Heliotrope

Chapter 9: Wolf's Bane

She was painting on her facemask in her bedroom, a sickly grey colour covering her only slightly acne-scarred teenage skin. She hummed to herself lightly, not acknowledging my presence. "Bonnie." I said.

"Oh!" She turned around, she was in light green pyjama shorts, her hair was now finally long enough to be put up in a pony-tail. "Serena! Come in." She had a sweet smile. She say down on her bed and I sat beside her.

I was glad she was alive. Was I glad that she had turned off her phone and ran off to another region for a week? Well, not really. Her brother wasn't either. But one thing Clemont and I shared was that we were both praying for her safe return. Here it was. "What were you doing?"

"I told you." She pouted and crossed her arms. "I got on the wrong plane."

"Hmm." I had to resist the urge to laugh. We all thought she was dead. But she was really just messing around with boys from school. It was so very typical of her, it was almost amusing. "It seems like you got on the right plane to the wrong place."

She smirked. "What makes you say that? I told you both, I got on the wrong plane and ended up in Hoenn."

"Alright." Two could play this game. "And yet you chose to stay there for a week?"

"There were no flights back to Kalod until then."

"Where did you stay?"

"You know Ash's friend, May?"

"You mean the one with the little brother whose only two years older than you?" I couldn't resist a chuckle as her eyes widened and she let out a small gasp of shock-horror. I've caught you, Bonbon. "Yeah, I know her." She tried to interrupt me but I didn't let her, "So that's where you were? With him?" She shook her head like crashing waves on beach-side rocks. "Too late, Bonnie. I've got you there."

"Please don't tell Clemont!" she half-yelled, not wanting her brother to hear. "He really doesn't like him! I don't know why, he's amazing! Apparently the 'age-gap' is bad. But it's only like you and Ash!"

I didn't want to think about that, so I changed the subject the best I could. "You're a good kid, I can trust you." I patted her shoulder, laughing at her bouncing up and down dramatically in that goopy, grey facemask. "You won't do anything crazy. I'll go with your story, on one condition." I smiled.

"What?" She grabbed my wrists.

"You tell me everything about him." I shook her hands away. We both giggled. I didn't know why I was agreeing to help her. I felt a little mad at Clemont due to the events of two nights ago, but like I had said, I came onto him. Why was I mad? Maybe it was because I had liked being with him more than I had ever with Ash. I swallowed my guilt. I just needed to see Ash again, and I would. Soon enough.

"Oh, Serena!" She flopped over and hugged a pillow to her chest. "He's gorgeous, adventurous, smart..." She squealed, caught up in her daydreams. "I met him at your wedding. We were nothing more than friends. But I thought he was stunning. I went to Hoenn. I met him again."

Like when Ash came to Kalos and I saw him for the first time since I was tiny in Kanto. Childhood friends.

"It was almost like..." Her eyes twinkled. She was so innocent and sweet. Pure and not ready to be corrupted. "...Destiny. We were destined to meet again." I knew how she felt. It was like looking at my past, but with a much livelier, sweeter version of myself. It stung. "I probably sound like a crazy lady, don't I?"

"No, no." But I urged her on regardless. "Continue!"

"I was really starting to fall for him. We travelled together. Looking up at the stars next to him..." She sat back up and threw down the pillow. She breathed in. She breathed out. "...It was everything I've ever wanted. And then I had to go. But I met him again, at the Sinnoh Pokémon Summer Camp."

"And?"

"And I kissed him."

"I take he liked it?" My first kiss. Ash Ketchum, at the airport when I, like Bonnie did, went to Hoenn. History was repeating itself. I didn't want things to fuck up for Bonnie like they had for me.

"He did. He grabbed my waist and kissed me again. And an hour before we were going to say our goodbyes... I did something crazy."

"What?"

"I traded in my ticket and ran off to Hoenn, again."

I didn't know what to say. "B-Bonnie, that's-"

"I feel awful." She hung her head in shame. "But something just snapped. It was like, "No, Bonnie, you're not a kid, anymore." Clemont treats me like I am. He even read my messages on my phone!"

"No!" I gasped. Even for Clemont, that was too far.

"Yes!" She shouted, not caring if the older blonde sibling overheard, anymore. "And he tells me what to do. He's trying to control my relationships and it pisses me off! I want to be with Max." So that was his name was. It sounded terribly similar to Ash. Bonnie and Max. Ash and Serena. Dragged together by fate, supposed to be perfect. Her voice went quiet, again. "I swear to god, Serena. I know I'm only fourteen but I'm in love. I'm so in love that it feels like being away from him physically hurts. I'm so crazy for him." No. Not this. "I want to marry him."

"You're like I was with Ash." I shook away a tear.

"And you're still married." She went blank for a moment but returned with, "I really miss Ash. It's a shame he had to go back home for work." Work. So that was what Clemont had decided to tell her. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. "But guess what!"

"What, Bonnie?" I ran my fingers through the pixie-cut I was trying my hardest to grow out.

"When I go back to Sinnoh for my last term, there's a big concert. I'm gonna be singing there! Clemont already knows. But please, please, please can you and Ash come? May's coming, too!"

"I'll have to double check that he's not busy, but Brock will understand. He wouldn't miss it for the world, Bonnie."

She tilted her pretty, little head, "Yoire the best, Serena!"

I'm not, Bonnie. I calmed down my racing fever. I'm the worst.