Ash pulls down his pant leg after I apply the medication. "Thanks."
"No problem." I say, settling back down on the couch with my wife. She grabs my hand and I lace my fingers with hers.
"Honey?" Sakura asks and I make eye contact with her. "What's wrong, sweety?"
"Nothing…" I say, squeezing her hand. But she knows I'm thinking about Ivy. I'm not a mind reader, but I can tell what everyone else is thinking in their minds. What happened between Professor Ivy and I?
I haven't even talked to Sakura about it. Of course, she's asked, but I just brush her off. It's almost like I'm running away from it and I shouldn't do that. My father taught me not to run away from my problems, even though he did many times, my mother taught me to talk to my friends, and my family taught me to love and trust the ones I hold dear to me.
The rooms silent and Ash is the first to break the silence. "Brock, whatever happened between you and Ivy?"
"Ash!" Misty growls at him. "Don't be so rude."
"No, it's alright." I say. "It's…time I talk about this." My whole body feels stiff and I feel Sakura rub my shoulder reassuringly. What Felina Ivy did to me has scarred my adulthood, but Sakura's the one who's healed me. She's loved me and she was here with me now. I feel safe and my father would be so disappointed in me that I rely on a woman as much as I do, but I love her. She saved me.
I clear my throat and shift in my seat, preparing myself mentally to tell my tale.
It's been almost a year since Ash and Misty left me here on Valencia Island. I'm eighteen years old now and I have an amazing woman. Felina and her assistants are out around the island collecting different data and of course, I'm left behind to clean house.
It doesn't really get old, but I stayed here to learn, not to be a maid, but I keep my mouth shut and I don't complain, because Ivy's still giving me the love and affection I want. I finally lost my virginity, not that I was desperate to lose it or anything, but I couldn't have lost it to a better woman than Ivy.
Leaving the 'Pokemon' television show to stay on this paradise island was the best decision of my life and I'm glad I did it. I still talk to Ash and Misty every now and then, but they are far too busy to talk every day and I do miss them.
Keeping the house clean every day has paid off, I don't clean nearly as much as I used to because I don't allow the junk and clutter to pile up. Ivy teases me about being a neat freak, but I can't help it.
I plop back on the couch, feeling lazy. There is nothing else to do. It's too early to start dinner, and it's too late for lunch, but I can't just sit around on the couch all day and wait for Ivy and the others to come back home.
I hear a knock from downstairs. It doesn't like someone's at the door, more like someone fell. I race downstairs, fearing that it was Ivy, or perhaps one of the girls who had hurt themselves.
There is always this one room in the basement that Ivy insists I never go in. I asked once and she got really angry, so I quit asking. However, that sound came from inside this room. It's locked, of course, but if someone was hurt I know I have to get in there.
Now, I'm an expert at picking locks and I always keep a spare hairpin in my left pocket. My little sister's used to lock their doors when they didn't want me to force them to go to school and I had become and expert at picking locks in emergencies.
I slip the black hairpin into the keyhole and jiggle the lock. It takes me a few tries, but I finally hear the tumblers click. I open the door and my blood freezes in my veins.
Ivy jumps up, covering her bare chest with a quilt as if I hadn't seen it before. "Brock!"
There's a man, who I don't recognize looking very shocked. "Ivy? What the…"
"Brock, I can explain."
I don't even want to hear her explanation. I feel very nauseous and my stomach heaves at the thought. My manhood has been crushed. I feel worthless, used…but the worst was still to come.
The blankets near Ivy's feet begin to move and I realize that the strange man isn't the only person in bed with her, but also her three assistants. I turn away, feeling extremely sick by this point. I have to get of here.
I have to get out of this house, off the island, back home. Anywhere. Anywhere but here.
"Brock, hold on a second!" Ivy yells after me, but I grab my backpack, glad that my Pokemon are already inside. I run until my legs hurt, until my lungs hurt from breathing. I'm running so fast I'm not even sure if my feet are touching the ground anymore.
I don't know how long I have been running but I see a blimp station located on the coast of the island. I realize I left half my clothes at Ivy's, but I don't care, I need to get on that blimp.
I have little money, but lucky for me, I convince the lady at the counter for a half-price ride. I'm not sure where the blimp is headed and really don't care. I just feel dirty and I want to get some place far, far away from Valencia Island.
As I sit in the aisle seat on the blimp, I cry for the first time in fifteen years, possibly more. I feel like a failure, a baby. All I want is my mother right now, to hold me, like I held her when my father hurt her this badly.
I hate this feeling. Men aren't supposed to cry, especially men like me. I'm solid as a rock. It's my reputation and me sitting here crying like this isn't good for that image.
But I realize something. Everyone has emotions and feelings, no matter who you are. However, right now, I don't know who I am. Felina Ivy has hurt me so bad, she's got an eighteen year old man whining like a baby on a blimp 10,000 feet in the air.
I miss my mother so badly right now. I feel like my chest is caving in and I wonder why I was so quick to jump on this blimp to who knows where. I was running away from my problem, but what else was I supposed to do? I left so quickly, I didn't even grab the food I had in the kitchen there.
I left the instant ramen, the rice balls, the doughnuts, even my official Pokemon tea set! Damn it, I love that too! I'm such an idiot! What's even worse is that I'm starving right now and all I have in my backpack is gum.
I put a piece in my mouth, liking the way the fresh mint gave me a sense of cleanliness, but it doesn't do anything to satisfy my hunger. I look out the window and we're over water now. It's crystal blue and beautiful, so I know we're still not far from the Valencia Island. This isn't far enough for me yet and I still don't feel right.
I lean back in my chair, close my eyes and try to forget. I regret everything I did with Ivy. I was in such a hurry to lose my virginity before I became an adult that I didn't stop to think about if I really wanted to that or not.
It doesn't matter anyway, I'm not going to find another woman to love me. I, Brock Harrison am giving up on love, women, and the whole thing. I'll never let anyone else get anywhere near my heart like she did. No woman is worth this kind of pain.
I'll never love again.
"So…" Ash is the first to speak after I finish my horrific tale. "Professor Ivy is a lesbian?"
"I'm not even sure myself." I reply. I've kept that secret for eighteen years now. It feels good to finally get it off my chest.
Ash leans back in the recliner. "No wonder you didn't want to talk about it. If I had sex with a lesbian my first time it would have trashed my manhood, too."
Misty scowls at him and I can't help but laugh. It's just like old times. "Ash, get your foot out of your mouth!"
Sakura rubs the side of the face softly and I smile. There is no need to dwell on the past anymore. That chapter of my life is over and it will forever be. I'm married to a wonderful, beautiful woman who is far more beautiful than I thought Ivy was at the time.
Out of all the women I have met, I can't believe I actually stayed with Ivy and left my friends and my acting career. It was a huge mistake.
However, I realized something back then. Just because one bad thing happened to me, didn't mean that I couldn't find happiness, and just one week later I did. I met Sakura.
I have been walking for days. The blimp was headed to Viridian City and I'm headed south. I've been in the forest for about two days. I'm hungry, tired and dirty. I did, however, manage to change my clothes. I went into a laundry mat and washed my pants and shirt, just because the last place I washed them was Ivy's.
I managed to scrape up some change for a cheeseburger at a Wacdonald's here in Viridian City, of course, now that I've eaten I feel sick again. I'm almost to edge of the forest and I wonder how I managed to get lost. I never get lost.
My mind isn't in the correct state now I guess. I haven't slept in three days and I want to just collapse by a tree and sleep for the rest of my life at this point. I step out into a clearing. There is no people around, despite that it's early morning.
Once I learned that the blimp was heading to Viridian City , I had made plans to go home to Pewter City, but somehow, where I am at now, doesn't look like Pewter City at all. It's smaller, more colorful, and the Gym isn't anywhere in sight.
Great. Now I really am lost. I must have been going the wrong way the entire time. Fuck it. I don't care anymore. I'm feeling way too tired and way to sick right now to even care what happens to me.
My skin feels gritty and I imagine I probably smell pretty bad. I haven't bathed in almost four days and that thought alone has me feeling nauseous. I collapse in an open field and everything goes black.
I wake up sometime later to the sound of soft footsteps on the grass. It's not just one pair of footsteps, but two. I'm surprised that such a soft sound could have woken me up out of the coma-like sleep I was in, but it did.
I was too weak to look up and see who it was. I was even too weak to speak and the next thing I know, my back is being trampled.
I grunt in pain and the mere impact gives me the adrenaline to lift my head up. It's Delia Ketchum, Ash's mother. She has a grocery bag in her hands and her Mr. Mime is holding another one. She doesn't seem to have noticed me yet and she walks back over my back, along with Mr. Mime.
Delia was always beautiful, but she wasn't too smart. Now I know where Ash gets his brains from. "Mimey, did you hear something?" She asks.
He just replies with a 'mime' which sounded more like a no to me.
Suddenly, I see her look down at me and she looks quite surprised. "Oh my goodness. Sir, are you alright?"
She lifts me up, how she does this, I'll never know. I think it was a motherly instinct to save me that gave her the strength to lift me. I wasn't exactly a small guy after all. She drags me inside the house and lifts me onto the couch.
My legs have no strength in them at all. She looks down at me, perplexed for a few minutes. "You look familiar…" She says. "Aren't you that older boy who's friends with my son and that cute little redhead?"
I nod slowly and she smiles, clasping her hands together. "Brock! That's right! How is my little Ashy?"
I wouldn't know, but I reply anyway. "Oh, I'm sure he's alright."
"Hey wait…" She says, sounding confused. "If you were laying out in that field all day by yourself, and my son isn't with you then…" She pauses. "Something bad has happened to Ash!"
"No, no, Mrs. Ketchum, that's not what happened." I say, reassuring her the best way I can. "I just…left the group for a while. I didn't travel with them to the Orange Islands…"
Delia seems to calm down a little, but she still looks concerned. She sits down on the couch across from me. "Well, why not? Did you and Ash get into a fight of some sort?"
"No, nothing like that." I say, feeling way too tired and dirty to talk about this, especially with Delia. She's around Professor Ivy's age and it just feels…awkward. "I just stayed behind at a lab to learn some things."
"Oh that's right!" Delia says, remembering what Ash had told her about my decision. "How are you and Ivy? What are you doing all the way here in pallet?"
The feeling of dread washes over me. That name gives me chills up and down my spine and not in the good way either. It's that creepy crawly feeling and that image of her in bed with another man, and her questionably-gendered assistants comes flooding back. I shudder.
"Please, don't mention that name." I tell her, my back turned towards her.
"Oh…alright." She said, a little unsurely. "You look like you might need a shower. You're welcome to use it anytime you like, alright dear?"
"Thank you." I say, sitting up after a few moments. A shower is what I need so I head upstairs.
"I'm headed to the grocery store. You can stay for dinner if you like. It's nice to have someone else around the house, isn't it Mimey?" She asks, petting the clown Pokemon on the head with a smile.
I nod my acknowledgement and go upstairs to take a shower. The warm water on my skin feels good. I wash my hair, my entire body, everything. I want the scent of Ivy off of me. I'm alone now, once again, but not in the middle of a forest. I'm in a shower, in a home, and while I'm happy and grateful for Mrs. Ketchum's kindness, I still want to see my friends and most of all, my family.
Maybe if I'm lucky enough, Ash will come home after he finishes with season two in the Orange League. I know it's probably too late for me to come back on the show, but I'm just grateful to be back. I know that I'm in Pallet town now, so it won't take me too long to get to Pewter City if I go by car.
But, I don't know if I want to face my father right now. I don't want to tell him what happened to me on Valencia Island, I don't want to tell anyone in fact. Not Ash. Not Misty. No one.
I step out of the shower and get dressed in the clean clothes I had in my backpack that I had washed at the laundry mat.
Mrs. Ketchum comes back, cooks a delicious dinner which I helped her with just to be a good house guest and now I'm headed off to bed. I sleep in Ash's room, which hadn't changed much at all since the last time we were here, which was about a year ago.
I don't even remember falling asleep, but the next thing I know I'm being woken up by the sound of a vacuum cleaner and little clown footsteps.
"Mr. Mime!" It cheers happily, vacuuming up things in Ash's room. I open my eyes tiredly and it smiles at me. I smile back and turn the other way. I'm too tired to get out of bed yet, and I feel lazy. Every time I hear a vacuum cleaner, I'm usually the one running it.
However, right now, I'm still too tired to even move. My bones ache, but I feel rested, strangely. I hear Delia's voice at the door. "Brock, dear, it's almost noon. Would you like some lunch?"
I sit up. For once, the sound of food doesn't make me want to throw up. "Yes, please. Mrs. Ketchum, I'll help you cook if you want me to."
"That would be great, sweety." She says smiling. "Ash never offered to help me when he lived here." She laughs and exits the room, instructing Mimey to leave with her so that I can get dressed. I can't believe I even had the nerve to sleep without my shirt in Mrs. Ketchum's house.
I sit at the table with her and she serves me a bowl of soup. "So, Brock, how's the girl hunting going?"
I force a laugh, almost choking on the soup at the question. "Ah, I'm giving up on love. I'll never find anyone who will ever love me back…" I sound more depressed then I mean to.
"Oh Brock, sweety, I'm sure that's not true." Delia says. "You're a handsome boy. Some girl will come walking by before you know it." She says smiling.
I want to believe her. I want to believe that, just one day, when I'm least expecting it, the girl of my dreams will come walking by, but the chances of that happening are very little so I'm not holding my breath.
After lunch, it's time to do chores. Of course, she never asked me to, but I felt obligated. I wash the dirty dishes, sweep the kitchen floor and clean the counter, all while fighting Mr. Mime.
Then, it was time to sweep the porch. I look at the clown, and he looks back at me. Fortunately, my arms are longer so I reach the broom first and race outside. Mr. Mime is fighting me, pulling the broom towards him and I'm momentarily surprised by his strength. However, I win and began to sweep leaves, dirt and other things off the front porch.
Delia steps outside with a hat on and smiles at me. "You're the best house guest ever, Brock." She laughs. "I'm headed to the flower garden to pick up some fertilizer for my plants. You and Mimey don't get too competitive while I'm gone." She says, and I watch her make her way towards her car.
I continue to sweep the front porch while Mr. Mime occupies himself with pulling weeds out of the garden. I hear someone walking down the road, but I don't bother to look up until she speaks.
"Excuse me?" She asks, looking a bit shy. I look up and my jaw drops, my heart skips a beat. She's absolutely beautiful! "I'm looking for a Pokemon Center. My little Evee is sick." She says, holding a very sick and tired looking Evee in her arms.
I drop the broom, not caring anymore if Mr. Mime takes over my chores now. "Let me take a look at it." I tell her and she sets Evee down in the grass. I kneel down next to it. She keeps starting at me and I'm wondering what she's thinking.
For the past few days, I have felt unattractive and extremely self-conscious about myself. I was never one to call myself "ugly", but when Ivy cheated on me it took every ounce of self-esteem I had away.
Her Evee isn't as sick as she thinks it is, it's pregnant. I smile and stand up, giving her the news. She looks momentarily shocked, then happy, as any woman would be about little baby Pokemon running around.
"Thank you so much, uh…" She pauses, wanting to know my name. It takes me a few minutes to get what she's asking but I quickly answer when I realize.
"Brock. Brock Harrison." I say, offering my hand. "And you are?"
"Sakura Ford." She says, placing her hand in mine. I hold her hand for a moment, it's soft and delicate. Her skin is smooth and beautiful. Her hair is long, dark and very blue. Her eyes were beautiful and shimmering. She was absolutely the most gorgeous creature I have ever seen and I was scared to death.
Normally, I would have flirted with her immediately, but I was scared right now. I didn't want another woman to hurt me like Ivy did. "You better take it to the Pokemon Center anyway, just to double check, but I'm sure it will be fine."
"Oh, right…" Sakura says, walking away from me. "Thank you again."
She hesitates a bit before she walks away and I have to make a split second decision rather or not to talk to her again. "Sakura…?"
Sakura turns around, a hopeful sound in her voice. "Yes?"
I remember what Mrs. Ketchum told me. Maybe I could take another chance at love and maybe this girl was the one. Felina Ivy isn't worth giving up on finding happiness, and this girl proved to me that there was much prettier girls out there.
It takes me a few minutes to find my voice again. "Would you like to maybe…go out for dinner tonight?" I asked, praying I wouldn't get rejected. It didn't bother me before, but I really don't think I could handle it now.
She twists a lock of hair on her finger and then smiles at me. "I'd love to."
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