Hello, it is the 28th and I am back with a new chapter! So, for this month I set myself a bit of a challenge. Between actually wanting to do this and December being so busy I did not have a chance to write until after Christmas anyway, I came up with the idea of getting something written and uploaded in the same day. Usually, I like to let a chapter "incubate" which is to basically let it sit for months until my mind has partially forgotten it and then by the time it comes to edit it, it feels more objective for me to tweak. But I decided to forgo that usual habit! And I am glad I did. What we have for my final chapter of the year is pure angst. No holiday joy for Misty here, sorry about that :P Over the years I've hesitated writing James and Misty's problematic situationship even though me and Shannon have been privately discussing it for well over ten years at this point because of how iffy and toxic it is. But recently I've got to the point where I enjoy writing about it even if I don't condone a lot of aspects of it. This chapter was very fun to get into the headspace of a heartbroken Misty. I tried not to let it be too much dreary young woman angst. But that is exactly what she is going through. I hope you manage to enjoy :D

So, here we are again. Me sitting in front of an empty page that I am sure will remain that way. I feel nothing. And yet in the same weary breath, I feel everything. Feel all too much and all at once.

Here we go again. Another letter that will never get sent. Imagine if it did. Imagine I had the guts and the desire to say exactly what I think in the same way that I had the shame to waste my time for most of the past year.

How good it would feel to make him realize that the only thing left of me is skin and bones and the remnants of complete and utter lies. How good it would feel to make him see. Make you see.

Yes, you, James. You ruined me. And I will simply never forgive you.

How dare you, James. I carved out a special piece in my heart just for you and I had faith in you, and you gloriously proved to me the weight of that mistake. It was all a lie, wasn't it? Every moment. Every gesture that I foolishly swooned for and every moment you made me feel like someone was finally seeing me for me.

Every time you said that you would never leave. And that I was the treasured thorn in your side so it could never be over.

It was all a lie. It was all a patchwork of falsehoods. And all I can do is stare numbly at the decomposing threads and try to turn them into something worthwhile. Something positive.

But how can I? I will never get back the time that I wasted on you. The love that I poured into you.

I am a fool.

It was never love. Love does not leave you when you are pleading – begging – for it to stay. Love does not make you cower in shame. Make you weave the most intricate lies, unable to look at the people you apparently care for the most in the eye. Love does not make you cry so hard you do not imagine that you will ever be able to eat again.

This is not love. It was never love. I do not know what the hell it was. But I just know I am a shell of who I once was, and it is all your fault.

You were meant to be different, James. I told you where I had come from. You saw it yourself. The sideways glances. The rolling of eyes. The putting down over even the smallest, stupidest of things. You saw that dysfunction raised me. It was the nourishment of your childhood too.

You know I have never been able to shake the messed-up soil that encases my roots. You never said that you would be different. Never promised to be better than them. Better than my sisters.

But whenever I confessed any of that to you, the way that you looked at me and raised my hand to your lips and kissed knuckles of mine that were bruised only for you to see, I had faith that you would be.

No.

You are just the same.

Worse.

Were you conspiring with them? It was my sister who got you locked up that night and I know she aided in you giving me the cold shoulder that led to our demise. But still. Was it you and them versus me in the way that it always was Daisy, Violet, and Lily versus me?

It feels like it. And that is one of the hardest things to swallow given I thought that you could be the one to help me smother the relentless flames of my past for good.

Do you see how I always lose everything? Nothing ever sticks around for me. It is like I have this brand on my forehead and some maniacal creature in the heavens points its gnarled finger at me, cursing me with loss.

I never thought you would walk out on me. You swore that you would not. This is something that you did promise. But you lied.

When I kissed you for the first time, I was terrified. Shame set up a home in my stomach and I could not sleep that night knowing exactly what I felt but I was also kept awake by how much I did not. But one thing for certain is that day forged a new path.

I thought that I could finally say goodbye to absence. It could be different going forward.

I see now that I threw away everything that actually meant something to me just for this lie – this dreamy path – that was never even stretching out in front of me. It was a mirage. I had been building the best life with Ash. We had a future. Before we lost it, we had a baby.

Now I have nothing. You took me away from me and I hate you for that. You picked me up when I was down, dusted me off but you used me and then left me when you no longer wanted me anymore. When you realized how fucked up my family is. How we keep stuff from each other. And how we turn our backs on each other at a moment's notice.

Abandonment is what binds our DNA together and I think this exists within you too. I know it does. Why were things ever going to be different for me?

How dare you, James. The crumbling soil around your roots is no better than my own. It is only now that I realize how your upbringing has screwed you over. You are always on the run, aren't you? You cannot sit still for five minutes let alone to sit through discomfort in a relationship.

It was no relationship between us, I see that now. It was a big, colossal, regrettable mistake. And I will spend the rest of my life carrying the shame with me and trying to not let it taint those that do not deserve it. I screwed over the best thing in my life. The best person. And for what? To get left when I needed you most. When I thought I needed you most.

I begged you not to go, James. Do you realize what that has done to me? I can never forgive myself for stooping so low. I became a pathetic goddamn damsel in distress that cannot breathe without the guy that she thought that she loved. And for what? For whom? The guy who cannot make up his mind of what he actually wants. Who he actually wants.

It would not surprise me if you were screwing the whole town behind my back.

And so, the empty page does not remain empty. An unexpected twist of fate. It is, however, filled with rage that I will keep under lock and key. I will never let this exist in broad daylight for it is too painful. Too shameful.

This page is filled with my fury that I must learn to tame. My sadness that I must somehow live with. But it is the last time I will speak of anything to do with you, James. You no longer have access to my power. You are the biggest mistake of my life, and I hope that you never bounce back from this.

Do you see what you have done to me? Do you see what all of this has done to me? No, you will never see. But I wish that you would. You took everything from me when the silence of your voice was the only thing that followed you out the door that day. Do you know how it made me feel to see you at the Christmas party?

You scarcely looked at me. You put on a show, acting like your wife's touch still meant anything to you. Your eyes were everywhere but on her. Your eyes were everywhere but on me. You could not stand to see it, could you? All the love around the room reminding you that you screwed up yet another thing in your life.

You cannot touch anything without ruining it, can you?

And so, I rid myself of anything that reminds me of you, James. Anything that calls my mind back to the times that I thought we were happy. That is what being raised not by your parents, but three squabbling kids will do to you.

I have never been able to know what is good for me. Have never been able to resist pouring myself into things that will leave me in the next heartbeat.

Happy fucking New Year, James. I will not even hope that this next year makes you miserable. I will simply vow to carry no piece of you with me into the new year. I should have never wasted the previous one with you. But I cannot take that back now. So, I will just force myself to not be such an idiot going forward.

You left me. You left me, James. But this is me taking my power back. You walked out on me like everybody does. But I expel you from my heart.

Never again will I be so stupid. Never again will I take the wrong path over the right one. Never again will I allow someone to take up so much space within me only to leave against oaths of never doing that.

At one point I thought you could have been the love of my life. Now I see that you are the biggest regret in my life, not a mere thorn in my own side but a big gaping hole bleeding me of anything that I once was.

You could have been the love of my life. But you took everything from me. And now I am just a pathetic shell of who I once was, drowning in the concoction of my own poisonous devotion.

I would say I hope that you are happy. But truly, I hope that you are miserable. Because I am.

Even in the hopeless, final act of love I am wishing that we feel the same.

You riddle me with shame and yet, it seems that I have none because I am wasting more of my life by writing all this.

I go into the new year as much of a complicated mess as you. And it is plain to see: I am now all what is left of you.

There you go, thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) I've touched on the subject of James and Misty a handful of times over on Pikachu Tales and there's definitely a few bolder chapters to come next year that I would not have dared write before. But like I said, as I've got older I've realised that I can write about stuff I don't necessarily agree with. This chapter was a bit of a love letter to Hayley Williams' solo album called Flowers For Vases - or "Descansos". Hayley has always heavily inspired me and Shannon's version of Misty and that album to me reeks of James and Misty - or "Jisty" as we affectionately call that darn situationship :P A lot of references to the songs bleed into this chapter. I've always loved James as is very obvious and this chapter paints him badly. A lot of "Jisty" does exactly that because it's true; it's a really bad time in his life. Another thing I've had to get over as I get older. I made these choices for James as a teenager and though age has made me realise how bad those choices are, I don't want to write them out of my stories. I would rather tackle them. Stories are allowed to be uncomfortable sometimes. And yeah, this portrayal isn't for everyone. But it made sense to 14 year old Amy and Shannon and it's not something I want to hide away :P Thank you again for reading. I, of course, want to say a big thank you to anybody who has read any of my stories this year. I've really enjoyed the things I've created in 2024 and very much look forward to seeing where 2025 takes me. Like always, in January I will be on hiatus from updating Pikachu Tales but I look forward to coming back in a month with this story and hopefully will have a few things written that I am passionate about for future upload - starting February! See you when I see you. And thanks again for taking the time to check out what I do :)

Amy signing out!