Someone Like You (Cat Noir)

Chapter 30 "Adrien" the Fragrance

Everyone says that time heals all wounds, but no one can tell you what you're supposed to do right now. Right now Lucy can't sleep. It's right now that she can't eat. Right now she still hears his voice and senses his presence even though she knows he's not here. Lucy knows all about time and wounds healing, but even if she had all the time in the world, she still doesn't know what to do with all this hurt right now. It irritated her to think about it as she traced one of her scars on her upper arm. She much preferred wounds she could see. She hated the fact that she did this to herself. Blaming Chat would be lovely but Lucy knew all too well she would never. How is it, that even when we know the outcome of a situation will be bad, we still let ourselves go about it anyway? Just in case we are wrong. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know. Even if we really think we do. For both their sake, Chat, and Lucy decided to distance themselves from one another. This time, as a mutual decision so that they could both lick their wounds. There were no hard feelings between the pair any longer. No anger or frustration, only acceptance and a little bit of sadness. Sometimes you needed time apart to be able to properly come back together. It wasn't forever, just for now. It had been a long week. School and her friends made keeping her thoughts off Chat Noir rather easy. Marinette and Talia in particular had been most attentive to her as of late. Talia was easy to expect, but it wasn't until Marinette had come to her alone one day after school, that she revealed Chat Noir visiting her the night he made their dinner date. Lucy appreciated Marinette's support, as both girls carried a common affection for boys out of their reach.

Today, Lucy would attempt to help her dear friend, Adrien, with the help of her mother. Adrien had expressed to her on the phone the night before that today a movie was being played in their local theater. This movie was special, as the lead role was played by his mother, Emilie Agreste. Adrien had told Lucy how the movie was never put on the internet and his father had the only DVD copy that he knew of, however, due to Gabriel being so closed off on the subject of his mother, Adrien was unsure if his father would allow him to watch it. Today was the only day it would be shown in a theater. Lucy had asked why it was such an exclusive movie and Adrien explained that before the film could be mass-produced, his mother had disappeared. His father, having the connections he did, had stopped the film from getting far. Adrien explained he wasn't sure why his father had done so, but his mother was a touchy subject and Adrien learned it was best not to question such things. It only upset his father. Lucy had explained the situation to her mother, who offered to try and talk with Gabriel with Adrien. She thought, that maybe, being that she had also lost her husband, even if their situation was under different circumstances, that the older Agreste might just listen to her. Of course, Adrien tried to turn down the offer, not wanting to burden Lucy or her mother with his family issues but Monica insisted. Over the past year, Monica had not spent an overabundant amount of time with Adrien. She did still work a lot and it was clear the boy was on a rather tight schedule himself. But during the few occasions Lucy had had him around while she was present, Monica couldn't help but like the boy. He was kind and polite and Monica felt oh so sad for him whenever his family was brought into a conversation.

Much like the first time they met in the school hallway, anytime his father would come up, the gleam in his eyes would dull and his smile would falter. Monica could not help but hold resentment toward this man whom she did not know. Resenting him for letting the absence of his wife fill him with so much hate. People that hold onto hate for so long do so because they want to avoid dealing with their pain. They falsely believe if they forgive they are letting their enemy believe they are a doormat. What they don't understand is hatred can't be isolated or turned off. It manifests in their health, choices, and belief systems. Their values and religious beliefs make adjustments to justify their negative emotions. Not unlike malware infesting a hard drive, their spirit slowly becomes corrupted and they make choices that don't make logical sense to others. Hatred left unaddressed will crash a person's spirit. The only thing he or she can do is to reboot, by fixing him or herself, not others. Perfectionist parents seem to operate under the illusion that if they can just get their children to be perfect, they will be a perfect family. They put the burden of stability on the child to avoid facing the fact that they, as parents, cannot provide it. The child fails and becomes the scapegoat for family problems. Once again, the child is saddled with the blame.