Chapter Twenty-five: Thinking
Running From Myself
The morning after my horrific nightmare, I sat on the couch feeling sick. I woke up throwing up everything that sat in my stomach. Grandmother offered to stay home and keep me company, but I shooed her away. I wanted to get the presence to come back and give me more clues… At least that's what I thought it was doing by giving me so-called visions.
Unfortunately, sitting at home wasn't helping my illness. There was a two-hour commentary on the raid that was on the television. It was making me sick watching recaps of things exploding and burning and the fact that citizens were scared. Well that last part didn't really make me sick but close.
Worse than that, however, was when the commentary went off and Jubilife News' logo started spinning, the main topic was the raid. Raid, raid, raid. Is that what everything under the sun is about?! I felt a puke coming on. I decided to get out of the house.
I went to the pond and dipped my feet in. I quickly pulled them back out, the water was ice cold. I sighed and laid back on the ground. I started to get relaxed, my mind wondered around easy topics that didn't make me sick, and the presence showed up.
"This is sort of a bad time." I rolled my eyes and sat up. Never said the sprit had good timing.
"Mistakes."
"What's a mistake? Tell me and I'll make it right."
"Figure it out."
Anger burned like a candle inside of me. "No, I need help." I spit through clenched teeth.
No reply. Sinnoh, I hated it when the presence did that. The silent treatment wasn't something I dealt with easily. I could feel the presence around, in the back of my mind I wondered why it lingered. Did it like to watch me? Did it always watch me? I would have liked to ask these questions, but experience told me it wasn't worth it.
After a while the presence didn't leave. "What? Is there something else? Do you want me to fall asleep?" Nothing. "Fine, I'll just carry on without you."
I rolled my eyes, the same grand way I always did, and spread out on the sofa. I finally clicked the television off and shut my eyes. A part of me was hoping I would slip into a vision, but another part knew that it was a long shot.
Just when oblivion was pulling me away, something startled me awake. A few knocks on the door. I sat up. Nobody in this town knocked. Clarice, Jamie, Lilliana and Abe wouldn't knock. That left Donald and Isis… I quickly scrambled to my feet.
Sprinting to the door, a tripped and met the floor. I jumped to my feet and swung the door open.
No, it wasn't Isis or Donald or another Celestic citizen. I froze and I think my face screwed up into confusion.
"Well… I sort of thought you would be happy to see me."
Realizing I was being rude, I shook my head. "Right, sorry." Oh yeah… I didn't care.
"Can I come in?"
No! "Yes, sure." I stepped out of the way and let him in. "Grandmother would be happy to see you…"
"Ah yes, it has been far too long. But I'm here to see you, Miss Cynthia." Rowan looked around. "Your grandmother has a nice little place here. Pretty cozy." He smiled. He still looked the same, brown hair and a brown mustache that looked recently trimmed.
"So you are here to see me… What about?" I sat at the table, he joined me.
He cleared his throat and straightened his mustache. "Well, I wanted to talk to you about your training." He didn't seem enthused.
I nodded. "Yes, my training has been going well. Gabite still doesn't listen all the time but she's strong, and—"
Rowan held up his hand to stop me. "Miss Cynthia, I don't want to talk about your Pokémon." He sighed and leaned forward. I knew this as his 'about to give a lecture' pose. "I want to talk about why you've quit. Don't try to tell me you haven't, because you being here proves it. Now why don't you tell me why you quit?"
My eyebrows ruffled together and I crossed my arms over my chest. "Professor Rowan, why are you so nosy? Why can't you keep your nose to yourself? And why in Sinnoh would you march all the way here to question my actions which may or may not be correct?!"
He looked down at his hands. "I feel as if I owe it to Winnie to make sure you pursue training." It seemed like that was a hard thing for him to say. He met my eyes, "and now that I've shared my reasoning, would you share yours?"
"No."
Rowan chuckled. "You're about as stubborn as your Pokémon." He shook his head. "Let me tell you something," he leaned forward again, "I keep tabs with some of the Gym Leaders. Byron, Serina and such. I send letters and receive letters from Byron often, you see, and this is my most favorite letter." He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a crinkled piece of paper.
"Dear Professor, today wasn't a good day. The guards beat me and pulled me to the side of the road into a ditch, and my son found me. I normally would have been outraged by this, but I wasn't. At first I didn't know why, but then I remembered perfectly. I met Cynthia in the streets, she had left her Jubilife gang to do Heaven-know-what, but she was in a bind. I helped her out, only under the condition she promise me something. Hope. Signed Byron Fallman." He looked up at me.
Yes, I remember that day… That day when I made a promise that, at the time, I intended to keep. Yes, guilt coursed through me. Yes, sorrow coursed through me. But no, that wasn't enough to get me to change my mind.
"Did you make that promise?" He asked.
"Yes." I answered, barely audible.
"Then why aren't you keeping it?"
"Because, Rowan, as it happens I'm not good enough." My voice rose. "There, I said it. I'm not strong enough, I don't have the draw and pull and I don't want the responsibility!" I yelled. Then realization hit. I said 'I don't want' the responsibility. That wasn't what was in my head.
Rowan's eyebrows rose, as if figuring out something. Great. "Well, I know that last part can't be true… And if it is, let me say this, with the right guidance it won't be hard."
"Maybe, but I still do not have the power."
"That's probably true. You may not be the best, Cynthia, but with work you can get there." He nodded his head like he agreed with himself. "You need to work and get tougher, and you know you can do that because you've made it this far, and most importantly you need to keep your promise. Will you keep this promise?" He stood up and gave me a nod. "You stay here and think, I'm going to the shop. I hear there are cool things there." He smirked and walked to the door. He stopped when he grabbed the handle. "Winnie would have wanted you to do this." He walked out of the house.
I sat at that table for what felt like hours. Thinking, just thinking. My mind was clear, I was calm on my own, and I was thinking rationally. Rowan had left the letter on the table. I read it over and over. I did make a promise.
It wasn't right… This wasn't right… It was a mistake. But I considered everything. Every detail, there wasn't a rock left unturned.
Grandfather would have wanted this. Most likely Mother and Father would have wanted this, Grandmother wanted this, and most importantly… I want it. Something pushed me out of my chair, and it wasn't a ghostly hand, and made me walk out the door.
I walked through the shop doors. Grandmother and Rowan stood in the front room talking away. She was showing him some artifact and he was looking very interested, that made Grandmother happy.
Rowan noticed me. "Hello again, Miss Cynthia." He smiled.
"Hello Cynthia, this is Professor Jerry Rowan, he used to work with Winnie."
"I know, we have met before." I said. I stepped towards them. "In fact he went to the house before coming here and we had a talk."
"And I asked you a question, is the answer yes?"
I opened my mouth to say yes, but the word was snatched from me. "I don't know."
He cocked his head. "What?"
"I don't know." I repeated with the same amount of enthusiasm.
"What are we talking about?" Grandmother asked.
Rowan turned towards her. "I came to talk Cynthia into getting back into the training game."
"Oh how lovely!" She beamed and touched my shoulder. "Listen to him, he knows what he's talking about." She turned and left the room, I swear I saw her do a little dance.
I shook my head and looked at Rowan. "I want to get out there but..." I paused. "It's hard."
"Cynthia, something may seem hard when you look at it like you're looking at it, but look at it another way. Is going to a town and beating a gym hard?" I shook my head. "Right, don't look at it like interviews, Golden Cities and such, just look at it like another gym. Come to Canalave with me."
I froze. "What?"
"I'm going to Canalave to take a boat ride out to one of the islands, your next gym is there. Come with me, we'll travel together, train together then I'll watch you beat your next gym."
"Hey, travelling with you doesn't sound like something that would be fun, and the raid is going on, why would you want to be there?" I didn't want to be there, that meant the rebels would come and expect me to fight with them… Truth was, however, I didn't want to fight. We shouldn't fight.
Rowan, noticing my in-thought look, chuckled. "Are you over thinking it? Just another gym." His face softened. "You know you want to get back in."
I didn't respond. I didn't know if I felt like crying, yelling or laughing. I just left the shop.
Rain had started to beat down. I sprinted through the downpour and all the way home. I busted through the front door and slumped to the couch. I curled up into a ball, ready to cry, but I didn't. No tears came from my eyes.
After a short while I stood from the couch. I walked towards my room but stopped in the hallway. The room next to mine was Grandfathers study. I hesitantly opened the door.
I swear I could smell his old-man cologne, the woody and almost stuffy smell. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Including the desk, which looked like someone had just sat in it, minus the dust.
His notepad laid open and angled at the perfect place for writing, his quill still placed in the ink tray like someone was about to pick it up, a few books placed to the side, and his glasses placed right on top of one of the books.
I smiled at the sight. I walked over to the nice chair at his desk and curled up in it. Sorrow washed over me. Again, I didn't cry. I learned to live with loss. Reason being why I wasn't upset with Noctowl, I accepted his death and didn't think much of it.
"I'm not strong enough." I muttered into the cold, empty room. Well, it wasn't empty. There was a wall covered in overflowing book shelves, but it was pretty much empty. Once Grandfather passed, it became empty.
An hour went by. I heard Grandmother come though the front door. I left the study and met her in the living room.
She smiled gently, her somber expression told me that Rowan told her what happened. She didn't say anything though, she knew it wouldn't help. I just gave her a hug in silence then sat at the dining table.
I watched her prepare two salads with my garden greens. She sat a bowl in front of me then sat across the table.
"Grandmother, how was your day?" I decided pretending everything was normal was better than that awkward silence. Shouldn't I have known that normal wasn't normal and very overrated? Yes, probably. But hey, I was a naïve girl who thought she could change the world with weird animal-things, most of which wouldn't even listen to her, a past that came back to haunt her a lot, and something else haunting her and possibly worse, so a simple pretending seemed like something she could handle.
"It was fine, dear. Yours?" She seemed to be pulling off the normal act.
"It was alright. I'm not really sick anymore and it's been a long day."
"I would seem to think so. It was nice seeing Rowan again, I am glad he's spending another day here. We really do need to catch up."
"Yes, I agree." I started stuffing salad into my mouth. Now everything felt off. My perfect 'normal' world was falling apart, it became the non-normal and my old fantasy world seemed pretty good. It was confusing. I used to be able to just do something, the best example being leaving home on a huge journey without hardly thinking about it, and now I just sit around doing nothing and it feels wrong.
Why does everything have to be so hard?
That night I laid awake in bed. I was so unsure and so confused. I wanted two things, the normal and the fantasy. The problem was I didn't know which was which. Was fantasy in Celestic? Was normal training and battling? Who really knew? Not me.
Roserade was taking up most of my bed. She had me almost falling off. She didn't sleep small, that was certain. Togekiss was curled up on the floor, he wanted to get in the bed but I told him he couldn't. That sort of made him sad.
Bibarel curled up under my desk, he hardly fit but made it work. I liked my Pokémon's company, especially when I tried to sleep. Tried was the key word there.
I rolled over on my side and tried to get comfortable. That didn't work.
Truth be told, I knew why I couldn't sleep. I knew the presence was right, that was a mistake. I needed to keep my promise. Needed to.
Okay yes… That made Rowan right too. Sinnoh, I wish he wasn't right. Oh well, he would never have to know that… Even though, Rowan being Rowan, would probably know.
I sat up. I knew this wasn't right. I needed to get out there. I needed to fix my mistake. I was running from fear, I shouldn't run from my fears, I should embrace them. I was running from my calling and something I love.
But most importantly, I was running from myself.
A/N: So apparently I've lost a reader? Akeyaranu, if you're able to read this, you will be sincerely missed! Sincerely! I said sincerely twice.
Anyways, chapter twenty-five! Let me tell you all, it's about to get fun. Really fun. Super fun, as the young folk say. Excited? I think so! What do YOU think is going to happen? Leave a nice little review telling me! I love hearing your theories, it reminds me how dumb you are. Just kidding, totally kidding. Not really. Yes I am, that was a lie. No it wasn't. The cake is a lie.
Sorry for that. You're not dumb.
If you go look on my profile, you'll see a magical link to my magical blog. Click on it and you will be magically hugged by your imaginary friend. Seriously, I don't lie. Yes I do. Sometimes. Only on Wednesdays... And every other Monday.
*OH. Sorry if I'm late and most of you have already read this chapter, if that is so... I'll say this again next Authors Note: chapter thirteen is the only chapter with zero reviews... Anyone want to go back and review it for fun?
Thanks for reading guys.