The house is quiet whenever he leaves for work and she is again left inside her makeshift solitude she seems to thrive off of more than anything. She sits at the kitchen table and reads the Daily Prophet in silence as she tries her best to ignore the echoes of the past ringing in her ear. She does her best to ignore the sorrowful cries of yesterday, but as always it eats away at her as she realizes for the first time that she doesn't want to be alone. It eats away at her as she remembers, for the first time, how warm she felt when he wrapped his arms around her.
Being alone is tricky. Some people thrive off it. They thrive off of empty rooms and thrive off of the thoughts in their heads they love to contend with. They are the people that lurk in the shadows because crowds aren't as comforting as the painful loneliness that would eat away at their soul if they were to acknowledge the fact that they were, in actuality, in pain. Being alone is a wonderful thing. Having only yourself to rely on keeps your emotions safe and won't allow someone to break you. Being alone won't give life the satisfaction at tearing you apart over and over again. But it only works if your mind drowns in it. It only works if you are so lost within your pain you don't even remember what it was like to love a crowded space. If you don't even remember what it felt like to open your heart to the world and be so painfully, yet beautifully, vulnerable.
She remembers the exact moment she drowned. It was three months after the funeral and she was speaking to her mother about life after the death of her daughter. She remembers her mother trying to comfort her through her pain. She remembers her spouting philosophical nonsense that just seems so ridiculous to Lily whenever she thinks of it. But what she remembers most is her mother wiping her tears from her face. She remembers soft fingers touching her face as her mother told her, "Everything happens for a reason."
She lost her faith in that moment. She lost any ounce of will she had within her as that phrase left her mother's lips. She lost her faith as she looked into her mother's cold eyes and begged her mother to tell her one reason there could be for taking her daughter's life. She begged her mother to say one thing because how? How could her daughter's death be justified in such a demeaning way? How could it even be possible? Her mother just stared at her blankly and took another sip of her tea. She turned her eyes away from her broken daughter, ignored the desperate tears smudging her beautiful face and Lily's heart tore for the last time.
She hasn't been home since that day. She couldn't face her mother after that one moment when she took away all the hope that could have remained inside of her. She wonders if it was her mother that actually killed her. She wonders if this is her fault because she so savagely tore away her heart as she spoke about her daughter's death being some ordinary 'plan' and not the life-altering, soul sucking tragedy Lily knew it was. She closes her eyes and sees a girl falling from the sky. She closes her eyes and sees her mother calmly whispering words of hope. She closes her eyes and sees his face looking back. She sees him mouthing 'I love you' and then sees herself, holding a letter in her hand and tears falling down her face. It must have been all three.
She never really speaks about James' affairs to anyone. She likes to pretend that they don't exist. She likes to pretend that James did indeed remain faithful despite the fact that for months she couldn't even look at him. The first time she found out about his affairs she knew what was left of her heart broke. It wasn't him. She doesn't completely blame him because she knows, knows that if she didn't delve into her mind he would never have strayed. But she thought of him kissing someone else, holding someone else, and telling someone else that he loves her and she lost it.
She blames herself and over the years has gotten used to his wandering eye. Some people would call her a fool to stay with a husband of such blatant infidelity, but they can't understand. She pushed him to it. She pushed him to find comfort wherever he could since she so cruelly denied it to him and he did. He found comfort in those mere child beauties that made him feel seventeen again. In those beauties that could help him to forget whereas her face only helped to remember.
Of course she hates it. Cold or not. Love him or not. He's still her husband and it still hurts to know that he lies to her. Still hurts for him to climb into bed in the late night hours. She always knows where his been. Even in sleep the scent of cheap perfume reaches her nostrils and she wants to make a big show of coughing and gagging just so he could see how disgusting he is. So he could know without a doubt that she knows. So that each time he's with them he thinks of her, knows only her, and feels guilt because his wife is sitting alone at home waiting for him.
She never does though. She keeps her eyes closed. She keeps her breathing steady and she goes back into her dream world where she finds the freedom she can not achieve anywhere else. She never reprimands him for it. Never shows she has less than a blind eye unless it is a moment of anger when she burst out with all the sadness she feels. He does the same. He ignores her drinking until the point in which he can use it against her. They use each other's weaknesses to pain each other.
Does she love him? It's a question she always asks herself because she never once believed that a love like theirs could just fade away. But it seems that it has. It seems that everything they once were to each other has vanished and what, what is the point in continuing this charade? What is the point in trying so hard to regain something that seems to be lost forever?
She won't even fight to regain it. She won't lift a finger to win back their old relationship because she has nothing. There is nothing for her to fight for. For James? For an old life she doubts could ever again exist? She has nothing to fill her with her old passion so that she could indeed win a battle of the hearts. So she could indeed win in this war against melancholy.
She looks around her. She remembers moving in here with him. Remembers seeing this house for the first time and knowing it would be ideal for the family she planned to raise. When she was young she had always wanted to live in London. She wanted to get away from the boredom of the suburbs and live in the place excitement was born in. She was born for adventure. Born to be torn away from the muggle world because it was just too small for her to become what she wanted. She was meant for more, meant for the magical world because only within that would opportunities allow her to reach her astounding potential.
The tables have turned. More and more is this opportunistic world looking like the prison she escaped from so long ago. More and more are the walls closing in around her trapping her within life, within magic. The muggle world seems a place of new beginnings. A place to forget the debris of an old ruined life and begin from scratch. It is becoming her way to regain what she lost so long ago.
But to get there she has to cross a sea, climb over a mountain, and fight fire breathing dragons. To get there she has to forget about him, forget about this old life that haunts her so she could live. She wants to be alive again. She wants to smile. She wants to laugh. And with each day she stays here it becomes more of an impossibility. With each day a bit more of her dies and she knows that if she stays, if she doesn't leave, then she'll truly be dead.
But to go home. To go home to a mother whose notoriously cold and a father who was at work more than at home. Go home and see the face of a sneering sister and remember the coldness of her childhood. Go home to a life she promised never to return to because it feels beneath her. It feels beneath the new life she had so easily gained fifteen years ago. Go home, to that mother? to that even colder sister? She shivers at the thought and tries to wipe it far from her mind and pretend it's just like the fantasies she gets every other week. She pretends her longing soul isn't already reaching out for freedom because she can never bring herself to turn the doorknob and walk out the door. She can never bring herself to leave because she thinks she may leave her heart in London if she goes. If she walks away, she'll leave a piece of her soul.
If she stays, what then? If she leaves, what then? There are no answers, no reason for her to go or to stay but she knows one thing. If she goes at least she knows there's a chance at salvaging her broken world. If she goes, at least there's a chance for happiness in years to come because golden eyes won't haunt her every waking moment. There is a chance for something to change because she's stuck in a limbo she just wants to escape from.
She breathes in deeply and cries at that thought. She cries small tears she doesn't bother to wipe away and heads upstairs knowing in her heart what she needs to do. Silent droplets fall down her face as she takes a suitcase out of the closet. It's time she stops fooling herself. It's time for her cowardice to disappear.
A/N: Hope you liked this chapter. I thought it was alright.