88.
chapter eighty-eight:
trees backlogged
and I broke
our heart.

"How do trees jog?"

There was a silence, only rippling because of the soft susurration of the leaves and the murmurs of a few people enjoying the evening. I rolled my eyes, focusing on the moving blur of red underneath my line of vision. Who knew there would come a day when I would be forced to do laps around Pallet Park in my day-to-day Converses? 

"They just... root off?" I heard Serena's poor attempt at answering his stupid dad-joke-cum-question. 

"No, I think they branch out to other trees." This was from my mother. 

"What do you think, Ash?" 

I turned sharply, inclining my head down to peer up at her through my fake glasses, hoping she'd get the message. Even if she did, she just smiled. What are you even doing this for, girl?

"Well," his voice came, breaking through the silence like a warship through a thick iceberg, "they backlog, of course," he guffawed, forcing me to increase my pace. The knot in my stomach pulled and thrashed out when Serena caught my arm. 

"What are you doing?" she hissed, pulling me to her. A scowl escaped my lips as I struggled to keep myself from reprimanding her. 

"You are the one to say when you are the one who got me into this mess. It's supposed to be my routine alone for my alone time. Not for, oh, family time." 

"Ash, he's trying to make up—" 

My stomach churned, and I felt bitter bile rise up to my throat. How could she of all people turn against me? "What for?" I questioned fervently. 

"You know he didn't leave you on purpose—" 

"Why don't you tell me about it?" 

"Yes, I was planning to do just that—!" 

By now, we were nose-to-nose against each other, speaking through gritted teeth and clenching our jaws in mere frustration. "Hey, come now! What's even got into you both?" It did not help my reply that he interjected. 

"It's none of your business—" 

"Ash, that's outright cold!" 

"When you'd feel the same about your father, why can't I?" 

My whisper sent visible chills through her and wiped out every shred of self-control I had managed to acquire over the course of eighteen years of staying alive but not quite living. 

"Excuse me," Serena started, crossing her arms over her chest. I could feel flames of fury from her blazing gaze, but I wasn't going down. I had had enough of mental exhaustion as it was. "My father is a workaholic who travels places merely for his job, while Mister Ketchum was on the run to keep you from getting killed!" She jabbed an accusatory finger at my chest, but I quickly grabbed her wrist and lowered our hands, backing away. 

"What in the world are you rambling about, Serena?" 

Serena scrunched her nose, as if disgusted. She looked me in the eye, and I could sense her underlying rage. Why she was so worked up, I had no clue. "Giovanni of the Rockets. Does the name ring a bell?" 

Giovanni?

My eyebrows arched in puzzlement as the background completely faded away into a blur of hues turning the plain monochrome of black and white. "Who?" 

"That's right, you don't! While you were busy vying away your school years in Pallet School, Giovanni was targeting your mother. If you, her son with another man, were to be alive, her husband had to be murdered. Do you even understand what this implies?" 

The cogs in my brain turned and turned, but there was a speed limit even to my mind. There were just too many vehicles on the highway to speed through, and Serena was the one driving them all. "What the h—" 

"Did you?" She looked over her shoulder at where my parents now stood silently observing whatever was unfolding. I wished I could curse them—or myself—to never face the world with such a stupid mind. "No, you don't. 

"He left you and Missus Ketchum to keep you safe! He pretended to be dead until Giovanni was gone for good, and he was murdered just as our second semester started." 

Clink.

The annoying screech of chalk against blackboard when things were being written out for good. I was the blackboard. "Sere—" 

"Look, I'm here to make things right, but how can I do that when you're unwilling to let go of the past?" Her stance loosened, and she cast me a soft look that made me evade her eye ruefully. "All those nightmares were nothing but illusions of your fear!" 

Nothing.

The chord broke. 

"You don't know what it feels like. You don't know how it feels, and that's the harsh truth you're stubborn to disagree with!" 

Every moment passed in a blur. The minute I stopped talking, the minute my anger seeped out through my words, Serena's eyes flashed excessively, changing from one emotion to another in a span of a few seconds, like a fickle mind. Her demeanor shot down degrees, her stance exhausted. There was faint noise, but I didn't know whether it had been me who had groaned or her who had whimpered. 

Before I could utter another word, a desperate apology, she whipped past me in a swift motion, shoulders colliding for a mere second before the world turned black and white again. My stomach churned in realization that I had ruined the second chance that she had given me over him.

A firm hand gripped my shoulder, and I flinched upon hearing the man's voice. "Hey, you can always apologize to her. I'm sure she'll come around—" 

I wheeled at him, jaws set and my heart pumping gallons of red-hot fury. "You ruined my life!" 

There was a terse moment in which I earnestly prayed for the earth to suddenly tear open and gobble me down to its epicenter before anything was spoken. "I know, and I'm here to fix it. Please give me one final chance, son."