campus, what he did consider was getting close to Don by attending a service.
Shortly before nine, Wallace popped one of his recommended sleeping pills into his mouth and downed a cup of water, hoping to be back in bed before too late to take advantage of the restful sleep the pills were supposed to give him.
Preparing to leave, Wallace hoisted elgyem onto his shoulder and spilled spinarak and Mila's balls into his pocket, eyeing Wink who lounged soundly in his pool, and decided to leave the water-type behind.
He ripped a sheet of paper from his notebook and left a note for Willow or Nicki, whichever got back first, telling them where he'd gone. As he creased and unfolded the paper, he hoped Willow would find it first, betting Nicki would ignore it, or tear it up on sight.
He left his dorm hall through the back entrance and instantly was on a path that split into five smaller walkways, two of which would lead him to the Gracidea Religious Life Center. One would lead him to the front, and the other stopped at the glass greenhouse-like doors at the back, and as he surveyed the building, darker and quieter than the others that surrounded it, he became unsure of which entrance would be best.
Just a few feet from his hall light from the scones had diminished and elgyem guided the way, his red light casting sharp shadows across the grass around him. Wallace followed the path the back of the building and squeezed his fingers to ease his nerves. Despite passing the building practically every day, falling under the shadow of the cross-like effigy outside and seeing students in their robes ducking into the basement entrance, he mostly avoided it.
The idea of it being his destination unsettled him as he approached a row of glass doors, each with their own keycard reader. Wallace swiped his student ID and let elgyem pull the door open, the psychic-type apparently feeling none of Wallace's trepidation as he flew around a large patio area. Wallace stood on a concrete platform with steps ahead of him that led in both directions.
Wallace inched toward the descending staircase and a thick railing that separated the levels. Below him he eyed rows of large potted plants and some lawn chairs stacked in the corner.
A red light lit up the patio and Wallace turned to find elgyem shining his lights across stone murals carved into the walls. There too many to count, some big and some small, but all pokémon Wallace knew to be born of legends. From books his mother read to him and movies Andrew often smuggled over from his house Wallace recognized Kyogre, Mewtwo, Yveltal, and Jirachi, among others.
"Elgy," Wallace said, following the wall of murals around until he faced the stairs again. "If I snap my fingers, teleport us home, okay?" he said as he gripped the railing and climbed down, finding a simple wooden door at the bottom.
Behind him, elgyem lit the patio up in a green light of agreement as he pulled the door open with a small squeak. The hall ahead of him was an L shape with light linoleum tile, white walls, and overhead lights that seemed too bright.
A chill, one he attributed to being a level below ground, gripped him as he eased down the hall ahead of him, passing signs of bathrooms and classrooms until he reached another hallway, a short one to his right that led to two large arched wooden doors.
Straining, Wallace picked up voices, light and whispery from the end of the hall. His nostril flared as he pressed his thumb and middle finger together, prepared to signal elgyem at the first sight of something – someone – that made him feel uneasy. As he inched toward the doors, he turned his head until his ear brushed the wood and he touched his free hand to the door, pressing himself against the door gently to hear as best he could.
Despite his proximity to the room, the mutterings didn't reach him any clearer and the harder he strained to make out sounds and words, the harder he pushed on the door until it gave under him. He sucked in a harsh breath as the door cracked open, not completely, but enough for him to see inside.
Stilling his breath, Wallace poured his body against the door and into the gap, crooking his neck until his cheek passed the edge of the door. The uneven edge of the door dug into his cheek, applying pressure on his jaw as he angled his head. Across a medium sized room, Wallace could see a circle of candles arranged in a circle at the front of the room. Outside the circle desks and chairs sat pushed against the walls, all made to create a walkway from the door to the candle circle. As his eyes glazed over the scene again, moving candles caught his eye.
Two candles at the far side of the room raised into the air, illuminating the deep red cloaks and pale arms of two boys sitting in the circle. Julian, Wallace recognized, was one of them, the other a face he couldn't put a name with. He watched, exhaling in a stream and filling his lungs again, as they lifted the candles above their heads and whispered toward the flame before setting them back to the floor.
A tap on his shoulder sent him wheeling back from the door, his back slamming against the wall, his eyes scanning the hall in frantic sweeps, but he was alone, aside from elgyem who looked puzzled, his arm held out.
Wallace pressed his hands to his face, cupping his mouth as his nose started to tingle and his head throbbed. He squeezed his eyes shut and molded his back to the wall, willing it to absorb him as he tried to gain control of his breathing, steady the pumping in his chest when someone called his name.
His eyes shot opened, his jaw yawning open as he scanned the hall again, in search of the girl who'd called out to him. "Hello?" he asked.
Elgyem touched his hand to his face, turning in each direction, his yellow lights blinking.
"Hello?" a different voice asked.
Wallace's shoulders touched his ears as he jumped and jerked to the side, bumping into the arched doors, busting them open. He gasped, and his arms swung out for support as he watched a figure turn the corner, followed by several more, as he fell into the room. His body smacked the floor, cold and unforgiving, as body gathered in around him. Julian and the other body appeared first, followed some other hooded figures he didn't recognize.
Don's face was among the crowd, as was Reed's, the latter stepping ahead of his flock and crouching at Wallace's side. "You made it," Reed said, smiling, hand outstretched.
The boy's hand might as well have been a poison-type secreting venom as Wallace kept his eyes trained on the extended limb and struggled to get his arms underneath him and hoist himself off the floor. In the faces of the crowd he saw students whispering amongst themselves in between exchanging glances at him.
"I brought you a cloak," Reed said, shaking out a long robe like his. "You'll have to put it on to participate," Reed said as he placed the cloak in his hands and then beckoned his fleet to the front of the room.
Wallace watched Don's eyes linger on him as the crowd passed him, he expected Don to become swept away by the crowd, to leave him standing there, but as the other students followed Reed, Don stayed in place.
"You shouldn't be here," Don said, digging the toe of his shoe into the floor. "The NRR takes all of this seriously, and if you're here to make fun of it or cause problems, just go."
Wallace bit the inside of his cheek as he slipped the robe on overhead and shimmied his shoulders into place. "Don," he said, unsure of what to say in response. He didn't want to be there, but as much as he wanted to run for the hills, something nagged at him to stay, if not for himself, for the possibilities of clearing the air with Don.
"Don't say anything," Don said, inhaling and holding air in his cheeks. "I can't – we can't do this," he said, letting his head hang as he exhaled, his shoulders falling in the process. "Last year, last winter. Those months between the semesters, when I had to go home and pretend like everything was okay and that I should be enjoying my winter vacation, I couldn't – do anything. You don't know what that was like for me."
"Then tell me," Wallace pleaded.
Don's brows furrowed as he shook his head, his eyes focusing elsewhere. "I wanted to crawl out of my skin because everything that had happened here just vanished. I got home and everything there was how I remembered it, like nothing that happened while I was away had changed anything. But it changed everything! It was like a knife stuck me in my chest and stirred everything up inside, confusing my body on how to even function. I had to watch Cosmo do homework like he couldn't wait to get back to campus," Don said, squeezing the air with his hands and throws his arms side to side. "And my little sister, who is just the definition of innocent, play with her toys with no cares in the world." Don paused to breathe and rested a hand on his chest. "I wished that just for one second, I could have a bit of their peace. But that was impossible because of you."
Wallace felt each of Don's words strike him deep, like the same knife Don spoke of had pierced him and was making slow loops into churning his organs into soup. "I'm sorry."
"It hurt to even be in my own skin," Don said, his teeth gritted as he seethed. "Do you know what that feels like? To want to crawl out of your skin, and slink away into a hole? To hope someone finds you, this little alien-looking thing, all pink and raw, every vein exposed for them to see what's actually wrong with you?" While he talked Don scrunched his face up, his hands claws at the space in front of his face, kneading the air. "For someone to see that what pumps through your body isn't blood, but it's a toxin formed from my feelings for you, from my own self-doubt, and bloodshed."
Wallace watched Don's eyes lose focus and drift to the floor, his breathing slowing as his shoulders sagged down from their raised and agitated position. "Don, I don't know what to say to make – "
"Make me feel better?" Don asked, his head snapping to Wallace, idle fingers twitching at his sides. "Nothing will make me feel better, because I've tried it all. I tried sleeping it away, working myself to exhaustion, not eating, not thinking, I thought about opening myself up and letting that black toxin out. That maybe if I cut deep enough it would all drain away and I'd be free."
"Don!" Wallace yelled, his hands lashing out and gripping Don's shoulders, quickly shaking him. "What are you saying?"
"All of the suffering Arlette dealt with over Andrew, it vanished when she fell." Don stared back at him with vacant eyes, tears rimming this lower lids as a dull crooked smile played across his lips. "I thought a knife could do the same for me. But I was wrong," he said, shaking his head, his dark locks swaying across his eyes.
Wallace's nostrils flared as his hands moved down Don's arms, the sensation of having contact with Don, something that filled his dreams, was lost on him as he grabbed Don's wrist and pulled back his robe sleeve, exposing Don's wan forearm. "Please tell me you didn't!" He twisted and turned Don's arm roughly, his eyes scanning every stretch of flesh for any marks or scars, but found none. Unsatisfied, he did the same to the other arm, coming back with no signs that Don had actually hurt himself.
"This is what you do to people," Don said lowly as he tugged his wrists free and wiped at his eyes. He pulled at the neckline of his robe and pulled it off overhead and threw it at Wallace. "You ruin them!"
In the moment his vision was blocked by the thick robe, Wallace lost sight of Don and only the slamming of a door was his indication that he'd left the room. "Don!" Wallace cried, dropping his robe onto the floor and following him out the door. "Let me help!" Wallace yelled as he started jogging down the hall, without Don in sight he only had his hearing to go off on. "Elgyem, can you find him?"
Elgyem lit up the dim hall, soared off from Wallace's shoulder and down the hall ahead of them. Wallace followed, picking up his pace as he turned the corner and caught sight of Don vanishing through another door, leading back outside. "Don!"
With a flick of his wrist, elgyem blew the door open the moment it closed, startling Don on the other side who fell to the ground. Wallace rushed forward and stopped in the doorway, giving Don space to get to his feet. "Hate me if you want to, but don't run away. Please."
Don wet his lips and shook his head, getting on his feet and moving clumsily up the steps. "I don't hate you, I hate what you did to me, what you turned my life into. If you want to help me, leave!"
"I only came here for you tonight," Wallace said, a little louder than intended as his voice echoed through the dark of the night. A pair of girls walking on a path to their left looked back at the boys.
Don waved him off as he reached the top of the steps and started jogging away. "Don't come back here! Don't try to talk to Cosmo about me!"
Wallace followed, silent as Don charged away, waving his arms through the air back at Wallace, his voice filling the empty space, causing a few lights to turn on in the dorm rooms around them.
"Don't linger around Eleanor hoping I'll show up!" Don barked as he picked up his pace and ran across the lawn and under an awning that led to the beach. "Just let me go, because..." In an instant, Don's momentum and anger vanished and Wallace heard a choking sob swell in his throat as he averted his eyes.
Don trudged to the beach and stopped short of the water, his shoes sinking into the sand. "Wallace, I can't let you close to me again – because of what it does to me," Don said, a hand clutching his chest. "Reed fixed me, and I want to stay this way. The alternative is too much for me, I can't live with darkness in me like you."
Silent, Wallace stopped several yards from Don, the realization of what he was doing setting in. He chased Arlette like this once, from his room when she accused him of being himself and she retaliated by attacking, and his constant presence in her life led her to the edge of the rooftop. Don seemed to have skipped the stage of attacking him and without even being near him, Wallace led Don to a knife's edge.
Determined to take a step back from Don, Wallace took one back physically. "Okay," he whispered, before clearing his throat and trying again. "Okay, I'll leave you alone, if that's what you really want. But just know I came back for you," he said, pointing the beach beneath them. "After everything with my father and Andrew, I came back, only for you. I wanted you to spend winter break with me, I thought we could work everything out, but that didn't happen and then the Orphans took me and I didn't know if that moment – you walking away from me – would be our last moment, so I fought to stay alive and you did the same!"
"After what I went through, you don't get –" Wallace felt something warm hit his lip and he quickly wiped it away, but the taste of salty tears lingered there. He touched at his eyes to find he was crying as well. "You don't get to walk away again, not after you –"
"I know what I did," Don said, his voice low and grave. He tipped his head back, his dark green eyes focused squarely on Wallace as he shook his head slowly. "You don't need to remind me because I'll never forgive myself for crossing that line, and for wanting it to much in that moment. The day you came back and I came to your room, when we finished talking, did you know I came back for you?"
Wallace swallowed hard, the day Willow and James came for him, the locked bathroom door, being carried over James's shoulder, unable to fight back, all of it came rushing back to him. "You did?" he asked.
Don nodded slowly, his eyes flicking from Wallace to elgyem to the sand and then back. "I saw blood in the bathroom, I followed it, followed them," Don said, disgust in his tone. "To the port and saw them take off. I knew where they were headed, but I couldn't get myself go follow them, I was afraid. I went back to my room and cried myself to sleep, sick with worry. Days passed and I tried to get people to help, the school, the staff, the workers at the port, no one would listen. I was worried if I waited too much longer there might not be any piece of you left to save, so I took one of the boats and went to the island. I had no clue what I was doing, I just wandered until… until he found me."
"James," Wallace said, offering Don a name to match to the Orphan he'd crossed paths with. "His name was James," he said. "That's the name of the Orphan you killed."
Don cringed, baring his teeth as the words hit him. "He wouldn't let me go!" he cried out, his hands held out flat to Wallace. "What was I supposed to do? We battled. I made Atropa attack the staircase he was under. I didn't think it would happen, but it did," Don said, his gaze still at the beach, his tone flat.
"I saw what happened to him," Wallace said. "I still see it sometimes, when someone slams their books too hard on their desk, or if I step on something like a leaf, I think about it."
Don's hand lifted to find his ear, his fingers fiddling with his earlobe for a breath. "I hear it," he said. "All the time, but I see it too. The stairs buckling, those steps falling loose as he came for me and then, he wasn't moving anymore. And I didn't care. I was glad he wasn't moving because all I could think about was you. I was ready to find you, but a girl, she found me first and chased me off. I still don't know how you escaped."
"Someone else there wanted to help me," Wallace said, his mind drifting to Willow who'd undone his binds and given him the chance at freedom.
"I wanted to tear the roof off of that mansion to save you," Don said, sobbing, his shoulder jumping every few seconds between choked words. "But, that was a dangerous love," he said. "When you're willing to kill for someone… It scared me, because of what I became in the pursuit of you. I never want to feel that way again, okay?" Don looked up, his eyes wet and his chin throbbing.
He tipped his head from side to side, tears spilling across his cheeks. "Okay? So just, let me go. I'm with Reed and I'll never care for him the way I cared for you, and I'll probably never love him, but it keeps me sane." Don raised his arms and dropped them down, letting them smack his sides, a pathetic shrug of surrender. "Is that what you wanted to hear?" he asked, shrugging again. "That no one will probably mean the same to me as you did? Or the image of you I created in my head, because it was a lie," he blurted out and gripped the sides of his head. "I have to go..."
Wallace stayed put as Don ran off, his cries heard long after he was out of earshot. When the sound of his cries were washed out by the tide, Wallace moved further down the beach to the water and let it touch his shoes. He stayed there until he lost track of time, until the tide came in and wrapped around his ankles, and elgyem nudged him, urging him to move, but nothing moved him until someone called out for him.
He heard his name like a whisper among the wind, but when he looked, he found someone standing just a few paces down the beach from him. A girl, with flowing white-blonde hair and a familiar round face, a face he could never forget, but thought he'd never see again.
"Hi, Wallace," Arlette said.
End of Chapter Forty-Four
Question of the Chapter #43: Do you think Wallace will ever be let back into Don's life?
AN: I've gifted myself with a glorious shiny new Mac, so updates should be more frequent, no promises of course ;)
