Boys Will Be Bugs

Chapter 111: Break

The girls sat down beside him, immediately rallying themselves together to try to help.

"What do you mean you fucked it up?" asked Lily. "How?" Remus pushed his hair out of his eyes and sat back against the sofa.

"We got into an argument," he replied. "I said some really bad things, and it did not end well and he definitely hates me now."

"What did you say to him?" asked Marlene. Remus just shook his head.

"It doesn't matter what I said, the point is, he's definitely going to break up with me now."

"Did he say he wanted to break up?" Remus shook his head again, miserably.

"He didn't really need to."

"Yeah, but he didn't say it, therefore it's not official."

"Just apologise for the things you said," suggested Mary. "He can't hate you forever over one argument."

"I suppose... ." Remus rubbed a palm across his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't want to."

"You don't want to apologise?" Lily looked at him in bewilderment. "Why not?"

"Because it feels like all we do is apologise to each other." Remus felt like he was living in a constant vicious circle of arguments and apologies that only lasted as long as the next argument. Nothing seemed to be helping; apologies were just a temporary solution for a bigger problem that neither of them were willing to talk about.

"Well... you can't not apologise," said Lily. "Because then you'll never move forward."

"But I'm so tired." Remus could feel the painful lump in his throat again, but he swallowed it down and kept his breathing steady until the feeling had passed. "What if... what if it's not worth it anymore?" It was the last thing he wanted to voice out loud, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore.

"What?!" Marlene exclaimed. "Are you joking?"

"Do I sound like I'm joking?"

"Tell me you're not thinking about breaking up with him."

"I don't know!" Remus sat up and rested his elbows against his knees, his head staring down between his legs. "I don't know what to think."

"Come on, Remus, you can't break up with him over a stupid argument—"

"But it's always a stupid argument, I mean, when does it end?" The girls looked even more distressed than he did, but he couldn't even tell what he was feeling, because his brain was riddled with confusion at the moment. He regretted visiting Regulus. He wished he had never done it, but perhaps he had needed to. It was the catalyst for him to face up to what had been playing on his mind subconsciously for so long. "We're just so different."

"So what?" said Mary. "That doesn't mean you can't make it work." The girls weren't helping him at the moment. All they were doing was trying to convince him to go against how he felt, but that was also nothing more than just a temporary solution.

"Look, I just need some time to think," he said. He stood up and walked out of the common room, his main priority being to get some air, because he felt like the castle was suffocating him. He decided against the astronomy tower, given the constant reminder of Sirius it held in its round walls and instead snuck out of the grounds and made his way towards the forest. He was technically skipping the next class, but he couldn't think of anything he cared less about at the moment. His relationship with Sirius was hanging on by a thread, and he was currently holding the knife right up to it. He was sure that Regulus was to blame, because it made him think about how much he and Sirius differed as people. He had noticed a while ago that Sirius was so unlike his brother in so many ways, no matter how much they looked alike. Regulus was quiet while Sirius was loud and outspoken; Regulus was stoic with a stiff upper lip, while Sirius expressed every emotion he felt in an explosive manner that tended to take people off guard; Regulus talked slowly, calmly, deliberately, thinking about every word he said before he said it, while Sirius's speech was more erratic and impulsive, blurting out whatever he felt regardless of the consequences; Regulus blended into the background while Sirius was at the forefront. In fact, the only personality traits that they seemed to have in common was that they both struggled to express their emotions in a healthy way. Sirius felt in outbursts, while Regulus tried not to feel at all.