A ficlet for Urbanmama1 :-)
It is astoundingly difficult to concentrate on properly revising one’s potions essay while carrying a broken heart. This was a discovery I have found neither surprising nor especially enlightening. It is, however, a terrible inconvenience.
Of course, my feelings have been inconvenient for quite some time now. It was inconvenient to wait and wish for an invitation to the ball which I knew was not forthcoming. It was inconvenient to find myself reading hidden meaning within every one of his words, his actions, the tilt of his lips and the spark of his eyes. It was inconvenient for my heart to rise as though enspelled with every smile, each unnecessary second his eyes remained on mine when they should have turned away. Inconvenient to interpret deeper significance in his casually offered gifts … that perfume… Inconvenient to linger in the impression that our party date was meant to be anything more than a simple friendly outing.
And just really, terribly inconvenient to find myself sitting here on a cold wooden bench while across the room my roommate occupies the seat I have been eyeing for ages.
His lap.
It is probably not a particularly comfortable lap, but at this moment I would forfeit my OWLS score to trade places.
He nearly always sits that way, knees splayed wide, feet firmly planted at the ends of his miles of leg. That unconsciously masculine pose which sends shivers through my belly at the most inconvenient times. I will admit to having considered the possibility of sitting there, perched atop one lanky thigh, my legs tucked neatly together between each of his. The warmth of him would seep in through my skirt and I would be able to feel the long muscles of his legs as he shifted and fidgeted the way he always does.
I have considered it.
Her grating giggle assaults my ears and I am forced to look at him, entwined with her just as if she were a Devil’s Snare. His lips are tilted to the left, in that fake smile used only when he is uncomfortable. I hope she chokes him with her clinging arms. Or perhaps he could suffocate on her perfume. I wonder if he has given her perfume…
Potions.
I know there is a passage somewhere around the nineteenth inch I had intended to revise once I located that German text on seedpods.
I can feel his eyes on me, burning like the deep blue heart of a flame. Why is he looking at me while he holds her in his arms? All he can see from this angle is my pathetic mess of hair, and perhaps just the edge of my face. Nothing much to look at, unfortunately. Even with the issue of my teeth resolved I have nothing to compete with her. She spends an hour every morning on her hair alone. Her blonde, tamed, completely un-ridiculous hair.
Well. Well, if that is what he wants, then…then he is simply not worth this malaise I have been fighting for weeks now. He is not worth my time and tears. He is not worth these coils of pain strangling my chest. He is not worth looking up at him, even if I could catch those eyes with mine, storing that flash of blue within the hidden bookshelves of my soul. He is not worth speaking to or even acknowledging.
Now I must continue telling myself that until I finally believe it.