CHAPTER 73

I silently sat next to Cecilia on the tram, and it slowly started sliding across the rails. I had decided to stick with her a while longer, but now that it was actually happening so fast, I couldn’t help but feel my hands clam up. I had gotten used to being with her alone, but the fact that the… reveal loomed so close made it hard to find words to say.

“Where shall we go?” Cecilia asked.

“Uh, I guess I somehow hadn’t thought that far,” I laughed nervously. “Any suggestions?”

Cece smiled slightly. “Only you could be so enthusiastic about going somewhere without a plan,” she said. “I like that about you.”

“You do?”

“The spontaneousness of it all, I mean!” she quickly said, averting her gaze. “My life back in Unova was planned down to every last second. I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back on it now… I hated it. It felt suffocating.”

“Well…” I slowly said, looking around. “Why don’t we go in there!” I exclaimed, pointing at a random building. “Come on, let’s get off on the next stop!”

Cecilia squinted at the building. “That’s… some kind of shop, I think. I can’t see it well from there— ah!”

I grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the tram’s exit, much to the annoyance of the passengers we pushed through. As soon as the tram stopped, we jumped out and went toward the store. Upon closer inspection, it looked to be a thrift shop selling everything from used furniture to books— but it was mostly selling used clothes.

“I’ve never been in such a shop before,” Cece said, looking through a rack of clothes. “A shop selling used clothes, I mean.”

“I haven’t gone to many either, but you can find some pretty nifty stuff here that you wouldn’t expect,” I explained. “Not that I’m thinking of buying anything. My bag’s completely full.”

“So is mine,” she smiled. “But we can still try things on.”

I froze for a second. “Sure! I mean, that sounds fun.”

Cecilia raised an eyebrow at me. “That was a very reluctant way of saying it. I don’t want to force you to do anything if you don’t find it enjoyable.”

Everything is enjoyable with you, I thought.

“No, no, I just wasn’t expecting you to want to try on hand-me-downs, I guess,” I finally said.

“I can be quite flexible in the activities I choose to do.”

I swallowed. “Well, let’s look for something that fits you! I bet we can find a great dress. Or a skirt! It’s almost winter, but they’re still selling clothes for all seasons.”

“Why don’t we get something on you?” she asked. “Obviously, wearing jeans or pants when we travel is sound, but you never dressed up in the city. I deserve to see it at least once before we leave.”

“You want to?” I said, scratching my neck. “I guess I can, I’ve never found anything I thought would fit me that well, so I usually didn’t bother.”

“Nonsense. You can pull off anything. Look at you. Stay here, I’ll have something for you soon!”

I anxiously awaited as Cece roamed through the small thrift shop. She returned with a white sundress, a knee-length white skirt, and some… white shorts. Why was it all white?

“Before you ask, I think the color goes amazing on you,” she said, answering my question. “Which one do you want to try on first?”

“I guess I’ll just take the dive and try out the sundress,” I said. “Gimmie.”

Cece smirked as she handed it to me. “Don’t take too long.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, looking away. “You’ll get to see me in it, don’t worry.”

I hurried inside of the fitting room, taking a deep breath as I stared at myself in the mirror.

“She might be disappointed,” I whispered. “But here goes nothing, I guess.”

I took off my multiple layers of clothing and stepped into the sundress. I hadn’t worn any type of dress in so long that it felt kind of lacking somehow, but it wasn’t… bad. I spun around, stopping myself with my foot and a tiny smile. I was probably less thin and short than I remembered. My arms were also more toned than they used to be.

I was apparently growing up. Scary.

Still, that was way less fabric on me that I felt comfortable wearing in public. I slightly opened the curtains and saw that Cecilia was sitting down, waiting for me. Her face lit up when she saw that I was done.

“So? Show me,” she said as she shot up.

“Um… I don’t know.”

“Come on! You already have it on!” Cece groaned. I shook my head, and she just barged into the fitting room, eyeing me up and down. “You look— you look amazing!”

“Really?” I said awkwardly. “I don’t know, I feel like I can’t pull it off that well.”

“You look beautiful. I wish we could get it for you… curse Sinnoh and its blasted weather. It’s too cold almost all year long,” she said before pausing. “Let me see the back.”

Now that the conversation had slowed, I couldn’t help but notice how close she was. The changing room was small, and I felt her breath on the back of my neck, making me shiver slightly. She was silent. Too silent. In fact, Cecilia hadn’t said anything in the last fifteen seconds, and she was just staring at me through the mirror.

“Cece? Is something wrong?” I asked.

She coughed. “No, I’m perfectly fine. Here, I’ll get out. Try out the skirt next!”

——

Even though there was no space in our bags, Cece ended up getting me all three articles of clothing. I protested, of course, but she went and bought them behind my back while I had been changing back into my normal clothes. She said they looked too good on me to just leave them there. I couldn’t really see it, but I supposed I’d have to trust her. She was way better at this clothing stuff than I was.

Unfortunately though, someone in the group would have to carry those for me. With some luck, it’d be Pauline. The look of annoyance on her face would bring me great joy.

“Where to now?” Cece asked. “Should we pick somewhere random again? That was a lot of fun.”

I brought a hand up to my chin. “Hm… fuck it, let’s do it again. Let’s hop on a tram for like fifteen minutes and then go to the first building we see.”

“What if it’s just some apartment?” She asked.

“Then we break in, obviously,” I sarcastically said.

“You know, a month ago, I probably would have taken that at face value.”

“Aw, I thought you would,” I said. “Come on, the tram’s there!”

——

“So, Grace,” Cecilia started. “Can you explain something to me?”

“Hm?”

“What are the odds that we would end up at your favorite fast food restaurant when we were supposed to pick randomly?”

I whistled innocently. “I dunno, I mean, they’re pretty big, they have a bunch of stores everywhere. It’s entirely within the realm of possibility.”

“Or… you just wanted to come?”

“Or… I just wanted to make you taste the goodness that is fast food, just this once.”

“So you admit that it wasn’t random?”

“Argh, you got me,” I said, raising my hands. “But this is the perfect moment to come.”

And it was. The restaurant was almost completely empty since it was still very early in the evening, between lunch and dinner.

“What do you want?” I asked, pointing at the menu above the counter. “Taste a slice of heaven.”

“None of these sound appealing to me. I mean, double barbecue quarter pounder? How many calories is that?”

“Just let yourself go, just this once,” I said, clasping my hands together. “Come on. There are no rules here.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “I suppose I’ll pick the… nuggets.”

“That’s kind of boring, but I guess that’ll do. I’ll go with a milkshake, fries, and a chicken sandwich. Here, I’ll take extra large fries so we can share. You’ve had fries before, right?”

“Fries, yes, but they didn’t look like this. They were bigger.”

“Ah, those,” I said. “I guess that counts, but I’ve always liked these ones better. They taste the best right out of the frier, but if they give you an old batch, you’re fucked.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Do we know which ones we’re getting?” Cece asked in a suddenly worried tone.

“No, and that’s kind of the beauty of it. It adds some suspense to your order.”

“Why anyone would subject themselves to this is beyond me.”

I ignored her complaints and placed our order. After waiting for around five minutes, we sat opposite of each other at one of the many empty tables. I tasted a fry.

“Hell yes! We got the good ones! Here,” I said, handing her a fry.

She hesitantly took it like it was going to hurt her and bit into the potato.

“So?” I grinned. “How is it?”

“It’s… I have to admit, it does taste great, but the fries our cooks made tasted better. The experience though… the experience makes it better than anything else I’ve ever had.”

“The experience?” I asked.

“Uh— I mean like you said. Not knowing if they’re going to be good or not.”

“That makes it the best food you’ve ever had? I find that slightly exaggerated, but I’m happy you like it. You can have most of ‘em if you want.”

“No! I want us to share.”

“Okay,” I smiled. “To be honest, I’m glad you said that. I was already feeling sad about having to give up on some freshly made fries.”

“Ugh, you!” Cece laughed. “Don’t force yourself to do something you don’t want.”

“I’ll do it as many times as I can for you,” I blurted out. “I— I mean, you deserve it! I want to treat you well after everything you went through… sorry, that was weird.”

“You’re not weird. I like the way you are.”

Holy shit, I’m going to die.

“I like the way you are… too?” I tried.

We stared at each other in silence for a few seconds.

“Come on,” I said. “Food’s getting cold.”

——

“Alright, I’ve completely given up on the random building thing. There’s an actual spot I want to bring you to,” I told Cece as we got out of the restaurant.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Bowling alley on the way to route 211. I came across it every day when I went training, and I knew I wanted to go there someday. I just never had the time until now.”

“Bowling sounds fun,” Cece said. “Although I’ve never gone.”

“That’s a crime that needs to be rectified,” I said. “I used to go all the time with my dad.”

“Your father?”

“Yeah. We used to go somewhere almost every weekend. He’d call it a father-daughter date, which was… embarrassing, but they were almost always fun, except that one time he tried to get me into drawing at these art lessons with him. Those were a terrible few weeks—” I paused when I saw the pained look on her face. “Cece?”

“I— it’s nothing. It’s just… the contrast between your father and mine. It makes me incredibly jealous. Is that wrong of me?”

I winced. How could I have run my mouth like an idiot?

“No, you’re completely fine,” I said, grabbing her hand. “I should have watched what I said. It’s my fault.”

“You shouldn’t have to watch your words around me,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “I’m no damsel in distress, or at least I try not to be.”

“Still, I was complaining about something completely mundane. I mean, the truth is I enjoyed those drawing lessons, looking back. My dad’s a terrible artist, but he gave it everything he had. Here, I have a picture of one of the Pokemon he drew,” I said, scrolling through my Poketch, hoping to cheer her up. Thank Arceus for the Poketch company transferring all of your data from your old phone to the next. “See? This was him trying to draw Togetic when she was just a few weeks old.”

Cecilia stood completely still for a few seconds. “What… what even is that?”

“I know, right? It doesn’t even look remotely close, I mean, that’s not even the right shape.”

“Those eyes are rather terrifying,” she laughed.

“Look at the crown! He made it look like spikes that could stab you and kill you!”

Sorry for exposing you, dad.

——

“So how do the points work,” Cece asked as she grabbed a bowling ball.

“I don’t know, I don’t play with points, I play for fun,” I said, looking at the piece of paper one of the employees had handed me. “The Jubilife one we used to go to would track your points automatically. I don’t know how to count them.”

“Well, that’s fine,” she said. “Points or not, I think I’ll win.”

“Pfft, you’ve never gone bowling before!”

“I’m quite a fast learner,” she bragged. “Watch this.”

Cecilia ran up to the lane and threw her ball with as much force as she could. The ball proceeded to roll into the gutter, hitting zero pins.

“Nice one,” I smirked.

“I— I said I was a fast learner, not that I would get a strike on my first attempt!” she stammered. “Why don’t you do it, then?”

“It would be my pleasure,” I said, I carefully aimed with one closed eye and threw the ball slightly angled toward the center, netting me a strike. “Oooooh, that’s a strike, baby! I still got it!” I celebrated, pumping a fist.

“Hmph. This is just the start, don’t get too full of yourself. I’ll show you what I’m made of.”

I proceeded to destroy her and all of her hopes of victory. It hadn’t even been close, even without counting the points. I was getting strike after strike, while she couldn’t even get spares. We played a few games and then left the alley.

“There’s no way to know who won since we weren’t keeping score,” Cece said, crossing her arms. “I might have won, for all we know.”

“Come on, don’t be such a Pauline,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Cece paused. “I am being a Pauline, aren’t I?”

“Well, not one hundred percent, but I’d say you’re halfway there,” I smiled. “You’d need to say, like, ‘I’m going to make your life a living hell!’”

“That was scarily accurate.”

“Well, she did say it to me the first time I met her,” I said. “Come on, it’s getting late. Let’s head back.”

——

“So, Cece,” I said, sitting next to her on the tram. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the rest of your family like? Besides your… dad,” I asked.

She looked outside of the window before answering. “My relationship with my mother’s fine, all things considered. I’m sure she loves me, and she tries her best, but one word from my father and she becomes his servant. She’s like a ghost, living without a single independent thought, and I hate her for it. There are so many times where she could have pushed back and defended me but didn’t…” she sighed. “It hurt.”

“That’s fucked up,” I said quietly. “Was she always like that?”

Cece just nodded. “They were an arranged marriage as well. For the longest time, I feared my own marriage with Louis would turn me into her. That was my biggest fear. I didn’t want to be a mindless drone, having given up on life,” she said. “Mark— my big brother, he used to hate dad just as much as I did. He and Amy, they were my pillars of support. But then he left to become a Pokemon trainer— or at least that was what he said to our father. The truth was, it was the only way he found to escape the household.”

“And then you were all alone?”

“There was still Amy, but she couldn’t always be there. I trusted her with everything back then, which was obviously a mistake in hindsight, but I would be lying if I said she wasn’t the only thing that kept me going. When Mark left, life at home got even worse. Father would keep berating me and mother, and we would just have to take it. Sometimes I even thought he would become violent, but he never crossed that barrier— or at least not with me,” she sighed. “Getting back to Mark, these days, we only talk when I need help with Deino, but that hasn’t happened since… right before the Floaroma tournament. He turned out to be a good trainer. A really good one. In his first year, he got to the Conference, and then he eventually became the Champion, as you know. In his meteoric rise, he pulled the Obel Energy Company up with him, and father started getting even more obsessed with fame and money than he was before.”

She paused for a few seconds.

“Mark came back, and he was a changed man. We had talked on the phone, but he never came back to visit until he became the Champion. I couldn’t recognize him at all, and his hate for dad had mellowed out into indifference. I mean, who could blame him? Our father holds almost no power over him— he’s the strongest trainer in the region! It angered father to no end, but he saw an opportunity in me. He decided to make me sign up for the Circuit in Sinnoh and marry Louis. The arranged marriage part was probably as much an economic decision as one to hope to keep me subdued and under control, like my mother is. Otherwise, I might have turned into another Mark.”

“But it didn’t work,” I said.

“It didn’t,” she grinned, grabbing my hand tightly. “I met you.”

It was time, wasn’t it? It was time to tell her that I liked girls.

I took a deep breath. “Cece, I have to tell you something, and you have to promise me not to freak out, alright?”

She frowned. “What is it?”

“Tell me you won’t freak out.”

“I won’t.”

“Alright. I…”

The words turned to ash in my mouth.

Say it.

“I…”

Fucking spit it out.

“I like girls,” I said. I saw the confused look on her face and immediately decided to clarify. “Romantically, I mean. Now, don’t freak out. Please. I had to tell you because of how close we were getting, I mean, I thought— I— I figured you’d want to know.”

“I…” she said, letting go of my hand. “How?”

“How what?” I said, feeling tears build up.

“How would one know,” she started. “If they liked girls. Romantically.”

I turned away slightly to hide my discontent. “Well, I assume it’s the same as liking a guy.”

“I’ve never liked anyone before, I don’t know what it’s like,” Cece said.

“Well, if you can’t stop thinking about them,” I started. “If your biggest wish is to see them happy. If you want to be with them as much as you can. If you notice the smallest things about them that you go crazy over,” I said, looking at her again. “I’d say that’s what it’s like to like someone.”

“I… I think I need to spend some time alone,” Cece said. “I have some things to think about.”

Damn it, I thought. I had fucked up. I wanted to go home and cry my heart out. Maybe some time with my team would do me some good. If I explained my problem, they’d understand and support me.

“That’s our stop,” Cece said.

“I think I should spend the night at the Center tonight,” I said, barely holding myself together. “You can go.”

“No. Someone will let you stay at their penthouse. I’m sorry, I just have a lot of mull over.”

“I understand,” I said, hanging my head. “I kind of sprung it out of nowhere. I’m sorry for ruining things.”

“You didn’t— ah, we missed our stop.”

“Let’s get off on the next one.”

For the rest of the ride, I wanted to die. I wanted to shrivel up into a ball and wink out of existence. I wanted the last five minutes to be erased and to never bring up the subject again.

We walked up to the hotel in silence. It was snowing for the first time of the year.

When we got to the lobby, Cece froze.

“What is it?” I asked.

I looked up from my feet, which I had been staring at for the entire walk and saw a girl sitting down, surrounded by four tall men in suits and sunglasses. Her hair was shoulder-length and blond, albeit darker than mine, and she had a pink highlight at its edges. She got up and shot us a smile.

“Who is that?” I asked. “Cece?”

“That’s…” she said, her face turning into a look of pure disbelief. “That’s Amy.”