this is how a heart breaks
"Stay still," she said, holding the paintbrush between her teeth.
Your leg wiggled back and forth, and you prayed that you wouldn't collapse. "I can't," you said, trying not to laugh.
"Please, Rosie," she said, rolling her eyes. "This is important. They promised to hang it in the gallery if I finish it."
"Oh Merlin, my face in the gallery? Please don't, Victoire. I couldn't stand to hear what mum would say."
Victoire snorts, and you wiggle a little more. "I know what she'd say," she tells you. "Rose!" She does her best impersonation of your mum's voice, and you're trying not to double over laughing because this is important to her. "I cannot believe you would waste your life modeling! And encouraging Victoire's habits, too! That girl should be studying, not off painting and wasting her life with something she's never going to use."
You furrowed your eyebrows at her, but held your basket of fruit aloft. She sounded…sad.
"And she'll never amount to anything, because all she's good for iz being a good for nothing French girl who doez not know what a young girl zhould know!"
"Victoire, dear, you're turning French on me," you said, smiling to lighten the mood.
She sighed. "I know, dear. Thank you for standing in, you can be done now."
You put your basket down and hurried over to look at the much-awaited painting. What you saw on Victoire's canvases never failed to amaze you. This time, it was a version of you that looked much prettier than you actually did. She was holding a basket of fruit and balancing on one leg to put an apple on a shelf. Supposedly it represented something, but all you saw was fruit. When you mentioned it to Victoire, she laughed.
"It's okay, Rosie. One day you'll understand."
You stared at her face. It was certainly much more beautiful than yours or anyone else's that you knew, even the girl in the painting who definitely wasn't you. And you knew there was one thing you didn't understand: why you loved her.
When she'd packed away her art supplies and gotten in her Muggle car, she waved for you to get in.
"Me?" you asked her.
"Yeah, I promised to take you out for lunch afterwards. I pay in food."
"Oh, I was just going to Apparate back to the Burrow…"
"Come on, Rosie, live a little. I'm a painter, we know all the best cafés." She smiled at you, and you gave in.
"Okay, fine. But we have to be back soon, I promised grandma I'd help her set up the backyard." You got into the strange car that you'd heard grandpa talk about and buckled something called a seatbelt.
Victoire started driving, and as much as you hated to admit it, you were scared. So you focused on her voice, instead. "I can't believe Dominique is getting married already. I bet mum thought I'd get married first."
"Well, you almost were," you said, closing your eyes and leaning your head back against the seat. If you closed your eyes, it was almost like a broomstick.
"Teddy's great, but…I could never marry him. He's too much like my brother."
"Yeah." You wondered how they broke up, and you remembered how much Teddy cried at Uncle Harry's house. His heart was broken, and you could only question how.
Before you get to the restaurant, she explains to you how the radio works. Grandpa would have loved it, and you know it. Briefly, you miss him, and you wish you could've known him as well as Victoire did.
"We're here."
"I'm a little dizzy, Victoire."
"It'll pass," she waved your comment off and walked into the café confidently. You admired her in that strange world; she was so confident it makes you love her all the more. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but to you she'd never looked more beautiful.
For the millionth time, you contemplated telling her you loved her—but no, better not. She was too precious to you. You don't want to make her run away, not now that she's invited you into her world.
"Rosie," she said to you as she walked up to the counter. "I'd like you to meet someone."
"Okay," you reply brightly, closing the door to the almost empty café behind you.
"This is Adam, my boyfriend."
A handsome young man waved at you from behind the register. Your heart dropped to the bottom of your stomach. Your eyes began to water, and you turned to the side. "Nice to meet you, Adam. I'll be right back, Victoire," you whispered, and your shoes scuffed the ground as you walked to the bathroom.
You're sitting inside a stall, mascara-stained tissues surrounding you, when you suddenly realize.
This is how a heart breaks. With a paintbrush and some words.
You wished you'd never heard of either.
A/N: This was written for the One Hour Pairing Challenge in, well, one hour. Pairing: Rose/Victoire, prompt: painting. I hope you enjoy it! Also written for the If You Dare Challenge with the prompt 'fragments of your heart.'
Allie