Torn
A tall sandy haired boy stared up at the sky as he walked across a sunny field. Around him, hundreds of other teenagers were milling about, talking, laughing, and gossiping. Everything seemed peaceful and serene, until a large object landed on top of the boy with a thud.
"God damn it, Andrew. Get off me NOW!"
"Ben, I did it for your own good. You have spent most of the time staring at the sky waiting for Chloe to write back to you. You have to get it through your thick skull that she HATES you. She is NOT going to write back to you. Now, can you please stop acting like a pathetic loser and give me my best friend back?"
"She might not hate me. I have known Chlo for my entire life and she can be forgiving. Maybe she will forgive me and..."
"And what," Andrew interrupted. "Take you back. Be yours again? Run all the way back here from England and tell you that she wants to be with you forever? Get with it, buddy. Come on, we have History of Magic."
"History of Magic, right." With one last longing look at the sky, Ben turned and shuffled off after his friend.
Chloe didn't feel like eating anything, but she knew she would face an inquisition if she just blew off breakfast entirely. Even though she had only known Katie for a few months, that girl knew everything and did not know how to let anything go. Sighing, Chloe ran down the stairs and entered the Great Hall, and ran right into Oliver Wood.
"Oh, Ollie. I am so sorry I didn't see you there."
Oliver took a look at Chloe's face, where the paths that the tears had taken were clearly visible. He cleared his throat and looked her directly in the eyes. "Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?"
Chloe shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes again. "Damn it, Ben," she thought to herself. "Why do you always make me cry?"
"Chloe, do you want me to get Katie for you?" Oliver interrupted her internal monologue.
"No, thanks though. I think I need to get something to eat." Without realizing what she was doing, Chloe turned to Oliver and wrapped him in a huge hug, with tears streaming down her face. Oliver held her, trying his best to be comforting. Chloe drew away and looked up at Oliver.
"I'm sorry. I got tears all over your robes."
"It's alright, Chloe. It'll dry. You should go find Katie. I have to go set up some new plays for the Quidditch team."
"Bye, Ollie."
Oliver turned and walked away. When he got halfway down the corridor, he sighed, stopped, and turned around. "Hey, Chloe!"
"Yeah?"
"If you want me to pound him, I will."
"Thanks, Oliver. I don't really know what I want, but the offer is a nice one."
Oliver grinned. "Just trying to be a knight in shining armor. Did it work?"
"Not even a little bit," Chloe laughed. "But you have potential." With that, Chloe, feeling much happier, flounced into the Great Hall to join Katie and figure out what to do.
Oliver was leaning against a post, watching her enter the Hall. "Do you hear that? I have got potential." he says to himself, before plodding off towards the Quidditch pitch.
"Oh my God, Chloe! What are you going to do?" Katie whispered over the drone of Professor Binns. Surprisingly, Katie had not interrupted Chloe once as she told her story and Katie was an excellent audience.
"I don't really know. I sent him a letter and said that we would talk through the fireplace in the Common Room tonight. I don't know if he is going to go for it, but I think we have some problems to work out. I mean, he WAS my best friend for almost my entire life. It's weird without him to talk with and joke with."
"Not that," Katie said, with a sigh of exasperation. "What are you going to do about your relationship?"
"We don't have a relationship, Katie. We don't even have a friendship. We have nothing at all."
"Will you ever tell me what exactly happened between you and Ben?" Katie asked. "It might help me understand the situation better."
"I hope you got time because it's a long story," Chloe whispered.
"We're are sitting in Binns' class. I have all the time in the world.
"Okay," Chloe said. "Here goes nothing."
"Ben and I were best friends growing up, probably because our parents were close. We were inseparable when we were younger and everyone used to joke how perfect we were together. We both got accepted to the Salem Academy and it was there that I met this guy named Jake. Jake seemed like he was a great guy on the surface, but he was really an asshole. He used to try to hit me and in a month, I had changed completely. Ben walked in one day and saw Jake pinning me against the wall and choking me. He flew in the room and kicked the shit out of Jake and took me away from it all. Then, a few months later, I started to have these feelings for him and on Valentine's Day of my first year, we started dating."
"Awww, he was like your hero," Katie cooed
Chloe ignored the comment. "We were together almost three years when I found out that I had to move to England. When I told Ben, he got really upset and left for a walk to clear his head. He was gone for a few hours and then I went to find him. I found him making out with this bitch, Rachael. I told him that I didn't ever want to speak to him again. Two weeks later, I finished school and moved to England. We didn't even say goodbye."
"Oh my God, Chloe. That sounds like it was just horrible."
"It wasn't fun," Chloe said with a half smile. "I still feel like I was the one to blame because I totally wrote him off for a mistake."
"Well, you have to ask yourself two things," Katie began. "First, you have to ask if you still feel anything for Ben. Secondly, you have to figure out if things would be different if you were still in America."
"I know things would be different, Kate. He never would've gotten upset and left if I hadn't had to tell him that I was moving halfway across the fucking world!"
"That may be true, but maybe that announcement just sped up the inevitable."
"I don't know. All I know is that I am leaving things open and seeing if he decides to meet up with me."
"Chloe, do you want him to talk to you?"
"Honestly, I do. I just hadn't wanted to admit it to myself."
An owl started tapping on the stained class window of a beautiful Victorian style mansion. The professor of the class pretended to ignore its presence, but the persistence of the owl paid off. Five minutes later, the Professor opened the window and the owl delivered a letter on the lap of a young man.
"Mr. Benjamin Kirkland! What on earth is so important that an owl had to interrupt my class?"
"I'm sorry, Professor Hutchins. I didn't even know that I was receiving an owl. I apologize. Can I excuse myself for a few moments?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kirkland. You want me to let you read your letter? Well, how about you sit and read it here in front of everyone."
"No, sir. I can wait." At least I hope I can, Ben thought to himself. It's from Chloe, I just know it is. I recognize the owl.
Fifteen minutes later, the rest of the class was filing out of the classroom, while Ben ripped open the letter. He read it quickly, frowning slightly. "Not what you expected," his friend, Andrew, asked him.
"Not really. She didn't take me back but she didn't blow me off completely either."
"Well, at least she didn't blow you off completely. Look at it logically. Did you honestly expect her to take you back just like that?"
"No, but I was hoping…"
"Loser," Andrew joked. "Look, now you only have two options; meet her through the Floo Network or don't. I have to run, I have detention in a half hour and I want to eat."
"See you later," Ben muttered as his friend left. He checked to see if anyone was around. He smiled. "I just might get my Chloe back."
The rest of the day passed in a blur for Chloe, Katie, and their Hogwarts friends. Chloe and the Gryffindor Quidditch team ate a picnic outside, with the twins torturing the Giant Squid. Eventually the squid grew tired of being tickled and spewed ink all over everyone. This caused a great "ink wrestling" match, with Chloe coming out as the victor, mostly because Oliver kept slipping down every time she got near him.
At quarter to midnight, only Katie and Chloe remained in the Common Room. Chloe was pacing around nervously and Katie was playing solitaire with a deck of exploding cards. Just as the clock struck midnight, Katie ran out of moves and the cards erupted in smoke, slightly burning her eyebrows. "I'm going to go wait for you upstairs, Chloe. Good luck, sweetie." Katie walked over and gave Chloe a hug and made her way up to the dormitory.
Chloe watched her retreating figure nervously. "Nice room. I like the colors." Ben voice sounded from behind her. Chloe quickly and subconsciously ran her fingers through her hair and turned.
"Hi," she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Hey, Chlo." Ben smiled at her briefly, before nervously staring at the floor. "How have you been?"
"I've been pretty good. I made some new friends. And I love this school, but I still miss Salem. You?"
"I've been keeping busy. Mom and Dad just bought a new swimming pool. Things at Salem are the same as always, except that you're not there."
"I didn't even think that you would miss me."
"Chloe, I have missed you since the day you stopped speaking to me. It killed me to see your family going to the Muggle airport, knowing that I was probably never going to see you again."
"If it hurt you so much, why didn't you do something about it?" Chloe asked, her eyes brimming with tears. 'Don't start to cry,' she said to herself. 'Don't you dare let him see you cry.'
"Because I was afraid to make things worse. I know you, maybe even better than you know yourself. If I would have come up to you and tried to say goodbye or apologize, you would've just stared at me and walked away. Admit it"
"You're probably right," Chloe agreed. "I was so angry at you for the Rachael thing, and was so upset that you didn't even try to say goodbye"
"Chloe," Ben began. "I did try to say goodbye. I followed you to the airport to try to make things right, but I had no idea what to do. I just stood there and watched the plane leave."
"Why did you do it?" Chloe asked, the tears finally spilling over.
"Why did I follow you to the airport?"
"No. Why did you...you.." Chloe trailed off.
"Kiss Rachael?" Ben finished, as Chloe nodded. "I didn't even know what was happening; it all happened so fast. One minute I was telling her about how upset I was about losing you, and the next we were kissing. I would love to tell you it was all her fault, but I honestly do not know how it got started. I just know that as it was happening, my brain was telling me to stop. And I was starting to pull away when you caught us. I know that doesn't make anything any better, but I need you to know that I was trying to stop it because I thought of you and the pain it would cause you…" Ben stopped his speech and began to cry. Chloe sat next to him on the scarlet couch.
"Ben," she began, but Ben cut her off.
"Chloe, I need to finish," he said through his tears. "I have loved you for my entire life. I don't know how to make things right, but if I did, Merlin knows that I would have done it by now. You mean the world to me, Chloe. I know that being a couple may be impossible, but I hope that we can be friends again. I miss you."
"I miss you too," Chloe said, crying equally as hard. "Ben, you hurt me so badly. I had silly visions of us getting married and having children. I never would have dreamed that you would do something like that. When I found out I had to move here, I was devastated, but then I realized that I could face anything as long as I had you. Then I didn't have you and my whole world came crashing down on top of me."
"I am so so sorry, Chlo-Worm," Ben whispered in her ear.
"You haven't called me that since we were little kids," Chloe whispered back.
"I know. I was going for the innocent act."
"Ben, we haven't been innocent for a long time."
"Very true." Ben reached for Chloe's hand. "Chloe, I have to be going back. What do you say? Can we at least be friends again?"
Ten minutes later, Chloe trudged upstairs to find Katie waiting for her.
"Well…" Katie asked.
"I can't believe it," Chloe said. "Katie, I kissed him. Not just a little kiss either, a full out 'I want you' kiss."
"Well, things have gotten interesting around here," Katie said with a smirk