𝐄𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 | g. w

19. i sense a 'but' coming

"Please talk to me."

I realise, the second my voice leaves my mouth, that it comes out as pleading. By my voice alone, I'm begging him to open up, to tell me why he's refusing to talk to me, or even so much as look at me. Really look at me.

"Why? I've said all I needed to say, and you—you've made it pretty clear you don't feel the same way I do." He wipes a tear from his face, quickly, as if to make sure I haven't caught on. But I did, I saw. I saw the tear escaping his eye, and it breaks my heart knowing I did that. That I'm the reason he's so torn up.

Fuck, this is all my fault.

"If you would just let me—"

"—and you know what the worst part is? It's that for a second, I actually convinced myself that you felt the same way, that you could love me as I love you."

"George, please—"

"Because I do. I love you. So fucking much. It's tearing me up inside how much you've made me love you. And I thought I could hide it, that my feelings would somehow fade with time, and that I wouldn't still feel like this, but I've come to realise that that will never happen."

He lets a deep sigh escape him, before he continues, his voice shaky as he tries not to cry any harder than he already has.

"You've ruined me. Any chance I've ever had at finding someone else to love has been taken from me. You've made it impossible not to love you, and I've tried and tried and tried again to push you away. To pretend as if you only exist in my mind as a friend—a good friend—but I—I can't. It's no use."

I place my hand on his chest where his heart is, and even though it looks as if it's more than painful to him that we're touching, he doesn't pull away. He keeps his eyes locked on mine, and I know, without a single doubt in my mind,  that he's telling the truth. He loves me, and I've just ruined the greatest thing I've ever had the chance of knowing. I've ruined us, before we even got the chance to be an us.

"I'm so so sorry, Georgie. If I could turn back time to that moment, I wouldn't have walked out. I was just so confused, and—I—I could barely process what you had just revealed to me. I know it's no excuse, and that you'll probably never want to speak to me again, but I need you to know—God, I should've told you forever ago—that I love you. I'm so ridiculously in love with you. I can't stop thinking about you, your laugh, your freckles, your awful taste in music. I wish there was enough words to describe just how happy you make me, how much I look forward to seeing you everyday and how much I truly cherish every single moment I've had with you. You make me a better version of myself, and I can't thank you enough for all that you've done for me in the last couple of years. I love you, George Fabian Weasley. Indefinitely."

God, please just kiss me.

And he does. Our first real kiss (not counting the one we had at age twelve, when Fred dared him to) is sloppy, rough and very long awaited. Our tongues move together in symphony, our breathes shared. My whole body tingles, it feels like electricity is shooting through me, as if I've died and just been brought back to life. I never knew real love until I met him.

The kiss lasts for a few seconds, and the moment his lips are detached from mine, I feel like I could easily give up breathing, if it meant kissing him again and again.

With our foreheads pressed together, we both breathe heavily, almost gasping for air. I can't help but smile, and he does to, showing off those beautiful, entrancing dimples of his.

"God, I've been wanting to do that for a very long time." He whispers, pressing a wet kiss to my hair.

I smile wider, if that's even possible.

"Me too." I chuckle. "So what does this mean? For us?"

"It means I love you, and that I want to be with you—"

"I sense there's a 'but' coming." I frown.

"But—it doesn't change the fact that we can't be sure this would work. You're my best friend in the entirely world, and I don't want to compromise that. I'm afraid, that if we do this, and if goes south, that we'll end up despising one another. And I can't take that risk."

The tears I thought were done drying start making their way down my face again. I'm quick to wipe them away, the salty water stinging my already bloodshot eyes.

Despite how much it hurts to hear those words, I also known the truth that lies within them. I know he's right, it's what I've been scared of this whole time, it's why I've been stalling, afraid to come out with the truth of my feelings in the first place. In the end, it doesn't matter how much I love him, because we're only going to end up breaking each other's hearts, and by realising this now, we're softening the inevitable blow. I love him, I always will, but if we can't be together in the way that I want, than I'd much rather remain his best friend than lose him for good. What we have, our friendship, it's too precious to me. I just can't lose that.

So I nod, the tears leaking from my eyes, an ocean of them running down the side of my face. He holds me against his body, his strong and lean arms keeping me safe and warm, and in this very moment—

—there's nowhere else I'd rather be.