Chapter One
Here I am waiting, I'll have to leave soon… Why am I holding on?
His body was warm, constantly warm – it would be extremely warm and cozy even in a snowy day. I could feel his arm lingering on my waist and his hand resting on my skin and at the same time I could catch myself thinking how funny it was that we had been spending all this time together – almost our entire lifes – counting the days for school to be over so we could finally runaway to a familiar place called home, and now here we are… hoping time would just, stop.
I knew I was putting my foot in my mouth when I was looking - without any success – for a way to get back all that time we had lost, trying to rewind and improvise every minute and day here and there, trying to trick time and counting each second hoping that meanwhile I could turn my mind into a Polaroid camera capable of creating a mental wall full of pictures in every corner of my mind. Pictures that would show small silly things, that would only mean something to me such as the way he smiled when he saw me coming: his lips would instantly build up a smile, his dimple would appear in the right side of his mouth; or the way that he would say my name, and how deep his voice sounded and that made me feel like my name wasn't just an ordinary name, the way he used to say it made me feel like it belonged to the 9th Wonder of the World just because it came out straight of the mouth of my newest reason to be this happy.
He was indeed the first guy I didn't try to understand, the first one that I let myself basically go with the flow just as easy as a summer breeze guides a little boat into a waveless ocean. He was the first guy that made me ignore my perfectionism and need of control. He was like a smooth sea, no waves, and one that I could dive in and try to figure out the deepest ends, where no one had ever been, in the deep blue water just like his eyes – where I loved to get lost, even when I didn't expect to. His white, pale skin was full of little freckles – who the hell would've thought that? – That were just as small as little sand grains, was the place I now rested. He had become my safe heaven, my anchor and my sanity.
I loved to draw in his body, connecting the little freckles with the tips of my fingers, or just run my hands open wide smoothly in his back recreating some of the thousand ways I found out that I was capable of showing him care and love in this last few months; I admire him for all he was, and I loved every little tiny part of him but his hair was the place my hands finally stopped at all times, messing with his pale blond strands that would barely touch his shoulders. That was the place I would be found in another lazy afternoon on Saturday, being so absolutely sure that I have never been this happy in such short time.
"Good Morning" his deep voice sounded in my ears accompanied by a smooth little kiss. "Good morning" I whispered back feeling my mouth open into a wide smile.
I guess it was different with us, because we didn't need to say anything. We had somehow developed a mute and entirely corporal body communication that we always knew exactly what to do, and because of that connection his hand would search for mine in moments like those, and his body would cuddle to mine. Almost like a physical bond, it was as if we had become a weird type of organism, as if we had became one. As if one of us would take a step forward, the other would do that same thing instantly.
I was completely aware that when I was next to him time was something that barely existed, it was as if a stubborn child was trying to run around at all costs while its parents would insist for it to walk instead of run, ask it to just slow down otherwise they would stubble and fall in its knees. "No need to hurry" they'd say. Time was thief that was determined to steal us from one another for some reason I didn't even care to understand, and in fact didn't seem to do anything but bring us closer together a little more every time. We didn't care about tomorrow, at least not there, not now.
"You little lazy thing." He whispered in my ear and I didn't even need to look at him to know that he was smiling. "Look who's talking" I teased him kissing his pointy chin. "You know we need to get up, Ros" I rolled my eyes. "You're such a party pooper." He looked at me pretty serious and took a deep breath. "And you're a spoiled little brat. You can stay in bed if you want." Then he gave me the eye and shook his shoulders like he didn't care at all. "Just a couple minutes" I would beg looking at him with puppy eyes. "It's hard enough for me to resist to staying in bed and you're not making it any easier" he leaned on me and kissed the top of my nose "C'mon Ros, you still need to get dressed, and I still need to walk you to the common room. You might not have practice today but I do." I got up a little reluctant. "I can get there by myself, thank you very much." He didn't even care to look at me. "Ok, so I guess you know the way."
He wouldn't ask twice and that was one of the things I loved the most about him. He would say it once, ask just once and then leave you thinking about how badly you've been behaving, in an idiotic and childish way. In that moment he just walked away from the bed going to the bathroom, his uniform was impeccably folded right beside his desk next to the door that was partially opened and from where I could see him shirtless, brushing his hair – that would never look messy when we spend the night together.
"Could you not?" He sounded a bit disturbed, but I could see him smiling a little bit with this toothbrush in his mouth "Don't be such a weirdo, you don't need to spy on me." I walked a little bit closer to bathroom and leaned a little in his direction "Well, I'm sorry if I wanted to spend a little time with you" I didn't think twice to get in, hold him from the back and kiss his shoulder. "We won't have more than four or five opportunities to spend any time together and you know that." He looked at me pretty serious before replying. "It's not the end of the world and you know that."
It's not that I didn't agree with him, I knew he was right. But there was something inside of me screaming like crazy that even though it wasn't the end of the world for him it seemed to be for me. But who was I to expect him to understand something so overestimated like my feelings, my insecurities or that scary feeling that I was about to lose him any second from now even though I never really had him? I wouldn't act any different towards him, specially when I was the one with the speech about how we were both going into different directions and that was the time that our talks would go to the darkest places – darker than the slytherin dungeons I'd dare to say.
I would always try to hide and keep up with that huge smile as if we were happily living another perfect summer day, but every time I realized that the moment we would have to leave was getting closer by the second I would find myself incapable of taming the spoiled unsatisfied little ten year old I had inside of me, and it was as if I was fighting her now that I was putting on my uniform. That uniform that now smelled just like his vape scent, just like that pain in the ass of a guy standing in front of me with a crooked smile that was so wonderful that I could feel my legs trembling.
"You know, it's not like we were not even going to talk to each other during this time, or see each other" he passed his hands thru my hair and it felt almost like a consolation prize. "No, it's not. But it's not like I could actually be with you anyways." He took a deep breath again, as if he was almost losing his temper. "Rose, please." I looked him in the eye "Don't please me, Scorpius. I say please."
None of us said anything else, we didn't need to. We knew our feelings better than anyone; we knew our flaws, our reasons and our defenses. We both knew the reason we build our walls so up high and so hard to go thru, and that emotional self-defense was just another one of our thousand excuses or new names to our fear. Besides all that we knew how to keep our distance. The distance that would now go thru a hard time since our hands couldn't stop reaching for each other. We were doomed to the mess, confusion, chaos, being apart and a lot of pain, but none of us would have the guts to say any of these things out loud. None of us was even interested in saying the words or accepting the consequences or the monster we called that was counting the seconds to every sunrise, to every sunset of our lifes.
Quietly we walked out of the room – that was one floor above the dungeons – going straight to the Gryffindor commom room, where we stopped and looked at each other as if we were seeing one another for the first time. And there it was, that stupid dimple that would melt even my darkest thought of him, that stupid crooked smile followed by his arm pulling me closer.
"You have a nice day, Weasley." He kissed my lips softly. "You too, Malfoy."