The Professor's Secret

19. Journey's End

It was quite a long way back to Coumarine, but the distant journey there was a welcome one. Inside a taxi cab that drove me at least half of the way, I managed to finally check my billowing tears and hide its traces as best as I could before meeting up with my friends again.

The last trail of gloom over what had happened must have actually been invisible to dodge even Shauna's all-seeing eyes. It was pretty late into the night when I arrived at the hotel where we would be staying, and I was surprised to meet them all right there in the lobby, watching a large TV where the news was on. Shauna was the first to look back from her seat on the couch and spot me – I froze in place, scared that she would jump up asking me what had happened to make me look so devastated... but her eyes didn't even shine in surprise. Her lips didn't even threat to curl up in a smile. Her expression was frozen...

"Why the long faces?!" I remarked, walking into the circle and noticing everyone – Tierno, looking at me and instantly looking away; Trevor's shy eyes not daring to meet mine while he twisted his fingers between his knees; Shauna's unchanging quietude... And, at last, Calem getting up and sighing with his eyes closed towards me.

"What the hell?!" I inquired again.

Calem dropped the remote controller on the sofa. Tierno promptly picked it up, pointed it to the TV and raised the volume – my memory faintly recognized those reporter's questions, for I had listened to them on live earlier on... I looked on the big screen and there I was, being squeezed to the side of Sycamore by his nervous grip as we were caught on camera...

"It's been on all evening!" Tierno clarified, looking at me with dismay.

"Please turn that crap off..." I reached out and grabbed the controller, turning it off just as the opening scene of Sycamore holding me against him before we noticed the cameras started repeating as a narrator explained who he was... Not soon enough to keep my heart from pounding.

Calem walked away. I followed after him.

"So how did it go?! How did you get the power back?"

"It wasn't thanks to you, for sure!" he grumbled almost unintelligibly, without turning or stopping.

I felt my chest freeze!

"I-I'm sorry, I... I was planning to get back, but then Professor Sycamore..."

In pronouncing his name, Calem stopped. "When I asked you to get help, I meant help for us..." He turned. His eyes were both angry AND disappointed, I found it hard to understand them "...not for yourself!"

I eyed him in awe, my jaw dropping and my eyebrows tensing. "What are you talking about?!"

"...Not run away to him making a scene to get his attention!" He pointed at the TV.

"But..." I looked back, seeking my friends' expressions now that I understood what was going on – all of them judged me harshly without needing words "But... I didn't! I mean, I did go after help..."

"Then something pretty interesting must have happened..." Calem mercilessly accused "Because help never came!"

And he walked away, upstairs to his room. I stood in the middle of the hall, dazzled, as the rest of the guys could only look at me in their mixture of pity and disappointment.

---

Over a month ago I looked out the window in my room nourishing restless thoughts of uncertainty and excitement while a stranger Froakie slept curled up in my rug; alone in the dark, I wondered if I would be a good trainer for him and for the others to come. I wondered if I could evolve with them into a woman... I wondered if I was ready!

Now, sitting upon a different window and looking out into a different landscape, the same dark gave power to my thoughts – they were uncertain for sure, but this time there was no room for excitement!

In fact, it had been a while since my screaming inferiority started stressing me out of myself! I wasn't a very good trainer – I didn't want to compete against Calem, I hated battling strangers for fun... I hated the expectant look my Pokémon gave me in those occasions, trusting me to lead them to victory. Didn't they know any better? My head dropped and a pair of burning tears rolled down my cheek. It had been there all along – my feeble, faint-glowing spirit! – it only took me a great deceit to realize!

What had kept me in this journey long after I realized it was a torture? His special attention. His hands playing against my skin. The smile only I seemed to deserve... how he saw me, and only me, inside that crowd of overly optimistic teenagers. "The poor thing hates being compared to her mother" his words echoed in my brain in their monotonous tone. I hated it, indeed! And yet... I had been chosen, favorited, only because of my relation to mom; expected to achieve something greater by how close she had been to doing so.

"Well, the joke's on them!" I sighed bitterly, turning and examining Charizard's Pokéball in my fingers. Earning the mega ring only wrung out the coward in me! Now not even my Pokémon would obey. Not even my friends respected me anymore! My journey lost its meaning... it reached its end!

And so I decided I didn't want to wait until morning. I didn't want to say goodbye to them, or justify myself, or confront Sycamore for not sending the help he promised Calem – it didn't matter! I was going back home.