Soliloqy

My life has been a hell the last two weeks. Not literary, but still…

My partner has been away on a undercover mission for the boss, and I've been working with some boring desk job in the Viridian HQ. The boredom hasn't been the worst part, though. That is that my only company is Jessie.

I'll admit that it's my fault. The chase for acceptance of the older ones made me sacrifice our friendship. I regretted it for years afterwards, but it was too late, forever. What we once had is dead, and will stay so for the rest of our lives.

But that still meant that we was two persons in the office, and the other one was my bitter enemy. There are times I believe that the boss enjoys watching us fight, but I always get rid of those thoughts in the same moment. That would be so… childish. I don't want to think about the most important man in my life that way. Well, second most important.

The most important one is gone. I hasn't heard from him since he left, and that was three weeks ago. I don't know when he returns. He didn't know himself. I cannot ask the boss. That would be to give it all away.

That was what killed Miyamoto. The boss told me all the time, that if she hadn't had the daughter she loved so deeply she never would have accepted all these life - risking missions she was on constantly, that she could have denied and gotten more safe ones. Love killed her, and he warns me not to love. I'm not sure I can.

Me and Butch are one of the few that are wearing that uniform. Miyamoto's uniform.

Somewhere deep inside I like the thought that I do, and not Jessie. I like it, and I hate myself for liking it.

I remember the look in her face the first time she saw me in that uniform. I remember the look I hadn't seen since we were kids, the look of hurt and betrayal, the tears that sprung into her eyes. I couldn't take it, so I tried to get rid of it the only way I knew. I told her. I told her that I was wearing her mother's uniform, and she wasn't. That she never could live up to her Miyamoto's memory. That I was better than her.

I remember the fists that clenched in anger. The tears she blinked away constantly. I remember her voice, only a hoarse whisper, calling me bitch. And I remember later that night, the faint sobs into James's shoulder, the shoulders shaking in grief, the forlorn look in his face as he embraced her tightly. I wanted to cry then, but I didn't.

That was years ago. I haven't seen her a lot since then. A few run - ins when she and James have been stalking some kids, that's all. And she wasn't like before, there was something more. Something different. An aura of bitterness that engulfed her and all of her being. An anger, a sadness, a hate, for something I don't know.

I actually don't think it's me.

But she's different know. We doesn't talk much, only when it's highly necessary. I don't feel like talking. My mind is with him who isn't here. I don't know about Jessie. She seems happy, and I don't want to spoil her mood with arguing. I still care about her, in a strange way, even after what I did.

I never told her I'm sorry, but there are times I think she knows.

Sometimes I miss her. I know we only were children, and that childhood friends usually doesn't last, but I wish I never did the choices I did.

But it's too late.

I know something is different. It's closing time, and as we start to lock drawers and shut of computers he enters.

Something is different. I hear it in the way he calls her name, I see it in the way she smiles as she runs over to him, I sense it in the way they throw their arms around each other. She's kissing him. Jessie is kissing James.

I don't know what to get out of it. Except the obvious part, that is.

In a way I'm shocked. The thought of the two of them never have been on my mind. In another way, it's seems totally right. As a natural phenomena. As if they were meant to be.

The Meowth looks slyly at them. He doesn't seem annoyed, he seems… satisfied. As if he just received a big bowl of cream.

The kiss doesn't end, they doesn't break away. I'm staring, and I doesn't try to hide it either. They doesn't see it, and the Meowth doesn't care. But when her arms are sliding around his neck, as her fingers are tangling in his hair, he starts to make gagging noises. I find myself wanting to join him. I just can't stand the sight any longer. I'm… I am envying her. I want somebody to kiss too. I want somebody to say my name the way James said hers. I don't want to be alone.

I expect Jessie to hit him. To yell at him. But she doesn't. She slowly removes her lips from her partner's and sticks out her tongue to the feline, and then giggles when she slowly turn around to leave. I hurry to glance away and act as if I couldn't care less, but I feel tears stinging in my eyes. Tears in sadness for the lost friendship, in joy for Jessie, in angst for Butch, in grief over myself.

She's sliding out of his arms and walks over here, probably to get her purse. I turn another way and pretend to search for something in my coat pocket, and it seems like she believes it too. She just walks by and get her things, and I turn once again, pulling my jacket down.

And then she smiles at me.

Something have changed in her. I saw it in James already before he called after her.

He always was a boy. His mind was always so happy, so innocent, never seeming to deal with any deep emotions. A child. But he isn't anymore.

Sure, he looks exactly like last time I saw him.

But the way he holds her, the look in his face as he watches her dance her way through the room, tells that he have changed. He isn't the innocent soul he was before. Sure, it still seems like it, but I can tell he isn't. He is a man.

And Jessie… Jessie is smiling at me. A smile like the one when we was children. When we would run into flower fields, make crowns of flowers and be princesses, and elves, bath in the creek and be mermaids, or laying on our backs looking at the stars and talking about our dreams and longing for adulthood.

Those times are gone.

Our dreams are all shattered.

Jessie never got to compete in the Pokèmon league. I never got to write my book.

I thought I shattered those smiles too when I left her behind. But obviously, I didn't.

For she is giving one of them to me right now.

She isn't smirking, or grinning smugly, not looking her 'evil' self at all.

Time seems to stop just at the moment, as our eyes lock, and Jessie is smiling at me. She is smiling like I haven't seen her smile in years, in a way I believed I murdered and burned years ago, a smile like when we still was friends, and I feel myself do something I haven't done since he left.

I smile right back at her. A smile of something I always told myself to despise.

Of love.

And I know she understands it all now. And she knows that I know.

He taught me how to love again. Perhaps James did the same for Jessie.

After what seems like an eternity she breaks away, and turns to leave.

I let my tears fall when I see them leave, their fingers entangled and their minds in the sky.

I see it all so clearly now. The way Jessie made James a man. The way James melted Jessie's heart. The way they fulfill each other, like Yin and Yang. Woman and Man. Fire and Ice. Jessie and James. Love… but not hate. Not anymore.

I cry because I miss him. Because I don't know if I'll see him again. Because Jessie is so happy. Because we'll fight no more. Because my life seems so meaningless.

I brush my tears away and start on my lonely journey home. To supporting my mood, it's blowing. Hard. My hair is pulled out of it's usual style. The spray might be strong, but not that strong. I consider letting Raticate out of his pokèball as company, but decides not to due to the wind. He isn't the most beautiful pokèmon walking on earth, but he's a really lovely creature, if with a little too strong a passion for food. Butch has the other two.

It's fall, turning into winter. When he left it was still mostly green leaves. Now they're gone, the threes are naked against the sky, Viridian isn't Viridian more… it's gray.

I cry again as it's turning dark. Our apartment is on the other side of the city, but I'm afraid of the emptiness there, the rooms without him in, so I walk instead.

The wind moans around me, trying to tear my coat away with it's icy fingers, to make me freeze. I've been freezing so long. I don't think I've felt really warm since he left.

So much of my life left with him.

My feelings. My courage. My love. My power. My warmth.

The last two weeks have been a purgatory of nervousness and worrying.

My tears dry after a while, but my mind continues to wander.

I'm happy for Jessie. I'm happy since she finally understood that I'm not what I was.

I'm sad for Butch. I miss him so badly that at times I just want to stay in my bed in the morning and cry all day.

And in the middle of this, I'm just me. I'm who I am. Nobody knows me here. Nobody but him.

An hour have passed when I finally stick the key into the lock of our door. The apartment smells weird. Smells like him. Like it hasn't smelt in ages. Three weeks.

I hear my name, said in the way only he can say it. He calls me Cassie. Not Cassidy. Not Cass. Cassie. He's the only one who does that.

And I cry again. Not that I mind. I barely notice it, but I do. I cry as I feel his arms around me again, as I smell the familiar scent of him, as I can touch him again.

I think he's crying too, but I'm not sure. I don't care. He's back, and that's what matters. That's the only thing that have anything to do in my consciousness right now.

As my sobs grow fainter I feel him kissing my hair, and a reach up to embrace him tighter. He tells me he missed me. I kiss him, and I feel like I'm about to fly.

********

I lay in bed at night, feeling his warm skin against mine, his arms tightly wrapped around my body, his fingers entangled in my hair, his soft, sleeping breath and the beating of his heart under my head.

Let Jessie have her James. Let the boss have his power. Let the wind have her coldness.

For at the moment, I am as happy as can be. I have my love.