Disclaimer – I don't own Pokemon, I do however own this story, which is something I must say before someone tries to steal it again.
This slightly rewritten chapter is dedicated to my friend Kris, who loves this song and the guys who sing it.
Reasons of the Heart – These Are The Days
Misty wiped the tears out of her eyes and looked at her two best friends forcing a small smile onto her face.
"Look," she smiled, "all better now."
She forced a smile onto her face as best she could. It wasn't an easy feat, especially after all the tears she had just cried but somehow she seemed to manage it.
"Do you really think you can fool us that easily?" Melody asked.
"It didn't use to work on him either," Misty sighed. "But back then I didn't have the option to cry. You know in the whole time we traveled together he only ever saw me cry twice and one of those were tears of joy and both times I cried because of him."
"And one of those was just before you left," Melody sighed.
"The words barely even mattered," Misty told them more tears threatening to flow from her eyes already red from tears. "If anyone else had said that to me I would have just hardened my jaw and quickly responded with some kind of nasty comeback. But it was Ash. When I saw the pain and fear in his eyes as I announced that I was leaving, I regretted it all. Every mean word I'd ever said, every time I'd teased him or put him down, every time I'd flicked him or hurt him in anyway. I wanted to take back every word I'd said and just run into his arms and stay like that forever, but for some reason I couldn't. It was like I had built up this new wall around my heart and it wouldn't let me take them back. It made me turn away as he tried to apologize and it still makes me run every time."
"You're going to have to stop running sooner or later because you will eventually run out of place to hide," Sabrina stated, "and now is as good a time as any to let everyone else catch up."
"You and Brock are just too perfect for each other," Misty laughed.
Sabrina shrugged and smiled at the compliment.
"I guess I'll have to start now," Misty told them causing both Melody and Sabrina to smile excitedly, "because we all have an extremely important combined meeting to go to concerning a certain ball and I'm running out of excuses to bail."
"Yes ma'am," Melody and Sabrina said happily getting off their seats and saluting Misty before informing the rest of the sorority.
"So does that mean you're ok now Misty?" Melody asked as she quickly stepped backing into the room.
Misty nodded. "you know for so long I just wished people would stop asking me if I was ok, because all it did was remind me that I wasn't ok and that I never would be again," she said, her mind on a certain Pokemon trainer. "But now, it's not quite so bad and I honestly think that I am."
Melody smiled then followed Sabrina's path up the stairs, which led the bedrooms. Squeals and frantic yells could be heard echoing from room to room and Misty smiled at the normalcy of it all.
Misty walked up to the antique mirror in the hallway hoping that she didn't look like she had just been crying for almost two hours on end.
'Maybe I can pull the whole heartbroken teen look off,' she thought eyeing her self carefully in the mirror and pulling her fingers through her long straight hair nervously. 'Or maybe not,' she added pulling out her trusty compact and fixing up what was left of her light makeup. She then followed the rest of the sorority to the Alpha Zeta Gamma house.
Motel sitting in the darkEmpty room like an empty heart
Love will start but they never stay
They don't look back as they drive away
Maybe I
Fix this broken headlight
Feeling the cracks and pain arise
And maybe love will stop here tonight
And if she knocks on my door
I'll give her the key
Just one look in her eyes
and I know I'll be
Everything that she sees in me
More than I ever thought I could be but
These are the days
When all that I can do is dream
But I don't want to spend forever
Living in the in between
I'm stuck here in a place without love
And I just can't let it stay this way
But for now I'm going to have to face it
These are the days
Got to use this lonely time
To change the picture in my frame of mind
Outside the window there's a sunny day
I want to feel it on my face
You and I
Are out looking for the same thing
And all these walls of wondering
Waiting for someone to share this feeling
And if she knocks on my door
I'll give her the key
Just one look in her eyes
and I know I'll be
Everything that she sees in me
More than I ever thought I could be but
These are the days
When all that I can do is dream
But I don't want to spend forever
Living in the in between
I'm stuck here in a place without love
And I just can't let it stay this way
But for now I'm going to have to face it
These are the days
These are the days between your hopes and fears
These are the moments that are still locked here
There still inside even if she will not hear
Like it or not this is what I got
Oh cause
These are the days
When all that I can do is dream
But I don't want to spend forever
Living in the in between
I'm stuck here in a place without love
And I just can't let it stay this way
But for now I'm going to have to face it
These are the days
These are the days
When all that I can do is dream
But I don't want to spend forever
Living in the in between
I'm stuck here in a place without love
And I just can't let it stay this way
But for now I'm going to have to face it
These are the days
(O-town 'These Are The Days')
Meanwhile . . . the entire fraternity was racing around the house tidying up and extremely carefully taking down any posters that were sure to offend the girls in every which way possible.
"Why on earth did you go and invite an entire sorority of girls here?" Brock asked. "Do you not have any sense at all?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Ash replied in his defense as he pulled down one of Brocks more graphic posters. "I didn't think there would be a problem."
"They all do at first, but they seem to get less and less appealing after thinking about it," Parker sighed to Brock. "Ash, did you really think that the girls would enjoy an afternoon at a house filled with porno, dirt and grunge music?" Parker asked.
"So maybe it wasn't that good an idea, but would you have rather gone to their place?" Ash asked.
Brock and Parker paused to think for a second. "Yes," they replied in sync.
"Forget it," Ash sighed exasperatedly.
Ding! Dong!
"Look I'll go stall them in the front hall while you guys finish off getting this place looking presentable," Ash told them as he walked towards the door and swept a few crumbs under the couch. "Hey," he said as he opened the door. "Where's Misty?" he asked after a quick scan of the crowd.
"There," the girl who had opened the door to him the other night (AKA Chloe) replied pointing to where she was walking with Melody and Sabrina.
"Well come in," he told them stepping aside. "So . . ." he said trying to fill the uncomfortable lack of conversation as they walked in the door.
"It's a lot tidier than I thought it would be," Misty stated.
"Did you guys redecorate?" Chloe asked, "because I'm sure there use to be a poster of a . . ."
"Why don't we head for the common room?" Ash suggested cutting Chloe off as he saw Parker give him a thumbs up signal out of the corner of his eye.
The girls followed Ash. Misty walked up to his side.
"What do you want to start with?" she asked.
Ash shrugged his shoulders. "You choose," he told her.
"If you insist," she replied.
"Meeting is now in order," someone called after everyone had taken a seat in the large common room. Ash and Misty stood at the front of the room.
"Ok," Misty told them, "the first thing we want to address is costumes, yes or no? All those for."
All the girls in the room put their hands up. Several guys then followed them after a fleet of disappointed glares and prods from raging girlfriends.
Brock laughed as he watched Melody bully Parker into raising his hand. Sabrina then leaned over to his ear and whispered something in his ear with her hand on his leg. She then kissed his neck seductively and moved away. Brock gulped twice and automatically raised his hand.
'Some people just need the right incentive,' Misty thought as she giggled to herself at the thought of what Sabrina could have said to get such a reaction. Brock was the second to last vote in a unanimous decision. All that was left was . . .
"Ash."
Ash turned towards Misty who looked rather amused at how this whole thing was playing out. Ash looked around the room seeing how the rest of his fraternity had succumb to their powers and swore he wasn't going to go the same way.
But then she looked at him. You know, one of those looks that makes your stomach do flip-flops and your heart jump to your throat. Her head was cocked to the sighed at her eyes pleading with him to do the unthinkable and declare the decision unanimous.
He didn't want to, he promised himself that he wouldn't, but some how just having her look at him like that made him loose all control and he felt his arm rise on its own.
He could already see the smug smile forming on her perfect face, and he could already feel his heart begin to melt.
He begged himself to turn away before it was too late, begged himself to close his eyes, but he couldn't do that. He didn't want to look away, she was just too beautiful, too perfect and he felt as though it would hurt much more to turn away then to do what he was about to do next.
"I guess the decisions unanimous," Ash sighed trying to force a tone of regret into his voice. It wasn't easy, seeing Misty so happy at her victory over him automatically filled him with the same joy, he just didn't want her to know that just yet.
"And to think that you guys out numbered us by three votes, not including Tracey of course," Misty giggled smiling proudly to herself.
"But I thought you said . . ." Ash started to say.
"I guess I made a mistake," she shrugged innocently. "Now the next matter of business is the theme. I was thinking 'Dream Couples' which is kind of like the 'Meant for Eachother' theme from 'Never Been Kissed'. We can hold it in my sisters quad, we can cover the pool with a dance floor, hang some extra lights around and we won't even have to worry about rain because of the glass."
"Sounds great," several people voiced.
"Well I guess all that's left is a when," Ash told her.
"four weeks today," she told him.
"Why that date?" he asked.
"Because tonight's a full moon," she told him. "That's about all, so meeting adjourned."
She then began to walk away leaving Ash standing stunned where she left him.
"So how's that going anyway?" Brock asked him chuckling at his own joke.
"I'm working on it," Ash sighed.
"then I suggest you work harder."
After the amount of time I spent trying to find a philosophy on life I have come to the conclusion that philosophy sucks. There are only two jobs available to philosophy majors and that's a philosophy professor and that old guy working at burger king.
I guess that my only thoughts on life are that there isn't any thought to it, life just happens and that's that. When it stops is stops, no return to go, no second chance, just the end you're dead and there's no way out of it.
I know that probably isn't the most uplifting and thought provoking philosophy but hey, it'll have to do.
Misty always use to have just the right saying for every situation, like a quip or a quote or the perfect anecdote that would leave you wondering about it hours on end.
You know, I almost thought I had run out of things to say about Misty. Just when I thought there was nothing left to say, that I had said all I could possibly say about her there's just something there.
I guess its like the saying goes, to love her, is to know her and I know her more than anyone else in this world, maybe even more than I know myself. Not that I'm complaining because to love her is pure and utter ecstacy.
Misty.
Even her name is full of beauty. It rolls soothingly off your tongue savouring each sound. You can almost taste it as it flows off the tip of your tongue.
Sometimes I don't know what she could ever see in me. She's like some kind of heavenly angel and I'm just a lowly Pokemon Master who is only a few self-inflicted wounds and some freaky leprechan from being a crazy skitzaphrenic stalker.
What use is a drunken decree when she wasn't even sober enough to remember it?
But its all I've got except a few sworn promises from Brock that she feels exactly the same way I feel about her which don't really count because I'm pretty sure that Brock was almost as pissed off his head as Misty when he told me that, all three times! So really its all I've got, and damn anyone that wants to try and take that away from me because there's no way in hell that I'm letting go of what little hope I have left.
Love is the hardest concept to understand in the entire history and future of earth.
Sometimes it feels like it's the only thing keeping me alive, others I feel like I want to kill myself because of it. Sometimes it feels like love is just some tiny wire and I'm going to fall off any moment, others I'm on top of the world and I know I could just stay like that forever.
It's the most unstable thing on this planet, and sometimes the only thing that you can really be sure of. At times, it make your life a living hell and turns the whole thing upside down, at others it's the only thing that makes sense.
But when you're in love, none of that seems to matter. You take the good times with the bad and somehow the bad don't seem that bad, they don't even seem to exist. When you're in love its all good and the bad barely register in your mind.
Its only when the love has gone that you realize just how terrible it all was and the bad seem so much worse than they really were. That's when the cliff gets that much taller, and the wire that much longer. That's when the flame starts to burn and the fools seems few and far between.
Right now, I'm somewhere in between where the bad still exist and the good are almost over powering.
I'm in a place full of broken picture frames and mended hearts. I'm in a place full of wordless love songs and sleepless lullabies. It's a place where it's all so close I could reach out and touch her, but I'm too afraid to even try.
There are worse places to be, but I miss not ever having to worry about the bad.
I just want Misty back. Just to hold her in my arms for a second more. I know that if I had that chance I could die tomorrow and I know that I would die happy.
Misty is true happiness to me, and I can't think of anything that could change that.
So maybe I am a fool, maybe I'm the worlds greatest moron, but I guess that love is everything they say it is and more and the only way to see that is in between, right where I am until I can find a way to show Misty just how much I care, and just how much I love her. And that's where I'll be until I know for sure that she loves me too.
That's when I'll have finally found what I'm looking for, that's when I will have my true and perfect happiness.
~ to be continued ~
I know I only made a few minor changes other than the song, but I was listening to this song and thinking about how perfect it would be for this chapter.
I hope you liked it anyway and please review.