1962 ── lily evans

FIFTEEN

FIFTEEN

LENNON STOOD outside Lily's front door, conflicted. The house used to be her safe haven, and yet she hesitated, hand raised, poised and waiting to knock. Was she really about to give in, even after she'd been betrayed? She shook the thought from her mind, remembering her mother's encouragements of 'being the bigger person'. If anyone were to give up on their friendship, it would never be Lennon, even despite Lily's wrongdoings. 

Late night game shows could be heard from the living room, where Mr Evans was almost always planted in front of the television, yelling answers as if it would help the contestants on the pre-filmed shows. Lily's mother was the one who answered, flashing her pearly whites as the door was thrown open, heat from inside the welcoming household warming Lennon from the outside in.

"Lennon! It's been a while since we've seen you around here, hasn't it! Looking for Lily?" Mrs Evans had always been particularly skilled at small talk, but by now, Lennon had mastered a response that minimised her waiting time. 

"I am, yeah. Is she upstairs?" she asked, knowing the answer already - Lily never spent time with the rest of her family if she could help it, especially her older sister Petunia, who spat insults at both girls every chance she could get.

"Where else would she be?" Lily's mother opened the door wider, stepping back against the wall to provide an opening for Lennon to squeeze through.

The brunette made her way through the door, climbing the stairs two at a time. She knocked briefly on Lily's door before entering, surprised to be greeted by an empty space in which Lily could not be found. She glanced around in disbelief before turning on her heel, moving across the landing to look for her friend.

"Lils? You here?" she called out, eyebrows knitted together in obvious confusion. It was unlike Lily to be anywhere other than her bedroom, and she began to wonder if she had snuck out to see James.

"Here!" Lily's familiar voice sounded behind her, and Lennon pivoted on her heel to face the ginger, who was leaving the bathroom.

"Oh. Hi," Lennon said, smiling weakly. Usually, the expression would usually have set off alarm bells in Lily's head, but the ginger was in too much of a daze to even notice as she slid past her friend to enter her room.

"Haven't seen you in a while," Lily stated, leaping onto her bed and lying back, raising an almost accusatory eyebrow at Lennon. "What have you been up to?"

"Just been with the boys, I s'pose," she mumbled, fumbling with the ends of her sleeves as she failed to bring up the events that had followed that controversial night. Suddenly, her confidence had ebbed away, a mere thought at the back of her mind now.

"Of course. James says he misses them, but they're always with you," Lily said nonchalantly, but Lennon felt a dagger stab her in the back, almost more painful than the night of the rally had been.

"I wouldn't have thought he'd notice their absence, considering you seem to be his number one concern at the moment," Lennon said curtly, her infamous fierceness having recovered from its short disappearance. 

Lily huffed, struggling to change the subject as Lennon left her speechless. It was true that James chose to spend his time with the ginger that he'd met a few months prior over his best friends of several years, yet she would not be the one to admit that.

"What happened to you after the rally? I didn't see you after the police came," Lily questioned after a few moments of awkward silence had enveloped the room.

"Perhaps you didn't see me because you ran off with James. The police came for me, Lily. I had to stay in prison overnight. I have a fucking criminal record because no-one helped me out of there."

Lennon couldn't meet Lily's eyes, instead choosing to stare at the floor as she blinked back tears, the brutal grasp of the uniformed men still stuck in the back of her mind, the pain still searing through her delicate frame.

Lennon averted her gaze from Lily, instead focusing on the gnarled patterns of the wooden flooring as she blinked away the tears that threatened to slip away. She could still remember the fingers that dug into her skin, pain searing through her, and she fought way the memory fiercely. 

"Shit. Lennon, I'm sorry. James just pulled me away before I could react and-"

"And nothing, Lily. Best friends aren't meant to leave the other behind, y'know. I was looking for you, praying you'd be there, but you never came. Sirius was the only one that stayed with me, and I'd bet you were home shagging your bloody boyfriend who doesn't give a damn about anyone but you!"

Lily's breath hitched in her throat, taken aback by Lennon's harshness. It was never the sort of tone they adopted with each other, and she sat up straighter, searching for the confidence to fight back at the brunette's biting words.

"Can't we forget it? I didn't mean to, I couldn't even help it. Besides, if you had a boy that loved you like James loves me, you'd have left with him too."

Lennon held her breath at the mention of a boyfriend. She'd done things with boys before, but it was never right, and after her discussion with Sirius from the night before, having a boyfriend almost seemed like a taboo discussion. The very mention of it made bile rise in the back of her throat, and she swallowed in down thickly.

"So only boys matter? Only sex and boys and relationships matter to you, Lily? Does James matter more than me now?" Lennon said, voice shaking as she spoke. The prospect of being replaced by James was terrifying for her to even think about.

"Jesus Christ, why are you twisting my words?" Lily huffed, letting out a frustrated groan as she threw her hands up in the air in what almost appeared to be defeat. "You know what, Lennon, he's the one that is always here for me, unlike you right now! You're yelling at me for having a life!"

"Lily," Lennon said, voice catching in her throat as she fought back tears. "I went to jail for a night. My mother hit me and kicked me out, and I had nowhere to go. I should have came straight to you, but I felt safer with Remus and Sirius. Perhaps that should tell you something's wrong." 

Lennon lifted her head, gazing ahead icily into Lily's eyes, sparkling green as she forced back her own tears. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words seemed to float away, the search for something to say that wouldn't cause the rift between them to deepen failing considerably.

"Len," Lily started, rising from her bed to grasp at Lennon's hand. She was desperate to resolve whatever rough patch they had stumbled into, but it seemed the moment was lost.

"I think I ought to go. I'll see you around, Lily."

 Lennon's words tumbled from her mouth before Lily could stop her, and she yanked her hand away from the ginger viciously. She yanked the door open, escaping down the stairs and out of the front door without so much as a goodbye to the rest of the family. Her feet pounded against the cobblestoned street as she made her way back to the boys' flat, pushing through the darkness blindly with the streetlights barely providing any help.

Lennon couldn't believe that this had happened to her. In a mere few months, she had fallen for her female best friend and torn apart their relationship all in one. Tears fell bitterly down her pale cheeks at the realisation, but she swiped them away furiously with the sleeves of her coat.

Approaching the apartment, she sighed, assessing her night for a moment before she was bombarded with questions from the boys. Then again, she wasn't sure there was much to say - she had created a void in her world, and the more she tended to it, the further it seemed to fall apart.