"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked."
-- Bernard Meltzer
I don't get a chance to discuss my evening in James's company with Ainsley in the morning, because she's in a pissy mood (she wants to go to Zonko's but can't – which is causing her pain since she wants "a few balloons to bust up") and her sausage eating consumption when she's pissed renders me completely speechless.
A note during class is not even an option because I need to tell her all my agonized thoughts in person. So, I have to wait until school is over for the day before Ainsley is calm enough to go up to her dormitory with me and pay my story some attention.
I manage to get her in thoughtful-listening-mode by telling her it involves Michael in a negative light, and at once, she is in business.
Figures.
So, instead of doing our plentiful homework, Ainsley and I sit on the beds upstairs and I tell her about my musings this week – about Michael and I being rocky. I purposely leave the part about our night in Michael's dormitory out of it, but the rest of it I explain with great detail, especially the previous evening with James.
Ainsley is a good audience for once, paying solid, entirely focused attention to what I have to say, and she doesn't interrupt me until I'm done and look to her for her opinion.
"So what should I do?" I ask her desperately. "I love Michael, you know I do, but how can I keep things normal when I think like this? I feel dishonest, not telling him how I'm feeling."
Ainsley's gray eyes are murky as she chews the inside of her lip, contemplative. "Lils, honestly, I don't know what to say," she says as gently as someone like Ainsley can muster. "I mean…what do you want me to do, scare away the monsters in your head and say it's all better? This isn't something I can magically solve for you. You have to do it."
"But what do I have to do?" I persist. "I don't know, I really don't. Help me. I'm not like you, Ains – I can't just get down to it and find some kind of arrangement like you can."
"Of course I'll help you," Ainsley says. "What kind of a friend would I be if I didn't? It's just…Lils, this is out of my wavelength. This is something I don't understand – mostly because I think Michael is a dork and I could never put up with him for a minute let alone a year – and I dunno, I think you'll have to find it in you to get down to it."
Ainsley has never been physical, in the sense that she doesn't require (or like) hugs or being next to someone when they talk, so it really surprises me when she oh-so-carefully tucks my hair behind my ear. "But if you want my take on it, I'd say that if you're not comfortable with Michael anymore, break up with him."
"Break up with him?" I almost leap to my feet, but don't because I clamp my hands forcefully to my knees. "Ainsley Catherwood, how can you even try to suggest something like that? Breaking up with Michael is completely out of the question!"
"Why?" Ainsley tests me. "Why are you with him?"
"I love him," I say automatically.
"I already told you once, I don't think you love him the way a girlfriend would," Ainsley says wisely. "I mean…to me, it sounds like you're reciting a fact when you say you love him, you know?"
"Well, because I am," I say defiantly. "It's a fact that I love him."
"No, I don't mean it like that," Ainsley says, waving me aside with her hand. "I don't know…like, it sounds like a fact you might deliver for a Transfiguration N.E.W.T. or something. All scholarly, no emotion besides a conviction that you want to mean it. Wanting to mean it and really meaning it are so different, Lils, and I think you fall into the former category."
"This is absurd," I say miserably. "I love Michael. I do. You have to believe that."
"I want to, but I don't," Ainsley says, her eyes regretful. "Lil, this is…look, this is why I can't help you! You are biased because you're his girlfriend, or whatever. I could also be considered biased, because I never liked him to begin with. But really, Lils, this guy isn't it. I've told you that so many times, but I'm dead honest, it's true."
"He is it," I shoot back at her, feeling like Ainsley has launched a thousand arrows into my spirit. "Ainsley, I love Michael, and I don't want to break up with him."
"Then tell me, why do you feel like something's not right?" Ainsley asks, her voice rather small under my desperate vehemence. "Why are we even having this conversation, Lily, if he makes you so happy?"
"Because I don't know how to be happy!" I abruptly burst out, astonishing myself when I realize my eyes are lined with tears. "Because I desperately want to know what it is about me that deprives me of anything that's worth something in my life!"
A tear escapes my eyelid and rolls down my cheek, getting into the chapped cracks of my lips. My sudden tears shock Ainsley, who is looking just as uncomfortable as she always does when I get emotional.
Ainsley is so used to me being the solid one that seeing me break down this way over a boy she doesn't even like is doing a number on her; and this thought – this last thought – finally shatters whatever of me was still trying to hold together.
I don't cry, but I do feel like something has erupted from the most arcane parts of my being, and I curl up, hugging my legs, on the soft bed I'm sitting on.
Ainsley does not come to me here, choosing to remain on her own bed, but her eyes never leave me as I lay my cheek on my knees.
And then she says, "I think the reason you think you can't be happy is that you don't know what happy is."
Somehow stung by this, I snap, "And what do you, Queen of All Things Pessimistic and Dark, consider happiness to be?"
I know I'm scratching at sore, easily bloodied wounds here, but how can I be sympathetic to my best friend when I'm already bleeding here in front of her?
It's such a repulsive thought, but I can't stop it from poisoning my mind anyway; I want to hear her answer. So I make myself watch as Ainsley swallows, her features shrinking into her face because I am the only one who can make her feel bad about anything, and says almost inaudibly, "Because happiness is subjective."
"Subjective?" I quire too loudly than what this situation calls for.
"Yes, subjective." Ainsley clears her throat and says, her voice a little stronger, "Because I'm happy when I'm just lingering, doing nothing more than what I feel like doing, and perceiving the world the way I want to perceive it; whereas you are only happy when you are in control."
"In control?" I repeat dumbly.
Ainsley nods. "Because even though we both seek the truth, I am content with knowing, but you are only content when you're looking for it."
"So…you're saying that if I'm at peace, I will never be happy?" I ask, bewildered.
In a rare mood, the muscles in Ainsley's face barely move as she nods solemnly and says, "That's exactly what I mean. And Michael is your speed bump, Lils. He has to go."
--
My conversation with Ainsley – which didn't go at all the way I'd hoped it would – continues to hover over me, like so much else, for the better part of the next few days.
After all she's said to me, she does give me my space as I attempt with limited success to sort through my muddled thoughts. I don't have much time to do that, to be honest; with my schoolwork that I don't do, I'm kept up much later than I'd like, and I have patrolling with James on top of that.
When I'm not doing those two things, I'm spending time with Michael – although that's not going too well either, because I'm so busy. But Michael takes it in stride, until tonight.
I'm sitting in the common room when he comes to me, my mind in every place but the one in my work, and his unexpected company startles me when he smiles and sits across from me.
"Hey, Lils," he says, leaning over and kissing me on my lips. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," I say robotically, giving him as pleasant a smile as I can produce on such short notice. "Only working on this." I gesture at my Charms essay.
"I know." He takes a breath. "Hey, do you have a minute? I wanted to talk to you."
"Yeah, sure," I say, setting aside my quill, facing him properly. "What's up?"
"Nothing much for me, really," Michael says. "I only wanted to check on you. You're looking so tired again, and you've been kind of distant with me since…since we…"
"Yeah, that," I finish hastily for him, my heart rate going up considerably. "Well, I'm all right, Michael. Only a bit on the industrious side with all this work."
"Are you…avoiding me?" Michael asks, pink with embarrassment but holding my line of vision nonetheless.
"Me? Avoiding you? No, of course," I say a little too fast. "Why would I avoid you?"
"That's why I'm here," Michael says. "Why would you?"
I purse my lips, but try to keep the rest of my expression steady. "I dunno…but there's nothing wrong with me, or anything, if that's what you want to know."
There he goes, being my guardian angel again. I can't for the life of me figure out why I'm bothered again, but for Michael's sake, I try to silence the impulse. What had I discussed with Ainsley? I love Michael, and I'm just bad at showing him so.
Yes, that was it.
So, when Michael smiles at me like he's convinced (even though I'm not), I smile back and I say, "I'm going to my dormitory in about five minutes, all right? I just want to finish this first."
"Fair enough." Michael is back to his normal, contented self at once, soothed by my response, and he disappears up to his dormitory, leaving me here before I disappear to my own.
The common room is silent once again, but Ainsley's voice comes back to me, making me shiver in the unearthly stillness I'm engulfed in:
He has to go.
But I don't want him to go.
Do I?
