She Said What?

Chapter 14: I Get Some Terrible News

A/N: I appreciate the opinions, guys – much more than I could tell you, anyway. This is a different project for me, one that is unlike really anything I've tried to do. It's not perfect, I know, but I'm doing the best I can to make it the very best it can be and I'm glad that it's working, for the most part.

This isn't meant to be a love story. It's meant to be what I call a "life story." Love is an inevitable part of life, so obviously it'll make significant appearances, but if that's all you're here to read, I'm afraid I can't help you until much, much later.

I hope you guys like this. Really. Cheers!

October 22

Morning Check:

Mornings have not been very good lately. Not good at all. In fact, Alice had to use Levicorpus for the first time ever to wake me up today. Sure I screamed a lot as the blood rushed to my head, but Alice said it was the only way to get me conscious. And I believe her.

I think I need copious amounts of alcohol and a temporary vacation from my life.

And it's only October.

8:05 AM
Status: Exhausted

There is no way I can convince myself to pay attention in Charms today – absolutely no way in hell – so the only thing I'm able to do now is to open up the old diary and write. This is what I feel like doing every time I think my life is utterly impossible – which is often, these days.

I mean, things are trudging along as usual – lessons all day, homework in the afternoon, patrolling, more homework – and the routine has remained immovable. My friends have virtually the same schedule as me (except Livvy, who has Quidditch instead of patrolling and Alice, who bumps the homework up and gets time to sleep) so we're all stuck with our mundanity, talking only of class because that's the only thing that changes day to day.

Of course, there's gossip – Alice is privy to most of it and never hastens to pass it on to us – but that's about it. We're going through a dry spell, where there's not much going on and very little entertains us because we're chronically stuck in some stupid shade of gray. Nothing exceptionally interesting has happened to me since my date with Jonathon, which really says something.

The one bright spot in my evening is – surprisingly – my patrol with James. He breaks the mundanity a little, adds some spice to my schedule. I don't usually hang around with him or his particular brand of friends, so I have discovered all kinds of interesting tidbits about people, via James.

We've been really good friends thus far, I think. I mean, yeah, I was a little weird about it at the start of the year; but most of that weirdness has dissipated as we warmed up to the year, and now we talk easily all the time. It's like nothing ever happened between us as kids. I think James has recently gotten his priorities sorted out and he's actively engaging in a new sort of lifestyle for himself – and I have to say, it's working. He's blossomed into a lovely guy lately.

He's funny. He loves telling jokes and recalling weird incidents that made him laugh. He cracks me up – he's a terrific storyteller who gets very involved in what he's saying, who uses his hands and makes goofy faces and beams childishly when I find something laugh-worthy. He honestly seems to want to know about my day, he listens no matter how boring my account is, and he twists into something that has me in peals of laughter. It's great.

He did put me through an uncomfortable few minutes after Jonathon – he was entirely too curious about what transpired on our date and grilled me on it until he had sufficiently squeezed every detail I had out of me – but I mean, most of the time, we have an easy time together. The atmosphere is admirably light. There's nothing awkward about me accidentally stepping on his foot (it happened yesterday...) or almost poking his eye out (that happened yesterday as well and it's a dreadfully long story...) or walking into him by mistake (this happens everyday).