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"It’s just a ring, it doesn’t mean anything.”
She lowers her gaze, as he presses his palm against her cheek, carefully kissing the top of her head.
“I love you.”
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It’s been two months since Calem Louveau’s disappearance.
She is given what meager belongings he had on his person: a leather wristwatch, a faded, dark blue wallet (filled to the brim with ticket stubs and receipts for tournaments, her boy’s a blood knight), and a patent leather belt with six pokéballs, each engraved with his initials, pretty pictures and pretty lines. It is her responsibility, as his only emergency contact (the irony is delectable. he trusts her more than his parents, his own flesh and bone, oh, they coo, that’s true love) to attend to the mountains of paperwork and search warrants.
She wonders why fate is so cruel.
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The ring on her finger leaves awful indentations, ugly marks. Its silver band clings to her left hand like a curse, the iridescent opal at its center catches light, swallows it, always glittering and glowing, a constant reminder of the person who gave it to her. It was a gift, she says to nosy reporters, all clamoring and clutching for a story, something tragic, give me attention, their hungry gazes scream, give me devastation. It was a gift from someone very special, she lilts to the girls reapplying their lipstick in the ballroom bathroom, their teeth bared and ready to bite, they’re the worst, whispering loudly, loud enough for the entire room to hear—she’s got issues, that Descartes girl.
Serena does not need to be reminded. She holds her head high and steps into the fray, taking small steps in her patent leather heels, careful not to ruin her dress. She tucks a strand of loose curls back into her bun, and tilts her head ever so slightly. Lips part, eyes lid, this is her role.
Lumiose City’s best and brightest stand to applaud her arrival.
Her smile is forced—the cameras eat it up.
“Serena Serena! A word?”
("Anything for the people," she says. "It's my duty as the heroine of Kalos.")
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The television is her alter, she pays homage to the gods of the silver screen every night, every single night, when the ten o’clock news block bleats about the latest string of occurrences in her life—Another bright star, distinguished too soon, the story of Calem Louveau, favorite for the Kalos League title. More about Vaniville’s golden son, after these messages from our sponsors!!—God, she doesn’t believe in anything more than she believes in boy they have canonized.
Saint Louveau, patron to those destroyed by the media.
He would’ve loved that.
The television powers off, she stands up and pulls herself together, heads back to her room for another night without sound, another night without a phone call.
She believes in him more than anything in the world.
The missing person reports do not faze her. His glossy eight by ten is scattered all over Kalos, flyers drift endlessly, waiting to be found by a familiar set of ringed fingers and callused hands.
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“He always comes back, you know. I don’t know why everyone’s making a big deal out if it.”
Tierno is the kindest soul she’ll ever meet, she thinks, when he presses a large hand against her small fists. His face is soft and his eyes are warm, and she feels like things will be okay, like their entire group of friends wasn’t completely broken by their lancer's disappearance.
There’s an awful sense of foreboding in the winter air. The ring on her finger is oxidizing, leaving green gashes on her skin. Serena sighs, lovely features darken and she looks at her friend, tired and bitter and disappointed.
“He’s a lot stronger than we all think, you know.”
“I know.”
“He did help save the world.”
“I know.”
“Serena, it’s been a year.”
She tries not to cry, tries not to let the floodgates burst, because she’s Serena Descartes, she hasn’t cried once for this boy, she will not start now, especially not in the middle of Snowbelle City with Tierno, who is beautiful in his loyalty and optimism, but lacking in tact. He runs a hand through his short, short black hair, and gives her a sigh, before hugging her, patting her back, comforting her. This boy is comforting her, and Serena is crying, bawling and screaming into the folds of his black t shirt, because he’s right, he’s right.
It’s been a year.
A year.
He helped save the world and then ruined hers.
That was so typical of him.
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She gives them the full story.
it was spring, the note starts.
It was spring, after the grand parade in Lumiose City, after the cherry blossoms bloomed and the sky burned cyan. Calem, Shauna, Tierno, Trevor, and I, we all went to the beach, off the shores of Ambrette Town. the air was lovely, it was cool and fresh, and smelled like sea-salt and promise. It made me really happy, I remember. Calem had something really important to tell us, and he wanted to make the event special. Shauna was a blur of excited limbs and exaggerated hand motions, she packed a picnic for all of us, and Trevor took time out of his incredibly busy schedule (you know, because assistants to professors are always busy) to join us, he brought a cake from the cute pastry café down Autumn Avenue, and we shared it. it had cute little strawberries and frosting dots and it was just a lovely, lovely cake.
It tasted awful after what Calem told us.
He said, with his brightest grin and most energetic tone, with his hands tucked behind his long, brown hair, “I’m going to Kanto.”
We all stared at him like he’d gone crazy, because he had. He was born and raised in Unova, he just moved to Kalos, and like that, he was leaving. He’d just saved the world for God’s sake, you would expect him to stay for the season, or maybe for two.
I was angry. I was angry, and upset, and I got up and asked him why.
“Why would you do this?”
Everyone got very quiet. Shauna, despite her gift for diffusing conflict, stayed silent. She bit on her lower lip, and looked towards the brunet on the grassy floor, and then towards me, before looking towards the sea.
Her eyes lingered on Calem a second longer than I would have liked. I felt cheated.
Calem looked at me with his gray-blue gaze, he gave me such a sad look.
“I want to see the world, get stronger. I thought you, of all people, would understand that.”
But I didn’t understand, and that was his breaking point.
He left, and we stared at the half-finished shortbread cake.
I ran after him, but couldn’t catch up. He disappeared into the night.
That would be the last time I saw him before he broke into my house.
It goes to press almost immediately. The scandal thickens.
WHERE IS CALEM LOUVEAU?: THE SCENE AND HEARD
A LOVER'S QUARREL? THE KING AND QUEEN OF KALOS AND THEIR UNMAKING.
The headlines don't bother her anymore.
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When he breaks in, she doesn’t realize his felony because his presence in her two story apartment with the pretty yellow tea set behind the pale blue cabinet’s frosted glass is so, so normal. Calem stands in the middle of her living room, brown boots carefully placed next to her red sneakers, black hat on the coat rack, just like old times, his every action seemed to sing. His brown hair was slicked back, and his blue coat sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, and everything seemed absolutely normal, except for the grimace on his pretty face.
Serena stares at him, stares hard and steps warily towards him. She’s never been so cautious before, she doesn’t ask herself why her steps are minuscule or why her hands are shaking. He looks at her like an ethereal being, something too far for him to touch. They walk towards each other, and end up at the center of her rug, inches apart, touching, but not, there’s an awful kind of tension and he sighs.
He sighs.
Calem Louveau has never, ever sounded so defeated, and that is the moment when she realizes everything has gone wrong.
“I’m sorry.”
She’s not sure what he’s apologizing for but she lets him fall into her arms, and she pats his back, rubs circles over his track jacket and murmurs into his hair, it’s all right, it’s going to be all right.
He’s crying, crying about leaving and how he’s running away, running away from Kalos and the stigma of being number two. He’s sorry he’s a jealous creature, but he needs this, he needs to make a name for himself somewhere where he’s not the veteran’s kid, or the runner-up.
He wants to find his own success and Serena does not respond. She doesn’t say word. How can she, when the love of her life is abandoning her?
After Calem composes himself, he straightens himself out, arches his back, and kisses her forehead. His left hand finds hers. He slips his ring off, and carefully slides it onto her engagement finger.
Careful and collected, she would expect nothing less.
“It’s just a ring, it doesn’t mean anything.”
(But now she knows it meant the world to him.)
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It’s been a year and a half, and maybe, just maybe, Serena thinks, he’s fallen in love with another beautiful girl in Saffron City. Maybe they meet in a small café, and he impresses her with his hold on the French language. She asks for a battle, because, oh, she’s heard of Calem Louveau, and he’ll bristle and say he’s that man no more, and they’ll fight in the patio, his beautifully crafted team of six against her four, and it’s not a fair match, but it’s fine because she’s a graceful loser. She’ll dip her head, in reverence for the foreigner, and ask how to say thank you in his native tongue.
He’ll wink, and say, "Oh, we like communicating with our tongues."
And they’ll have sex in a forest cabin somewhere, and he’ll forget her name the morning after when he’s back on the run, on the back of his braviary (a childhood memento), headed towards the sun.
Serena tucks a strand of honey-blonde hair behind her ear, and picks up one of the boy’s pokéballs.
She doesn’t have the heart to tell them that their companion is…
Is what?
Dead?
The notion is too awful to entertain. She picks up the belt, and carefully places it back inside her dresser drawer, buries it in the folds of her favorite champagne colored dress.
Her mother calls her name from the kitchen downstairs, says it’s time for dinner.
She pulls her hair up into a ponytail, and rolls up the sleeves of her sweatshirt.
“I’ll be right there!”
She takes an agonizingly long time walking down the stairs, eyes glued to the steps, one foot falling after the other.
When she lands on the final step, she looks up.
“We have a guest.”
Her mother’s voice is placid, Grace is forever the incarnation of the calm and cool necessary to be a successful Rhyhorn Racer. She is simply the best.
But Serena can’t keep the guttural noise in her throat, she puts her hands over her mouth, and shrieks.
“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
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(Boys like Calem Louveau don’t just come back from the dead.)
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AFTERWORD --
There's a part of her, a small, very vocal part of Serena Descartes that wishes he never came back.
Calem slips back into her life like he never left, and she absolutely hates it. When they kiss, they kiss to maim, to burn, every touch is electric, every bite is sadistic. If they weren’t on the same page before his stunt, they were islands apart now, forever drifting in each other’s skin.
Half way through the night, Serena gets up.
She leaves a note on his nightstand, and kisses his eyelids, whispers goodnight, before leaving.
She sleeps in her own bed, but she can’t quite forget Calem’s red-ringed gaze.
“How insufferable.”
She could say the same thing about herself.
(She doesn’t have to, because Trevor calls her out. The youngest member of their group, with his ridiculous orange hair and with his ridiculous habit of talking to his technology instead of his friends, he calls her out on her godawful behavior, and he’s right. He’s always right. There’s an edge to his voice, his slight lilt, and she can’t help but agree with all of his claims. She hasn’t been the most receptive to Calem's Lazarus callback, sure, she can see that. But it’s not her fault.)
It’s not her fault.
The missing person reports mock her. When she looks under the bed for her favorite pair of shoes, they stare back, with Calem’s eight by tens asking why she hates him.
She doesn't hate him.
She doesn't think she can.
His ring makes an awful memento. It hangs on a silver chain, and brushes against her chest.
Serena Descartes doesn't think she can wear it anymore.
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("It's just a ring. It doesn't mean anything." She says when it ebbs and bobs and sinks, making a new home at the bottom of the Couriway Falls.)