𝐄𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 | g. w

16. a confession

"You okay, Georgie?"

I walk back to the Gryffindor common room after my last class of the day to find my favourite ginger seated in the couch across the small fireplace. He's staring ahead, barely acknowledging me as I speak, and I can tell just by the way he's slouched over, that somethings wrong.

"What's going on?", I ask, and that's when he seems to sense my presence for the first time since I walked through the doors. He looks up, gives me a halfhearted smile, only to look down in his lap once more. He's fidgeting with the silver ring on his pointer finger, twirling it around a few times.

"S' nothing", he murmurs, his voice low and distracted. Something is clearly weighing on his mind. "I'm just tired is all."

"George..."

"Promise", he says, but it seems like he's trying to convince himself more than he is me. "I've just not slept well in the last couple of days."

I let a deep sigh escape my lips, seating myself beside him. I put my hand underneath his chin, lifting his face towards mine to force him to look at me. "Don't do that. Somethings clearly on your mind. You can tell me."

"I broke up with Angelina."

The words roll off his tongue faster than it seems he meant them to. His eyes are somewhat glazed over and he seems distracted. Yet, something about the way he speaks tells me he's more upset about something else than the fact that he just broke it off with his girlfriend.

"George...", I start, not really knowing what to say. For obvious reasons, a part of me is happy about the fact, because it means I won't have to see the two of them together anymore. However, I can't help but feel an extreme amount of guilt for ever thinking that way. He's going through a heartbreak, and whether or not he's feeling as sad as I imagine Angelina to be about it; I'm his friend, and I need to be there for him. "I'm—I'm so sorry."

"Don't. I'm not." He seems to hesitate to explain himself further and instead stops speaking all together, taking my hands in his and placing a warm kiss to my knuckles.

"What do you mean? I thought things were okay between the two of you. You seemed happy with her." I can't help but feel my insides warming up at his movements, the feeling of his lips on my hand lingering.

"I was. I mean—I at least think I was." He sighs, pulling one of his hands through his ginger locks, the one who's not currently still holding my hand. I give him a tiny, comforting smile in return. "It's complicated. It sounds awful when you say it, but I think she might have cared more about me than I did her. It was just a matter of time before we went our separate ways, anyway, and it wasn't fair of me to keep pretending otherwise. I still care about Angelina, I'm just not in love with her."

"Oh", I mutter, letting my thumb grace the back of his hand that's still holding mine.

I know there's probably a better time than this to say what I say next, and that I'm only hinting at my feelings towards him in a much more non-discrete way. Yet, I can't keep from wondering if he ever felt about Angelina the way I'm convinced I feel about him.

"And were you ever? In love with her, I mean?"

"I liked spending time with her, and we had some laughs together. She's beautiful and I never understood what she saw in me. I guess I liked the idea of being with someone like her."

"You didn't answer my question", I say, the tone of my voice coming out almost too demanding than I mean.

He sighs, his lip twitching nervously. I wait for him to answer me, and it feels like a lifetime has passed when he finally opens his moth to speak again.

What he says next has me question everything I thought I knew. A shiver runs down my spine, my heart pounds almost painfully within my chest, and all those butterflies I'd convinced myself I couldn't let occupy my stomach any longer, comes back alive.

"No", he croaks out. "I was never in love with her. Not like I am in love with you."

(...)

I can't seem to fall asleep for the life of me that following night. I keep twisting and turning in bed, never finding a comfortable enough sleeping position.

I was never in love with her. Not like I am in love with you.

I keep replaying George's words again and again and again in my head like a movie scene I can never seem to wrap my head around.

I'm confused. I never though the day would actually come when he, the George Weasley, confesses his love for me. It just was never in the cards, I never believed it could actually happen.

George Weasley is in love with me?

Surely, I must be going out of my mind. Perhaps all my stress of preparing for my upcoming tests has me losing it. Maybe I'm finally going crazy and this is all some way for my fucked up mind to keep me on my toes.

I must be hallucinating.

Yeah. That's it.

But I know, deep down, that it's not in fact just my mind playing tricks on me. I can't chalk it up to this all being fake, when I'm well aware it's not.

I guess I'm just trying to understand how I didn't see it before.

Perhaps I was too blinded by my own feelings towards him to notice.

"Please—Mia. Say something", George had said after his blunt confession, his eyes filled with tears that he couldn't help but let slip. He was silently pleading with me to say something, yet all I could do was stare blankly ahead. I was shocked, slightly panicked.

"I-I don't know what to say." I manage to get out a few stuttered words, but it felt almost as if the sound of my heartbeat was drowning out any other noise.

"Say you hate me. Say you wish we never became friends to begin with. Say you don't know who I am anymore, that you don't want to see me anymore. Anything's better than silence."

I hate that it took you this long to tell me. I hate that you went out with Angelina and that I had to watch you be happy with her. I hate that  no matter how sad and angry I've been with you for the last couple of months, I'll never not want to see you. I hate how you make me feel, how the mere sight of you makes me giddy in way I never thought possible. I hate that stupid, smug-looking grin taking form on your face every time you manage to piss me off. I hate that you let me borrow your jumpers whenever I want and the fact that you never ask for any of them back. But most of all; I hate that I don't hate you.

"I... I have to go—", I stammer, needing to be anywhere but in his presence right now.

"Mia—", he says, watching me as I run out of the common room, the tears streaming down my face.

Fuck you, George Weasley.

I love you.