things i'll never say ~ l.l.p.

seventeen - realization

The next morning, I was shaken awake by Autumn a bit before nine o'clock. My head was pounding, and I felt like utter shit. I groaned and tried to roll over, but my friend caught my shoulder. "Don't even think about going back to sleep!" she ordered. "It's barely two hours until the Express leaves."

"Autumn, I'm not going on the Express. You know that." My parents had been getting on my nerves all last summer, and I had decided I didn't care enough to go home for Christmas. My brother was staying at Hogwarts. So were Lysa, Rose, and Dominique (the first because she wanted to keep an eye on Alec, the second because she wanted to spend some time intensively revising for her NEWTS, and the third because she was team captain and had decided to make the whole Ravenclaw quidditch team stay over the holidays for extra practices.)

"Ugh, don't remind me. The train's going to be miserable."

"You'll be fine. Stop your bloody whining," I mumbled.

"I'm serious! Barely anybody is going home this year. I'm stuck with Charlie bloody Corner—" My expression must have perked up at the name, because my friend cut herself off with a laugh. "Oh, you are whipped, aren't you?"

"No," I snapped, rolling my eyes. "Charlie is... irrelevant."

"The look on your face right now says he's anything but."

I glared at Autumn. "I don't want any drama, alright? Not after last year. And anything involving Charlie would be begging for it. You know how Scarlett is; I don't want to invade her territory."

Scarlett Boot still had a raging crush on her childhood friend, and she had grown up to be a goddamned drama queen. She was a perfectly nice person until you became a threat, and I didn't want her to see me that way. Merlin knew I had issues with enough of the girls in my year already.

"It's none of Scarlett's business," Autumn said. "You could at least be friends with him again. The whole I-couldn't-care-less act isn't fooling anybody who really knows you."

Charlie and I drifted in and out of friendship these days. Lately, I had been avoiding him. I started it because I thought I was embarrassing myself too much around him, but the attempted self-constraint had turned sour when he seemed not to notice my absence at all. At the moment, I was still avoiding him, maybe because I was wounded by the fact that he seemed not to care.

"I don't think he wants to be friends," I sighed.

"It doesn't exactly help that you and his best friend seem unable to tolerate each others' presence."

Mason. Blurry memories of last night — well, early this morning, really — flood my mind. Oh, Merlin. Had I really said those things? Yes, I had. And he had sent me off to bed like a silly child. Now's not the time, Lils.

Wait. Had he really... had he called me that? Ever since he came back, it had been Lily, or occasionally Potter. Always respectful of the line I had drawn. Always resigned to the consequences of our fractured past.

But now, in an unexpected moment, the childhood nickname had slipped out. Lils. Nobody called me that except my family and the closest of my friends. But I guess old habits die hard, and some bonds, once made, cannot be forgotten even when they have shattered beyond repair.

I wondered if he still thought of me as that silly, wide-eyed girl. The one he spent infinite summer days with, playing games in the backyard. The one he laughed and cried with over and over. The one who...

The one who had kept a devastating secret from him, and now in the aftermath had the nerve to act like she was the one who had been wronged.

"Lily, are you quite alright? You look rather... sick."

I felt rather sick. And it wasn't just the hangover, either. It was the thought that suddenly hit, the thought that his wrong had been nothing compared to mine, and I had been so venomously resenting him for it. Merlin, what a bitch he must think I was.

"I'm fine, Autumn. Just tired."

My friend gave me a look. "And whose fault is that?"

I pushed myself up from my pillow and shrugged, lifting a hand to massage my aching temple.

Autumn tugged at a strand of hair that had slipped from her mousy brown ponytail, and for a moment I though she was going to say more — perhaps ask for the millionth time what Jules and I were getting up to — but in the end she just shook her head and turned away, apparently to finish packing the bag she was taking home for the holidays.

Leaning back against the headboard of the bed, I continued to ruminate on my recent realization. I was truly an insensitive stubborn arsehole, wasn't I? Mason had been nothing but cordial to me since his return... well, perhaps he teased a bit, but that seemed to be a universally distributed habit with him. He certainly hadn't done anything to deserve my cold resentment.

How was I ever going to face him, after last night? After he'd seen me like that? Drunk and foolish. Too... too open.

The memory was fuzzy around the edges, but looking back on it, I saw the disapproval in Mason's gaze, lingering behind the apparent concern. He thought I was that sort of girl now. And I... was I? The sort of girl who stayed out late drinking and doing who knows what else? I supposed, factually speaking, there was no denying it. But I didn't... I didn't want to be.

My stomach turned at the thought that if Mason now knew of my escapades, somebody else might find out. Someone like, Merlin forbid, my parents.

I couldn't help imagining how they would react. How Dad would stare at nothing, appalled and disbelieving. How silent tears would run down Mum's face. How they would both be thinking No... please. Not again.

Because I was their youngest and only daughter, and their final hope. The one they had put all their attention on after losing control of their eldest son. And now... now I was stumbling down the very same road as James. Where did I expect any of this to end? My brother was... he was a mess these days. Was I going to end up just like him? With too many burnt bridges and more exes than I could count?

I squeezed my eyes shut, gathering my warm blankets around me as if they were capable of smothering the fears. The material was soft against my skin, but a chill was spreading through me as I pondered my predicament. I would just have to... I would have to talk to him, was all. Make sure he wasn't going to tell anyone.

Hopefully, that task wasn't easier said than done.