slide away {lorenzo berkshire}

67. undressed

TW - smut

"I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close... I will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, I will love you if you don't marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else--and i will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all. That is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way."
- Lemony Snicket

~~~~~~

Cassie Avery

I woke to silence.

Not the soft, steady kind that comes when someone's still breathing beside you - but the hollow kind. Empty. Wrong.

The space next to me was cold.

My eyes shot open. The fire in the grate had burned down to ash, the dorm thick with the damp smell of rain creeping through the stone walls. Lorenzo was gone.

I sat up too quickly, heart lurching. The bed dipped beside me, the sheets tangled and messy. Empty.

I blinked at the space where he'd been, the faint impression of his body still visible in the mattress. For a second, I thought I'd imagined it all. That I'd dreamed the way his breath had warmed against my skin, the way my fingers had threaded through his hair of their own accord.

But no - the ache in my chest, the rawness in my throat, that was all too real.

Still, the sight of the empty bed jarred me. Lorenzo didn't get up early. He wasn't exactly the responsible type at the best of times, and after the amount he'd drunk last night? He should've been dead to the world until noon. At the very least.

I felt like I'd been holding my breath all night. I half expected him to come stumbling back in, laughing at me for worrying. But nothing. Just the patter of rain against the window, relentless and heavy.

My mind started turning, unhelpful as always. Had something come up? A summons? Some death sentence disguised as a task for the Dark Lord?

Or maybe - worse, somehow - maybe he just didn't want to face me. Maybe whatever had almost happened between us had been nothing more than drunken heat, something he'd decided to sweep under the rug with a hasty exit.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to shake the thoughts off, but they clung stubbornly.

And then I caught a flicker out of the corner of my eye.

Onyx was perched cross-legged at the end of her bed, already dressed, watching me like a hawk who'd been waiting for the kill. Her chin rested on her hand, her eyes bright with barely suppressed amusement.

I jumped slightly. "How long have you been sitting there?".

She only smirked, slow and wicked, and tilted her head toward the bedside table.

I followed her gaze. That's when I saw it: a folded scrap of parchment resting against the lamp. My stomach tightened.

For a heartbeat, I didn't move. Just stared at it, like it might vanish if I blinked.

"Go on," Onyx said, voice light but loaded. "It's for you."

My fingers hesitated before reaching out. The edges were crinkled like it had been folded in a rush. I unfolded it carefully, pulse thudding in my throat.

Morning trouble,
Meet me at the field by the quidditch pitch. 10 o'clock. It's important.
- L

That was it. No explanation, no smiley scrawl, no half-drunken nonsense like last night. Just urgent, direct, and maddeningly vague.