let's give 'em somethin' to talk about

dreamin' 'bout you every night, thinkin' 'bout you every day

She ends up back with Marnie and Bede, rather than going directly up to Hop, still not quite over the surprise of his announcement. His announcement that shouldn't be that big of a deal, considering he won't even be gone for that long, but Gloria is still hung up on the fact that that means he will be gone, and that she won't get to see him whenever she wants to. For those several weeks, he won't want to meet up to battle, she won't be able to drop in on him and Sonia, and she won't be able to wonder if he might randomly call her up to say he's coming by, and they should hang out like they used to.

All of these were things she took for granted before she realized that, subconsciously, she was treating this like a romantic relationship all along, and things that she took for granted before she found out there was a possibility that Hop might not always be around for things like that. Hop has always been around, ever since she met him, and now, no matter how long he's going to be gone, he's going to be gone . Even if she hadn't just managed to figure out that that she has deeper feelings for him, she thinks this would have hit her pretty hard.

"Pretty big news," Marnie says, likely picking up on Gloria's mixed feelings and the fact that her attempt to smile is not, in fact, her best attempt. "But it's gonna fly by, I'm sure."

She wants to tell Marnie not to talk about it like it's a big deal, and play it off like she doesn't care at all. After all, Bede is still right there, and she doesn't feel like exposing her feelings to anyone else, but she finds that all she can do is nod, no longer able to force herself to smile about it.

"I don't know about that," Bede says. "Hop has changed a lot since he was a kid, you know? I bet a couple months in Unova are going to change a lot too. It wouldn't surprise me if he met someone there, so you might want to watch out for that."

The look on his face both says that he definitely already knows that Gloria has a thing for Hop- was he another who knew before her?!- and that he's also definitely messing with her, because that's just how their friendship is. Though their relationship when they were rivals was incredibly strained and often filled with similar goading, now they are close enough that messing with each other is just how they show that they're friends.

Still, that isn't what Gloria wants to hear right now, and even if he doesn't mean it, she can't help but wonder if it's true. Irrationally, she already begins to wonder about the mystery woman he'll meet while staying in another region, and what it is about her that he'll like, and how easy it might be for him to forget about home if he has someone there. If his work really takes off there and he meets someone he wants to be with, he might move away permanently, she realizes, and just like that, a tasteless joke from Bede sends her running through scenario after scenario where Hop completely leaves her behind.

And who could blame if he did? Just because she has been content being single all these years because she had a best friend that made her feel completely fulfilled, that's no reason to expect Hop to feel the same way. He's probably lonely, and deserves to meet somebody and be happy with them. Maybe his nonexistent girlfriend in Unova is what he really needs, and she shouldn't interfere.

Gloria makes vague and quiet additions to the conversation that Marnie tactfully steers away from Bede's "warning", but all the while, her mind is still running through scenarios, while she tries to prepare herself for the outcome of something that hasn't even started yet. She wishes desperately that she could back to the time before she realized her feelings, so that she could spend this time just being a little sad that she wouldn't get to see her best friend as much, forcing herself to put on a brave face and be happy for him, because she knows it's for the best.

More than anything else right now, she wants to be able to do that, rather than lose herself in the irrational fear that Hop is going to forget about her if she doesn't act quickly. But act how? She can't just walk up to him and make him promise to never fall in love, and to always come back home, and always keep things the exact same, just for her sake. That would be almost the same as confessing to him, for one thing, and for another, she can't expect anything like that from him, especially if she doesn't actually confess.

Should she confess to him?

The question comes to mind right when he finally manages to break away from her family and come over to talk to her again, with Marnie and Bede scattering before she can stop them. Alone with Hop, she tries to bring her fake smile back, so that he can't tell she's spent the last ten or so minutes imagining herself as a guest at his wedding to some woman neither of them have ever met before.

"Sorry I got pulled away like that, I was really trying to tell Sonia before she made me go up in front of everyone," he says.

"No, that's fine," Gloria replies. "That's just...I don't know, this is all really sudden."

"It's very last minute, that's for sure. I've been in such a rush getting everything ready that I've hardly had time for anything, and nothing was completely final until a few days ago. We've been talking about it for a while, but I didn't want to tell anyone exactly what it was when there was still a chance the whole thing could fall flat," he explains.

"It's going to be weird not having you around," she says, because she can't help herself. "I'm really going to miss you."

Hop grins and says, "Aw, come on, it's not gonna be that bad. It's only for a little while, and you'll be so busy back home you won't even notice I'm gone! Maybe you'll even be happier to not have me bugging you all the time!"

"I don't know about that," is all that she says. She doesn't want to say anything else that might make him think that she doesn't want him to do this, even though that's exactly what she's thinking. Hop is happy and she needs to be happy for him, rather than letting her selfishness get in the way. It's the opportunity of a lifetime, something that she would never want him to pass up just because she doesn't want him to meet someone else far away.

Soon enough, he's pulled away by someone else, and she doesn't linger at the party for long, returning home with a lot on her mind. She can't expect him to wait for her when he doesn't even know how she feels, which once again leaves her wondering...should she risk everything and tell him?