Chapter 12: Missing Out

It was hot, it was humid, and I was sweating. You wouldn't think lugging around a bunch of brooms would be as exhausting as it was, but with all these brooms, it was bound to wear me out eventually. I probably smelled terrible, and I was avoiding looking at my armpits, because I was sure if I did, I would find sweat stains. I couldn't understand how the others were wearing pitch black robes and still managing not to sweat. I wondered if their robes were made of some kind of cooling material. Or perhaps it was the fact that they were flying, so they had the benefit of a breeze as they zoomed in circles around the pitch. Or maybe it was just magic.

"Last one," I muttered to myself gratefully as I pulled the final broom out of the broom shed. I dragged it to the center of the pitch and waited for Skye to touch down to trade her for the one she'd just been riding.

"This one's fine," Skye informed me. "Put it with the keepers."

"Sure thing," I nodded.

I began to drag Skye's broom back towards the broom shed. Now that all the brooms had been tested, we could put the working brooms away, and bring the brooms to be mended to Skye's workroom behind the team changing rooms.

To my relief, Cameron and Alex soon touched down and began helping me with the putting away portion of the afternoon, making the work go by much faster than before. In no time, the brooms were all in their proper places and we were all huddled on the edge of the pitch waiting for Skye to finish her loop-the-loops so that we could pack up and head back up to the castle.

"I just love flying," Skye breathed as she touched down and put the final broom back in the broom shed. "I think if I couldn't fly, then there would just be no point going on living."

I subtly glanced away at that in the hopes that Skye wouldn't see my expression. Unfortunately, she was very perceptive and immediately realized what she'd said.

"Oh Katie, I'm sorry," she apologized. "I didn't mean – I don't think that – "

"It's fine," I assured her. "I get it. Flying is your thing. I have other things."

"It's just that flying is such a big part of who I am – "

"Trust me, I'm good," I insisted. There was no need for Skye to be apologizing. She'd only spoken her own truth. It was nobody's fault that I couldn't fly, or that I'd been born a muggle. It was just the way the cards had been dealt.

"You know, if you want to experience flying – " Alex began.

I held up my hand to stop him and shook my head. "Don't bother," I muttered. "Skye's already taken me up. It's not the same."

It wasn't that I was mad or upset, I was just done with the conversation. There was no changing the situation. I was a muggle. That meant that there were going to be things the others could do and experience that I never could. At least not in the same way. And while it normally didn't bother me, I also didn't want to belabour the point.

"Look, I should really finish organizing my desks," I declared, taking a step backwards. "We're only a week away from start of term and I need everything to be ready for the students' arrival."

"Do you want some company?" Alex offered. "We could all – "

"No thanks," I interrupted. "I think I'd prefer to do this on my own. I'll see you all at dinner?"

Alex nodded reluctantly, as did Skye and Cameron. I swallowed and nodded back, forcing my emotions down as I turned and hurried back up to the castle and privacy.

I was being silly. I was being completely ridiculous. I'd never been able to fly, so it's not as though I'd lost something. It's not as though anything had changed. Except that it had. Because before coming here, I hadn't known it was possible to fly. I hadn't known it was possible to teleport, or to manipulate objects with a flick of the wrist. I hadn't known that all these things were possible, so I'd never been sad that I couldn't do them. But now I had to watch people do things day in and day out that I desperately wished I could do and yet knew I never could. I would never have magic. I would never have the ability to summon something from across the room, to create a light from nothing, to soar through the sky freely and without limitations. And I would forever know that I was missing out.

While I'd hoped that organizing my desks would take my mind off things – normally that sort of thing required complete and utter focus – it didn't. My mind just kept circling back to the conversation out on the Quidditch pitch and how it had felt lugging all those brooms, watching my new friends fly around the pitch while I remained stranded on the ground. And then I found myself replaying our conversation over and over again, feeling bad that I'd left so abruptly and dreading having to go down to dinner later, because I knew it was going to be tense and awkward.

A knock at my door a little while later tugged me out of my thoughts. I absentmindedly noted as I got up to open the door that instead of organizing my desk, I'd lined everything up on top of it in order of largest to smallest item – a little random and certainly not intentional.

When I opened the door, I found Alex on the other side and I almost closed the door on his face.

"I'm really not in the mood right now," I said, not shutting the door, but also not moving to let him inside.

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright," Alex said, concerned.

"Well I'm not," I admitted. I was tired of playing the game where I pretend, I'm fine all the time. "I'm having a rough day and really just need some time to myself."

I moved to shut the door, but Alex shoved his foot between it and the doorframe and pushed it all the way open, forcing himself inside the classroom.

"Okay, so talk to me about it," Alex insisted. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Don't you get it?" I demanded. My eyes started to sting as unwelcome tears started welling up in them. "I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk period. I want to be alone."

"Nobody wants to be alone."

"I do," I insisted. "There's nobody here who can understand how I feel, and I'm not in the mood to try and explain myself."

"That's a lot different than wanting to be alone," Alex pointed out.

I had to take a deep breath to keep from punching his smug face. "Fine, whatever, I don't want to be alone, but I sure as hell don't want you here, so go away!"

"I'm not going anywhere while I know that you're upset," Alex declared obstinately. He planted himself in a chair and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Ugh!" I cried, infuriated. In a huff, I collapsed into my chair behind my desk and dropped my head into my hands. "Why do you even care? Just go hang out with Skye and Cameron and forget about me."

"I do care," Alex insisted, leaning forward. "I care about you. I don't like seeing you upset."

"Well newsflash," I declared. "I'm going to be upset sometimes. Deal with it."

"Of course you are," Alex agreed. "But I won't be able to just ignore it when you are."

"So what are you going to do?" I demanded. "Just sit there and watch me fall apart?"

Alex shrugged. "I guess that's up to you."

I rolled my eyes and turned away from him. He was being ridiculous and annoying and I wished he would just leave me alone so that I could have my meltdown in privacy. Except that when I thought about that, I realized that I really didn't want him to leave. I didn't want to be alone – he was right about that. I liked knowing that at least one person cared that I wasn't okay.

"It's stupid really," I said after a long silence. I wasn't sure what had prompted me to start talking, but once I did, I couldn't stop. "And Skye didn't mean anything by it, I know that. Her words were just a catalyst for everything I was already feeling."

Alex stayed quiet while I talked, and I appreciated him so much more for it.

"And it's not that I'm bitter, or depressed, or anything like that," I continued. "It's not like I'm walking around constantly feeling inferior to all of you. In fact, over the past little while I've really started to feel like I'm fitting in. I've been feeling really good and like I'm a part of something."

"But?" Alex prompted when I paused for too long.

"But no matter how much I feel like I'm fitting in, the truth is I never can. Not truly. I'll never be one of you. I'll never be a witch. I'll never be able to do anything magical. And when I leave here one day, whether that be a year from now or longer, you'll all forget about me and hire some new teacher to take my place and nothing will really have changed. But I'll go away from here and I'll always know that there's more out there that I can't see or experience, and I'll always know I'm missing out."

Alex stood and pulled a chair up next to me and then sat down again, taking my hand in his and forcing me to look him in the eye.

"Okay first of all, we're not just going to forget about you the minute you walk out that door, whenever that might be," he said. "You're a person just like any other person, and we'll all remember you the same way we remember other people we've met."

"That's not really my – "

"Let me finish," Alex interjected.

I nodded and shut my mouth.

"Second of all, you should know that being magical isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure, we can do things that you can't, but there are things muggles can do that witches and wizards can't do too."

"Give me one example," I challenged him.

"Alright," Alex nodded. "Credit cards."

"Credit cards?" I asked, completely shocked at his answer. "What about them?"

"They're ingenious!" Alex insisted. "For one thing, you don't have to carry all your money around with you all the time. Let me tell you, it gets exhausting having pockets full of coins all day long. Plus, then you have to have hiding places in your house to store your money. With a credit card, you just put one almost weightless card in your pocket and you're good to go. And if someone were to break into my house and steal my galleons, they would just be gone, but when a credit card is stolen, you can deactivate it and then it's completely useless. Not to mention, if you don't have enough money to buy something in the wizarding world, then you have to go to Gringotts and apply for a loan, but with a credit card, they'll actually let you spend more money than you have as long as they eventually get the money back."

I couldn't help it. Somewhere during Alex's big rant about credit cards, I found myself laughing. It was so ridiculous. Was he really comparing not having the ability to do magic with not having a credit card?

"You know, a lot of muggles don't have credit cards," I pointed out.

"And a lot of wizards are terrible at spells," Alex retorted. "Besides, I'm not saying it's a perfect analogy, I'm just saying that sometimes when I'm lugging around a sack full of coins, I find myself really jealous of muggles for the simplicity of their financial system."

While a part of me was convinced that Alex had completely missed my point, another part of me appreciated his comparison and attempt to empathize. And while he may not have fixed anything, I did surprisingly feel better.

I sighed. "I guess not having magic is just something I'm going to have to get used to," I said. "Or rather, knowing it exists, but that I can't use it."

Alex nodded. "I get that that's tough," he said. "But there's something else you should keep in mind too."

"What's that?" I wondered.

"When you're teaching your classes and you cover things like phones and social media, your students are going to be sitting there, learning for the first time about something they never knew existed, and just like you with magic, they're going to have to come to terms with the fact that the thing they've just learned about is something that exists and that they're probably never going to properly experience for themselves."

I opened my mouth to argue the point, but then closed it. Alex did have a point there. Even if one of my students got themselves a phone, none of their friends would have one, so they'd have nobody to text. If they made themselves an Instagram account, they wouldn't have anyone to follow besides muggle strangers. They'd never experience these things the same way that muggles do. So in a way, it was kind of the same.

"Yeah, you're right," I realized. "Hey, thank you. For not leaving when I told you to."

Alex grinned. "Anytime," he replied. "Now come on, it's time for dinner."