There are two types of people in this world: men and women.

I think I was going somewhere with this. I don't remember what. Something

Chapter Seven

I think a lot of my problems stem from my desire to control things. I'm not sure if I was always like this. Organizing your dolls by use, then height, then name ... would you consider that neurotic? It made sense to me as a child. But anyway ... It gave me a great sense of comfort knowing what was going to happen every day. I felt secure that way. I mean, of course I can handle unpredictability – I have a child for Arceus's sake. It's just ... Well, those little unpredictable moments become bigger ones, and everything starts to spiral into something I can't get a handhold on. It's nice when you have a say in what happens to you.

My first pokémon was a glameow. I named her Fuchsia. She ran away – no, I don't know why. We were okay, I think. I just became a trainer, so we weren't that close. The night before she ran away, she was curled up on top of my sleeping bag, and when I woke up, she was gone. No trace of Fuchsia anywhere. I had captured a couple of pokémon by that time, so I wasn't completely alone, but ... Why did she do that? She didn't seem unhappy. I treated her well, made sure she was well-fed, protected. I guess ... I don't know. That's the downfall with people that plan their day like that. When the unexpected happens – no, when something happens that you can't tangibly fix, you get really angry at yourself. You begin to wonder that 'what if?' What if I kept Fuchsia in her pokéball that night? Things like that.

You know, Lane was a surprise. I was only twenty; Dan was twenty-two. Dan ... That's Eldritch's first name, you know. Daniel Christopher Elijah Eldritch. Elijah is his middle name. He goes by Eldritch because he thinks his first name is too long and doesn't fit him and something to do with him being a sailor. I think he made up that last point.

Dan was out on business. I say business instead of sea. It might be a stability thing. Seas are unpredictable. This city is surrounded by it. Mother Nature throws you off just because she can. Let's, you know, throw a hurricane at you. Some lightning storms. How about snow? Business, though? That means there's a certain amount of days between when I see him and when I don't. It's concrete. There's structure in that word, business.

Well, Dan was out on business. I wasn't feeling all that well, especially in the morning. So I took the test. You know ... the test. It was positive. I took another. It was positive, too. Then another. Negative. Turns out it was a false negative. Have you heard of such a thing? Apparently it happens if you take the test too late in the day or if you leave it on the counter for too long. Probably other factors that I can't remember. The point is that I was unmarried, though deeply in love–or so I thought back then–and young and pregnant. I hadn't planned on marrying and having a child until years later. I still had other plans before I could even think about that. Dan had other plans, too. It wasn't like we just started dating, me and Dan. We dated for a while before I got pregnant. We were as serious as you could be when you're in your early twenties and in a relationship.

I remember the day well. The day I told Dan, I mean. He just got back from his trip, and all he wanted to do was drink a beer and sleep. I couldn't wait. I told him, right there, right then, when he was shifting through the fridge. Just straight out with it, Aly. He's a man. He can take it. To this day, I'm not sure if he blacked out from exhaustion or my news.

"What are we going to do, Aly?" he asked when he regained consciousness. "This apartment is too cramped for a baby, I'm out of town all the time – and Arceus, do you know how much it'll cost to raise a baby? How is this going to work? What if we don't work out?" I got upset. Hormones? I don't know. I got upset that he didn't seem concerned about, well, me. I was the one carrying our child. He didn't ask how I was doing, if I needed anything. I know he cares ... Just ... All that time alone, you need some attention.

He offered to marry me. He had obligations now, he knew that. So he offered. And, desperate, I accepted. I knew I loved him, don't get me wrong; there was love. There is love, somewhere.

We made adjustments, had a quicky marriage ceremony at city hall. I settled into his apartment. I quit university. We only had so much time, and we needed money, so I had to work full time. School will always be there, I told myself. What's important now is to create stability. Dan took more jobs at sea, whether it was to get away for a bit or because we needed the money, I don't know. He cares. He's a good man, don't get me wrong. But while I was pregnant, I felt so alone when it shouldn't have been that way. It should have been a special time, my first pregnancy.

Near the end of my pregnancy, Dan was assigned to aid the locals of the Sevii Islands who had been hit with a hurricane. I told him to take it – he was going to refuse, take sick days, vacation days, because he knew I was going into labor soon. We needed it, though. We needed the money. The trip should only be a week, ten days tops. I wasn't expected to go into labor.

You know me by now. Everything spirals out of my control. My family–my mom, my dad, my siblings–live in Kanto. So I was alone, holding that little baby boy in my arms. Crying.

The expectation is that your mother is perfect. That she can do no wrong. That she holds little to no fault, no negativity running through her body. I get it. When you shatter that illusion, then who do you turn to for stability? For strength? The person who makes you feel safe? It's hard, though. Sometimes she is resentful. Bitter. I'm not talking about being angry about, let's say, her child trespassing into a rundown shanty. She's just bitter about ...

Okay.

I'll stop pussyfooting around.

Sometimes, late at night, when I'm lying in bed, I think about what could have happened to me if I didn't get pregnant at the age I did. I could have been so much more than a housewife. I blame Dan. It's terrible. And sometimes I get angry with Lane, too.

It's the situation, not the people. I can't blame the people involved; they had no say in the situation either. I can't help it, though. I can't control things. The one thing I thought I had a good handle on–that one little boy I had a substantial influence over–was suddenly ... ripped from my hands, and no one can figure out the reason why, and I get so mad.

A mother's greatest desire is to tell her child that everything is going to be okay. That, despite the hardship and the things we can't control, we'll make it through. You never want to tell them, "I don't know," to the things that truly matter.

Some people are born to be good mothers. The rest emulate. A few fail.

Something grabbed at her shoulder. She recognized it as Eldritch's calloused hand. "Aly, what the hell is going on?" he demanded.

Alyson, about to press a slender hand against the glass window, bit her lip. She watched as nurses hurriedly ran to and fro in her son's hospital room. Lane's heart monitor was beeping crazily. She felt his hand tense up on her shoulder. She wanted to cry.

"I don't know."

. . .

The sidewalk was damp from last night's storm.

"It is quite the chilly day, Darach." Lady Caitlin shivered and wrapped her fur coat tighter around her petite frame. She ran her fingers through the soft, white pelt.

Darach gave her a nod. He took grander strides to be slightly ahead of his mistress and gently wrapped a hand around her slender forearm. "Be careful with the puddles, Lady Caitlin. I would hate to see you slip."

She laughed. It wasn't loud and overbearing but quiet and sweet. It left a delicate ringing in his ears. "You are being ridiculous, Darach. I do not slip no matter what the terrain." To prove her point, she stepped over a puddle, her pink high heels clicking on the concrete. "You worry about me too much."

"I wish not to see you hurt, my lady," he replied.

Lady Caitlin patted Darach's hand reassuringly before locking arms with him, her other hand playing with the folds of her pink dress. She looked up, gray sky reflecting in her eyes. "I do hope it does not rain before we get there." An umbrella blocked her vision. "Oh, Darach." She smiled.

"It is never too late to be careful."

"I suppose so."

They approached the library and entered. The two sat down at a couple of computers and turned their chairs to face the glass wall. On the other side of the glass were tombstones barely lit by crackling, swinging bulbs hung from the ceiling.

"I hope he burns," she whispered maliciously.

"We must move the crayon boxes first, my lady," said Darach.

Darach helped Lady Caitlin pick up her box of crayons, and they moved to another set of computers. He placed each set on the top of each monitor.

"Burn the clown!" were the cheers.

"He has done nothing but rob us of our burgers!" yelled another.

Flames. Flames licked the glass panel. The cheers were deafening. The words etched on the clown's tombstone stood out against the fire.

. . .

Lucas slammed his notebook shut, hearing his pencil clatter to the linoleum floor but not caring enough to run back and pick it up. He heard screams. If there was one thing he knew, it was screams–especially girly screams–coming from the middle of nowhere late at night meant something horrible was happening. Of course running to the problem area was indeed moronic, but he couldn't help it. Actually, no, that's a lie, but who doesn't like a good damsel-in-distress story? So burst through the glass doors, Lucas. Run into the cold, bitter Sinnoh night like the moron you are.

He sighed, the frays of his scarf twisting behind him.

You know, there was a sociolingustic study (that's there sociology and linguistics merged into one handy, possibly made-up, word. Useful to know, yes?) Lucas had read in attempt to learn better communication skills. It had to do with the way men and women speak. If he remembered right, it boiled down to the general personality of boys versus girls. Boys tend to play more competitively, girls more cooperatively. When there's conflict within a girl group, the group splits in order to avoid argumentation. Boys, on the other hand, rank in hierarchy.

Break it down through your pants of breath. Communication is the balance between level of involvement and level of independence. Given what we know, the woman is more likely to lean to the involvement side of communication while the man is more independent.

Draw more conclusions. The "fairer" gender is more cooperative, which leads toward a tendency for more involvement – more back and forth between the two conversing parties, more than "simple storytelling." They listen to tone, timing, intonation – it's not just the words. Meta-messaging is what it's called if he recalled right. Take "mhm" for example. "Mhm" doesn't mean they agree with you. No, it might mean she doesn't agree with you, but she acknowledges what you said. It's an easier way, at least to the woman, to say, "I acknowledge your argument, but I think it's an idiotic argument." Men don't do that. They just want the story. They say what they mean. Women are more indirect. She picks up on things in the actual phrasing and delivery. It's all "dramatize" versus "summarize" really. Barry summed it up best:

"You see, Lucas, when you text a question to a girl who you recently had a fight with, and she texts back, 'Okay.', she's not 'okay.' That one word holds all her RAGE. She pounded all her anger into that period...

"No pun intended."

Anyway, that was a good time killer. He stopped a few feet behind the screaming source, a hand wrapped around one of the pokéballs clipped on his belt. The wind swept down the beaten path, combing its way through the foliage.

It was the girl, the stupid girl, with her piplup clinging onto her ankles and looking up her skirt.

"Arceus," he muttered. He walked over, stood next to her, and looked down, staring at what she was so wide-eyed about. The three-foot high bibarel was growling at her, teeth bared (not that it could hide them), and heavy tail smacking the dirt trail. Goddamn was he annoyed. "What did you do?"

She didn't respond and turned her head, hair brushing past her shoulder and falling behind her back in black, layered waves.

Lucas scuffed the dirt with his sneaker, sending up a dust cloud that floated toward the bibarel. Bibarel were common, known for their sharp teeth and their ability to cut through trees in a matter of minutes. They used these trees to create dams. It's a versatile pokémon, given its ability to walk on land and swim in rivers, and it is usually a gentle, quiet breed. The time made no sense; bibarel are diurnal. But this one stayed, glared at Dawn with its beady, little eyes, and snarled.

"Nothing," she finally replied.

Nothing means something. Pick up on the tone: irritated, with a gasp of exasperation. Definitely something.

"At least move."

She move back, and the bibarel growled louder and stepped forward, making Dawn and Pip stop.

He noticed the splintered wood to the side of the road. She probably stepped on the pile the bibarel had gathered, which probably woke up the sleeping creature nestled in that crushed bush over there.

Well, if the thing wasn't going to leave, and she refused to do anything, he would have to take it up another notch. Lucas unhooked the pokéball grasped in his hand, pressed the button, and felt the ball enlarge to the size of an orange.

"I'm fine," she muttered. A low tone. The "f" sound–labiodental, if he remembered right–was extended longer than usual, her front teeth pressed against her wind-chapped lips.

He didn't believe her, so he released the creature within the ball to the side.

"I said I'm FINE!" she screeched, pounding her boot into the ground.

The torterra, a peaceful breed. A stationary creature, one who enjoys sunlight. The starly often make nests within the makeshift shelter on its heavy shell. His, in particular, was lazy. A daydreamer. Liked to stare at things. Questioned said things. They held many a philosophical conversation through intense staring and rapid blinking. They made an odd duo, given Lucas's down-to-earth persona and his torterra's lofty, dream-like state, though he figured something more eccentric, like Dawn's piplup who currently was trying to paw up his trainer's leg, would have driven him crazy.

Lazy, indeed. His torterra started his assault by glancing at the bibarel before looking up toward the moon, obviously not interested and obviously not threatened by it. A questionable gaze of "What?" A "You woke me up for this?" A "Goddammit so much, Lucas." A turn of the head. "Who's the chick? Your girlfriend?" Whether or not his torterra actually thought those things, he didn't know. Lucas imagined he was pretty close, though.

"Mind escorting this bibarel out, Torterra?"

The torterra grunted. He could imagine the "Why?" in his eyes.

"Just do it."

The beast lifted a heavy foot and stomped. It startled the bibarel, but the beaver stood its ground, switching his attention toward Lucas's pokémon much to Dawn's dismay (but secret relief, he imagined. Women need their secrets in order to meet their daily crazy quota). The torterra shook his body, and a few leaves dislodged themselves from the tree on his back, spiraling gently toward the ground. The bibarel stared at them as they landed in front of his feet and, with another beat of his tail, turned around and brushed through the growth.

They stood there quite awkwardly (well, not that she's awkward or anything. Lucas is the awkward one. She was the beauty in the beauty-geek dynamic. Had this been one of her fabulous stories she fantasized about in her head all the time, he would be hiding his deep, eternal love for her, and she, coy and sweet, would pretend not to know that she knew that he liked her (though she did know, but that's beside the point. It's cuter when you pretend you don't know. She figured it was some sort of defensive move, like just in case the guy actually didn't like her. But that's silly talk; who doesn't like her?), and, at the end of her fabulous story, he would, in that stuttered, muttered tone he uses, confess, and she would confess she loves a geek, and they would skip into the sunset. She would also steal his hat and wear it because teasing is cute, too. AND THEN, many years later, they would have three kids, two boys, one girl, the girl being the youngest and – you've heard this before, right?) for a while. Dawn looked at Lucas, Lucas looked at Torterra, Torterra looked at the moon, and Pip, who Dawn had picked up after a few unsuccessful attempts at clawing up her leg, looked down her shirt.

"I was fine, you know," she muttered.

"I know. I just thought I'd help out," he murmured back.

Dawn wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck as the nippy wind blew. "What was that move anyway?"

There was a small pause before he responded. "I invented it. It's a mixture between Sweet Scent and Razor Leaf. Think of it as a two-step attack. The pokémon sends out a few leaves that entices the opponent with its sweet-smelling aroma and the alluring way it twirls toward the ground. The pokémon has the ability to then make the leaves shoot up toward the unsuspecting opponent. Lucky for the bibarel, Torterra didn't have to initiate step two. It probably would have made it more aggressive."

"I ... really?" she asked curiously.

He groaned. "No. Don't be stupid. Torterra shook his back, leaves from his tree were loosened and fell down, and lo behold: it ran away." He returned his sleepy torterra and sighed, clipping the ball back to his belt. "Really, battling a wild pokémon, specifically one who is timid but was putting on a show in hopes to make you run–which you didn't for some reason; god only knows why–is quite a complicated procedure."

"Well, I thought battling back would further agitate–"

"You thought wrong."

Dawn didn't reply. She was too angry to respond. He didn't even deservea response after that.

Lucas translated it as being completely dumbfounded. "What are you doing here anyway?" he asked.

"I was going home before I stepped on that ... twig pile the bibarel had piled up." So he was right. "I live in Sandgem, remember?" She looked past Lucas and down the grainy path where Lucas had come from. "You came from there, from Sandgem. You don't live there. Why?"

"Why don't I live there?" he repeated slowly. "Well, I figured my mom was all, 'I hope my future son holds this awkward conversation with Rowan's other, more annoying, apprentice years later down the route between Twinleaf and Sandgem. But we can't live in Sandgem in order to initiate that conversation, so Twinleaf it is!' All purpose, all meaning, revolves around you if you really try."

"Stop being such a smart-butt. You know what I mean."

"I was there for business. I was heading back to Twinleaf."

"Business"–Dawn checked the time on her pokétch strapped to her bag–"ten minutes past midnight, huh? Right. Well, I won't stop you. Good night."

"Good night."

And there it was: the subtle brush against his shoulder that ALMOST made him step backward as she walked past him. He heard it, the huff, that gasp of breath. Then there was the scuff of her boot on the sand.

Translation: You're an ass. Or a smart-butt to use her lingo.

Lucas spun around and stared at the girl's figure as she traveled toward Sandgem. She walked against the wind, shivering. Pip nudged the top of his head against her chin and chirped sympathetically. She found her feet dragging, her knees tightening up, and then she just ... stopped. After sitting alone at the café for a good thirty minutes or so, she realized that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to accuse Lucas of becoming the younger version of the most diabolical man in recent Sinnoh history. But at the same time ... darn, she was mad at him. Who just gets up and walks away in the middle of a conversation? She wanted an apology, and she wasn't leaving until she got one.

"I'm not apologizing if that's what you're waiting for."

Dawn unhooked a pokéball from her bag's strap. There was a flash of red; she returned her piplup. "I know that," she lied. With her free hands, she reached behind and laced her fingers behind her neck. It was a nonchalant position; she wanted to look cool despite the anger building up inside her.

"So go home."

Her nostrils flared. "You're such a jerk."

"Doesn't mean my point isn't valid."

"You know, I thought more about you when you left."

He rolled his eyes. Dawn crossed her right foot over her left and twisted her body in order to face Lucas. Her hands were still behind her neck, elbows extended out. It was actually kind of creepy how she made a complete 180 turn without the rest of her body moving, like a bad, bad, horror movie except the deranged lunatic wielding the fiery chainsaw was also the scream queen who died second to last ... or survived and became the star of the direct-to-DVD sequel.

"You know," Dawn began, dropping her arms and letting them swing back and forth. She looked up, examining the sky filled with winking stars. "My intention behind that conversation earlier wasn't meant to hurt you, or to 'experiment,' or whatever you said. Ever since you came back three weeks ago, I could tell you were some lonely kid who, as brilliant as he is, was confused about the situations he was thrown into."

She held out her hand as soon as Lucas started to open his mouth. "Let me finish. Because of what you went through, you find it hard to trust people, and you hate it when people try to get close – and trust me; I know this from first-hand experience."

Closer and closer she inched toward him – the swing of her hips, the crunching of pebbles underneath her size five-and-a-half boots. She poked her pointer finger into Lucas's chest. "You became hardened from your journey to the top. That cute eleven year-old who forgot to rip out the tags of his favorite hat up there is long gone. He's almost robotic now in order to protect himself. He'll complete the missions set out by others without being emotionally invested. Yeah?"

Lucas felt a smirk come across his face. He had no idea why he felt cocky all of a sudden. "You think you have me figured out that easily? You think you can figure me out in one night while sitting in a café, sipping a semi-cold hot chocolate?"

"Oh, pretend all you want. Keep thinking that you're this cynical, sarcastic person that no one understands if it helps you feel superior. I'm good at my study. It took me a while, but I think I have you figured out." Dawn started to walk around him slowly, hands clasped behind her, back slightly hunched.

He watched her circle him like a bird of prey, arms crossed. Maybe it was his fatigued state, maybe it was intrigue, dunno – all he knew was that something seemed attractive – no, that's a horrible word in regards to Dawn. Something about the conversation made him want to stay, feet firm on the ground. Yes, it was the conversation that made him stay. Nothing else.

"Do you now?" he asked. "Enlighten me."

She stopped in front of him. "You're a complicated person with an even more complicated past. Honestly, I felt sad for you. I can't imagine what it's like to be near friendless. I wanted to help you. There's something about that hurt, wounded puppy look you send out that makes a girl want to hug you, even if you don't like it. I wanted to make you happy."

Dawn looked him up and down. She stepped closer; he could feel her hot breath against his face. She raised an eyebrow. "But now ... now I just think you're a tool."

She smiled at the way he stepped back, caught off-guard. "I know you've been hurt. I understand you don't entirely trust people because of all you've been through, and I sympathize as much as I can with that. But riddle me this: everyone is trying to hurt you, Lucas? Everyone? Such a narcissist. 'All purpose, all meaning, revolves around you if you really try.' Negative attention is better than no attention, right?"

He glared at her but she wasn't intimated.

"How classic," she added. "You're like a three year-old."

Lucas pocketed his hands, wiggling his fingers around the balls of lint. He remained quiet for a while, running his tongue against his teeth. "You talk a lot," he finally said.

"Yeah." She smiled. Their faces were only a few inches away from each other. She looked up at him through her thick eyelashes. He noticed her slightly wrinkled nose. "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, you know."

"But who wants to attract pests?" He grinned back, blinking back tiredness, concentrating on shifting the tension in his body to the balled fists in his pockets. "I think we're done here. Go home."

A slight cock of her head – her left barrette caught the light of the moon and glinted. "Fine. I'll see you tomorrow at the hospital."

It took him a while to gather his thoughts, opening and closing his mouth. "I said I wasn't coming back," he finally managed to mutter out loud. His voice cracked at the end, and he visibly flinched.

This only made Dawn's grin widen. "Oh, we both know that's not true. You see, because of this conversation, I'm in your head. I threw down a gauntlet, and now your silly, determined self has to prove you're not a tool." She pulled off his hat and twirled a finger around a lock of his hair, making him frown. She tugged on it and pulled him closer, making him inhale sharply. "Not that I wasn't already, I bet." Her breath was hot on his lips. "And if you don't come tomorrow, I'm not going to be leaving your head, and I know that's going to drive you crazy. There – an excuse to stay, if it makes you feel better. So I'll see you tomorrow, hmm?" She released his hair from his grip, recapped his head, and turned on her heels, sand gritting underneath her feet. She headed toward Sandgem, her right hand lazily waving goodbye. "Good night, Lucas," she said in a dreamy voice.

That manipulative ...

He pulled a hand out and firmly pulled on the lid of his hat, letting the brim partially hide his eyes. No, she was wrong. He was leaving. He didn't need her. She's just some annoying, little brat who made quick generalizations based on one day. She's just some girl who ...

Who ...

Goddammit so much.

With that, Lucas threw his hands up, resting them on the top of his head, and watched Dawn's figure become a black silhouette, then nothing.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he finally muttered.

Last Revised: April 28, 2011