Hello, it is Wednesday and I am back with a new chapter! Like I said over on my last chapter of Misty's Memoirs, it feels like ages since I uploaded! I feel like I spent my hiatus well, even if as usual I wrote different things than I planned to. However, I am coming back today with a story that I wrote in late 2023. I can't remember where the idea came from. An unfortunate scenario where Misty's dad, Jordan, does not feel like he wants to be a part of Justin and Eli (Jordan's cousin)'s wedding was heavily on my mind and funnily enough, I spent a good chunk of my time away plotting that time in the characters lives too. Though the story starts off about that and a conversation between Lynne and Justin, it veers towards a much needed one between James and Lynne. I've always adored their relationship. But it was fun to get heavier with them :) I hope you enjoy!
Ages:
Justin (Jessie and James' eldest son): 31
Lynne (Misty's mother): Technically 30 - she's stuck at the age she passed away.
James: 52
Humans and their ability to communicate without using words has always fascinated me. Perhaps I should instead be exhilarated by Pokémon and their means of language because we all have so many and must stumble our way through understanding each other like lost adventurers. But it is natural to find yourself peering outward rather than inward. To find beauty in different instead of the same.
As much as humans and their complicated vocabulary intrigues me, I always feel a twitch in my gut, an elevation of my eyebrows when no words are said at all. And still, messages are conveyed. This happened a lot on one particular day. But also, lots of world held importance too. And despite my earlier point, I was enamored equally by what I heard as what I did not hear at all.
Let us just begin, shall we?
Lynne floated into the living room in her usual fashion, her skirts billowing around her ankles like an enchantress and her delicate fingertips leading the way. Justin might not have been a common victim of her charms, but he still looked up at once when she breezed into the room. He paused with one set of fingers on the fretboard of his guitar and the other set hanging in front of the strings above the sound hole.
Without words, Justin's face offered her a smile. His head twitched into a nod, dimples cutting holes in his cheeks by way of a greeting. He went back to strumming on his guitar before Lynne greeted him in return, but he gathered that she must have done so. She often did.
Lynne bobbed her own head, hands not rising to wave at him and instead making their way into the depths of my paling yellow fur from the second that she made a beeline towards me. I had to fight not to squeal with delight!
Unlike my human friends, I said a lot of things with words of my own. And I often found them spilling out of me when affection was shown to me, whether it was in grand gestures or small.
My heart sung furthermore when Lynne expressed her own kind of words – through the sound of feminine giggles – in response to the catch that she knew had taken over my throat as I fought not to shriek. I turned my head up towards her, one eye squinting together and not just because one of Lynne's thumbs was creating a heavenly sensation over one of my temples by motioning in circles.
However, I have to say that I was quite surprised when she was no longer looking down at me. Our moment in time had been exchanged with not so many words and instead an essence of union. Lynne instead found her eyes to be travelling across to Justin. When they were unable to control themselves, her feet did not bother to stop themselves from joining her gaze in its desires.
Lynne did not exactly stand over Justin, watching him and snatching breath from him with her stare. Her feet planted her a good few meters in front of him, her fingers occupied with each other now that her affection for me was regrettably over.
She was not a great monarch looming over her subject. And Justin may have been one with what he was doing, drawing out a melody that he had been trapped inside of his head for weeks and was seeing whether he could make it work on his trusty cherry companion.
But he knew when he was being observed. He always had done.
Whether it was classmates of his across the classroom wondering what kind of box they could squeeze him into or even bolder still, were staring, wondering how on earth he of all people was gay.
Well, he just was.
Justin feeling like a bug under a magnifying glass had been a factor in his life long before those moments. These days, he did not care to ponder what the reason was for the attention. But this moment was different. This moment that he was experiencing was because of Lynne.
She took up a space in his heart. In his life. And not just because of the thread that made its way from her heart and into his father's and then traced along his veins and out of his fingertips, entangling Justin in the union too.
Justin's curvy red hollow bodied guitar slipped off the narrowness of his thigh. It plopped onto the carpet. When he looked up at Lynne, there were those dimples like segments of fruit all over again. This time they were accompanied by a scrunching at the bridge of his nose.
"Is everything alright with you, Lynne?" Justin did not hesitate to ask. Although he provided her with the space to be present with him, he still reached for his guitar again in the next couple of seconds as he awaited an answer.
From swallowing my bewilderment that the affection with Lynne had disappeared as quickly as I had been blessed with it, my head nudged upwards. I knew that Justin often liked to occupy his hands with something and that something was usually his guitar. It helped him to listen and to express himself, not only in the form of song.
For half a heartbeat, something washed over Lynne, and it tricked her into thinking that she was conversing with another parent at one of her children's activity clubs – like they were making small talk – and she almost told Justin about what was going on in her life in an airy fashion.
But then it dawned on her.
Justin's dimple deepening as his hands settled themselves in their comfortable positions on his guitar, Lynne realized that he had been savvy to her plucking up the courage to ask something of him. She suddenly let out a breathy sort of laugh at her own foolishness. Her fingers played with each other even more before she knew that she could just come out and say it.
There was no point in hiding something from someone who was an expert in spotting things that were trying to be hidden.
His own lifetime made Justin a seasoned expert in noticing what was underneath the surface, I privately observed.
"Oh, I was just wondering if I could ask you a favor, Justin." Lynne said, her eyes of the blue of the ocean flickering between him and the patch of carpet next to him as she wondered whether she could sit down with him or if that would be too bold.
And I know what you are thinking – well, maybe you are not – but I know that I was thinking that surely nothing could be too bold between two people who were family.
But then again, at that point I did not know what exactly the favor was going to be!
In the same way that Lynne was wondering whether it would be too much to clamber next to him, Justin considered whether his next actions were rude. But in the end, he decided that he should just be himself.
Fingers plucking at the strings of his guitar and his hand roaming up and down the fretboard to make a sound, Justin's teeth bit down onto his lower lip and without using words at all, he told Lynne to go ahead.
He ended up saying this sentiment with words too.
"I think that would be okay." Justin's level, non-committal tone of voice was worlds apart from the light-hearted jangly sound that was omitting from his guitar, but I saw that this did not brush Lynne the other way.
In fact, as I caught sight of her face in the mirror hanging on the wall, fondness for her partner's son was kissing at the corners of her eyes through crow's feet. They only deepened as she was given permission to ask anything.
Giddily, Lynne seized this moment as much as she held in her grasp the chance to plop down on the carpet right next to Justin. Their kneecaps were brushing against each other's just a second before she breathlessly found her own words.
"Great." Lynne breathed out because she felt that it was and because she wanted to give herself time to word it. Not that Justin caught onto this part for once. In his mind, only the sound of his guitar filled the gap of her sentences. "I was just wondering if you could stick around and keep an eye on Jordan tonight?" Lynne's eyes searched for Justin even if their knees stopped touching. "Seeing as me and your dad are going out."
In the future, Justin told me that he had to fight as hard to not let his guitar moan out when his hand slipped away from the strings like he did when he was on stage. In front of thousands of people. I can tell you that he did an excellent job because no twanging noises filled the air. Only silence did.
Justin's left hand remained on the fret board of his guitar even if his right one had moved away. He could feel Lynne peering into his eyes and as much as he loathed doing this, he knew that he had to look away. He knew that she would notice – hopefully, she would not– but he just could not stand her eyes sometimes.
They were always filled with the essence that many people lost after childhood ended. Often filled to the brim with a wistful kind of certainty. When you wanted to be nonchalant, they made it impossible to breathe. If you wanted to hide, they would seek you out.
For the first time in a long time, Justin wanted to hide!
But instead, all he could do was pull his guitar closer to him even if he suddenly wanted to shun his companion, pressing his lips into an amiable line. He hoped that the manufactured hole of his dimple could stop Lynne from digging any deeper.
As if.
"Oh, tonight's not so good for me." Justin forced himself to look back at Lynne after seconds of fixing his gaze to the carpet that equalized them both. His right hand managed to settle back on the strings. While he scrambled for what to say, his guitar remained stubbornly soundless. "Sorry."
Never before had there been an apology so insincere! An apology so constructed for the simple reason of being put out there.
Justin's father might have been weak-kneed worshipper for her innocence and her naivety but that did not mean that Lynne was utterly unaware. Her neatly plucked eyebrows on her face drew together a couple of centimeters when she heard a no uttered in a long-winded way.
Nevertheless, she did not let this deter her. And she did not let this allow her to think the worst. James had always worshipped at the altar of her ability to put a warm, rosy glow on anything.
And not that James had ever had the guts to spell this out to Lynne, but it was one of the things that drove Justin around the bend!
"I see." Lynne began, shuffling on the carpet and moving out of the way of Justin as she noticed that him drawing his guitar closer to her a few moments ago had caused her own skirt to ride up upon her lap. She rectified this situation as much as she intended to seek clarity for the other thing. A smile painted on her face. "Are you doing something special with Eli this evening?"
Lynne chose not to let it be known that she knew that his children were with Sammy so this was not the reason that he would be unable to grant her favor. Justin took his own turn to shuffle, acting as though he needed to adjust his guitar against his thigh.
It was common knowledge, however, that the two of them were always comfortable together.
From my position still on the windowsill, I could not help but noticed the beginnings of a peculiar, timed smile threatening to swipe across Justin's own face.
"No, nothing special with Elijah exactly." He answered and realization struck me like the dawn of a new day. Justin's next singular word confirmed it to me. "Well…" this word sounded but was never elaborated on. I for one, however, knew that it meant that any time with his future husband was special time. And it meant any empty slot in his diary was reserved for him – for them. "Is there nobody else that you can ask?"
Justin discovered this to be the moment that his hands rested soundlessly over his guitar, and he was able to look over at Lynne. He knew that his mother had been busy suit shopping with Jorginho for the entire day and she was always the first candidate to sit in with Jordan.
And JJ and Morgan had lives of their own to lead.
Lynne might not have touched upon his mother's name, but she did mention these two last ones before moving on ahead, more of a knot plaiting her eyebrows together. She knew that she needed to occupy her hands with playing with her skirt before anything else happened.
"Jorgie and Johnny will of course be around, but I really would prefer to have someone else here rather than them all looking out for each other." Lynne explained – and Justin nodded – but she could see that this was still not him granting her wish, so a sigh tumbled out of her nostrils. "You really can't find the time?"
There was a momentary pause inside Justin. You would not have been able to tell from the outside if you did not know him. But I knew him. Well, I liked to think I knew him as much as you can know these peculiar human creatures!
The pause inside Justin coincided with an invisible string snapping. Guilt breezed through his stomach like an unwanted gust on an otherwise warm summer's day. But he knew that he had to stick to his guns.
"I really can't find the time." Justin said, both remorse and Lynne's second, louder sigh getting the better of him in the next second. He needed to remove a hand from his guitar to rub over his brow before mustering up more words. "I always want Jordan to be okay…" his voice quieted down. Lynne could see that he meant it. But she also knew when he was not going to bend to her wishes. "But I really don't have the time."
And with that, to punctuate his point of view, Justin's right hand tumbled back away from roaming over his forehead and placed over the strings above the sound hole. In the next heartbeat, the guitar began to sing. But it was a low, monotonous groan of a noise. So much so that Lynne did not need to utter out her own grumbles.
But she felt them even if her own sounds were not omitted. And she took the next couple of seconds to nod her head even if she knew that she would not be defeated. She stood all over again. I could see that she felt that they were at odds. They were not on the same team anymore. It was as if the two patches of carpet that they had been sitting on had separated into two burgs of ice and she needed to stand or would drown.
I felt no resentment in looking back over at Lynne as she briefly turned over her shoulder to look at me, long since forgetting about the excruciatingly brief affection from her. I did not mean to do it, but I still somehow feel that me looking at her fueled her into pointing out all that occurred next.
Maybe it was not even me. It was just meant to happen, and I am too big headed for my own good.
But like Justin did when he knew he had to put himself and his future husband first, I still feel that unwanted cold chill of guilt. And even now as I remember this day, I am not sure it will ever leave me for good.
Lynne found words that she wanted to say along with her breath as she drew a slow, plentiful lungful into her body.
"You not having the time," she began, causing Justin's eyes to follow her shape upwards even if he longed to kid himself that he was being snatched away by the boringly low hums of his guitar. "Wouldn't have anything to do with my husband not being able to attend the wedding, would it?"
The phrase the wedding rather than your wedding sent a tundra tickling down Justin's spine as much as the realization that Lynne was going there.
She was not being as passively aggressive as she often was Justin recalled in hindsight.
After the chill of reality, Justin experienced the flush of memories. I did as well, but it was far more debilitating for Justin and obvious as well, as he did not have yellow fur clinging to his neck. The mottled ivy of a blush was undeniable as it climbed his skin.
He did not think that he would find words for a long time and rather than loathing this, he trained himself to be patient. He told himself that it was important, it was a big situation, and if he did not find his voice straight away then it was okay.
Funnily enough, telling himself this allowed him to be brave. To be courageous. Justin suddenly abandoned his guitar on the carpet as if its whiny antics were suffocating him. He may have forged a smile, but his heart wanted to scream at Lynne so lightly touching on something that had kept him awake at night since it had happened.
"To tell you the truth, Lynne, yes. Yes. It has everything to do with Jordan refusing to be a part of our special day." Justin's jaw clenched around these words as if he could not believe that he was saying them. Yet part of him was not surprised at all. "And if you don't get that then I don't think you understand the severity of the situation."
His own courage to face up to the unfaceable caused his insides to quiver. But the memories of the fateful day had turned his body parts to mush. And he knew that he would surely crumble if Lynne tried to paint a rosy outline around a truly dire turn of events.
Fortunately, she did not.
Her own cheeks hollowed when she thought about all that had happened. It was not a farce when her oceanic blue eyes wobbled with the wetness of the sea, and she thought about sitting back with Justin. But she just could not.
She had made a point of standing so she had to live with her decision.
A mistake she would go on to regret.
"I do get the severity of it all and it breaks my heart." Lynne began and her open palm made its way to rest over the center of her chest. Even if Justin was looking at his empty kneecaps, he knew that she was not putting on a pantomime for him. "I don't know." She spoke again. With these three words, Justin somehow got an idea of the disappointment that was soon to engulf him. "I guess maybe I just think that if you want Jordan to join your day then you need to focus on all that he has always been supportive of instead of what right now he now doesn't feel comfortable participating in."
The scoff that erupted out of Justin's tightened throat spoke everything before he even figured out all that he wanted to say. To tell you the truth, he did not at all know all that he wished to say. He had bits and pieces in his mind. But it was all things rattling around in his heart and they could not be glued together to form sentences.
That was, however, until he thought of Eli. His sweet Elijah, as he called him. He had been through so much – far more than he had – and he wanted to give him the most special day in all the lands and not just a simple day, as Lynne had thoughtlessly described it.
Nobody apart from the two of them understood how many tears had to be cried for them both to be comfortable enough to express their love for one and other in front of all those that they held dear.
Justin knew that some people would never truly get it. And part of him would never be okay with that. Because, you see, when he looked at his future husband, it was all straightforward and simple.
He loved him and wanted to be with him forever. And could not understand how any emotions could stop you from wanting to celebrate that.
Hell, even Sammy was brave enough to be a part of it all!
"I'm not going to lead by example and I'm certainly not going to beg someone to attend after they threw away the chance to join us like it was nothing." Justin spat over the last word, and it brought a lump to my throat that I had to gulp down. "It wouldn't be right to grant a favor after all that." His head moved from side to side to dry any imminent tears. "It doesn't feel right to me. To us."
Justin proved to Lynne then that it was not even about him anymore. He and Eli had been a unit for many seasons at that point and that was not going to change soon. Everything that Justin had done lately had always been for Eli. And plans to do with the wedding absolutely was for him.
He wanted to give him the day that he had never allowed himself to dream of, whether Jordan was telling him that he had nothing to fear or everything to fear depending on the day.
Lynne exhaled out of her nostrils like she was the one carrying the weight of the world. In some ways, she was. I knew it had surprised her too when Jordan had run his mouth in the middle of a fight with Eli and said that he just should not attend the wedding. She knew that Jordan feared for those two men, and she knew why he feared for them both.
But she did not think that it would reach that point. She did not think that Eli would calmly adjust the wedding so that Jordan did not need to attend even if he surely wanted him to.
God, it filled her stomach with acid when she heard on the grapevine that Eli had already found a replacement to be his best man.
"Maybe don't think of it as a favor to Jordan." Lynne suddenly found her voice which caught Justin off guard, causing him to need to blink rapidly before any more tears of the great burdens swamped his sunken eyes. "I know that you still want him to be okay and I feel that too, but me and your dad haven't been out alone together in ages." Nausea swamped Justin's stomach more than tears did his eyes. He had somehow forgotten that her and his dad were their own unit like he was with Eli. "You could do it as a favor to me."
Justin had never really believed in a creator, but he thanked Them profusely when Lynne did not add the words favor to us. Still, what won inside of him in the end was the fact that she thought it was all about favors. It was all about charting up who had done what and where and when and who owed what to someone.
It was not about that. It could never be about that.
Like Justin had voiced, he really queried whether Lynne saw the depth of the trenches he felt that they were in.
Fortunately, he was able to manufacture his words and not speak in a way that hissed all these feelings that he had not come to terms with fully, let alone knew how to express.
"A favor to you?" Justin repeated. Before Lynne could feel any degree of hope pricking at her eyelashes and melting into her lids, he mustered his best polite, close-mouthed smile. His dimples were digging desperately deep. "Still."
Still.
This was the word that did it. This was the tipping point. He did not mean it in the way that Lynne heard it. Truthfully, he did not know how she could flip it like that inside of her mind. But he had to come face to face with it when it presented itself to him, even if it left him dry mouthed and wide eyed like he was a child who had pushed an unstable parent too far.
Lynne's eyes suddenly glistened with fear more than hope. She decided that Justin's still was perfectly calculated. She was so glad that she was still standing.
"Oh, of course." That tipping point not only altered the course of the conversation, but Lynne became someone that had been born out of a feeling of uncertainty. A scaly creature very much out of water. Her nostrils flared but no carbon dioxide escaped them. "I should have figured that you of all people would be even less willing to do me a favor."
Hollow silence rang out following these words that only Lynne and Justin could understand to the full extent. Justin's dry mouth hung open like he was suddenly the finned creature that had no idea where to go.
Had she really gone there? Had she really drummed up something – a wisp, a nothing – from nowhere? Yes, she had!
Justin kept his cool oftentimes during conflict. But the truth was, he had not had it out with Jordan regarding he and Eli's wedding, so all that pent up frustration needed a release. He controlled it well to not unleash it on Lynne.
But that still did not stop him from springing up, barely acknowledging the pain searing through his sock when he accidentally bashed his big toe against his guitar on the way.
"Lynne-" Justin spoke her name, and this is all that he had time for. The way that he was staring at her with a foot between them both like he was at risk of bursting due to being filled with too much bewilderment and frustration had to be enough.
James swung around the door as he took a break from getting ready for he and Lynne's approaching date together, a few of his white shirt buttons undone but it was his expression that was caught the most off guard when he saw his son not exactly squaring up to his partner but near enough.
Thanks to her slender height, they were able to meet eye to eye at least in the physical sense. But James could sense the tension enough to dart between them.
Looking back, this is what I should have done!
"Hey, hey, hey." James interrupted normally before deciding for some reason to say something to lighten the clear mood. "I hope you guys are just having a staring contest because…"
As James moved between the two of them and Justin took a purposeful, large step back because he could be snapped from his trance somehow easily given all the emotions involved, his hand reached for Lynne's wrist. James then glanced between them both, hoping one of them would explain.
He should have known that given Justin's punctual jolt back that he was going to be the one to find his voice. His emotions were not being expressed with any hint of anger or malice. Everything was causing everything to coil inside of him like a spring destined to bounce.
Justin did not bother to hold back his words, let alone give the lady in the room the chance to speak first.
"Dad, do you think you could get Lynne to repeat to you what favor she asked of me?" Justin looked at his parent while he spoke and after the first couple of blinks of his tired eyes, they softened down and it was no longer his mouth that was like a child's.
Lynne could not help but scoff when she heard Justin speak to his dad rather than her and James did not exactly ignore this because he did turn to her while gently letting go of her wrist with lingering fingers. But then he turned back to his son.
After he let out an uncertain sure with extra vowels at the end and posed this question to his partner while reaching for her wrist all over again though his hand had just left, Lynne was encouraged for the scoff rasping her throat to be a thing of the past so that she could paint the picture.
Encouraging her eyes not to revolve out of the frustration that she felt surrounding it all, decorating her words, she told James of the favor in question.
Immediately, James did not feel Lynne's wrist from slipping out of his fingers entirely, but he did almost lose his grip on her. He wanted to take a step back – both figuratively and literally. But he knew he had stumbled across the tension for a reason and felt like it was the path destined for him to tread along when he had been summoned to be the referee.
James looked at his son with no judgement and with no harshness. He held onto Lynne in the same way even though she looked down and wondered how long it would be before she saw that hand of his slipping away for good.
"I see." He turned to look at Lynne again after filling his vision with his son and she was forced to look up rather than imagining the hold around her already gone. James looked back at Justin, a gentle crease penciling down his brow before he started to see him at a tiny angle. "And how do you feel about that?"
And this, for some reason, caused all the fear of her imaginary scenarios to choke Lynne before it all got the better of her and she exclaimed out. For some reason, she could not handle James giving Justin a voice.
She feared Justin painting her like a villain when deep down she wanted to be part of their wedding day more than anything and did not understand why any of them had to fight.
Lynne snatched her hand away from James before his could leave her and she broke the distance with them both. Desperate tears clung to the corners of her eyelids.
"Oh, of course we all know that Justin feels that he couldn't possibly do anything for anybody else during this time!" Lynne erupted. It would not have hurt more if she had said the words their time, as if both Justin and Eli had claimed any time running up to the wedding to be strictly about them.
The truth is, her outburst cut James as much as it did Justin, causing his head to turn after he briefly looked down at his empty hold and wondered where all of this is coming from. Of course, he had a bit of an idea.
But he could not think about that.
James could feel his son simmering next to him. And suddenly, he was at boiling point. Justin too was spewing words that he had longed to say for a long time.
"You know, I have never understood why my dad thinks you're from a world better than this one and as angelic as they come! The truth is that you're just utterly delusional!" Justin spat, hardly needing to raise his voice but the lung power that he used to sing his songs heartily lending him their aid.
The yelp that escaped from Lynne's lungs as her open palm attached itself to her chest like it was a magnet after stone hold horror at Justin's words washed over him caused James' ears and the base of his throat to burn.
James wanted to reach back out for Lynne but could not. He wanted to rest a hand on Justin's shoulder to cool him down but could not do that either. All he could do was just stand there. Helpless. Wondering how everything had gone so wrong and why oh why did they all have to fight like this. It should be them against the problem and them not all against each other, the lines heavily blurring between enemy and family.
James was certain that he would not be able to speak. But after Lynne melted into his peripheral vision and Justin trembled there too, he knew that he had to say something – anything. He knew that he had to begin.
And he knew that he could aggravate either one of them in the process.
"Justin…" he spoke his son's name with gravity but also with consideration. This was not him. Justin was a victim of the time that they were in. He had to tell himself that it was not a long time coming. "I am sure that what Lynne asked of you was very tricky for you, but I will not stand by and allow you to speak to your stepmother like that."
After imagining her life without James, heaven's chorus suddenly rang in Lynne's ears. He was defending her! He was not defending Justin! He was defending her! Okay, he was being reasonable with Justin too – too reasonable in her mind – but that did not even matter.
Lynne's heart rate fluttered underneath her own chest. James did not tar her with the same brush as Jordan even if she had acted a bit rashly. They might as well be the ones getting married with the way that James had solidified their union in such a meaningful way after a rocky few years!
Of course, like it often is, it is a harsh drop from the top. And I only must guess as I continually watched while wondering whether I should stop and leave that everyone was meant to be at the pits of despair all together so they could all climb their way out as a group.
Justin certainly put forth this long drop, whether he intended to or not.
For once it went over him how present his father was being with him despite his hostile behavior. And instead, all he could focus on was spitting out words that were a long time coming.
It was no longer just Justin's throat that was mottling with a ferocious blush. His cheeks were stained so red that they may become as permanent as my own.
He did not break any distance, but his body loomed over the room as much as his words did.
"She is not my stepmother!" Justin argued. He left no room for gasps from anyone before continuing. "She is literally just someone who happens to be your girlfriend!"
Lynne and I were the two that gasped when the time was right. I almost toppled off the windowsill! Lynne nearly fell to her knees but instead had to compose herself and just grip over her own heart to make sure it was still inside there.
For some reason, James found a tiny glimmer of calm and was able to allow it to grow inside of him. Somehow, he was composed. And looking back upon future reflection, I understand it. He had reached the point of so much happening and so much stress tapping him on the shoulder as soon as he awoke that he had reached peace instead. Not numbness, no. He very much felt alive.
But there and then, he felt alive in being a referee.
The loud sigh that escaped his nostrils before addressing Justin spoke of everything. But it did not speak of enough. Neither did his words.
"Whoever Lynne is-" James tried to begin, and he tried to reach out that hand to Justin's shoulder that he had finally mustered. But this is what pushed Justin over the edge. This is what told him that he should not even be in the room anymore and he should just leave. James considered chasing after him. But he could have unintentionally seemed like a snarling creature on his son's heels. "Justin! Come back and let us all resolve this!"
James called after him, but he did not like to shout let alone sprint. So, it was too late. Justin was gone. With a scoff escaping his throat before it could be tears and a hand waving haphazardly before it could cling to the air for dear life, Justin was long since out of the room.
All he left in his wake was his guitar seeming to pale and sink down into the carpet, vanishing too, as well as an echoing silence. And of course, he left James and Lynne with a situation of their own to resolve.
And I have to say that I for one was left frozen to the spot and with no hopes of roaming anywhere when Lynne let out a second strangled noise before flopping herself down to the nearest seat, arms hugging around herself.
I was surprised when she was able to find it in herself to look at James.
He, however, could not muster such strength and looked away soon after his gaze habitually fell on her. And it was this that caused her to say words she too had been gasping to say for years.
"You can't look at me anymore, can you, James…?" Lynne asked through teeth that possessed such utter desperation to chatter. And yet somehow, like each small white one was her very own soldier, she commanded them not to be so weak.
James could look at Lynne after her words but that is not what she wanted. That was not what she longed for at all. And although his tongue appeared twisted, unable to make its mind up over which words it intended to utter; it was clear he realized the point that she was trying to make.
She did not mean just that day. He had looked at her several times in between homing in his gaze on his son. No, James knew what Lynne meant. And him being unable to ignore it was the causation of his own words.
"I am simply too tired for this, Lynne." James' tone did not betray his words. And while part of him knew that he should fix his gaze effortlessly on his partner, proving to her that her words were simply untrue and not for the joy of showing her that she was wrong, he simply could not.
Lynne was right.
His gaze followed where his son had left the room with such upset in his own heart. And it made Lynne's stomach lurch before more words spilled out of her.
"Tired of… me?" she could not help but wonder. It took a great deal to muster up the courage to say these words, and certainly the last one. Lynne knew that she would be unable to bare the answer. But this is where she was at.
This is where she and James were both at. The fight between Jordan and Eli had spread, and the rupture had rippled, catching people off guard and toppling them apart. All of this had been coming for years.
The fight was a rug being ripped from underfoot. And now the moment that Lynne spelled out these words too. While her doe eyes wobbled with fear and yet premature acceptance, hiding her trembling fingers in the folds of her skirt, she waited for James to confirm her anxieties.
But he did not.
I too watched and listened as he did not.
"No." His voice whispered, and he hated that because it made it seem like his choice could be altered by a simple change in the breeze. Nevertheless, he moved onto another explanation, his own fingers soothing themselves in his trimmed locks. "Tired of everything. Of Jordan being harsh and Justin trying to hold it together and Eli acting as if his heart isn't breaking." He swallowed. "Even Jorginho being secretly delighted at the prospect of being best man is making my stomach hurt."
Lynne could not help but feel her bones jumping out of her. But she calmed herself down by reassuring herself that certain names had been uttered in the same way that all the others had. James was sick to the stomach over it all. And it was making him weary.
Despite their opposing positions and battles to fight alone within themselves, Lynne could not help but nod in understanding. But words had been spilled from her like they had with Justin. And unlike Justin, she did not plan to stop there.
She would not look James in the eye and pretend she was okay. She would not look James in the eye and pretend they were okay.
Enough was enough.
If all the wedding fiasco was causing their paths to diverge for good, then she wanted to know of it.
"Are you too tired to hear about how I'm feeling…?" Lynne found the courage to say. She had not learned from the last time when she had suspected something from James and was greeted with the entire opposite.
She lived in fear that he would prove that their bond was a lost cause, let alone speak of it. But he did not.
Something peculiar existed within James, you see, where he could be in the pits of despair himself but still be able to reach his frail hand out to pull someone up from drowning. He could be so sure that he and somebody else were destined to stray from each other. But he never stopped caring. And he never stopped showing care either.
You just had to make sure you looked.
The lungful of air in which James drew inside of him spoke of the continual heaviness he felt. But in the end, his poisonous devotion won out. And he did not fight against himself from moving to perch on the arm of the chair next to Lynne, not fully reaching for her wrist this time but the tip of his middle finger brushed her skin with a dwindling spark of electricity.
I kid myself that I could hear it fighting for its life.
"Never." James' voice sounded in a whisper again. A feather touch in comparison to the storm he felt inside.
But still, it was words. And Lynne was so overwhelmed by him wanting to hear her woes, him proving her wrong that for quite a few slow, thoughtful heartbeats of hers, she wondered if he might have been able to talk for her instead.
But how could he? He might have not been ignorant to their growing duals, but this battle was for her and her alone.
Lynne looked down at their scarcely touching bodies, and she used this sight to fuel her words. Her eyes brewed and then puddled, and James could count himself lucky that he could not look into her eyes anymore because he would have surely been dragged out to sea.
"You didn't defend me, James…" Lynne began, and James was wincing already, keeping any touch for himself. His heart was chattering at how she was calling him by his name, no sweetness or sugary pet names rolling off her tongue. "When Justin said…"
But Lynne could not spell out what Justin had said. It was as though her tongue had become a serpent and had slithered down her throat, stopping her from making any sound at all. It was for the best. James might not have defended her in the way that she hoped but he had to have disliked the acidic words erupting from his son.
He did not wish to hear them again.
"I severely doubt that he meant them…" James automatically started, and he did not have to look at her to feel the disappointment shooting out of her, rendering her a deflated balloon. This was not the point, and he knew it. His eyes fluttered shut to take a better grasp of words he really wanted to say. "I thought that I did." James' touch reached Lynne this time as his eyes open. With a gentle patting sound, his palm landed on the top of her wrist. "I meant to when I said whoever she is."
Whoever she is to James meant that blood was not always thicker than water and chosen family was a poignant thing and wedding ring or no wedding ring, Lynne was vastly important to them both. And no matter the intensity of emotions or situations, she did not deserve to be spoken to like that.
For all their fizzling out flames, Lynne somehow understood that James meant all this by the short sentence that he did speak. But still, her head began to swing from side to side and she did not relax under his touch.
For the first time, she felt numb under it. She did not know this touch anymore. It might as well have belonged to a stranger.
"I'm not the same person to you anymore, you must admit that…" Lynne started saying while looking blankly at the hand refusing to leave her arm, part of her willing to feel something. But she was purposefully not so that it was easier when it inevitably went away for good. "You haven't looked at me the same as you did when we first met for a number of years now…"
James could feel that Lynne was not reacting to his touch, and it was causing his heart of glass to drop inside of him. Even when they did not see eye to eye, he could be sure that when he reached out to her, she would respond, and they would forget their problems for at least a couple of seconds and be who they once were.
Not anymore. Like Lynne accused of him, they both were not who they once were, together and apart.
Defeatedly, James' touch slipped away from her while his eyes wandered to the gentle frame of her jaw.
"Is that so…?" James could only manage three words, his meadow eyes being hit with a small, oncoming rainstorm as his eyes flickered from her jaw to her cheek. They could hardly focus anywhere else.
Certainly not when Lynne nodded, making it clear that her next words would cause another slash in his chest.
"I'm afraid it is…" Lynne whispered before she used her own tears to hydrate her, suddenly able to muster a weak, out of place chuckle, her head swinging from side to side all over again and not in a desperate bid to dry her eyes. "And I can see all the moments that caused it." These words were decorated by haunting laughter too. "When poor Sammy was in hospital... When Justin and Katie had their… thing. That year with Jorginho…"
Lynne surprised herself how easily she said certain names. They could not harm her anymore. It was James' turn to feel pain and it seemed as though he could physically feel it when he did not wish to soothe his digits by hiding in wisps of his own hair.
His whole palm massaged over his chest. When his words came, they were not blanketed by giggles.
"I think what you are pointing out is reality getting in the way of a relationship that we labeled as a fairytale far more than just the once." This admission was enough to get Lynne to look at her skirt covered kneecaps, tears stinging her eyes, let alone what surely was to come. "Maybe as the years have gone on, I have started to love you differently." Immediately, Lynne jolted. And this time, she welcomed not only James' touch on her arm but his whispered voice too. "Never less. Just differently..."
Lynne needed to sit with this information for a good few movements of the hand of the clock on the wall and James allowed her this. He had granted her that he would give her the space to speak, and the truth is, he gave her the space for everything too. To feel. To wonder. Space to grieve.
Whatever she needed, he would surely give it to her because he had always promised that he would give her exactly that. And there might not have been a wedding band to show for their love but even with her he meant to love her in sickness and in health, in times of difficulty and times of levity.
Slowly, the touch on Lynne's arm persistently melted into her skin and she did not shun it away, even if she told herself that it would be excruciating when it left for good. She had more words to say, and she needed to say them.
James was still there even if words of hers must have cut him. But perhaps they had not, she kid herself. They were too far gone.
Lynne just had to hope that her own words would not exactly cut James, but they would get him to think as much as they encouraged him to see her side.
"Do you then admit that you look at me differently too…?" Lynne surprised herself by being able to ask this weighty question, not feeling the heaviness leaving her even if the words had evacuated her being. "Even if you say you love me no less…"
Lynne had to have been repeating this last point to prove a point. To get James to speak in more than a whisper. Even if he knew what she was doing, he did not play her game.
He instead reassured her with all his fingers wrapping around her wrist, enveloping her before he went on to not do a disservice to her by coloring his words any other shade to what they really were.
"I suppose that I do…" James nodded his head though he did not have to. A chance existed that he was checking that the muscles in his neck were still working because damn, it felt like a serpent was wrapping all the way around them. He set his words free with an extra breath for good luck. "And I do know why. It's something I've considered for years but I'm afraid of devastating you by it being not what you wish to hear…"
Lynne was past the point of wanting to hear words that she wanted to hear. Way past it. Even on that day she had prayed, and she had hoped that things would go a certain way. Certain words and reassurance had been put across to her. But she was done with that. She was done.
Things were going to be how they were going to be. It was the same between Jordan and Eli. With both scenarios, she wanted to kick up a fuss and get her own points across and oh how she was desperate to be heard.
But as time passed, as far as they both were concerned, she just had to trust that her words were enough even if they were whispers. The right person would hear them. And the right force would use them to change reality into how it was meant to be.
Lynne did not want James to want her anymore if he did not. She felt that she had been losing grip on him for a few times over the years. So, she decided that they might as well just get on with it.
"How you feel is important to me too, James…" Lynne told him. Because neither of them was expecting these words to be the start of it all, least of all James, he could not help but turn his whole body while sitting on the arm of the chair. He did not care if a dull ache met the base of his spine. He had to be sure he had not lost his hearing like everything else seemed to be slipping away. "Even if they shake me, I shall be honored to tremble for you at least one more time."
And after that, James was not sure how he could muster up the courage. Part of him wondered if that was her plan! But when they truly laid all their cards out on the table and they had a real heart to heart, games were the last thing on Lynne's mind. And not only did he trust that, but he knew it like it was ancient knowledge.
They had felt the same about so many things. So, he knew that it was not that unlikely that, just like him, she still glimmered for him even if they were treading new muddy waters, both together and apart.
Some hearts would always be entwined. Even if bodies stopped being. And even if you stopped being on the same plain.
"I think… I've been dishonoring you for a number of years, Lynne…" James began, and as he spoke of her name, he just had to pray that it was okay with her, and that the love was still heard there, even if he was sure that he had heard none of it when Lynne uttered his own name. "Focusing far too much on your passing. Our fairytale. The angel who saved my life." A habitual, tiny smile twitched his mouth. "Rather than the woman whom I share two children and a whole life with."
Lynne was preparing to hear words from James that would knock all remaining air out of her lungs because he had always done that, both on occasions that she wanted to adoringly duplicate and those she wanted to never remember. But nothing could prepare her for all of this. Nothing could prepare her for the sentences that he had clearly put a lot of thought into.
For a number of years, just like he said.
Lynne's eyes were a welling ocean, and she could feel the wetness tinting the corners of her nostrils as well as her eyelids.
"And you think all that is bad…? You think all that has caused you to look at me differently…?" Lynne's eyes blinked rapidly as she fought hard to look at James, but it was not to act like her tears were not coming. She wanted to see this point as clearly as he did. "I've always found that so wonderful…"
James' words were out there, and it was like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. But when he heard Lynne's reply – when he could feel her not understanding as much as he could see it – he felt all that weight rushing back and ten times over.
His words were now choking him. But he had to breathe through them to say more, wanting to keep his hand over Lynne's wrist but knowing it was not the right time.
"I feared that you wouldn't understand." Confessed James, having to rub his fingertips over his own forearm even though it was then dying for the touch of Lynne. His angel. "Feared that you would think all this meant that I loved you less." He clarified, the constrict of his words wrapping around his throat. "When in fact, I know all of that means I love you more."
It was agony when Lynne could not help but scoff. This hurt James far worse than the cinder in his throat.
Once upon a time, she would believe anything he said whenever he said it. Like the picture that James had painted, they both believed that their love was a fairytale. It was otherworldly. In recent years, they had both learned that that was not the case.
But it seemed that only one of them was able to accept it and use it for a new chapter rather than hankering for old ones.
"Perhaps you should tell your eyes that." Lynne whispered after the violence of her scoff. She then looked away, ironically taking her turn to be the one to need to look elsewhere.
James could have scoffed himself. Or he could have taken a leaf out of his son's book, upping, and leaving. He did neither of these things. He knew when he was culpable. The word sorry was one of his most used.
"I will be the first to admit that the past few years together have been tougher than the beginning." James spoke. When he knew that he was placating Lynne, he caught on fast to the fact that then was not the time to sugarcoat anything. Even if it stung. "Or rather, have been tougher in a different way." James clarified and even I knew why. Their issues had been born of outside forces rather than ones inside of them - the one inside James that begged him to drink and to forget. "But in a strange way, I welcome it. I welcome overcoming things with you because to me, that says more about us than two people just merely always destined to meet..."
Lynne could have scoffed again. From my position on the windowsill and continually wondering if I would ever get the guts to leave the room, I pictured her scoffing a second time. However, when I peeled away my judgment and I sent my gaze over towards her, I slowly started to see that there was no way that she could do that.
While her own hands gripped her skin rather than the tattoo etched arms in which were still her livelihood, I could see their own guard weakening. James had gotten through to her even if he believed that it would take a long time.
She could not deny the notion that an imperfect love was stronger and more real than anything and was far greater than any fairytale. Even though it did sting her to hear their love story, and the word merely held inside the same sentence.
"I… I do welcome the challenges too and there would be no one I would rather face them with." Lynne had to admit and straight away, James' eyes were turning to her, and he had to draw his hand back from reaching for her too quickly. He could not be too much. Not yet. She needed to understand. If she wanted to, of course. "And… And I also see that you feeling that way but being unable to tell me must've made it hard for you to look at me in the same way even if you say that the amount of love has not dwindled."
Slowly but surely, Lynne was able to turn her head in unison towards James' and their gazes met. Just once. For half a second. But it was more than enough.
Lynne might not have uttered the I'm sorry words either, but they were clear from everything else that she said. James could tell that she did not understand the whole picture just yet. But he got the feeling that she had the very at least wanted to understand.
He just had to hope.
This hope, however, was like a life force inside of him. And it made him unable to hold his hand back any longer. He spoke to the mother of his two youngest children all over again, taking a bold step by entwining his fingers through hers.
He just had to pray that she felt adoration lingering there rather than the desire to choke.
"My love for you has never dwindled even once, my darling." James told her before then growing momentarily silent, wondering if her pause ahead of thinking of gripping his hand in return was down to his touch or his affectionate name slipping off his tongue. "But even you have to see that I have worshipped your passing instead of your new life and that was very wrong of me." James squeezed her hand one more time before considering letting go. "You've never deserved that."
James has the kind of mind and the kind of imagination that can picture all sorts of outcomes. And I am certain that in the split second in between him putting his heart on the line and him predicting Lynne's response that he conjured up all sorts of possibilities that he then set in motion.
He could not have prepared for what presented itself.
Lynne withdrew her digits from James'. But it was not to shun him. His words had cut through to right where they needed to be.
Almost.
She let out a strangled sob, reaching at once for the place in which brought her the most comfort when she was swayed by heavy emotions.
James felt Lynne's fingertips on his chest before he could feel fully present with the fact that she was meaningfully touching him.
"But oh, how I loved the James who worshipped me." Lynne cried; her touch so gentle on James' skin even if the emotions torrenting through her were enough to cause a great sailing ship to capsize on turbulent waters. "I shall miss him."
James knew what it was like. To miss somebody. Even to miss the idea of somebody. Lynne was no stranger to this concept either, that was why it was so effective when she verbalized this emotion.
It certainly moved James, and it moved me too. It, however, only moved one of us into action. And it was not me.
James knew that the time was right to reach his fingers around the wrist of Lynne connecting to the hands that were pawing at his shirt for desperate reassurance. For desperate connection. She hiccupped when they were momentarily separated from each other. But not for long because his hands were on her and he was pulling her into his body now that they were sharing the seat together, his chin bedding down onto her shoulder.
"Oh, I very much do, my angel, and that is something that will never stop." James began and you would think that Lynne was not comforted by the fresh tears that streamed upon hearing this. The truth was, she knew that she could still believe him. "But more so than anything now, you are more magical to me than your story. Your tears are magic. Your quietness. Even your anger." James had to tearfully laugh into her neck when he knew that she did not like to give into that emotion. "I hold space for all these things. And that is the kind of person that you have deserved all these years. Regardless of the chaos that has sometimes surrounded us."
Lynne could feel James' tears escaping from his eyes and dripping down onto her dress and it made her want to become one with her own tears even more. But above that, she knew that she wanted to hold space for his emotions too.
His words had been heaven to her. But the truth is, he was simply heaven to her, even if she was the one from the land of above.
And she needed him to know that.
"I want you forever." Lynne gasped emotionally and then sniffed, catching James off guard by the way that she lightly removed her body from his and pushed his own one away. But it was to hold him as much as he was holding her and to tell him as much as he had told her. "Want you forever." Lynne repeated. "However you are and however you feel and whatever you do."
After this, Lynne and James looked at each other in a way that they had not looked at one and other for years. With tear-stained faces, their gazes melted into each other's before dropping down, studying every inch of the face in front of each other with more visceral love than they had shown in a long time.
And then they kissed. Oh, how they kissed! I felt very red cheeked for still being around to witness it, but it did not stop me from leaving.
Soon enough, the passion dwindled down, and softness took over and they kissed each other's lips and spoke of an innocent, almost teenaged love that they had never had for being too old. At least too old in body. Certainly not in spirit.
James spoke of similar things when he finally pulled away from Lynne, her then on his lap, and he used his lips for other things. Equally good things.
His hand brushed over her face from the bridge of her nose and brushed her hair backwards before resting his forehead against hers, finding solace there.
He was home again at last.
"You'll never have to miss any of me. Certainly not the James that you knew all those years ago." James told Lynne and at once her eyes smiled as much as her mouth did, her fingers moving to the corners of his eyes. He had aged. But she did not seem to mind. "You might not hardly age, my princess, but we will grow, and our love will always grow together."
And with that, Lynne just needed to kiss him all over again. That man that had stormed out – Justin - had been but a child the last time James called her that name. She knew that he was right. That age would continue to chase them, and life would continue to chaotically revolve around them, but they would always be on the same path because they so wanted to be.
But she knew that James was also wrong. Versions of him had died to lead to the one that she saw in front of her there and then. But oh how she adored his ghostly figures. Always had done. And would kiss him to kiss all versions of him, even if some were no longer around.
And this is how Justin found them when he knew that it was the right thing to knock back on the door and see if Lynne was still there, let alone if she was willing to hear an apology from him too. Those two too had a great journey ahead of them.
But it was not time for their journey. Was not time for them. Justin knew that it was not the time to knock, let alone allow his presence to be known as he stuck his head around the door and tell Lynne that it was all okay, that he and Eli were going to do the noble thing and both be there to mind Jordan. She would not have to worry when she went out.
It was obvious that James and Lynne were not going out to eat or otherwise, too hungry for each other and their love!
But that was okay. James had learned lessons of his own and Justin had too at a younger age, and he knew not to hurry anything.
So, Justin left his father and his stepmother – yes, stepmother, despite what he said – in peace. And he knew that he would rectify things with them both later.
As much as he did mean it that sometimes he did not understand his father's besottedness for Lynne, he knew that they both deserved each other and wanted each other and that was good enough for him.
And besides, she was attached to Jordan. Even if tumultuous things had occurred between both he and his future husband and Jordan, he still did not want that string to be severed.
He may not attend the wedding. But if he had been allowed to tread his own path then Lynne was right in a way when she said that Jordan should be allowed to tread his.
Fortunately – so very fortunately – all these paths diverged to a path that met all over again.
Sometimes you need to be apart to figure out how things really should be. It is true what they say – absence does make the heart fonder.
But I have to say that I do not want to be apart from these stories even for a single second. The great love of my life is these memories. And as long as I am going, I know that they will transcend everything too. Just like all the love stories around me. As complicated as they sometimes get.
But that's life, eh?
The End.
There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) I love getting into more complicated aspects of James and Lynne's relationship. One thing that Shannon love to joke about together is a concept that we call "toxic Jordan and Lynne". It's not what it seems, it basically just means when those two lean more into their human side rather than a scenario or a story focusing on the fact they come down and visit from the Pokémon version of heaven :P It is kind of like James expresses though - sometimes he wrongly focuses on the miracle of how she is able to be in his life rather than honouring the chance to grow as people. Justin and Lynne's relationship is another thing that interests me too. I will definitely have to write more about it soon! Thanks again for sticking around after my little break. Perhaps I will see you again next week when I update Pokémon: Love Stories! :P
Amy signing out!