Hello, it is Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter! It's certainly no secret that I am a big daydreamer, and a lot of the time when I am going about my day to day life I will be thinking of all of me and Shannon's characters. Last summer, I remember that I was mowing the lawn and I was daydreaming and I had just read a book that was inspiring me and all of a sudden, this idea started to form. Sometimes daydreams are just left as daydreams! But sometimes, they do become stories to share and this is one of them. This chapter focuses on a lot of things. We saw in The One With The Shadow as well as The One With The Outpouring of Love that both Jordan and Lynne possess a lot of distrust for Jorginho. In this chapter, we just might learn why! I hope you enjoy :)
People are always full of surprises and that is one of the few things in life that is guaranteed. You can think that you know someone so well, all that they are and who they have been and who they may become but they can always throw you for a loop. The possibilities are simply endless.
It is funny how I was thinking of this on one particular day when this little story was taking place elsewhere. Once again, I am reminded: we are all interlinked. No matter what kind of situations – big and small – stop us seeing from eye to eye.
Misty tried to focus on restringing the guitar in her lap in the way that she had been taught how, making a point of furrowing her brow and winding the fiddly thing around the pins attached to the headboard. However, the more that time passed, the more she could sense something exuding from the person sat next to her.
He had been radiating this particular essence that was something that could only be felt. She had done the entire time that she had seen him on that day. And when she pulled her gaze away from the task she was meant to be seeing through, she started to see something with her eyes as well as her heightened intuition.
The way that James' own eyebrows knotted together from behind his glasses and his lower lip fell concentratively into the rest of his mouth, causing two dents on either side of his mouth to appear, was not a first for Misty to observe. It might have been the first time on that particular day that he actually allowed himself to silently express himself in this way, but it certainly wasn't a new thing.
Initially Misty watched and she waited. Part of her thought that after a few delicate breaths of her own that were not trying to attract any attention, he might be able to go back to properly poising his fountain pen over the page, fully etching the ideas swirling around in his mind rather than glancing out of the distant windows that was a good few metres away from the sofa they were sitting on in his office.
But apparently the thoughts echoing through the chamber of his mind might not have been the kind for him to express himself down onto the pages resting against his lap.
Misty wondered whether it was time to say something. And then, when more seconds passed and he still didn't nudge himself away from that trance like he often would with a shake of his head, she knew it was time to gently encourage him away from whatever place he was in.
To tell you the truth, she might not have been pleased about seeing her best friend in this way, but the tiniest segment of her was glad when she lowered the guitar away from her legs and gently rested it down on the rug.
She much preferred giving it away to Justin so he could get it back in perfect working order!
With the guitar absent from her own lap, Misty edged closer to her best friend. He still didn't come away from whichever world he was in and back to her until she properly spoke to him. Her movements hadn't done much at all.
"You've got that look on your face." Misty told James, him promptly reacting to hearing a real voice rather than his own mulling through possibilities. He was only just turning his head to where he actually had company as her arm reached out to him, the location between her wrist and beginning of her forearm seeking refuge against the shoulder furthest away from her. "The one that's telling me in the next few minutes you're either going to create something amazing. Or I should be very worried the kind of thoughts that are running through your mind."
He might have taken his time in breaking away from whatever was indeed occupying his mind but as soon as he heard Misty observing aloud all of this, he began to see his best friend at an angle from close proximity.
James couldn't stop his pen from switching in his hold so it was almost like a cigarette, loosely raising that same hand closer to his face and scratching the corner of his nose with his thumb while his forefinger and middle finger were engaged in a game of make believe.
"Is that so?" Was his initial response, at first not giving Misty any clues to which of her guesses were correct – or if either of them was correct at all.
When his hand lowered, she had more words for him. She knew better than to let this kind of behavior get away from them both.
"So, which is it?" her own question appeared, her wrist no longer resting against his shoulder but certainly not pulling away from him because it was now her whole hand that was wrapped around the ball of his shoulder, her thumb softly rubbing him, soothing him.
Though what she was soothing him against, she did not know. And part of her wondered if she would ever find out.
He didn't bend the truth half as much these days, she mused to herself, but he still doesn't always speak what is going on inside of him.
Even if he could go on to keep his private inner mind to himself, he at least told Misty without telling her anything verbally at all by the way that an exhale torrented out from his nostrils. She knew this wasn't merely habit from kidding himself that the fountain pen tucked between his two fingers really was a cigarette and the smoke needed to be released from his lungs.
After this, a smile that was like a child hiding something from a parent took over his lips and he shrugged his shoulders, glancing back over the window that overlooked his vast gardens rather than focusing on her in their closeness. Misty felt her insides wanly smiling back even if her expressions didn't show of such.
That had to mean he was at least not thinking of too devastating things, she tried to convince herself.
If she could be patient, though, she would soon be able to find out what exactly was running through her best friend's mind. Frankly, she had a vague idea because she was a small part of an incident that had arisen among a few people that we all knew as of late.
But which part of it was causing James to stew this hard?
Well, intuition couldn't help her with this. Only her listening ears could do that and waiting long enough for him to wish to tell her.
"I'm just thinking." He said and it took a great deal of restraint for Misty not to lose the patience she had developed over her lifetime from the way that James stated the obvious. If I had been sat there with them, I would have felt my heart swelling in my chest! The fountain pen edged closer to James' eye all over again for something to do. "I don't think I behaved all that well. I think I could have been a little nicer to him."
It was Misty's urge to continually to look at James as she listened to him but she also felt a need to look over at the clock on the wall and in the end, it was this nagging which won. The he in question was late for meeting them there so no wonder if was him who was seemingly at the forefront of James' mind.
Although, like with her smiles, she didn't show the nodding of her head from the outside, she felt herself understanding her best friend for this. While she had the other party and the recipient of the confession in the forefront of her mind most of the time rather than the confessor, she knew it was normal for him to replay certain interactions through his head.
Along with being affected by it all in his own way, hardly ever was there an interaction which James didn't ruminate over – good or bad.
He began to feel an extra firm yet still welcomed squeeze on his right shoulder as he heard some words of Misty's own coming from her.
"I'm sure you remained dignified even if there were certain things you were not expecting to hear." she reasoned, feeling the way that James' shoulder nudged underneath her hand, telling her things without needing to actually say the words. Her mind switched to picturing the moment that Jorginho had told James something that he needed to confess to her eldest sister. And it was her own thoughts that caused her to ask: "Are you angry that he's kept this from you for the past few years?"
James' thumb stopped itching against the side of his nose for merely something two do and the whole back of his hand, while still clutching the fountain pen in between forefinger and middle finger, pressed against his forehead.
As Misty's forearms felt a familiar aching in them that caused her to withdraw her comforting touch away from her best friend for the next little while, she expected him to not interact with her verbally in response for a good bit of time, even if answers came to his own mind promptly.
She was only just massaging her fingers around her own wrist when James shook his head, answering her.
"No, I don't think I'm angry at that." his choice of words showing a room for change even if the tone of his voice and the shake of his head contrasted this, rumbles of certainty coming from his throat. When he could feel Misty nodding empathetically from next to him even if his eyes were momentarily closed while his hand formed a union with his forehead, he found more words along with her loyalty. "I'm just… baffled." Momentarily, he was lost for words as well. For a rare occasion, he found solace in looking right at Misty while he found his words rather than looking out into nature to really attune his brain. "It doesn't make any sense to me. You know what kind of guy Jorginho is."
If I had been there alongside them both, I feel as though I would have spotted the way in which Misty's eyelashes subtly twitched together when a name was mentioned. But James wasn't me and I wasn't him. And I wasn't Misty so I couldn't know if she noticed this within herself or not.
James might have not actually said all that much with the words he encouraged himself to actually say but still, they were both seen and heard and the response to them was a slow bobbing of a head up and down. In the same way that these images must've flashed through his mind in the seconds before he discovered what he wished to say, Misty shared the same ones and knew exactly what he was talking about.
In future reflection, I understand as well.
To tell you the truth, I had been one of the people that had fallen in love with Jorginho almost as swiftly as anyone else in our group. Almost as promptly as Daisy!
He had won everyone over with his intense and sturdy, yet cheery disposition and I included.
I had been quick to notice the way that he took to the small children all around him, absolutely radiating in a whole new way at the chance to guide them, to teach them the things that he knew.
The baby Pokémon all around us as well were not free from Jorginho's caring way either. And immediately I knew that if it was what he wished and both Daisy and he wanted the same things and were blessed with the chance, then he would make a truly wonderful father.
It had shaken me to my core just as much as it had done to James and Misty too, not to mention Daisy, that he had a secret from his past and this fatherly nature of his had once not extended to the soul person that needed exactly this the most.
People really do surprise you.
A vast dichotomy from the image of the man that I knew doting upon practically every life that he came into contact with and the idea of this same person leaving a family behind when the going got tough presented itself.
During the seconds of Misty's own similar reflection, it would have been a prime time for her to nod. But she didn't. While remaining close to her best friend as he focused even more inwardly than she was doing because he of course had a lot more memories to go through, she found her own voice once more, running a thoughtful hand through her hair.
She did not know what was to become of her blooming sister with Jorginho now that this information was out there for all to express opinions on. But a part of her still found a level of reasonability.
"You never really know what a person is capable of." She said with a voice of mature understanding because, in truth, and as much as she might have longed to deny it, a sliver of her sadly did understand. This time, it was her shoulder that bumped against James' left one rather than cupping his right. "Even someone as dependable as him."
While Misty's eyes lowered down to her guitar-less lap even if her shoulders didn't descend down, away from the companion of her friend's one, an expression that caught her off guard took over James' features. It was like a very maniacal puppeteer was trying to throw her for a loop.
In a split second, gone was the merely silently frowning and pondering persona that he often came with and certainly had been portraying up until that point. And for a moment as quick as a single, rapid heartbeat, James' teeth clenched together and his face practically shuddered, twitching from side to side.
His tone of voice was soft as he spoke. But his words spoke of the attitude that had managed to catch a hold of him for the most fleeting of moments.
"Believe me, I know." He agreed. And with that, Misty didn't need to fear what was to become of her best friend and if that fleeting frustration was going to come back to him and be directed at her, looking deep into her eyes in a way that made her feel very on the spot.
James' eyes were as soft as freshly cut grass and of the same hue as they glanced out at the many acres of his garden. Misty felt an invisible something rushing from her chest and into her throat the more seconds that she chose to look at him rather than her lap and she knew that she needed to swallow it in order to feel better.
After she successfully did this and was correct, she knew that she realized something that she couldn't deny. She couldn't feel alarmed by the split-second demeanor that had captured her best friend because along with no longer seeing it anymore, she knew he was much more in control of his emotions rather than when he was a much younger man.
And in addition to this, she had always known what that expression – that venom – meant, and what it meant alone.
Misty had said her own words because she understood them because of someone else. It was different for James. And this gradual realization caused Misty to nudge her shoulder against his all over again, capturing his attention for her rather than the acres of greenery and asking him:
"Do you think that you maybe see a lot of yourself in him?" Misty wondered and because of her need to look at her best friend as she asked this, she saw the way that his countenance began to rearrange all over again. Not just his eyes but his whole body began to turn to look at her. He had a disposition not of steel, no it ran deeper than that. It ran differently than that. And it caused Misty in a couple of seconds to raise a hand to her forehead, temperature rising from within her, and potentially regret asking these words. "Should I not have asked you that?"
Agonizingly, James didn't do her a favor in answering her promptly but in hindsight we both believe that he didn't do this to be malicious. Instead, he was just focused in turning his body and his eyes back away from her, this time not filling his line of vision with nature and beyond but at no point on the ceiling above them both in particular.
Misty followed his gaze there but didn't find a reason for this motion, and she certainly couldn't comprehend answers from him before he shared them with her himself.
For a very long time, it started to dawn on Misty that she really shouldn't have said this to her best friend. He was obviously cut up about finding something out about one of the few people that he still held close from his Team Rocket days, so he needed to be heard, to be listened to. Maybe he even needed her to tell him how Daisy was, and what her concerns were, so he could focus on being a good friend to her rather than a critic of the man who was supposed to be a close and reliable friend.
She wasn't naïve to how close the two men in particular had become after he, Jessie and Meowth had reconciled with him a handful of years ago.
Misty's felt a wave of sickness inside her heart more than her stomach and the former's elevating movements in her chest did not help with these matters.
Eventually, James put an end to her misery.
In true loyal friend fashion, he put an end to her misery by portraying it within himself. However, his true nature couldn't help but present itself all the while, and his initial words were reassuring the last question that she had asked a good few minutes ago.
"You should always say the truth." He reminded her but moreover, he reassured her, and although his tone of voice had never altered itself, Misty had never been more relieved to hear his uninflected tones than ever in her life before. Dropping his fountain pen down to the floor along with Misty's guitar, deciding he didn't need it anymore, he showed that he desperately needed something else by empty two fingers pressing against taut lips. "I think you're right." Misty was eyeing up her best friend more confidently again now he was merging his shoulder back against hers and her heart rate was gradually decreasing once more. "I think I am a lot like him."
Recovering from whatever had happened between them in those minutes before, Misty went the opposite way and rather than feeling exhausted from a close shave, she felt a little restless and it encouraged her to, this time, not so gently bump her shoulder against James'.
Shaky lips of hers stretched into a smile, beginning to see him at an angle after she had purposefully and playfully collided bones with her good friend.
"I know you are a lot like him." Misty decided to humor James rather than anything else, and certainly rather than instinctively picking up on the fact that, in these circumstances, this observation might not be as light-hearted for James as it was for her. Her head shook in a telling way while his began to mirror hers, a slant in his own neck as he continually sat next to her. "I'm only just used to you sweeping my Mom off her feet and now I've got Jorginho doing the same with my sister."
Misty laughed out loud at her own words and after the second shoulder bash that occurred, James tried to laugh as well but most of it was concealed by his two fingers rubbing at the side of his eye, ridding himself of a crusted diamond that wasn't actually there, just for something to do other than let on how little he felt like laughing.
Of course, this did not go unnoticed by my best friend's wife. And it encouraged her own chuckles to die down, showing off another wan smile for the second time on that sofa, and to wait, knowing that her best friend was going to come out with something eventually.
Misty was right. James was going to. And he did. But Misty could never have prepared for what he would go on to say and certainly not following the words that she had decided to set free for both of them to acknowledge.
She knew that she was right. She knew that James' frustration for the decisions that Jorginho had decided to make came from a place of sadly relating and, oddly enough, it was understanding that was putting up a wall between them there and then.
Wasn't it always when it came to the two of them?
what Misty could have never imagined, however, is that in the same way that the ripples of the wave crashing down between her sister and her husband had splashed upon her too, James' own words were going to affect her too.
Or rather, this time, they would center around her.
She should have known something of the kind was coming from the way that he began, the corners of his nose that were not touched by any fingers crinkling ever so slightly and his lonesome shoulders rising closer to the silver hoops in his ears.
"You know…" he said but at that point, Misty did not know. No way could she have possibly suspected. But she would go on to be informed. Too well informed. James really believed in telling the truth, didn't he? "It just reminds me that there was a time where I might have walked away from my family for you…"
He told her and straight away, it was as if the floor had been tugged out from beneath her. Heat prickled at every single pore in every inch of Misty's skin yet a perverse chill shot through her as well. Her immediate reaction was to leap up away from him, or at least to another of the sofa cushions rather than the same one.
Yet somehow, she was glued to the spot and her mouth gaping open. James didn't need to stare for more than a second to see the way in which Misty was processing his words. But he knew that, while he could look away in order to give herself space if she wasn't granting herself any, he could not swallow these words because they were out there.
And he could not act as if they were false. How cruel would that be? Or rather, how cowardly would that be? Hypocritical too. He had just told her that she must always be truthful. But James as much as anybody knew just how wounding the truth could be.
He just had to hope – or for a really rare occasion pray – that she could tolerate a fresh nick.
"Don't tell me that, James…" Misty answered him after what felt like a lifetime but, in truth, the clock had only just managed to shudder forward a couple of notches. Its time had been measured by the erectness of the hairs on her arms then it would seem that timed had slowed down entirely.
Misty told James what to do who was quite used to it, even in these occasions, and while he didn't give any indication to whether he agreed or not, he shrugged his shoulders and bobbed his head once, reaching down and picking her guitar up, deciding that he would at least look at it seeing as his son wasn't around to fiddle it towards perfection.
After she indeed did this, she also told herself that she probably shouldn't look at him. She couldn't look at his silhouette and let it dawn at her that no ounce of lie was ebbing off him. And furthermore, she couldn't look over at him and feel a small teenaged part of her that was still inside her perversely hope that he was telling the truth.
And still, she looked at him.
The intensity in which she looked at him, trying to somehow steady herself, caused her eyes to prick with moisture. But James found his voice in the next split second. So, it was hard to know exactly which had been the perpetrator.
"Okay, I won't tell you that." James didn't look at her in return but he evidently complied, leaving Misty not knowing whether it was welcomed or not how his damn voice still didn't change in any single way. She was, however, left wishing that old versions of herself weren't always so close to the surface when her cheeks stung, even if it was then for a different reason, as he at last decided to look at her in return. A shrug rippled off his shoulders for her to sense. "But it's true. Even if you don't want me to say it and it's the first time you're hearing me say it."
Immediately after more of these kind of words had been confessed, it was no longer just Misty who felt an invisible slap whacking at the side of her cheek, flushing it furthermore. James might have tried to steer a great many thoughts of his out of his brain like a highly diligent captain across his lifetime but there and then, he couldn't stop the realization washing over him that he could relate to Jorginho more and more and the more that he allowed himself to be this vulnerable.
The truth was never easy. People say it's better to be wounded with honesty than tricked with a lie but the people who really live within that are extremely brave. There is no hiding when it comes to truth. I often ponder what it actually means. To this day, I realize it means being vulnerable no matter the different ways in which people react.
So, I must give both James and Jorginho some credit. In spite of their pasts, they have learned to do this almost better than anyone else that I knew.
One of the other people that I knew was of course Misty and I had held her dear since she was ten years old. Since she had been that age, I knew her as someone always with something to say. But in the moments after James had said this to her, she was finding it hard to find much of her voice at all!
It was her turn to feel far too many thoughts racing through her mind, but, unlike her best friend at the start of this story, she would end up using all of them and scribbling each and every one of them down. I supposed that no matter your closeness and your unison in many different scenarios, everybody still remains entirely themselves.
And it was Misty honoring all of the people that she had been and still would become when she finally encouraged her throat to stop swallowing and start talking instead, finding more of her words after they had just been taken from her like some strange, other worldly curse.
"You don't really mean that, do you…?" she cursed herself inwardly for needing to ask but she also was wise enough to know that this was another version of herself rearing her head and trying to tear herself away from expressing anything vulnerable of any kind. It was clear that this little shadow couldn't possibly win when he eyes pricked all over again, surprising her somehow, when this reared its head. "I would never have made you do that. To miss out on everything…?"
It was James' turn to feel his eyelashes fluttering and twitching and yet, for a single second, longing to seek refuge close together. Misty could feel the images and memories flashing through her eyes and they had a profound effect on her because she had been around at that time. She had been there. She had been present. And she had seen all that James came in tow with.
Needless to say, these thoughts and these memories were vivid, but they couldn't hold a candle to way they not only flashed across the front of James' mind, but everything echoed through the chambers in his mind. Misty was asking him a question and he knew he had to answer. But at first, he had to think. And by the time he got through all that he felt necessary, a lightness that equally dragged him down formulated in his throat.
Despite their kinship and how alike he believed they were, a part of him could never truly be like Jorginho because he couldn't fully imagine turning his back on his family, let alone actually doing it.
I suppose that was the beautiful gift that was hindsight. I don't suppose Jorginho would have done it either if, like James, he knew that he was around because of want not because of duty. And, certainly, different people are meant for different paths. Even if sometimes you almost take one that causes you to shudder to think about.
"I might have left for five minutes…" James' voice finally discovered itself but still in no different tone than usual, his shoulders rising upwards towards his ears and then down all over again not because of helplessness but feeling a weightlessness added to them. He knew it was relief to have been around for every moment. Every moment still filled his mind even if he spoke through it. "But never for good. I guess it was the Team Rocket message of solidarity that worked on me stronger in the end, funnily enough."
It might have taken a lot of strength for me to be able to do so but, in the same way that he loathed himself for admitting it, part of me had imagined myself leaving for at least five minutes, at least once.
We all have those moments, don't we? Where life gets too loud and love gets too intense – whether it's the presence of it or the absence – and all we want to do is take the path away from all that we know and onto a path that is as perfect as it is imaginary.
It's hard to think that there are people who day dream up that scenario and actually go through with it as well. And especially a parent, no less, who from the minute they are blessed with that title has a duty and hopefully a want to care for and provide and nurture, whether it's in their instinctive nature or not.
You see, when you become a parent, you are beginning a promise. A promise to always be there. to provide. To protect. To love.
I suppose that if you don't really know what you're getting yourself into then it can be hard to do all of these things. And then, when Misty spoke, she pointed out another thing that was, not only food for thought, but proved that she did understand. And how understandable it was that – while they showed it in different ways – Misty really was affected by this thing between Jorginho and Daisy in her own way.
Once she had steered her mind long enough away from all the memories that her and James had been a part of in different degrees – from Justin first hiding behind a sofa to never hiding himself again in any capacity ever again and Jayden swiping paint across a canvas carelessly to with all the precision in the world and being commended for it and Jazmyn using her family's downfalls to encouraging a better tomorrow – she found her own words that she needed to say.
Misty didn't believe that she had ever said them before. Wounds from her own past and her own family made it, so she didn't want to feel like she was condoning anything, supporting anything. But in the end, James was right, and he had been all along.
The truth had to win. It just had to. And honesty being hard made it all the more treasured, that's what I realize.
"People are capable of anything." Misty's prior point came back around all over again and now that James' memories were disappearing from his mind and he had removed his glasses away from his face too, he still knew he was seeing his best friend clearly as his initial reaction was to turn his body back towards her, two etchings of a frown falling in between his eyebrows. "You wouldn't believe what a person is capable of when they believe that people are better without them around."
And with that, James and Misty's eyes locked onto each other and it wasn't due to the fact that his glasses had been removed that time appeared to slow down all over again and it felt like it two the two of them quite a while for their full capacity to reach into each other, even if their gazes had searched for one and other from the beginning.
It seemed to be a day of realization. Within our group, there was hardly any way that we could not be affected by something that another person did or had done because we were simply so very connected.
Flashes of Jorginho's past encouraged James to hesitantly steer his mind to places that hadn't been visited in a very long time. And when he gazed into his best friend's eyes, who were staring right back at him as sturdy as a sea that was determined to not allow a single wave to ripple off its surface, he knew that truth always came to light for a good reason.
No matter how painful it was, truth always held a mirror right up to you and caused you to face demons of your own. Or, in Misty's case, it shone a light of generations before her and the decisions that they had made.
At least she could be proud that she had dodged that one thing in her life, even if other obstacles had been planted in her way and she had succumbed to them.
Misty's eyes felt the need to falter and look back at the sanctity of her lap after a little while. And it was as she did this that because James knew that she was hardly likely to acknowledge the pride within herself, that he recognized it coursing through him instead. It coursed out of him along with an exhalation of breath instead of words that didn't speak of respect.
Words did come of deep respect in the next couple of seconds. But they were concealed. They were different. Highly genuine all the same. And exactly what both of them needed in the center of the storm they had been caught up in.
"Come here." Was all James said from the second that Misty's eyes dropped down and in the flinch of a heartbeat, they looked back up to address what she had heard. And, once again, honoring all of those that resided inside of her and would one day join that crowd, she didn't do herself a disservice by rejecting.
She might have done once. But all rejection came from a place of not feeling good enough. That was one of the reasons she felt sad for Jorginho rather than angry. It was something she knew all too well. And heated emotions would only make it culminate more.
Before either of them knew it, their arms were around each other and they were back on the same sofa cushion and James' shoulder felt the comfort of touch all over again as, this time, it was Misty's chin who bedded down into him and inhaled, breathing in his comfort and everything that he was.
He had never been perfect. He had seen it himself and she had seen it in herself. That's probably why, through no matter hell they put each other through (which there had been a lot!) they always found their way back to each other.
There was deep intimacy in being understood, being heard, and being seen. James and Misty possessed all of this for each other almost always. And when in times they were on different pages, it was usually because they were seeing each other the most. Just not wanting to admit it.
Relationships are funny, aren't they?
The two of them stayed in the warmth of their embrace for quite a great many of clock hand motions and the two of them thinking their separate things yet united in the same thing. They just wished that things would work out okay.
The truth was at times hard to accept. And for Daisy who was with child – Jorginho's child – it was going to be hard to trust that he wasn't going to do the same thing he had done before and end up a lousy figure for yet another child.
Once again, honesty was at the heart of this matter too. Daisy just had to trust that he meant what he said: this time, fatherhood had been a want, not something that happened because of chance and he went through with because of duty.
His duties were different now. Gone was the young man he had once been. He was a seasoned grown up and then some. He did what was right because of contentment now, not because of missing out on what he never said.
Jorginho knew who he was in the same way that James had learned himself over the years and in the same way that Misty always knew whatever he had been and no matter when the truest parts of himself were lying dormant.
And similarly, she knew when he was overthinking while they were embracing and, because of this, she pulled away from him just for a split second, to gently flick him against the forehead and reminded him all over again.
"Don't just focus on the anger, yeah?" she began by telling him and for a split second, his initial reaction was to want to wriggle inside of her arms because even within himself he hadn't sensed what Misty had managed to home in on. Instead, he focused on what had been a fond flick against the forehead before listening furthermore. "It only stops you from hearing in the end. And learning too."
He could have used these words a very long time ago!
But, like anything, the lesson came when it was necessary and, to tell you the truth, it was something that he had picked up on a long time ago. But it was always good to be reminded.
James had never realized that anger was there because he had tried to deny it. It crept past him because it wasn't the feeling he possessed when he was younger that made him want to shove a boot through a door and raise his two longest fingers towards whoever was brushing him the wrong way.
He felt like his heart was fluttering and his mind couldn't concentrate, and his lungs were sinking deeper and deeper but that just might have been anger after all.
You see, feelings change as you grow up. All things change the more that you go through life. Nothing ever really stays the same. Along with people surprising you, that is the only constant. And that it something else that needs to be accepted to lead a truly happy life.
James showed that he heeded Misty's warning about emotions stopping him from hearing and proved that he was still attune even if emotions were inside of him by nodding his head. She then felt this gesture closer against her as he pulled her back into his arms, silently thanking her for everything beyond just that day, as his head moved up and down against her.
Misty didn't do more than just embrace her best friend, but it was the kind of just that meant everything. It was the kind of just that was absolutely enough.
Something else that was a just on that day, was how unbelievably late Jorginho was to join both James and Misty!
Because of getting into things of their own, they had stopped watching the clock and waiting for his arrival, and they only remembered why they had decided to congregate in James' office on that day when there was at long last a heavy knocking on the door.
They were forced to pull away from each other, for half a heartbeat wondering how they were hearing noises because they were surely the only two in the world?
But then, their minds promptly caught up with the rest of them and they moved apart from each other on the sofa, James calling permission to be joined and the both of them knowing things even if these acknowledgments they didn't express with each other.
No matter what side of the fence they were on, they had wondered what it would be like to see Jorginho again and his lateness made it obvious that he had been raking his brains for how it was going to go down as well.
He knew that he had things to face. He understood very well that the layer shedding didn't just happen at the first confession but would be a long journey from then on out. It wasn't something he felt entirely confident about, even if the way he always walked could lead you to believe otherwise.
And yet, like James and Misty, it was something that he knew he couldn't run from. He had spent his entire life running. And now was time to find courage in slowing down and addressing rather than refusing to stay in the one spot, defined by a single thing.
Jorginho strolled into James' office after knocking and being summoned by him with the same swagger that he usually had, one leg slightly tilted and one of his hands on his hip, commanding the room from the second that he entered.
However, observational in nature and some of the people that managed to see right through all that he was even if they had never seen this coming, both Misty and James saw there was more than initially met the eye.
Disheveled hair that was down to frantically tousling his hands through it, wondering how the next conversation was going to go. His deep brown eyes seemed more lost in the back of his sockets than usual and weren't as intensely focused.
"You guys been talking about me or something?" he asked, his strong jawline moving his mouth to the side of his face before pouching out at equal sides to convey innocence, his hands joining in unison across the front of his broad frame.
He might have made Misty chuckle fondly in spite of it all and he might have put on his usual show of animation, but Jorginho was nervous, it was clear. And him trying to make a joke to lighten the mood only allowed a different truth to tumble out of him.
It had ran through James' own mind a million different possibilities of how he was going to greet Jorginho all over again after, as he told Misty himself, he didn't believe that he had behaved in the best of ways, dismissing him and telling him he didn't really want to continue the conversation after he felt like he had heard enough.
To be sure, there would be a whole lot more. But in the meantime, James had to ask himself one thing:
Could this possibly be harder than seeing him all over again after more than a twenty year break? After getting so close over one summer only for that intimacy to fizzle when the same old problems as well as new, seemingly unsolvable ones had cropped up?
Surely not.
Perhaps an odd method to gain confidence from, but that is what James did. He thought to himself, if he could get through anything like that or any of the other circumstances that had fallen into his lap during his lifetime, then anything else was a piece of cake.
James glanced over at Misty as she encouraged her giggles to stop, learning that the Jorginho that she had come to know was still there even if knew information had been presented at quite a tender time. And after he filled his eyes Misty, he same to a certain realization – and he made him glance over at one of his other closest friends.
This action between James and Misty had spoken a lot. So he knew it could be the same for Jorginho. And, furthermore, they had always been a great source of comfort for each other. That didn't have to change just because when they looked in a mirror, the reflections of the face that belonged to each of them were coming more merged and more blurred.
James made all the more extra room on the sofa, his arms extended as Jorginho looked at him gingerly with eyes that couldn't remain fixed in the one place. Eventually, he heard words that made him wonder why on earth he ruminated all those hours before, making him late.
"Come here, you wally." James encouraged him, needless to say speaking to him in a much different way than he had done to Misty!
But the gesture was the same all the same. And like a great deal of this tale contains, it was done with its own bit of truth.
And as for Jorginho, well, he of course didn't stop his face from positively softening and melting and beaming in a way that it hadn't done for quite a few days as he ran over to the sofa to be between them both, allowing James to embrace him first of all before he was in four pairs of arms, feeling a familiar feeling thudding through his heart.
He had disappointed them, he knew. But in time, he hoped, that as more of the truth prevailed, they may not be back on his side, but they could understand the journey which had led him to doing exactly what he had done.
Isn't that all anyone wants, really? To be honored in the same way that Misty acknowledged all those shadows that still lurked within her. To be seen and heard, like James did for Misty and vice versa. That was all Jorginho ever wanted at the end of the day.
Once, it had caused him to commit to fatherhood before he was ever ready. And then, much later on, it encouraged him to not only own up to his past failing but to use it to become the father he was always destined to be.
It's hard to be something you never had a proper example of. But I know it's possible. And I know, not too deep in my heart at all, it makes it even more special.
There's no books for life. There are lessons. But you learn them only through doing things, failing, and making mistakes. In the end, we all get there. But is it ever the end? I hope not.
Like all of these tales that are alive in me, I hope the lessons are always plentiful. Because that keeps me putting one foot in front of the other. A never-ending circle of life. And I for one am so glad to be a part of all the stories that go round and around.
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :) Oof, so yeah. Jorginho is a father and he's kept that a secret until Daisy is pretty far along in the pregnancy with her baby she shares with him. Does this mean that he leads a double life? Does this mean he darts back and forth to raise this son? Not exactly. I would love to talk about all that now and allow my biased love for Jorginho to defend him but I've got a chapter already written that explains everything so I'll keep it all to myself until then :P Is this the shadow on Jorginho that Lynne and Jordan mentioned in a previous chapter...? Hmm... Yes and no. Jorginho will only be revealed more and more as the year goes on! :D As well as touching on the Jorginho fatherhood revelation, we also see a bit more into the relationship of James and Misty - certainly them in the past too. Nothing is ever black and white, is it? Both men have done things that are less than ideal. But if I discriminated then I wouldn't have many characters left to write about! And if I wrote about only perfect people, well, that would be boring :) Thanks again for reading and I will be back with a new chapter next Wednesday so see you then!
Amy signing out :)