Ash woke up the next morning after a long, dreamless night. Sunlight glared in through the window, temporarily blinding him until he turned his head away. For a moment, no thoughts were going through his mind, other than the obvious that he was sleepy as hell. He glanced casually at his clock, which informed him promptly that it was just eight in the morning.

With a small groan, Ash cuddled himself into his covers, closed his eyes, and allowed his sleepiness to take over him. However, it lasted but a mere second, when suddenly the remembrance of what had happened the night before came to him. His eyes weakly opened, and his heart sank. An intense sense of depression swept through his body, and at once he didn’t feel so tired anymore.

Ash sat up in bed, and rubbed his eyes of their sleepiness. His neck ached faintly, but he didn’t mind. He looked sadly out his window, noticing that it was going to be a bright, warm Friday. His eyes then darted from Brock to Misty, whose eyes were shut peacefully, their good-night’s sleep not ended as of yet.

For about a few minutes, Ash just sat in bed, staring dully off into space, letting time tick by. He wanted to go downstairs, but found that he couldn’t get himself out of bed. Hunger settled in him and he had to go to the bathroom badly, but his legs didn’t budge, his reluctant attitude gluing him down.

Finally with a small sigh and a shot of determination, Ash lifted his sheets and got out of bed. He figured he’d might as well, considering he was up and bombarding himself in his room in his sadness would just make matters worse both for him and his mom.

Ash shuffled weakly down the stairs, attended to his bathroom calling first. The house was quiet, and Ash wondered if he was the first one up. After going to the bathroom, however, he discovered that the kitchen light was on. He found his mom sitting at the table in her bathrobe, the newspaper lifted to her face. Jay was nowhere around, and Ash figured that he must had gone to work.

Ash walked slowly into the kitchen, his eyes transfixed to the ground as he paced nearly aimlessly to the refrigerator. He didn’t want to ignore his mom, but as much as he fought it, he couldn’t bring himself to look at or talk to her. Playing with his mind like that -- where did she get off hiding secrets from him? Not to mention important things such as . . . as . . .

He couldn’t even bear to think of it. Since he was young, he knew what divorce was, and that it was a horrible thing. But he never worried about it; his parents were happy and always would be. But then It occurred, and suddenly it became a reality to him. It was more of a reality now, and his mom couldn’t even let him know.

Delia smiled warmly as Ash entered the kitchen. "Ash! You’re up early!"

Ash nodded apathetically, making his way to the fridge with a dead-set frown on his face. He opened the door and pulled the orange juice out.

"What do you want for breakfast?" Delia went on, setting the newspaper down and looking kindly at Ash.

His back turned to her, Ash shrugged, anger starting to inch its way into his blood. Here she was, acting as if nothing in the world was happening, that every thing was just okey-dokey. Ash shuddered as he poured the juice into a glass.

Delia looked calmly at him. "What’s the matter? Still tired? Go back to bed if you are."

"I’m not tired," Ash muttered coldly, putting the juice away and finding a seat at the table. He had not once allowed his eyes to meet his mother’s, not noticing that her face was lightly scrunching in concern.

"Do you want pancakes?" she asked, taking notice to Ash’s strange mood. "I got the mix that you like this time."

Ash didn’t reply; instead he took a long gulp of his juice and rested his head in his hand.

"Hmmm?" Delia continued, tapping the table lightly to get his attention. "You want something?"

Yeah, I want something, Ash thought angrily to himself, not acknowledging his mom’s signals. Tell me. Come on, we’re alone. No one’s here. Perfect time. Tell me now.

Nothing came from her, though. Delia got up and sat in the seat beside Ash’s. He had seated himself across the table from her, when he usually plopped down right next to her. Smiling pleasantly, she reached up and ran her hand through his knotty hair. As she did this, Ash strained but allowed it, his anger building within him.

Don’t touch me, he warned her in his mind, keeping his eyes away from her. Reaching across the table, he grabbed the comics section of the newspaper, and fixed his eyes on it. Delia’s hand lost his hair as he did this, but as soon as he returned to his upright position, it went through his hair again. This time, though, Ash jerked his head away, abandoning his mother’s delicate hand.

The sudden jerk shocked Delia, and she drew her hand away. She leaned over to look into Ash’s eyes, hoping they would meet hers, but he brought them to the top of the paper and away from hers.

"Sweetheart, what’s the matter?" Delia asked him in a concerned tone.

Ash couldn’t take it anymore. He huffed angrily, fighting back the tears that swept to his eyes instantly, and he turned to Delia. Their eyes met for the first time that morning, and Delia drew back as soon as Ash’s fury-stricken eyes met her concerned ones.

"Why won’t you tell me?!" Ash belted out angrily, causing Delia’s heart to leap as well as herself. She jumped out of the chair and stared down at Ash.

"What?" she asked confusingly, bringing her hand up to her pumping heart.

"You know what I’m talking about!" Ash answered, slamming his first down on the table. Two stands of tears fell down his cheeks and dripped into his lap.

Delia shrugged fearfully. "Ash, no . . . Please tell me what you’re talking about! What won’t I tell--?"

"About Dad!" Ash screamed, his throat stinging. "You think I’m that stupid? That I wouldn’t find out eventually?!"

All of sudden, Delia’s heart fell as she realized what he was talking about. She gazed downheartedly at Ash, whose tears continued to descended from his eyes. He gazed up at her angrily, his eyes demanding an immediate answer.

"Ash, did you hear--?" she began to ask.

Ash breathed deeply. "Of course I heard! I’m not freakin’ deaf!"

Delia looked sadly at him, disappointment rising in her. "I’m sorry you had to find out like that. Ash, I was going to tell you, I was--"

"Then why didn’t you?!" Ash bellowed, causing his mother’s ears to ring. His speech was becoming muffled as it combined with sobs. He bolted up and looked venomously at Delia.

"Ash, I didn’t think you were ready to handle such news," she explained pleadingly, trying her best to calm her raging son down. "I didn’t want to hurt you."

"Bullshit!" Ash bawled. "You hurt me plenty!"

"Hey! Watch you language!" she shouted angrily. "There’s no need for that!"

Ash shook his head. "Oh, there’s plenty of need for it! What’s wrong with you? What other things are you keeping from me?"

"I’m not keeping anything from you!" Delia replied in defense. "I was going to tell you about your father and me. You know I was! How could I keep something like that from you for long?!"

"Well, you sure took your precious time!" Ash spat. "But no, I had to find out with you two screaming your goddamn heads off last night about it!"

"That was an accident," Delia said, folding her arms in front of her. "Ash, please. You’re getting too worked up about this!"

Ash moaned. "I’m not allowed to get upset that my parents are divorcing?!"

Delia sighed. "Of course you are, but I wanted to wait until you were ready to know. You were so happy last night being with your father that I just couldn’t tell you then."

Tears had been running from Ash’s eyes for a while now, but it was only then that he began to cry. He choked his sobs up, and covered his face with his hands. Delia rushed to his side, her arms extended to pull him into a hug. Ash whacked her hands away and ran past her, heading for the stairs.

"Ash!" Delia called after him, taking off after him.

Ash’s sobs ceased as he ran up the stairs, his eyes wet and raw from his crying. Half-way up, he almost collided with Misty and Brock, who were startled to see him racing past them.

"Ash?" Misty asked worriedly.

"Ash? Hold up!" Brock shouted, as Ash pushed his way through them.

Brock and Misty stood confused, and got ready to go after him.

"Ash!" Delia shouted, and Brock and Misty’s attention turned to her as she hopped up the stairs by twos.

"Excuse me, guys," she said softly but nervously, as she pushed past them as Ash had done, tripping on the last step in her attempt to catch Ash.

Brock had no clue what was happening, but decided that intruding would be incredibly rude, so they nervously made their way to the kitchen.

Ash bolted into his room and slammed the door immediately behind him. Leaning all his weight on it, he turned the lock as quickly as he could. Flipping around, he leaned his back against the door, burying his face in his hands again.

"Pika pi?" Pikachu asked, his eyes flooding with worry.

Ash looked up to see that he had awoken Pikachu, who was now staring at him.

"It’s okay, Pikachu," Ash assured him. "Go back to bed, okay?"

"Chu!" Pikachu refused, rushing to Ash.

Delia reached Ash’s shut door and attempted to open it. Finding it locked, she proceeded to knock loudly on it.

"Ash! Open the door!" she said, knocking again.

"No!" Ash shouted back. "Go away!"

Delia sighed sadly. "Please let me in, Ash. Let’s talk about it."

"No! I don’t want to talk to you!" Ash hollered, sobs breaking through his voice again. "Leave me alone! Go away!"

Delia was ready to reply, but she held back, glancing dismally at the floor. It was no use, anyway. When Ash got into these moods, it was usually hard to get him out of them. Delia turned away and headed downstairs, knowing that what Ash needed was a good cool-down period. Hopefully, she would talk to him later, to let him know how sorry she really was.

Walking into the kitchen, Misty and Brock looked up at her. She smiled sweetly at them, and went to the cupboard.

"How does pancakes sound?" she asked cheerily, pulling the mix out, acting as if the entire affair had not just occurred.

Brock and Misty looked at each other, exchanging a look of worry.

"Is Ash all right?" Misty asked, her eyebrows raising in questioning.

"Yeah, he looked pretty bummed out," Brock added.

Delia turned to the two kids. "He--he needs to calm down, that’s all. He’ll be fine."

"God, what upset him so much?" Misty asked.

Delia put the mix down on the counter and put her head in her hand. There it was again. It wasn’t going to leave her, no matter how much she wanted it to. If Ash knew, he would tell Misty and Brock immediately no doubt, so she’d might as well tell them now and get it over with. Jay would be coming home from his job in Viridian City at five, and a whole fight breaking out then would not be good.

With Brock and Misty giving their undivided attention to her, Delia decided to come out flat with it. "Jay and I are getting a divorce," she said silently, looking almost shamefully at the floor.

Misty and Brock’s mouths opened in shock.

Delia continued sadly. "We, uh, have been considering it for a while." She glanced up at their expressions, then looked down at the floor again. "And he’s here right now to finalize it. Ash just found out last night."

Misty got up and strode over to Delia, who had rested her head in her hand again. She rubbed her shoulder softly, and looked sadly at Brock, who also got up.

"Are you going to be okay?" Misty asked.

Delia nodded. "Yeah, I will. But I don’t know about Ash."

"He’s taking it hard, huh?" Brock asked, folding his arms around him.

"I don’t blame him though," Delia said, throwing her hand down in frustration. "He found out totally the wrong way. God, why did this have to happen?!"

The news of the divorce startled Misty. She couldn’t help but ponder, though. She and Brock had known for some time that Delia and Jay were separated, but had found it out so long ago that they figured that maybe they were divorced. That maybe Ash had just used the word ‘separated’ to lighten the load of it, so to speak. When he spoke of his parents, which was as rare as seeing Mew stroll across the road in front of them, he spoke so blandly that it was obvious he didn’t like talking about it. Misty and Brock never bothered him further, seeing the pain clearly spelt out.

Misty and Brock didn’t even have any idea why they were separated, or getting divorced. That was one thing Ash had always kept within him, and something neither or them would have ever dared ask Mrs. Ketchum. Now more than ever, Misty pondered of this baffling situation.

Misty straightened herself and looked reassuringly into Delia’s eyes. "I’ll go talk to Ash," she said. "Maybe I can get him to feel better."

"Oh, you don’t have to do that," Delia answered, unsure of if letting anybody near Ash right now was a good idea. "He just needs to calm down."

Misty smiled. "No, it’s all right. I want to make sure he’s okay."

Delia was quick to object again, but she drew herself back and nodded the approval. Misty nodded a hopeful okay to her, then headed off upstairs while Brock hung back to help Delia in the kitchen.

Misty calmly made her way up the stairs, being careful not to put Ash in some sort of rage again with the sound of someone coming. It didn’t matter much, though, when she reached the door and knocked ever so softly.

"Go away!" Ash bellowed from in his room. "Leave me alone, Mom!"

"No, no Ash, it’s me," Misty said quickly but gently. "It’s just me."

"I don’t feel like talking," Ash muttered unhappily. "Please leave me be."

Misty sighed. "Please Ash? I’m worried about you."

Silence followed that, and Misty stood looking rather confusedly at the door. She was about to turn away when all of a sudden she heard the sharp click of the lock and the moaning hinges as Ash opened the door slowly.

She almost gasped when she saw him, his face red and irritated-looking. His eyes, which were normally a bright white were clouded over in red and bloodshot. The area underneath his nose was also red -- in fact, the color seemed to have taken over his whole face. Misty’s heart fell when she saw him, and she felt like crying as well.

Ash looked down at the floor and turned around, climbing the ladder to his bed. There he plopped down impassively, while Pikachu strode slowly over to him and settled on his lap. Misty made her way slowly and carefully into the room. When Ash finally looked at her again, she gave him a warm, heartfelt smile.

"Are you okay?" she asked sweetly, her mouth drawn into a worried grin.

Ash didn’t smile back. "No," he answered simply, running his hand over Pikachu’s back tenderly over and over.

Without a second thought, Misty calmly climbed her way onto Ash’s bed, and plopped down beside him with care. The bed was still unmade, and Misty found Ash clad together in a small mound of the comforter, covering his cold, bare feet. As Misty settled in beside Ash, she instinctively pulled some of the comforter over onto her feet, pounding on it softly to ease the tension of the moment.

Ash remained speechless, his eyes fixed on the relaxed Pokémon in his lap, taking almost no notice to Misty. She glanced worriedly at him.

"Do you want to talk about it, Ash?"

Ash shook his head, and Misty turned away dejectedly. How was she going to get him to talk?

"How could they do this to me, Misty?" Ash voice suddenly came out of nowhere, so light and inaudible, but Misty’s head still shot up immediately. She looked at him and noticed that he was still looking down, sniffling a couple times to mark the end of his crying stage.

"They didn’t mean to hurt you," Misty said, the first thing coming to her mind. "They love you, Ash. You know that."

The two spoke silently, almost in whispers. The only other sound in the room was the tick-tock of Ash’s bedside clock and the faint snoring of Togepi on the other end of the bed.

"They don’t act like they do," Ash said, sobs breaking through his voice. "If they did, they would have told me. Why were they keeping this a secret from me? Why?!"

"They were just thinking of what was best for you," Misty replied. She reached up and put her arm around Ash’ shoulder. For a second, she felt him flinch, but her arm remained there anyway.

"But that was not what was best for me!" Ash pouted, a single tear flowing from his eye. "I’m so mad at them! Mom especially! She never keeps anything from me! We tell each other everything." He pounded the bed on the other side of him -- the side without Misty. "Now I can never trust her again! I hate her."

Misty was overcome with a wave of sadness. "No, you don’t, Ash!" she contradicted immediately. "You don’t hate her. Unless maybe you have this weird thought in your mind that she hates you, and you’re wrong."

Ash looked up into her face.

Misty smiled. "She was going to tell you, Ash. And I don’t blame her for waiting. Maybe she wanted to see you have some fun with your dad for a couple days! Did you ever think of that?"

Ash’s eyes fell as he shrugged. "I guess," he mumbled.

"She didn’t want you to feel like this because . . . because she does love you."

Silent once again, Ash fell into deep thought. Misty wasn’t sure quite what it was, but sadness was still radiating from Ash. She pulled herself closer to him, and in a second, she pulled him into a hug. Overcome with emotion, Ash accepted the hug and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face into her shoulder. Misty could feel his body vibrating as he began to cry again, and she held him tighter.

"It’s okay, Ash," she assured, leaning her head on his as he sobbed onto her pajamas. "Everything’s going to be all right."

Misty knew that what she said was true . . . or had to be. For a moment, the thought of his parents’ relationship for the past three years, a vague, vast relationship that seemed to not exist at all, crept back into her mind. She suddenly felt horribly, horribly depressed for them, but most of all, for the poor, crying boy she held in her arms.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .