Fic: The Shape of Love
Where else could I possibly post this, gaiz.
Title: The Shape of Love
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author: carmentakoshi
Rating: G
Pairing(s): James/Lily, blink-and-you'll-miss-it Remus/Sirius
Summary: Scenes from the life of Lily Evans, and their consequences.
Warnings: none
Word Count: 2 690
So apparently I finished this in mid-August, but never got around to editing it until now? I really disliked it once it was done. I can't even explain why, since I find it decent enough for posting now.
As usual, I started off with a brief idea that went and transformed into one of those episodic character studies I seem to enjoy writing. Lily is always a bit tough to pin for me because so little is revealed about her canon personality and aspirations, so I worked with what I had and made up the rest. Hopefully with less platitudes than that.
Comments and concrit would be much loved and appreciated! C: Enjoy.
The Shape of Love
Lily sometimes wondered, as she slid her fingers absently over her swollen belly, if it was too late for her.
The war had changed things. It had changed her, inevitably, being so used to peace and prosperity as she was. It had changed rambunctious Sirius, and quiet Remus, and strange little Peter. It had changed James, especially. She felt like he had altered many times since they had left Hogwarts.
Lily sometimes wondered if it was because of her, or if he had been destined for these changes since the beginning. She wondered, worriedly, if she had made James weaker, more susceptible, more likely to fall to an attack before this was all over. She wondered if he did the same to her.
She wondered if he knew.
She thought he might.
But she did not know, because although James was the open sort, he was not one to divulge such things as weaknesses, and certainly not to her. Not to his beloved, who must never see his strange, scared, sensitive, (real) side. Not to his loving, caring wife. Not to the bearer of his child. Not to this girl, this Muggle pauper. Not to this Mudblood.
(Except he had never called her that, had he? Not her, but maybe others. Not in front of her. But she could not forget what he really was.)
=====
Lily did not know, not really, or was trying to not know, why she had said “Yes” to James Potter, and later, why she had said, “I do”.
She was certain she had not liked him on first sight. How to like someone whose first words in her presence were cruel jabs at her best friend? No, it was impossible that he had smitten her on sight, of that she was coldly certain.
And yet, she could not deny that James had always been attractive to her. He was someone whose boyish features had inspired confidence and trust in a child-like goodness that had not always been sincere, and he was someone whose post-pubescent charm had inspired a great deal of admiration and an even greater deal of trouble. It was no surprise that he had proven himself so carnally interesting to Lily over the later part of their Hogwarts career. In fact, gazing guiltily at him in the pre-dawn dark of their bedroom, Lily sometimes marvelled that she had not given her consent sooner than she had.
=====
The days were hard, and she had a lot of work. And James was often away.
Lily worked at St. Mungo’s as a Healer. Since leaving school, she had trained and worked in the children’s ward, but in recent weeks, she had been reassigned to the emergency ward, where the war came when it was bloodied and tired. And it was in this place that Lily spent the last days of her pregnancy, hauling her swollen belly, her darling baby boy, from bed to bed as she administered healing charms and healing potions and healing words, when none of it was enough. And she felt the little life stirring inside of her more acutely than ever, when she was there. As though Harry could feel the contraction-like spasms of the dying men and women next to him. As though Harry knew.
She hoped he would forget. She placed her hand over him sometimes, where she imagined his head would be, and told him It’s all right, love. It’s going to be over soon. You will be born and it will be over and Daddy will come home.
And he will stay.
Lily worked. It was July.
=====
She supposed she had loved Severus, somehow, at some point. It was hard to think about it now.
In her rare but acute moments of self-indulgent bitterness, Lily wished she could take back the words she had said to him, all those years ago, those stupid, righteous words that had come out of her girlish mouth, condemning him to a life by the side of You-Know-Who. Because surely, she was at least partly to blame. Without her, Severus had had no one to cling to on this side. She had lost him just as much as he had lost her.
There were times, in the middle of the night, when it was dark and quiet and forbidding in Godric’s Hollow, or worse, in the middle of the day, when it was bright and busy in St. Mungo’s emergency ward, when Lily wanted to stop just stop and scream. Sometimes she wanted to throw things: a bed pan, a vial, it did not matter what. She wanted to break something, to destroy something precious (but what did they have left?), she wanted to run outside and scream, to scream and plead, to somehow project her voice over miles, her thoughts and her voice screaming Come back, oh please, for the love of Merlin, for the love of God, please come back Severus, I’m sorry Severus, I’m so so sorry Severus please come back Sev we didn’t want this please Sev this isn’t what I wanted, please.
-ve you, Severus, you know I always l l-you know, you know.
But how could he? She had never told him.
And on days like those, Lily would come home and sometimes James would be home too, and sometimes she would begin to cry from the moment she had stepped out of the fireplace, and she would stand there as James looked on in bewilderment, just standing and crying like a fool, like a wretched fool, crying until she could not even breathe.
And only then would James, ever-loving, ever-misunderstanding, say Lily, Lily, what’s wrong, is it the baby? and Lily would clutch onto him with fingers smelling like poultice and death, and say Yes, James. It’s just the baby.
=====
And in one night following one of these days, very close to the day of Harry’s birth, James turned to her slowly in the dark and said, “You could send him a Patronus, you know. I won’t tell Dumbledore.”
But Lily remained silent, and steadied her breath, and kept her hands clenched under the pillow under her head, and eventually James turned away and went to sleep.
=====
She had been one out of the mere handful of truly brilliant students of her time, and many of her professors had been shocked, if not outright dismayed, at her choice to become a Healer.
It was not that Healing was not an honourable profession - which it was - or that it was not a difficult one - which it most certainly was - but many of the Hogwarts teachers that had favoured young Miss Lily Evans, in her time, did not believe that Miss Evans would be able to achieve her true potential in such a profession, and thus, as purveyors of such notions as one’s “true potential”, were forced to disapprove of this path. Miss Evans, in their humble and esteemed opinion, was capable of so much more, and would undoubtedly benefit the wizarding world greatly by applying herself to the successful completion of this aforementioned “more”.
Having bestowed this lecture upon the listening young Miss Evans, all professors possessing this belief would invariably smile and nod, sagely, before proceeding to be completely flabbergasted by the normally docile Miss Evans’ adverse reaction. Miss Evans would then promptly remove herself from the premises, leaving her professors to gape in astonishment and wholehearted disbelief at such uncharacteristic language.
(She had recounted all of this, in a huff, to that-sweet-sensible-boy Remus, who had offered his sympathies, and then suggested she run for Minister instead. She had taken the jest in stride, remembering suddenly that she, unlike others more afflicted, did not have the choices she did. Not that he knew that she knew.)
=====
The day Harry was born, Lily had never been more terrified in her entire life.
The beginning was like something from a nightmare. There was a chill that skittered across her skin, although it was the end of July and sweltering in the emergency ward, and then the sudden wetness that was at once familiar and horrifying. Then, the pain.
She fell against the side of one antiseptic hospital bed, dropping a vial of potion which shattered on the floor with a distant crash. She was two weeks early.
It took a moment, but then there was someone next to her, a girl her age that she had known, vaguely, at school - a Ravenclaw, perhaps, or a Hufflepuff. She wrapped an arm around Lily’s waist and hoisted her up from the side of the bed, shouting to someone, “You there! Get a chair for Evans. She’s in labour.”
And she said to Lily, “It’s going to be all right.”
Lily said, in a thin whisper, “Call James.”
The girl nodded, and sent out a Patronus in the shape of a falcon.
They helped her into a wheelchair, then the same girl wheeled her, efficiently, toward the nursery ward. Lily’s belly squeezed in on itself, quicker, longer than ever before. Her fingers clenched around the chair’s armrests in white-knuckled pain. Inside her, it was as though Harry was heaving and shoving, desperately struggling his way out.
Let me out! Mother-
Not yet! Not yet, please.
She must have said it out loud, because behind her the girl quickened her pace, and said again to Lily, “It’s going to be all right.” Then, as an afterthought, or something that had gone unsaid too long, she added, “Hang in there, Evans.”
And although she was in increasingly terrible pain, but because she was loyal to the end, as she had doubted she could be in the past, Lily said, “It’s Potter now, actually.”
The girl said, with a smile in her voice, “Yes, I know. But you’ll always be Evans to me,” and wheeled her into a small clean room, where the Mediwitches were already waiting. Outside, there was a crack like lightning, like breaking, as James Apparated in.
Then there was a spike of pain, and Lily screamed.
=====
She had hated James Potter. She had hated him with all her being.
It had been easy to hate him. After all, she had been doing it ever since they had first met on the Hogwarts Express. She had had plenty of practice.
Over the years, it had become a little harder, perhaps because she had since befriended that quiet Remus Lupin boy, who, despite being a close friend of James Potter and his troublemaking associates, was actually quite charming and sensible. James Potter was neither.
She supposed she had fancied Remus for a little while, maybe, until she had noticed that he was prone to paying quite a bit of attention to one of his foolish dormmates, slightly more attention, she had found, than he paid to James or Peter. Not that he had known that she had known this, either (in a few years’ time, she would surprise him with this and other knowledgeable tidbits, and spend days being amused at his reactions).
She figured out, during the first few months of their marriage, that one of James’ biggest flaws, and perhaps his biggest asset, was his inability to go unnoticed. Everywhere he went, he turned a head, or attracted a stare, or elicited a jeer or a well-meaning insult. He was always seen, even when he was not trying. But he had usually been trying, and when he did, even a young and determined Lily Evans had not been immune to the sight of him.
She had always wondered, in the back of her rational mind, why James Potter had chosen her of all people to set his sights on. It was not like she had asked for his attention. She probably would not have spoken to him at all, in her seven years at Hogwarts, if he had not deigned to insult Severus on the train that day. She may never have noticed him at all, except when he passed by in the halls, or sat in front of her in Transfiguration. She may never have hated him, never have grudgingly befriended him, never have loved-
=====
James shouted more than she did, as though he was the one giving birth to Harry James Potter, and not her. Lily had to threaten to magically or physically silence him if he did not Sit Down and Shut Up Or Else before he would calm down.
It was minutes, then it was hours, then it was over, like a crash, and she was still. The only sounds were of Harry crying, and of James clenching his robes in his hands and breathing like he had run all the way from Hogsmeade.
The Mediwitches cleaned Harry up even as he continued to bawl and twitch, then they swaddled him and placed him in Lily’s arms as she lay, sweating, against the pillows. She thought that Harry’s voice sounded stronger than she imagined it would, and that he was very small, and that he was at once the ugliest and most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
Harry was still now, and quiet. He peered up at her through half-lidded eyes, eyes that shone a grey-blue like deep water, and Lily wondered if they would be green like hers, or hazel like James’.
Across the room, James made a sound of wonder, and promptly fainted. Outside in the hall, Lily could discern the out-of-breath voices of Sirius and Remus and Peter, waiting with trepidation just outside the door, with the girl who had wheeled Lily in with a smile in her voice.
One of the Mediwitches said, “Congratulations, Missus Potter. He’s a lovely baby boy.”
Another said, in dismay, “Should we revive your husband?”
Lily only said, “Yes,” to both, and was quiet.
=====
James said, “I love you, you know.”
Lily said nothing. She stared at him, scrutinized his face. He looked faded and boyish in the half-light.
Finally, she said, “I know,” and nothing more.
The Hogwarts Lake was smooth and glassy-still, and tinged orange from the setting sun. It was June, 1978.
James added, helpfully, “I always have.”
This time, Lily wanted to smirk, but could only smile. “Yes, I know.”
They watched the sun set behind the mountains, following it with their gazes until it was nothing but a fire-bright lining on the jagged rock. Then, Lily said, “You could have given up. You should have. It’s been too hard.”
But James only shook his head in a slightly bewildered way, like he had never even considered it. There was something disturbingly Sirius-like in the gesture, or perhaps Sirius had learned it from James. She thought it could go either way.
James said, with a hint of his usual bravado creeping around the edges, “I couldn’t just give up. S’not...”
“It’s not what?”
“You know. Manly. Proper.”
She shrugged then, not really knowing what was Manly or Proper, or if she did, she did not know if it would be the same as what James thought.
She said, “I don’t know, James.”
He said, “What’s to know?”
She said, with a touch of irritation, “You know full well. It’s not a decision I should be making now.”
“Why not? Should I leave and ask you again later?”
“No, but...”
For a rare moment, words deserted Lily, and she let her mouth fall closed. She felt very young.
It was darker now, and cooler. James had moved closer, his warmth and scent becoming more pointed, but he did not touch her. They stared into the lake, which seemed speckled with early stars.
James said, “I’ll take care of you. No one will do that for you the way I will.”
Lily said, “You always were one for big words.”
Then she lowered her knees from her chest and turned toward him, and this close he looked young too, despite the strong line of his jaw and the confident arch of his nose.
And then, feeling the breeze, and the grass, and the proximity of James very acutely, she knew it was too late for her, and she said, “Yes.”
The End
Title: The Shape of Love
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author: carmentakoshi
Rating: G
Pairing(s): James/Lily, blink-and-you'll-miss-it Remus/Sirius
Summary: Scenes from the life of Lily Evans, and their consequences.
Warnings: none
Word Count: 2 690
So apparently I finished this in mid-August, but never got around to editing it until now? I really disliked it once it was done. I can't even explain why, since I find it decent enough for posting now.
As usual, I started off with a brief idea that went and transformed into one of those episodic character studies I seem to enjoy writing. Lily is always a bit tough to pin for me because so little is revealed about her canon personality and aspirations, so I worked with what I had and made up the rest. Hopefully with less platitudes than that.
Comments and concrit would be much loved and appreciated! C: Enjoy.
The Shape of Love
Lily sometimes wondered, as she slid her fingers absently over her swollen belly, if it was too late for her.
The war had changed things. It had changed her, inevitably, being so used to peace and prosperity as she was. It had changed rambunctious Sirius, and quiet Remus, and strange little Peter. It had changed James, especially. She felt like he had altered many times since they had left Hogwarts.
Lily sometimes wondered if it was because of her, or if he had been destined for these changes since the beginning. She wondered, worriedly, if she had made James weaker, more susceptible, more likely to fall to an attack before this was all over. She wondered if he did the same to her.
She wondered if he knew.
She thought he might.
But she did not know, because although James was the open sort, he was not one to divulge such things as weaknesses, and certainly not to her. Not to his beloved, who must never see his strange, scared, sensitive, (real) side. Not to his loving, caring wife. Not to the bearer of his child. Not to this girl, this Muggle pauper. Not to this Mudblood.
(Except he had never called her that, had he? Not her, but maybe others. Not in front of her. But she could not forget what he really was.)
=====
Lily did not know, not really, or was trying to not know, why she had said “Yes” to James Potter, and later, why she had said, “I do”.
She was certain she had not liked him on first sight. How to like someone whose first words in her presence were cruel jabs at her best friend? No, it was impossible that he had smitten her on sight, of that she was coldly certain.
And yet, she could not deny that James had always been attractive to her. He was someone whose boyish features had inspired confidence and trust in a child-like goodness that had not always been sincere, and he was someone whose post-pubescent charm had inspired a great deal of admiration and an even greater deal of trouble. It was no surprise that he had proven himself so carnally interesting to Lily over the later part of their Hogwarts career. In fact, gazing guiltily at him in the pre-dawn dark of their bedroom, Lily sometimes marvelled that she had not given her consent sooner than she had.
=====
The days were hard, and she had a lot of work. And James was often away.
Lily worked at St. Mungo’s as a Healer. Since leaving school, she had trained and worked in the children’s ward, but in recent weeks, she had been reassigned to the emergency ward, where the war came when it was bloodied and tired. And it was in this place that Lily spent the last days of her pregnancy, hauling her swollen belly, her darling baby boy, from bed to bed as she administered healing charms and healing potions and healing words, when none of it was enough. And she felt the little life stirring inside of her more acutely than ever, when she was there. As though Harry could feel the contraction-like spasms of the dying men and women next to him. As though Harry knew.
She hoped he would forget. She placed her hand over him sometimes, where she imagined his head would be, and told him It’s all right, love. It’s going to be over soon. You will be born and it will be over and Daddy will come home.
And he will stay.
Lily worked. It was July.
=====
She supposed she had loved Severus, somehow, at some point. It was hard to think about it now.
In her rare but acute moments of self-indulgent bitterness, Lily wished she could take back the words she had said to him, all those years ago, those stupid, righteous words that had come out of her girlish mouth, condemning him to a life by the side of You-Know-Who. Because surely, she was at least partly to blame. Without her, Severus had had no one to cling to on this side. She had lost him just as much as he had lost her.
There were times, in the middle of the night, when it was dark and quiet and forbidding in Godric’s Hollow, or worse, in the middle of the day, when it was bright and busy in St. Mungo’s emergency ward, when Lily wanted to stop just stop and scream. Sometimes she wanted to throw things: a bed pan, a vial, it did not matter what. She wanted to break something, to destroy something precious (but what did they have left?), she wanted to run outside and scream, to scream and plead, to somehow project her voice over miles, her thoughts and her voice screaming Come back, oh please, for the love of Merlin, for the love of God, please come back Severus, I’m sorry Severus, I’m so so sorry Severus please come back Sev we didn’t want this please Sev this isn’t what I wanted, please.
-ve you, Severus, you know I always l l-you know, you know.
But how could he? She had never told him.
And on days like those, Lily would come home and sometimes James would be home too, and sometimes she would begin to cry from the moment she had stepped out of the fireplace, and she would stand there as James looked on in bewilderment, just standing and crying like a fool, like a wretched fool, crying until she could not even breathe.
And only then would James, ever-loving, ever-misunderstanding, say Lily, Lily, what’s wrong, is it the baby? and Lily would clutch onto him with fingers smelling like poultice and death, and say Yes, James. It’s just the baby.
=====
And in one night following one of these days, very close to the day of Harry’s birth, James turned to her slowly in the dark and said, “You could send him a Patronus, you know. I won’t tell Dumbledore.”
But Lily remained silent, and steadied her breath, and kept her hands clenched under the pillow under her head, and eventually James turned away and went to sleep.
=====
She had been one out of the mere handful of truly brilliant students of her time, and many of her professors had been shocked, if not outright dismayed, at her choice to become a Healer.
It was not that Healing was not an honourable profession - which it was - or that it was not a difficult one - which it most certainly was - but many of the Hogwarts teachers that had favoured young Miss Lily Evans, in her time, did not believe that Miss Evans would be able to achieve her true potential in such a profession, and thus, as purveyors of such notions as one’s “true potential”, were forced to disapprove of this path. Miss Evans, in their humble and esteemed opinion, was capable of so much more, and would undoubtedly benefit the wizarding world greatly by applying herself to the successful completion of this aforementioned “more”.
Having bestowed this lecture upon the listening young Miss Evans, all professors possessing this belief would invariably smile and nod, sagely, before proceeding to be completely flabbergasted by the normally docile Miss Evans’ adverse reaction. Miss Evans would then promptly remove herself from the premises, leaving her professors to gape in astonishment and wholehearted disbelief at such uncharacteristic language.
(She had recounted all of this, in a huff, to that-sweet-sensible-boy Remus, who had offered his sympathies, and then suggested she run for Minister instead. She had taken the jest in stride, remembering suddenly that she, unlike others more afflicted, did not have the choices she did. Not that he knew that she knew.)
=====
The day Harry was born, Lily had never been more terrified in her entire life.
The beginning was like something from a nightmare. There was a chill that skittered across her skin, although it was the end of July and sweltering in the emergency ward, and then the sudden wetness that was at once familiar and horrifying. Then, the pain.
She fell against the side of one antiseptic hospital bed, dropping a vial of potion which shattered on the floor with a distant crash. She was two weeks early.
It took a moment, but then there was someone next to her, a girl her age that she had known, vaguely, at school - a Ravenclaw, perhaps, or a Hufflepuff. She wrapped an arm around Lily’s waist and hoisted her up from the side of the bed, shouting to someone, “You there! Get a chair for Evans. She’s in labour.”
And she said to Lily, “It’s going to be all right.”
Lily said, in a thin whisper, “Call James.”
The girl nodded, and sent out a Patronus in the shape of a falcon.
They helped her into a wheelchair, then the same girl wheeled her, efficiently, toward the nursery ward. Lily’s belly squeezed in on itself, quicker, longer than ever before. Her fingers clenched around the chair’s armrests in white-knuckled pain. Inside her, it was as though Harry was heaving and shoving, desperately struggling his way out.
Let me out! Mother-
Not yet! Not yet, please.
She must have said it out loud, because behind her the girl quickened her pace, and said again to Lily, “It’s going to be all right.” Then, as an afterthought, or something that had gone unsaid too long, she added, “Hang in there, Evans.”
And although she was in increasingly terrible pain, but because she was loyal to the end, as she had doubted she could be in the past, Lily said, “It’s Potter now, actually.”
The girl said, with a smile in her voice, “Yes, I know. But you’ll always be Evans to me,” and wheeled her into a small clean room, where the Mediwitches were already waiting. Outside, there was a crack like lightning, like breaking, as James Apparated in.
Then there was a spike of pain, and Lily screamed.
=====
She had hated James Potter. She had hated him with all her being.
It had been easy to hate him. After all, she had been doing it ever since they had first met on the Hogwarts Express. She had had plenty of practice.
Over the years, it had become a little harder, perhaps because she had since befriended that quiet Remus Lupin boy, who, despite being a close friend of James Potter and his troublemaking associates, was actually quite charming and sensible. James Potter was neither.
She supposed she had fancied Remus for a little while, maybe, until she had noticed that he was prone to paying quite a bit of attention to one of his foolish dormmates, slightly more attention, she had found, than he paid to James or Peter. Not that he had known that she had known this, either (in a few years’ time, she would surprise him with this and other knowledgeable tidbits, and spend days being amused at his reactions).
She figured out, during the first few months of their marriage, that one of James’ biggest flaws, and perhaps his biggest asset, was his inability to go unnoticed. Everywhere he went, he turned a head, or attracted a stare, or elicited a jeer or a well-meaning insult. He was always seen, even when he was not trying. But he had usually been trying, and when he did, even a young and determined Lily Evans had not been immune to the sight of him.
She had always wondered, in the back of her rational mind, why James Potter had chosen her of all people to set his sights on. It was not like she had asked for his attention. She probably would not have spoken to him at all, in her seven years at Hogwarts, if he had not deigned to insult Severus on the train that day. She may never have noticed him at all, except when he passed by in the halls, or sat in front of her in Transfiguration. She may never have hated him, never have grudgingly befriended him, never have loved-
=====
James shouted more than she did, as though he was the one giving birth to Harry James Potter, and not her. Lily had to threaten to magically or physically silence him if he did not Sit Down and Shut Up Or Else before he would calm down.
It was minutes, then it was hours, then it was over, like a crash, and she was still. The only sounds were of Harry crying, and of James clenching his robes in his hands and breathing like he had run all the way from Hogsmeade.
The Mediwitches cleaned Harry up even as he continued to bawl and twitch, then they swaddled him and placed him in Lily’s arms as she lay, sweating, against the pillows. She thought that Harry’s voice sounded stronger than she imagined it would, and that he was very small, and that he was at once the ugliest and most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
Harry was still now, and quiet. He peered up at her through half-lidded eyes, eyes that shone a grey-blue like deep water, and Lily wondered if they would be green like hers, or hazel like James’.
Across the room, James made a sound of wonder, and promptly fainted. Outside in the hall, Lily could discern the out-of-breath voices of Sirius and Remus and Peter, waiting with trepidation just outside the door, with the girl who had wheeled Lily in with a smile in her voice.
One of the Mediwitches said, “Congratulations, Missus Potter. He’s a lovely baby boy.”
Another said, in dismay, “Should we revive your husband?”
Lily only said, “Yes,” to both, and was quiet.
=====
James said, “I love you, you know.”
Lily said nothing. She stared at him, scrutinized his face. He looked faded and boyish in the half-light.
Finally, she said, “I know,” and nothing more.
The Hogwarts Lake was smooth and glassy-still, and tinged orange from the setting sun. It was June, 1978.
James added, helpfully, “I always have.”
This time, Lily wanted to smirk, but could only smile. “Yes, I know.”
They watched the sun set behind the mountains, following it with their gazes until it was nothing but a fire-bright lining on the jagged rock. Then, Lily said, “You could have given up. You should have. It’s been too hard.”
But James only shook his head in a slightly bewildered way, like he had never even considered it. There was something disturbingly Sirius-like in the gesture, or perhaps Sirius had learned it from James. She thought it could go either way.
James said, with a hint of his usual bravado creeping around the edges, “I couldn’t just give up. S’not...”
“It’s not what?”
“You know. Manly. Proper.”
She shrugged then, not really knowing what was Manly or Proper, or if she did, she did not know if it would be the same as what James thought.
She said, “I don’t know, James.”
He said, “What’s to know?”
She said, with a touch of irritation, “You know full well. It’s not a decision I should be making now.”
“Why not? Should I leave and ask you again later?”
“No, but...”
For a rare moment, words deserted Lily, and she let her mouth fall closed. She felt very young.
It was darker now, and cooler. James had moved closer, his warmth and scent becoming more pointed, but he did not touch her. They stared into the lake, which seemed speckled with early stars.
James said, “I’ll take care of you. No one will do that for you the way I will.”
Lily said, “You always were one for big words.”
Then she lowered her knees from her chest and turned toward him, and this close he looked young too, despite the strong line of his jaw and the confident arch of his nose.
And then, feeling the breeze, and the grass, and the proximity of James very acutely, she knew it was too late for her, and she said, “Yes.”
The End