Burn
Lily Evans lived her whole life in the span of the few months that summer provided. The rest of the year hung over top of her like the sun waiting to set on the longest day. It was silent and motionless; a simple passing of the chill that autumn brings, leading into the stillness of winter, ending with blooming spring.
Absent were the booming thunderstorms, sunsets that tinted the sky pink over top of the ocean's waves, fireflies that scattered through the darkness, and bonfires.
Missing were the days that made her weightless and daring.
Leaving her longing, listless, filling every breath with sighs until summer came to ignite her again.
James Potter lived his whole life as though it were summer.
Waking everyday to the sound of ocean waves, rays of bright sun shining through his too thin curtains, and the sort of suffocating breathless days that the ocean air often brought.
He walked on the sand barefoot in October. He watched the waves grow wild and fierce in December as he trimmed his Christmas tree. And in Spring he waited.
He waited for the blossoming of flowers, the bees to return. He waited for the heat on his skin, and for the breeze to lift his fringe - glistening with sweat - from his forehead.
He waited for summer.
For the feeling of actual, true summer in its right time.
And he waited for what the start of summer always brought him.
Lily Evans and the symphony of other seasons following behind her.
Petunia was trying to get a rise out of Lily, and it was working.
"All I'm saying is," said Petunia, and Lily knew she was about to lose it. Petunia only said the words all I'm saying is when she was about to say something she absolutely shouldn't. "Maybe you ought to have gone for a higher grade of sunscreen. You're going to get burnt, or worse, more freckles."
"Okay, you know what?" snapped Lily, forcefully shutting her worn copy of Emma and looking straight at Petunia. She was met only with her own reflection through Petunia's sunglasses, but could tell through the thin smirk on her sister's face that Petunia was pleased with herself. "The only thing wrong with my freckles is there aren't more of them to piss you off."
"Skin cancer, Lily. You're going to subject yourself to skin cancer with your carelessness. I'm only trying to look out for you."
"I guess it's easy for you to think that's what you're doing, especially with that great neck of yours and all."
"My neck is elegant-"
"Children at the park could slide down it like a pole -"
"Girls!"
Julia Evans was not one to suffer fools, and her children were nothing but fools. Or at least, that is what she told Lily and Petunia constantly. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she was widowed, leaving her with two young kids to raise, along with a mortgage to upkeep, or the fact that Lily and Petunia were only two years apart and as different as two girls could be; either way, Julia was tough, and Lily often felt her relationship with her mother was strained because of it.
"I will not have you acting this way in front of the Potters," said Julia, her eyes flashing at Lily through the rear view mirror. "Euphemia and Fleamont are very kind to share their home with us every year, and this is our last summer before Petunia gets married. I won't have it ruined with all your bickering. Do I make myself clear?"
The girls sat in silence, Lily's hand itching to toss her novel at her sister's stupid face, but Emma had been too kind to her, lending Mr. Knightley to her as both both a crush and a standard for men. Petunia didn't deserve even a harsh "well done" thrown in her face from someone as swoon-worthy as Mr. Knightley. She clutched her novel tighter. Besides, Petunia had planned this, attempting to rile Lily up twenty minutes before they were set to arrive at the Potter's. Petunia knew full well that James, the Potter's only son, would be more than willing to join in on the taunting as he often did.
He enjoyed nothing more than winding her up.
Engaging Lily in the most heated battles she had ever been in, James Potter was nothing but a git with a nice house on the beach.
Of all the things that Lily loved about summer, James Potter was not one of them.
Age 12
Lily didn't like James.
She didn't like the way he's two inches taller than her, even though she was the older one by just a couple months.
She didn't like the way he pretended to know big words, used them incorrectly, and then called her a know it all when she told him so.
She didn't like how rambunctious he was, how he was always barreling from room to room, nearly taking her down in the process. She didn't like the speed at which he talked, as though there wasn't enough air in the room for them both, and as if what he had to say was far more important than what she had to say.
And she certainly didn't like the way he talked about Mr. Knightley.
"Mr. Knightley sounds like a bit of a git," said James one Sunday afternoon while they were lounging about near the pool. He had snatched Emma from her, flipping madly through the pages as though that was all it took for him to absorb the book's content, and make an educated deduction about it. "I don't know why you like this rubbish?"
"He's not a git," retorted Lily, jumping and failing to retrieve the book back from his grasp. How could two small inches make such a difference? "You haven't even read the book!"
"I don't have to! What, with the way you've been blubbering on about it for ages!"
"My dad got it for me for Christmas!"
James was twisting and turning to keep the book away from her, managing to bend and crook the pages in a way that made Lily feel slightly nauseous.
"He's known this bird all his life and now he's suddenly in love with her?" he snorted. "Even with how annoying she is?"
"She's not annoying, she's vivacious!"
"She's a twit!"
"Give me that book back," said Lily, slowly, through gritted teeth. "Now."
James grinned, toothy and slightly crooked.
"Come and get it, Evans!"
James bolted, shoving her for good measure as he did so, and darting around the far side of the pool away from her. Lily charged after him, shrieking in a way James Potter was only capable of making her, and colliding roughly with him; jumping on his back and causing him to topple over.
Straight into the pool.
Lily didn't realize fully what had happened until she had already hit the water, the sound of the splash echoing painfully underwater, and sinking straight to the bottom.
She sat there, dazed and confused as she was, as little bubbles escaped her lips, floating to the surface where she saw it.
Her copy of Emma, sinking slowly down towards her, the waterboarded pages weighing it down, and making it look positively disheveled.
Lily kicked her feet off from the ground, sending her flying through the water, and bringing her face to face with her novel.
She reached out tentatively, as though the novel would dissolve at her touch, her fingers trembling as she grabbed ahold of the book and broke to the surface.
"Lily- Lily, I'm so sorry-"
Lily drew a shaky breath, hearing James speak to her nearly a million miles away as she flipped through the damp pages helplessly, landing on the words she had found heart stopping for an entirely different reason the first time she read them.
Badly done, Emma, they read.
"Badly done, indeed," she breathed, though it broke as a sob.
Two months later Lily's father passed away in a car accident.
The water soaked copy of Emma being her last gift from him.
James had been up since five that morning, going back and forth between the idea of whether or not he should shave before Lily arrived.
Which was ridiculous.
She wouldn't care, wouldn't notice.
And if she did happen to notice, she would probably have something sarcastic to say about it.
But in the end, he went for the unshaven look, deciding that it gave him a more smoldering appearance, and maybe, just maybe, it would cause her eyes to flick over him at least once more before retreating back into whatever book she was reading at the moment.
Probably Emma.
Most definitely Emma.
She started every summer with Emma, and by the end of the first week of her stay, James was often jealous of Mr. Knightley of all people. Which was mad. Completely bonkers. He was fictional character in a book. He wasn't even real.
But he was James' biggest competition when it came to Lily's affections.
Something he hadn't even know that he wanted until three years ago when they were fifteen, and he had made a complete fool of himself because of it.
And now, at eighteen, he was about to make as much a fool of himself as he had three years ago - if not more - for he could hear the sound of tires treading down gravel. He perked up, letting the hand that had been under his chin fall, and repositioning himself to look as casual as he possibly could. The only problem with that was the fact that he had completely forgotten what casual was supposed to look like. It certainly wasn't jumping up so fast that his head rushed soon after, which is what he had just done.
Toppling over because you had made yourself dizzy wasn't casual.
"Fucking hell," he swore, tugging at his hair. He realized far too late that causal would be inside the house, not outside on the steps like some sort of lovesick puppy. "Idiot!"
James darted towards the screen door, attempting to open it, but finding it blocked by his traitor of a mother.
"What are you doing?" asked his mum, her hand steady on the door handle, blocking his entrance. "Julia and the girls have just arrived."
"Exactly," hissed James, tugging on the other side of the handle, but barely managing to pull it towards him an inch before his mum snatched it back, slamming it in his face. "Mum! Let me in!"
"Absolutely not. What's gotten into you? You've been waiting out here for nearly two hours for them to get here."
"That's - that's precisely it, mum!" James pulled at the door even harder, one foot propped on the door frame for leverage, but finding it didn't budge. "Jesus, how strong are you exactly?"
"I gave birth to you, wonky head and all. You tried to kill me too, but we both see who won. All you did was end up making me stronger."
"Come on, mum! They're almost at the end of the driveway," pleaded James, seeing the Evans' car turning the curve. "I can't have Lily seeing me out here like this. She'll think I'm desperate!"
"Oh my god," sniggered his mother, and James hated the way her face mimicked his own when she laughed more than ever. "Fleamont - Fleamont, get over here!"
James heard the sound of chair legs moaning across wooden floorboards, and knew that his father likely hadn't moved from his desk, where he had been working on his latest novel since James had walked out onto the front porch, two hours ago.
"What?" asked his father, coming into James line of vision. He was a tall man, taller than James, with a thick bushy beard and kind hazel eyes. But James knew by the twitching of his lips when he took in his son's frazzled state, that he, like James' own mum was a traitor. "What's going on?"
"James here," started his mother, and James heard the parking of a car behind him, "doesn't want Lily to see how desperate he is by apparently sitting on the front porch waiting for her."
Glancing over his shoulder, and dragging a pathetic hand through his hair, James saw Julia get out of the car, smiling warmly at him, while Lily and Petunia looked on curiously from the back seat.
"Well that's ridiculous," said Fleamont. "Waiting for her on the porch isn't going to make him look desperate. Not like last year, when he kept walking around the house without a shirt on because he was convinced he had abs."
"Or the year before that, when he purposely kept trying to lower his voice whenever he spoke to her because he hadn't hit puberty yet," added Euphemia.
"Mum!"
"I think everyone knows about James' crush on Lily," said Fleamont.
"Except for my dear, sweet, oblivious daughter," said a voice from behind him, and James turned to see Julia standing there.
"Julia!" cried James, running a hand through his hair.
She had more smile lines then last summer, but James thought they added to her beauty. She had darker hair than both her daughters, nearly chestnut colored, and it curled in a way neither of her daughter's did. When James was younger, it used to be Julia that he had a crush on, and when she smiled at him and offered her arms out to him just now, he didn't feel as silly for it as he usually did. Julia was lovable.
"I'd rather like to keep your daughter oblivious," said James, stepping into her embrace and hugging her tightly. She seemed thinner than usual. "At least for a bit longer."
"No worries," said Julia, pulling away and holding him at arm's length to look him over, the way only a mother would. "I think she's a bit too distracted anyway to notice much."
Julia flicked him on the nose, smiling at James as though he had missed some sort of big joke, before disappearing into the house with his parents.
Leaving him positively vexed, and a bit put off.
James had changed.
Not in all ways, Lily noticed as he ran a hand through his already unkempt hair before he hugged her mother, but in ways that made her nearly blush.
He was taller, seemingly stretched out, as though someone had gripped him by the wrists and ankles and pulled, until he was a full six inches taller than Lily.
And more than that, he was fit.
He had always been nicely built, but for some reason, standing there as he was - hands now clearly fidgeting in the pockets of his shorts as he watched their parents retreat into the house, and looking so very sun-kissed - Lily thought he seemed fully sculpted. As though the artist that had been molding him for years had placed their finishing touches, and there, before her, stood James Potter. Not entirely different, but somehow more.
Lily wished, desperately so, that she hadn't noticed the changes.
But she had and, quite unfortunately, Petunia had noticed Lily noticing.
"He's certainly grown into himself," said Petunia, as they stepped out of the car. "Don't you think, Lily?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Lily, not wanting to look at James, nor her sister, so settling for the bit of gravel beneath her feet. "He looks just the same to me."
"Don't play coy, Lily," smirked Petunia, somehow making her lips even more thin in the process. "I saw you swoon."
"I didn't swoon."
"It's alright, Lily." Petunia placed a hand on Lily's shoulder in false comfort. "He's gotten certain swoon worthy qualities. Just as long as you realize, it's never going to happen."
"That's not - nothing is going to happen!"
"What's not going to happen?"
Lily jumped, nearly screaming from the voice that was somehow deep enough to send chills down her spine, but yet familiar enough to get underneath her skin. James had approached them - effectively blocking the sun and casting a stupidly fit shadow over Lily in the process - and she hadn't even noticed. Which was very odd. Ever since Lily was a young girl she was aware of James and his movements, as though she could feel her body shift with his whenever he leaned a certain way. As though the hairs on the back of her neck prickled whenever he entered a room. As though she noticed the lack of air whenever he left a room.
So how has he managed to sneak up on her in such a manner?
"My bags," said Petunia, her voice like marmalade, nearly dripping with artificial sweetness. "Lily won't help me with my bags, and I brought so many of them. Do you mind helping?"
"Oh," said James, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Something he did when he was nervous, Lily knew. "Yeah, sure. I don't mind."
"Great," quipped Petunia, heading into the house. "Just place them in my room, please!"
"She hasn't changed a bit," grinned James, hands on his hips, as they watched her disappear behind the door.
"Somethings never change I guess," said Lily, arms crossed, contradicting James' own relaxed posture.
She could smell the salty water from where they were standing, hear the crashing of the waves, and the chattering of nearby people. So why was her heart beating so impossibly loud in her ears?
James glanced over at her, cocking an eyebrow in a way that drove her mad and made her jealous. He had learned how to quirk just one eyebrow when they were ten, and anytime she lost her temper or said something incredibly stupid - which was a lot around James - he had taken to raising an eyebrow at her.
The only problem was she didn't seem to mind it as much right now.
"Alright, Evans?"
"Yes, of course," said Lily, telling herself that it was the summer heat causing her face to burn. "Never better."
James regarded her for a brief moment, his hazel eyes flicking over her once in a way that didn't make her as uncomfortable as it ought to have. When they were children, he would only study her before he was about to pull a prank, such as throwing her into the pool, or sneaking frogs into her bed at night.
This was different somehow.
Lily watched him lick his lips and wished she were the one who could quirk and eyebrow with such ease. Instead she wrinkled her nose at him which made him smirk.
"Come here, Evans," he said, holding out his arms hesitantly, as though he wasn't positive that she would step into them. "It's been a long nine months."
The space between them seemed too far and yet too close. Giving Lily time to panic but not enough time to pull away before she was stepping - one, two, three steps, she counted - into James' arms.
Arms wrapped around each other, Lily pressing the side of her cheek into his chest, while he rested his chin perfectly on the top of her head.
And she wondered if he always smelled of ivory soap and mahogany.
James wasn't able to remember a time before the Evans' vacationed with them every summer.
Julia and Euphemia had met at Uni in a Women's Studies course and had been thick as thieves ever since. The bases of their friendship being that both of them were strong, independent women ready to burn down the world and rebuild it.
Their friendship had withstood time, distance, marriages, and children.
James used to wonder, when he was very young, if a friendship like that was hard to maintain. Hard to find. His father certainly didn't have any life long friends like his mother. Not any that James knew of, and he wondered what cemented the foundation of such a friendship.
He had only felt that deep rooted history with two people in his life.
One being Sirius Black.
"Oi, Evans! You already get burnt? You were outside for, what, two minutes? Your face is already red."
Who was an arse.
A complete arse.
The other person being…
"Oh, you can see color? Interesting, considering I thought you were a dog."
Lily Evans - the goddamn love of his life.
Sirius barked with laughter as James tugged helplessly on his hair. Before that moment three years ago, he would have joined in on the mischief. Before three years ago he might have even made such a crass comment first. But before three years ago, he had not been so hopelessly in love.
And now he watched every step he took around Lily as though she were a bomb ready to go off at any moment. Now he thought her blush surrounded her like a goddamn halo. Now he was counting down the days until they were off to Uni, and possibly never going to vacation together again, once their lives branched off into two different directions.
"Play nice, Sirius," groaned James. "Lily just got here."
"I'm only joking," grinned Sirius. "You know I enjoy riling you up, Evans."
Lily dropped her duffel bag slightly, letting it dangle by its strap, her nose wrinkling as she took in Sirius leaning across the kitchen counter top, half a roast beef sandwich hanging out of his mouth.
Perhaps there are some canine qualities about him, thought James.
"When did you get here then?" asked Lily and James could tell that she was biting the humor back from her voice. She had always been softer on Sirius than she was with him. "Are you sleeping over?"
"I live here now," declared Sirius proudly.
"You live here. Here," said Lily, pointing downward towards the floor. "At the beach house."
"Yep."
"How did that happen?" asked Lily, and James felt her eyes dart towards him, but kept his own fixated on the ground.
"Irreconcilable differences," said Sirius simply. "Mamma Mia is letting me stay until we start Uni in the fall."
James could hear a roar of laughter from the living area that was thankfully enough to distract Lily from the topic of Sirius' living conditions. Their house, while normally filled with laughter, was exploding with it during the summer months with so many extra people. James wondered how much would change once all of the kids were off to Uni. If they would still have summers to bind them.
"They're certainly happy to see each other," snorted Lily. "I think I'm going to head to the pool before dinner tonight."
"Sounds good," said James. "I'll join you."
The beach house was pink, almost blushingly so, and had been for as long as Lily could remember.
Euphemia had told her that when they first bought the house, it was almost a grey color like "every other blasted beach house you see a picture of." But Euphemia was too extraordinary for a grey house - something she had told Lily herself and something Lily happened to agreed with - let alone a grey house set on something as wonderful as the beach.
And so, while Fleamont had taken on such renovations as replacing the carpet with hardwood floors, knocking down walls to expand rooms, and totally redoing the kitchen, Euphemia had seen to giving the outside of the house a makeover.
"Isn't it gorgeous?" Euphemia had asked her when she took out an old family album when Lily was ten, to show her a before and after. "And the best part is, everyone can see it on the beach. I always know if I've walked too far on the beach by whether or not I can still see my house, because I'm sure as hell not walking out of eyesight of it."
But the thing Lily loved about the house the most, aside from Euphemia herself, wasn't the color, it was the pool. The Potter's were the only house on their stretch of the beach that had their own pool, which was nice when there was a surplus of tourists on the beach. For Lily, the first day at the beach house wasn't spent down at the actual beach, but rather, in the chlorine water of the pool. The beach could wait. It was better at night anyway, for a ginger with fair skin and too many freckles to count.
But now Lily couldn't really find a reason to look forward to the pool.
Not as much.
Not really.
Not with some stupidly fit boy outside.
The changes that James had undergone had been a mere distraction out in front of the house when he had a shirt on. But now, standing there as she was, hand clutching the handle of the screen door that lead to the pool, wearing a bikini that she wished desperately she hadn't packed for it showed how far too scrawny and unshapely she was, Lily suddenly felt as though she couldn't remember how to walk.
How on earth was she supposed to put one foot in front of the other with James Fucking Fit Potter outside, practically prancing around without a shirt on?
When in heaven's name did he develop abs?
He certainly wasn't as buff as those blokes on the beach that often frightened Lily. As though they could pitch her a length of several football fields.
But he was the sort of fit that was noticeable.
That she wouldn't mind touching.
Which was most unfortunate because she shouldn't be having that type of desire for him at all.
He was the same boy who had pulled her ponytail as a child. The same boy who had convinced her that her freckles were demon kisses to frighten her into thinking she was going to be possessed. The very same boy who, three summers ago, had tried to convince her that he liked her of all things, which she still couldn't figure out the point of, unless it was just to take the Mickey out of her.
Terms of affection were not a joke for Lily Evans.
Not in the same way that they clearly were for James Potter.
"Enjoying the view?"
Lily shrieked, the sound of it bouncing off the kitchen walls, and mixing together with a bark like laugh.
"Dammit, Sirius!"
Lily didn't hate Sirius. Sure, they fought. Teased, taunted each other mercilessly. As much as siblings would, she supposed. But in that moment, heart pounding as it was and all the breath squeezed out of her from her scare, she felt as though she could possibly cross that thin line. Especially with that condescending, knowing look upon his face.
"Aren't you going to go outside?" His smirk was sinister. "You've been standing here for nearly five minutes."
"I've not been standing here for five minutes."
"How would you know? Your eyes were on James, not a clock. What's the matter? You've seen James without a shirt on loads of times."
It was true. She had seen James without a shirt on every summer for as far back as she could remember. She just hadn't seen him without a shirt on quite like this. Her eyes darted quickly to where James was attempting to fish out a few spare leaves that had drifted into the pool with the net, having his back turned towards her this time, making her flush at the sight of how broad his shoulders had become. Had he always held the potential for such a - a form? Her eyes lingered far too long, she realized, as the sound of Sirius' throat clearing startled her out of her dizzy state.
She had swooned.
She was swooning.
And if she went out there, shirtless as James was, she would swoon herself right into drowning.
"I'm having - womanly problems," said Lily, inwardly cringing at her own excuse. "I think I ought to go lay down."
"Hmm," hummed Sirius, and Lily noticed it didn't reach as low of an octave as James's voice. "I'll tell James you've caught Cupid's arrow then?"
"You'll do no such thing," hissed Lily, rounding on him. "We're supposed to - we hate each other. We always have. The fact that he's suddenly- a bit fit isn't going to change anything."
"He doesn't hate you."
"He does. He has to."
Sirius regarded her silently for a moment, cocking his head in a way that made him look even more canine like, if possible, and then finally, after what felt like an eternity, settled for a smirk as he often did, lopsided yet still charming.
"It would be awfully convenient if that were true, wouldn't it?"
Age 13
Lily didn't know a lot about James outside of the summer months.
She wasn't sure what he wore in the fall or winter months when it was cool enough for layers. She wasn't sure what he did when it was too cold to go down to the beach, or if his skin stayed as sun-kissed when summer faded into fall. She wasn't sure what his hair looked like entirely dry, not weighed down by sweat or water, or fluffy from the humidity.
But what she did know, and what made her suspect that they truly wouldn't get along any time of year, was that he was popular.
And it wasn't necessarily the fact that he was well liked that bothered Lily, for Lily herself was relatively liked back home. But rather, it was the fact that he seemed to have a pathological need to be liked. That he had a desire to be constantly flanked by people. He seemed to have no idea what it was like to enjoy the stillness of life. To know that there could be forgery of spirit in those listless moments.
Lily could tell, though not truly understand, that the beach house bored James. And Lily knew that, though she loved Euphemia, James was rather spoiled, being an only child as he was.
Which was why he was allowed to have parties in the beach house basement with friends that Lily felt out of place with. Friends that knew the James of every season. Friends that laughed and danced; friends that knew how to live life outside of the pages of a book.
Something James said Lily did not know how to do.
It had started with a loud blasting of music, which wouldn't be able to be heard from upstairs where the parents were, but seeing how Lily's room was downstairs in the basement, it had startled her. It was the first week of summer so she had been reading Emma - a freshly bought copy that had been gifted to her for Christmas that past year with no name tag attached - when the noise had become so distracting that it forced Lily out of her room.
"What's going on?" she cried, spotting James right away in the middle of everything as he normally was. "Why is this so loud?"
James grinned. "Don't like the Stones, Evans?"
"I don't like them quite this loud," she said, gesturing hopelessly into thin air. "I can't hear myself think!"
"You're always thinking," retorted James. "That's half your problem! You should make a couple decisions without thinking for a change!"
"Don't be ridiculous." Lily was getting rather frustrated and a bit embarrassed. They were drawing the attention of the whole room. "Decisions are meant to be thought out. Not rushed into without any prior reflection."
"Why do you always talk like that?" asked James.
"Like what?"
"Like you're better - smarter than me or something."
Lily fidgeted, wishing desperately that she hadn't left her room. "It's just how I talk."
"Because you're not, you know. Better than me, that is. You may be smart and read a lot of books, but I know people."
"People," sputtered Lily, something she often didn't do. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"People," he said, stretching his arms out and motioning to the crowded room, where everyone was laughing or dancing, "are my study. I know what makes them work. What makes them happy. What they want more than anything."
"Is that so?" she snorted. "What is it that you think I want then?"
"My dearest Lily," he said, flicking her on her wrinkled nose. "I don't think even you know the answer to that question."
Lily wanted to hate James as she told Sirius she did.
She wanted the pounding of her heart to be from the way he got under her skin, not from the way they brushed skin by accident.
She wanted to feel as though she had too much air in her lungs from his stupidity making her feel as though she may burst, not from the way he grinned at her and she suddenly felt as though she had sucked in too much air.
Which was entirely backwards because every book she had read had said that this - this feeling of wanting - which was boiling up inside of her, making her feel as though she had been burned because of it, was supposed to make her feel breathless.
But James Potter wasn't a breathless sort of guy. He had air to give. To spare.
To sustain her.
And so while she wanted to hate him, she didn't.
Instead she simply just wanted him.
James couldn't sleep.
He was hungry and he was fairly certain that Lily had been avoiding him this first week at the beach house.
Which was rather odd, the latter, because Lily Evans never avoided him. In fact, she often went looking for him whenever she was in need of a good argument, which, in the past, he was all too happy to provide her with, seeing as it was the most amount of attention he could get from her.
The thing that was bothering him the most - more than the avoidance or more than their lack of arguments - was the fact that he couldn't figure out why she had suddenly taken to avoiding him. He had grown, matured. He had stopped teasing her over her love for books and Mr. Knightley. Though he was still very much jealous of the fictional fellow.
But even that struck him as odd, and had lead him to believe that perhaps Lily was ill, for Mr. Knightley had been abandoned, forgotten on the kitchen counter for a solid week.
Which wasn't like Lily at all.
She read Emma in its entirety - something James still couldn't believe, for he had the attention span of a gnat - the first week of every summer vacation.
And while he had clear competition in Mr. Knightley, he had somehow felt like he was in the lead whenever he saw her carting around the copy he had bought for her after he had ruined her last one.
Not that Lily knew James had gotten her the new copy. He had specifically asked Julia not to tell her for he had been twelve, nearly thirteen, and nearly thirteen year old boys didn't buy gifts, especially a gift of the romantic novel sort for girls.
And she certainly didn't know that he considered himself beating Mr. Knightley in their nonexistent competition.
She would murder him if she did know.
Absolutely thrash him.
Which, honestly, the thought of was rather exciting, but that was another issue for another day.
Right now there was perhaps one issue he could resolve though, he thought to himself as his stomach grumbled loudly.
The kitchen was quiet, but not entirely deserted, James found as he entered. Lily had apparently had the same idea as him and found the idea of a snack at three in the morning appealing.
"Hey," she greeted, hunched over into the fridge. Light was spilling out, illuminating half her face, and allowing James to see her hair that she had braided and pulled over to one shoulder, spilling over her collarbone which was exposed from her loose shirt. His mouth went dry. "I just got hungry. I thought I'd make a grilled cheese or something."
It seemed to take James an eternity to find his voice and when he did it sounded scratchy. Almost stuck deep in his throat. "Same here."
"Do you want one?" she asked, straightening herself out and clutching the package of cheese tightly to her chest. "I can make with tomatoes the way you like. If you - if you want me to."
"That sounds nice," said James, secretly thrilled at the idea of having a moment alone with Lily for the first time all week.
He watched her as she worked her way around his own kitchen with a sense of ease and familiarity that caused a strange tightness in his stomach. Watching as she buttered the pan, flipping the sandwich until it was crispy but not burnt, and watching as she cut his sandwich into fourths just the way he liked.
And it hit him, there, sitting across from Lily, eating their grilled cheese sandwiches, the cheese stringing out in that perfect sort of gooey way that got stuck on his chin when it broke, and would have embarrassed him in front of anyone else, that this was what he wanted more than anything.
That sort of familiar, deep rooted history that he had with her.
Why couldn't it be me? Me that she loves, he thought, his eyes darting over to her forgotten Emma novel where, perhaps, he had mistaken Mr. Knightley as his greatest rival instead of his greatest asset.
Mr. Knightley who, perhaps, Lily related to more than anyone in the novel, could possibly be the key to her heart rather than his competition for it.
Possibly James had been a fool to not realize how much of his own happiness revolved around Lily herself until three years ago, and to now have such a ticking clock in front of him, counting down the moments in which he could possibly lose such a happiness, he suddenly felt a panic welling up inside of him.
Maybe he had always loved her, and had only just become aware of it three years ago. He had always had her company in some form, and perhaps had grown too accustomed to the thought that she would always be there. Always come back to this house every summer. They had entered their childhoods together, their adolescent years side by side, and now, with adulthood right around the corner, there was the possibility that they would diverge into different paths.
In spite of everything, all the teasing, the taunting, the competitiveness that they had grown up with, he knew that she was very much fixed in his heart. But did she know that? She had spent years claiming that he could do better. Be better. But did she see that she had made him that way? That she was the only person who could see any sort of fault in him. Who could see all the cracks in his spirit that made him. That, maybe, those cracks were there so that she could fill them?
James was good with people, but often misjudged matters of the heart, but maybe he had mistaken the path to Lily's all along.
James looked up to find Lily already glancing back at him, a worried expression clouding her face, and her nose wrinkling as it often did when something was bothering her.
"What are you thinking about so strongly over there, James?"
James swallowed. "Do you think I could borrow Emma?"
Age 15
There was a moment when everything changed for James.
An exact, precise moment that was somehow shorter than a breath, but profound enough to be completely etched in his mind.
It had been three years ago, when he and Lily were fifteen. Julia and her daughters had pulled up in their driveway, blowing their horn, and his mother had instructed him to go assist with their bags.
James had groaned - loud and low enough to get a scolding from his mother - and kicked open the screen door with a bit too much force. He remembered perfectly the wailing of the hinges, the doors creaking filling his ears until he was certain he had gone deaf, but it was the girl climbing out of the passenger's seat that had flooded his senses, making everything seem impossibly brighter, louder. Increasingly vibrant. As though he hadn't know how to properly see anything else until he saw Lily Evans at that moment.
Her legs looked incredibly long, her shoulders bare and scattered with freckles. Was she allowed to wear tops without straps now? Had her collarbone always jutted out in such a way, curving and making James wonder what it would be like to trail his fingertips across it?
Her hair -long and whipping around her face from the ocean breeze - seemed a brighter red than he remembered it. Almost aflame. Surely it had been darker last summer. He remembered it was because he had tugged on her pony causing her to shriek. He wondered if it was from the sun tinting her tresses, or perhaps his own skewed vision playing tricks on him at the moment.
Which was most unfortunate because he was the trickster, but apparently Lily Evans had managed to become an enchantress in the span of a year, effectively throwing him off his rhythm in the process.
What the fuck was he supposed to do trapped in the house with her clearly radiating at some sort of heavenly level? How was he not going to get burned because of it?
The door had seemed to take an eternity to shut, and when it bounded back against the door frame it made a sound akin to a bomb going off in James' head, startling him and causing him to jump and yelp.
"Shit!" he cursed.
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"
Lily was before him, sunglasses on the top of her head, her worn-down Emma novel clutched to her chest.
And suddenly she was Lily again.
The same girl he caught fireflies with at eight years old, the same girl he pushed into the pool, the same girl with tears in her eyes at five, that he had given his ice cream cone to when she had dropped hers. But somehow just more.
And he was James.
A fool.
"No, but I'd like to kiss you with it."
A complete fool.