give her love » james potter

10

"Hi," Rachel says, sitting down beside me in History. "How was your Halloween?"

Terrible, I want to say, it was terrible and I miss my family, and the only decent thing of the night was the weird conversation with James.

Instead, I say: "Good. How was yours?"

She tells me she went to some party and then mentions that she dressed up as an angel, I nod and smile, but I want to cry.

I hate small talk. She hates small talk. We used to make fun of it, we used to do so many things, but now we're just the ashes of our friendship. It doesn't make sense. It makes me angry. It makes me confused. But it makes me feel a little more empty, I miss her. I miss each part of our friendship that was real, that mattered.

But I don't tell her any of that.

Of course.

We just sit letting the silence devour us.

As I zone out, memories of us from last year flow into my mind. It was when I had slept with Lei Chang and his ex-girlfriend had written 'Angelina Pierce is a skank' in the bathrooms.

"What kind of ink did she use," Rachel mumbled after she'd spent nearly an hour trying to scrub it off the walls.

I handed her another cleaning potion and shrugged, "It doesn't matter, Rach, we can just leave it. I honestly could care less about what Caroline thinks."

She'd turned to me and frowned. "I know, but, she wrote something that isn't true," she'd tried to reason with me. "She's such a little bitch, I am not gonna let her enjoy seeing this every time she comes in here."

I had smiled and she continued to try and get it off, each time letting strings of curses out when it didn't do anything. We'd stayed till midnight when she was finally able to get the skank part off and instead wrote in, Angelina Pierce is a likable human being, unlike Caroline.

We were both tired at that point and couldn't think of anything better, and had gone back a few nights later and just erased it all.

My mind grips onto that memory, it holds it close to my heart, and that when I finally gain some courage. "I've missed you," I say, scared that she might laugh at me or just pretend she hasn't heard.

She doesn't do either.

Instead, she looks kind of sad as she says, "I miss you, too."

We have basically all our classes together so even in Muggle Studies all I can do is be upset. and useless, using all my energy to think of our friend and dig it a grave.

James really isn't having any of it.

"Just talk to her," he says to me. "What's the worst thing that could happen."

I bite my lip. "I'm scared though."

He leans in a little closer and lowers his voice, "Here's the secret, Pierce. You either think about this moment for the rest of your life and regret it bitterly or you be brave, and just do it. Fears good, because that means it's something you can overcome and become a little braver."

It's the most Gryffindor thing I've ever heard. But for some weird reason, I start to believe what he's said.

"I'm not brave," I tell him.

"I think you are."

"You don't even know me."

Something flashes through him, it's quick and gone before I can really understand it. "I know some things," he says, not looking at me anymore. "Those things make me think you might be the strongest person I know."

Things.

I don't have to ask him what, I just know. We've never discussed those things, but he knows, he never brings them up, but he knows. It's like an anchor weighing us both down, drowning us sometimes in something I can't comprehend.

I change the subject because I'm great at not talking about important things, "How are things with Lily?"

"I don't know," he shrugs.

"I thought this was supposed to be the year you two got together," I say, teasingly, but for some reason, I can't quite get into being playful about this topic.

"It's complicated," he says, taking off his glasses to wipe them off some invisible debris.

I catch the color of his eyes, which I've always considered to be brown, but really they're shades of green and amber and brown mixed together. I can't take my eyes off his. He catches me and quickly puts them back on as if he's almost embarrassed or selfconscious.

It doesn't make any sense at all. Compared to my dull brown, his are like some masterpiece.

"Your eyes are so pretty," I say, and his cheeks turn red. "If I was a painter, Potter, you'd be my muse."

As the words leave my mouth I start to feel embarrassed. You've made him feel uncomfortable, I tell myself, your such a twat.

Then he smiles at me, it's shy and unsure and so very much not himself. "I think," he says. "You'd be my muse if I was a painter, too."

I turn red this time.