Divorce
He wakes up early the next morning. He deals with the usual realization that he has to endure yet another day as the sleep subsides and he begins to fully awake. Beside him Lily is still asleep breathing peacefully on the side of her pillow as if she never took a sip of alcohol. As if she never tried to drown her sorrows in that mind altering substance. He gets out of bed quickly and walks downstairs to the kitchen in his pajamas. Once there, he puts a pot of water in the coffee maker and starts to make eggs as he charms some bread to toast and butter itself. It takes a few minutes for the coffee to finish and when it does he pours it into a mug adding two sugars and a dash of cream. He smiles as he remembers her saying how she only likes a dash. Not a bit or a spoonful but a dash.
He isn't sure how to describe it, not even to himself, because his connection with her has become so awry. She's his wife, has been since he was nineteen years old and he knows that deep within himself he loves her. That deep within himself he's waiting to break free of the mental constraints he placed on himself. He's waiting for her to break free as well. But now, it's like they're stuck in some limbo, some desert void of the emotions a person needs to be classified as human. Stuck in a desert a pain he can't seem to find his way out of no matter how hard he tries. How can someone love anyone lacking in all feelings? Love someone who can hardly even love themselves? It's the reason for the rift between them. Both are lost in a sea of pain not wanting to break free. Not wanting to ask for help from the one person who can save them because the mere remembrance of their love, the mere touch of a hand, brings back memories of a loss neither can ever forget. It's the reason for her coldness and his depression. Whenever she looks at his face she is reminded of her daughter that died such a short time ago. Whenever he sees her, sees her dull eyes and aloof expression, all he can think of is his wonderful Gabriella. His beautiful and charming daughter he would do anything to get back.
He places the food on a tray and carries it up the stairs humming quietly to himself. She stirs in her sleep as he enters the room and he places the tray of food next to her on the night stand. He watches her before waking her. Watches her before the lines come back to his face and before her depression becomes evident because its moment like these, moments when life isn't tormenting her that he can pretend the past three years never happened. He can pretend their nineteen years old and in love. He can pretend that life didn't destroy the one thing he needs to survive. It's moments like these, when she is blissfully unconscious, that he cherishes above all else because its the only time she's free. After a few moments he strokes her hair and gently moves his hand over her soft skin until her eyes flutter open. He smiles,
"Good morning, Lily." He says quietly as she looks at him startled. Tears form in her eyes as it does every time she wakes up after a night of drinking. She hates how weak she is. She hates how she can't help but let her despair get the better of her.
"I'm so sorry, James. I'm so…" but she falters and turns away as a solitary tear falls down her face.
"There's nothing to apologize about, honey. We all…" but he stops.
"I hate how you care for me like a child." She says resentfully as he places the tray before her. "I hate it, James. I hate it."
He doesn't though. He can't hate taking care of her because her well-being means more to him than his own. He can't hate taking care of her because there's that dream that one day she'll wake up from this eternal sleep, wake up and realize that life can go on after death, that shunning those she loves isn't the way to live.
"I don't mind, Lily. Its part of the job description right, in sickness or in health?" he says jokingly and smiles at her.
She flinches as he says that. "I'm not sick." She says like a child who's about to be scolded and closes her eyes as if to take the memory of their wedding day out of her mind. It's one of those moments she would forget if she could.
"Yes you are, Lily. This is becoming too frequent. You can't keep hurting yourself like this." He says to her quietly taking her hand. She snatches it away.
"I don't care James." She says her weak voice just above a whisper. "I don't care if it hurts me because my joy is gone." Tears start leaking out of her eyes. "My joy has died." He sits on the edge of the bed and wraps his arms around her. It surprises him that she leans into his chest.
"I hurt too, Lily. You aren't the only one who lost her you know. We both did and we both suffer because it." He says sternly in her red hair feeling like he's talking to a child. She stays silent.
"You have to stop drinking like this, Lily. I don't care that you don't care if you live or die. I don't care if you look around at your life and see nothing worth living for. Because I need you to stay alive. I need you to be healthy." He forcibly says his eyes becoming watery.
He stares into her eyes and she looks back at him with a blank expression. He squeezes her hands, lightly at first and than tighter and tighter hoping for a response, but all she does is turn away from him and take a sip of her coffee.
"Lily… Red." He says desperately using his old nickname for her desiring more than anything a reaction from her listless demeanor, desiring a smile, a small kiss on the cheek. Desiring even a dark scowl and words of anger because even her temper is better than this. He hates it, hates how she gave up. And he knows he isn't any better. He knows he gave up on the many principles she now knows are false, but seeing her thus is unbearable for him. He can't take her emptiness and indifference anymore and all he wants to do is make her happy again. All he wants to do is make her live again. Is that love, he thinks. Is love this want, the need for her happiness because her pain affects me so deeply?
"James, please, stop pretending that things haven't changed. I'm tired of you acting as if… as if we're still seventeen! As if we're about to graduate from school." She says angrily after a few moments.
"Lily, I care about you. Why do you always get so mad when I say that?"
"Why do you keep trying to recapture something that isn't there anymore? Why do you insist on… on tormenting me with these memories I just want to forget?" She says crying through her anger, her voice louder than normal.
"What is it you want from me, Lily? To leave you? To give you a divorce? Is that what you want?" He asks her in a threatening, desperate whisper. It was the first time either of them spoke on the subject of divorce.
She stays silent and after a few moments she watches him leave, her spirit defeated as usual. A divorce, she thinks. The thought has crossed her mind, the thought of parting with him because of these dreadful memories his mere presence brings back to her. The thought crossed her mind as she sat in Gabriella's room one day, the bed still made because it is the shrine she kept of her lost daughter, and she realized she could never move on from this disappointment and that she was holding him back from a happy existence he could have elsewhere. She's holding herself back as well. But every time she thinks about it, about packing her bags and trying to move on with her life she gets a throbbing pain in her chest and falls to the floor in a quick swoop. She can't imagine it. She can't imagine a life when he isn't there because, because he's James, her childhood love, her dream for the future that has long since died out. He's James, the man she once loved so much it hurt, the man she would have died for, killed for, to ensure his well-being. He's James and she may be lost in her melancholy, may not know if the love she once felt still exists, but she can't imagine surviving, can't imagine living, without him.
When he said that just now, "What is it you want from me, Lily? To give you a divorce?" it was as if a part of her heart shattered. She wanted to scream at him, scream No, no I don't want a divorce. No I don't want to live without you. She hates it sometimes, ignoring his constant conversation, his constant tactics to bring her out of her shell. And she could never live without it, live without knowing someone still cares. Because she knows he does, knows he cares despite his outward charisma. She knows he cares despite his wandering eye, his few infidelities she owes more to her coldness than anything else.
She sometimes wishes she could be like she was before. She wishes she could look at him and feel a shiver go through her back. She wishes to look at him and not remember the daughter that died in his arms. She wishes she could get rid of her cold aloofness, get rid of the walls she put around herself because maybe, just maybe, if she allowed herself to feel again she would be happy.
She doesn't pretend to be a genius on the matter of love. Doesn't pretend to know all the answers, all the tricks when playing the lovers game. So she can't explain to anyone, herself included, her feelings for the once dashing James Potter because she just doesn't understand them. For most of the time she completely cold and indifferent towards him hating him because of the sorrow he causes her, but then the thought of him leaving her is too horrendous for her to even want to contemplate.
She finishes eating the breakfast he made for her and heads downstairs to where he's reading the paper. She walks to the sink and starts washing the dishes, scrubbing her spotless plates to keep her hands busy and mind off the hazel eyes watching her.
"You could use magic, you know?" he says in his arrogant, know-it-all manner after a few minutes of observing her.
"I know that." She spits at him, "But I'm tired of magic, sick of it all and everything and everyone that has to do with it." She turns as she speaks and stares at him in the eyes. What she meant to say was, "James, Honey, I'm tired of being alive. I'm tired of being sad."
"Everyone?" he questions feeling a lump in his throat at the thought of her hating him.
She narrows her eyes at him, glares at his soft, black hair because it resembles their daughter's too much. "Everyone." she repeats.
"Then why stay?" he questions getting angry, "Why stay in a world you hate with a husband you care nothing about?" He spits it her and she cringes at his words.
"Maybe I should go. Maybe it's time we stop fooling ourselves." She says in her usual defeated manner.
He looks at her then, sees her for the first time as pathetic, as completely weak.
"Fine. Don't forget to bring your drinks when you go." He says to her spitefully.
"Don't forget to bring your whores." She retorts.
He stops when she says that, stops the fighting and looks at her in the face. For the first time he feels completely defeated, feels exhausted from the constant fighting, tired of making a big show of normalcy to a world that couldn't even begin to comprehend his pain.
"Is this what you want, Lily? I need to know. Do you want to leave me?" He says with urgency in his voice. She only stares at him, the empty stare she has already mastered, the soulless stare that is less than alive.
"I don't know." She says after a few moments. "But maybe it's for the best if I do. What are we doing here, James? What's the point?"
"The point is that you're my wife and we're… we're supposed to get through this together. But you, you," he screams finally allowing himself to get out all the bitterness he feels towards her, "and your pride locked me out from the day of Gabby's funeral. You shut me out, Lily, so don't berate me on my scarce infidelities. Don't berate me on my drowning my sorrows in someone who actually wants my company because my wife would rather drink scotch than speak to me."
She was silenced by his tiny rant, silenced by his passionate words because it's been so long since she's seen him actually feel something. She cries then, cries silently and pretends as if no tears are falling down her face. She knows she's wronged him. She knows he's wronged her, and this, this constant rift between them is not what a marriage is. She used to be strong, used to take charge, and as she looks at him her head raises high in her old regal manner and she looks like the young girl of seventeen she used to be. The young girl who was impervious to all his words.
"Than maybe I shouldn't be your wife?" She spoke to him slowly and could hardly even hear the words coming out of her mouth, could hardly comprehend she spoke them because she needs him. She can't live without him because his presence is her torture, her very comfort.
All he does is nod his head. All he does is look at her quickly before walking out of the room, grabbing his cloak, and walking out the front door. If this were the old days she would have cried. If this were the old days she would have run after to him and screamed that she doesn't want to be without him, that she can't even imagine it. Instead she just turns around and finishes washing the dishes, pushing all thoughts of James and the matter of divorce out of her mind.
A/N I hope this story is to your liking. I hope I'm taking it in a good direction. I would enjoy some input because I am very unsure about this story. REVIEW!