"You can't make someone love you, all you can do is stalk them and hope with time they panic and give in."

Disclaimer – I don't own Pokemon ok, so don't rub it in.

Beyond the ShadowsOn the Other Side

"Don't look at him, just ignore him.  Just keep your head down."

"Did you say something Myst?"

Misty Waterflower stopped murmuring to herself and looked up into the chocolate-brown eyes of her best friend Ash Ketchum.  Her face was filled with what seemed to be a mixture of both embarrassment and confusion.

"Nothing," she said quickly as she shook her head trying to shake off the blush that had crawled onto her cheeks.  "Just humming to myself," she added.  She bit her lip nervously hoping that her explanation would be enough.

"Girls," he sighed sarcastically.  "One swallow and already they're humming love songs to themselves."

"Two," she corrected sighing inwardly that she wasn't forced to explain herself further.  She curled back into her previous position before resuming her award winning acting job and tried desperately to appear engrossed in her book.

It seemed she had perfected the art, acting that is.  Playing her part perfectly, like he was just another boy and she just an ordinary girl.  She acted like she didn't care when they called each other hurtful names and didn't speak for days after an argument.  She acted like it didn't matter when other girls would flirt mercilessly with him.  She acted like they were just best friends – no more, no less – like she wasn't in love with him, madly, deeply and truly.

Misty looked back on her life and tried to remember when all the lies and acting had began.  She guessed it was about when she turned twelve years old; ever since then she had either been acting or lying and sometimes even both.  Her life was like some kind of makeshift play each lie heading for a new twist as she built on them to make up for all that she lacked.

It had always been easier to lie.  Lies don't hurt, at least not at first, eventually they do just like everything else in this world but until then it's painless.  No one is ever satisfied with the truth even when they ask for it, they don't want to hear that a dress makes them look fat or that their makeup is over done, all they really want to hear is a lie yet they never ask for it.

Our lives are so full of them that the lines between fact and fiction are so distorted that we no longer know the difference and the lies become what we build our lives upon.  Deep down we know that's what they are, we know that their all lie, but then no one really wants to feel like they're deceiving themselves.  So we make up names, little code words to trick our minds into believing them as much as we do – half-truths, non-truths, white lies, and storytelling – they're all just lies that no one wants to admit to.

Misty was good liar.

She had been lying so long that it was practically second nature to her.  Nowadays she just automatically answered any questions that involved herself and Ash with a lie.

Sadly these lies hurt almost as much as the bitter truth.  That no matter how much she cared about Ash, no matter how much she loved him, she would always just be his best friend – like she always said – no more, no less.

Misty quickly moved in her seat so Ash couldn't see her face as tears began to fill her eyes.  She didn't want him to see her cry.  She didn't want to see the sympathy in his eyes, to have him feel sorry for her.  She didn't want to hear him ask her how she felt his voice filled with worry.

But most of all she didn't want to lie.

She did it so often you would think with time she would be used to it.  She could lie to her sisters without even batting an eyelash, but Ash was different from everyone else.  He was Ash.  It was heart wrenching just to think about lying to him and she tried to do it as little as possible.  With everyone else she could trick her mind into believing it was alright but not him.

She didn't want to hear him ask her what was wrong, because she wasn't sure that she had the strength to lie to him this time.

"I'm going up to the room for a lie down," she said her voice slightly more perky than she had intended.  "I'm feeling a little tired," she added turning down the perky vibe she was giving off, "I want to catch up from all those nights sleeping on the forest floor."

"Oh ok," he replied.  He looked as though he wanted to say something else but didn't.

"What's wrong?" she asked turning to him hoping that her face didn't look as bad as she felt.

"Nothing," he said nonchalantly shaking his head and looking down at the ground by her feet.  "Don't worry," he said looking up and smiling for her, "you go rest."

At that precise moment, as he smiled up at her Misty felt as if her heart would explode.  She felt a blush crawling to her cheeks and immediately looked down at the ground so he wouldn't see the small tears of hope welling in the corners of her eyes.

This was why she had fallen in love with him in the first place.  There was this caring side to Ash that he only ever showed to those close to him, true he was just an all round nice guy, but then there were times like this when he would go above and beyond the call of duty.

Not that that was the only reason.

There seemed to be so many that she could barely remember them all at once and each day she just found something else to love.

Misty looked back at him and smiled.  "Thanks," she said before heading to her room.

Misty shut the door and lay down on the bed dreamily.  Ash was the perfect gentlemen, the perfect friend and basically just perfect.  He was flawless, not that she minded, perfection was just fine for her and she couldn't dream of anything less.

But she wasn't perfect.

Misty closed her eyes and fell into relaxing sleep her dreams filled with images of her prince charming finally finding her.

~ to be continued ~

Ok, so yes it's an AAMR but did you really expect any less from me.  I promise some twists in the "plot" ahead so don't write it off straight away because I don't think anyone will expect what comes later on.