Heyyyy I got five (weeks) on it!

(lmao I got emotional thinking of our band arrangement of that song, which is a summary of how the week's gone)

This chapter is pretty weird; there's pieces of things that happened in high school, but I'm mixing together freshman and junior and senior year events that involved the same people in very different capacities, which is hard to explain without spoiling the chapter, sooooo read on

"How's aura training?"

"Comme çi comme ça. It is hard to say; Coeurage et moi have not yet figured it out."

"Well, that's okay. This is new for you both. And it's only been a day."

"True. Ça va?"

"I'm doing well. Thomas pushed me into fighting the Canalave Gym, so that's out of the way now."

"Oh! Congratulations."

"Thanks. We're not quite sure what to do now."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just, he and I have the badge, you and Coeur are with Riley, and we're waiting for Looker to locate the Orbs. We're sort of in limbo right now."

"I see. You don't have to do anything."

"I feel like I'm wasting time if I don't do anything – and like, you and Coeur out there on Iron Island, you guys are getting things done, I'm not mad at that. I just feel restless suddenly."

Monday morning, I worked out the Snowpoint Gym logistics. Candice's six-badge-tier team was comprised completely of dual types (ice-dark, ice-ground, ice-grass, ice-ghost) so the battle would be a little more nuanced than tossing mach punches around (although Trust would still be in the lineup, for the obvious reason of tossing mach punches around).

Hope, typewise, shouldn't logically have been an option for either of the next two gyms, but I didn't like the idea of her never fighting another gym battle, so I was still trying to make it work. Everyone else was also a potential. I drew a bunch of diagrams in Looker's journal mapping out my plans, but several of them were too similar for there to be a significantly better option, and eventually I got frustrated enough that I set the plans aside for later and went outside.

I went on a jog with my pokemon around Canalave, starting and ending at the Pokemon Center. Went to the (human) gym inside the Center, tried to figure out some of the exercise equipment, left after using just the machines with instructions on them. Took a shower at the Pokemon Center, got lunch in the cafeteria with my pokemon, wondered where Thomas was. He'd gone to the move tutor's in the morning, but he'd agreed to meet here for lunch.

Went to the pokemart in the early afternoon, restocked on meds and food and things. Went back to the Pokemon Center. Did some training with Hope, even though she wouldn't be there for the next few gym battles, since all the others were fresh out of their last match.

I think it was three when I finally realized – worst case scenario – where Thomas could be. Or, okay, not worst case scenario, but not great either. Less than stellar. Certainly not ideal.

I took a walk down to the drawbridge. If I remembered correctly, this was one of the landmarks April had recommended to him. We'd passed over it several times in the last few days, to get to the gym, to get to the Iron Island ferry – maybe it had gotten to him?

The bridge was full of pedestrians – kids who'd just gotten out of school, stay-at-home parents running errands. A couple bikes crossed over in the middle of the bridge, and I could have sworn at one point I saw Lucas on his bike, but a second glance struck this thought down.

Way up ahead, I saw a blue jacket I thought I recognized, and a pair of shoulders I almost definitely did. The person stopped when they reached the far end of the bridge, paused for a moment, and turned around to walk back over the bridge again.

He was doing so well, I thought.

I kept walking til I reached him. Thomas looked up, seemingly surprised to face someone even though he'd been walking against the flow of foot traffic. Then his expression changed to guilt.

I gestured at the railing, and we went to stand at the side of the bridge, looking out over the water. We stood there for a little while, watching sunlight glimmer across the wavetops.

"You okay?" I asked, although he clearly wasn't.

Thomas shook his head.

"What happened?"

He looked down. The bridge's shadow lay directly below us, wavering in the water's surface.

"The bridge," he explained. "I kept… April loved this bridge."

I nodded. I knew.

"I didn't get it the first time I was here, months ago. It's just a bridge. Wood and steel. Goes up and down to let the boats pass. Whatever. I don't know why it was so special to her."

The noise of the crowd crossing the bridge was a deafening jungle of sound, but his voice was easy to find amidst it.

"I thought I might find what I missed."

"Missed like didn't find before, or had and lost?" I asked.

"Either. Both. I wasn't really thinking about it, I'm just putting it in words now." He laughed bitterly. "It's fine. I just got my hopes up for no reason."

I studied the expression in his profile. I thought I recognized it – it was something I felt quite often around Lucas.

If I'm being honest, I was panicking a little. I didn't know whether I could help him without making it seem like I cared too much – either to myself or to him. And then I realized it didn't matter, that I had a friend in need and I'd do what it took to help him.

Ignoring all the overthinking trying to shove its way into my brain, I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked quietly.

"Maybe," he said.

"Okay – let's get you off the bridge."

Thomas nodded. He turned away from the railing; I let my hand drop from his shoulder. Thomas hugged me – I couldn't describe to you how it happened; I just know that it did. Instinctively I started trying to analyze how I felt about it, but I put it aside. Focus.

Eventually he let go and we walked back to our room in the Pokemon Center. We talked for hours, about April, about Lucas, about memories that were hard to forget – how she'd surprised him by showing up for his first tournament in Johto, how he'd danced with me at the Trainer Ball in the alternate timeline I'd forsaken. Our talk drifted in a lighter direction over time, and we went downstairs for dinner in the cafeteria. I don't know if I helped him in any substantial way, but at least he wasn't a ghost haunting the Canalave Bridge anymore.

He'd maintained what he'd said when I went out to find Liana and came back empty-handed: that there's a difference between perseverance and pigheadedness, a line between determination and trying too hard at a futile task.

It bothered me, but I didn't mention it til the next day.

"But what if I'd rather try, just in case?" I pointed out.

"If it's not gonna happen, it's not gonna happen," said Thomas. "What if you'd kept trying to find Liana, when she wasn't there anymore?"

"That's different. She was physically gone. With Lucas it still feels like there's a chance. We've been friends in the past; we can be friends again. The potential is still there."

"Well, maybe for you, but not for me." Thomas paused, then corrected himself: "At least, I'm trying not to think so."

"Why not?"

"You saw me yesterday," he said, gesturing at the door, meaning the bridge. "It's dangerous to hope. I need to move on."

"Hope isn't inherently dangerous," I argued.

"No, but misplaced hope is."

I realized something. "You think I should get over Lucas."

"I'm not gonna tell you what to do."

"Big change from the Canalave Gym," I muttered. Before he could respond, I said, "But you do, you think I should get over him."

"Well… yeah," he said.

There it was.

"I mean, okay," he said, "I know you have good memories in the past, but in all the time I've known you, all I've seen is you trying really hard and worrying a lot and him ignoring you. He seems so rude – what do you even like about him?"

"I – well, he was a really good listener–"

"I mean in the present," said Thomas. "Not something from a memory. Something you like about him that's still true right now."

I thought about it. "…we don't really have a relationship right now," I said hesitantly, which wasn't entirely true. There was the relationship based on me trying to be friendly with him and him giving me nothing in return. There was the relationship based on me trying to help him and him resisting it.

"But I still get glimpses of it," I said. "Of the past – of the way we used to be. It's still there."

"But is it accessible to you?" Thomas asked. "Or are you in love with a memory?"

"Aren't you in love with a memory?" I shot back.

"Yes. And I'm trying not to be."

"How's that going?"

Thomas didn't respond directly – In retrospect, that was for the best; I was being mean. "Maybe you could find a replacement," he suggested instead. "Someone else to focus on."

I grew cold, even though surely this didn't mean he'd caught on. "What, like make myself fall for someone else?"

"Yeah. Or at least start looking for the next person. You could use them as a stepping stone away from Lucas."

"Is… is that what you're doing?"

Thomas shrugged. "Sort of. I haven't interacted with a whole ton of people yet in Sinnoh, though, so I haven't found a good opportunity. But maybe you'll find someone."

Oh, I knew I'd find someone. It was still bizarre that Thomas was encouraging me, indirectly, to maybe let myself fall for him…? Maybe Megan. But it felt less like stepping stones – a simple hop – and more like standing on a bridge between Lucas and someone else – in limbo, not sure who was ahead, not sure whether to go forward or back, not sure how to go either way.

"Ça va?"

"Ça va. Coeurage is catching on. Myself, not so much."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's okay. She is the one who needs it more anyway."

"That's true."

"Ça va?"

"Comme çi comme ça. Thomas lost his mind yesterday."

"Is he all right?"

"Yeah, he's okay now. Now he's just got me thinking about what to do about Lucas. He thinks I should get over him."

"Mm… you do seem distressed when you are around him. Although I also sense love."

"…wait, don't you sense emotions?"

"Oui."

"But… love isn't an emotion."

"N'est-ce pas?"

"No, it's an action… at least, I think so."

"Oh." There was a pause. "Je ne sais pas what I sensed, then."

"I dunno. Attraction. Panic. Butterfrees." I laughed, as if I didn't desperately want those feelings to be love itself.

That night, I dreamed that Lucas, Dawn, Thomas, and I were walking on Canalave's shores. I knew it was Canalave even though the beach was sandier than it is normally. I don't remember much of it specifically, but I remember there being a pit in my stomach because Lucas was still being standoffish toward me and Dawn and I were chatting but I couldn't help but think of her much closer friendship with Lucas, and Thomas was kind of also just there but I wasn't worrying about him.

Then we sat on the beach and Dawn lay down next to where Lucas was sitting, and I glanced at him and saw the way he was looking at her – with a slight smile that glowed – and when I looked back at her to see if she'd noticed, she'd changed and become me, but with longer hair – the past me, a version of me who Lucas knew and was friends with – and I felt incredible jealousy towards this girl who I no longer was.