CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN
As Jane leaned against the parapet of the Astronomy Tower next to Will that night, her hands twitched towards the cigarettes in her pocket out of habit, but she stopped herself. She was really tired from the long train ride, but Will had wanted to talk to her about something, and she was nervous about what it was because he hadn't sounded too happy about it. So far, they'd just been standing there in silence as Will worked up the courage to say something.
The more time that passed, the more anxious Jane became, making her want a cigarette even more. She just took to fiddling with her lighter. Will opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but he shook his head and stayed silent. Jane let out a sort of frustrated noise.
"Oh, come on, Will, spit it out!" she said. "What is it?"
Will looked at her and sighed. Jane gave him a funny look.
"You didn't, like, cheat on me or anything, did you?"
"What? No! God, no," Will said, shaking his head and trying to clear his thoughts.
Jane let out a sigh of relief.
"Well, what is it then?" she asked, still a little worried.
Will looked at her with sad eyes and swallowed hard before opening his mouth again.
"It-it's about the Yorkshire team," he said.
Jane felt like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. She had thought this conversation was going to be about something far worse.
"Oh, Will, they didn't pick you?" she asked. "But wait, I thought you said they weren't supposed to let you know until the end of next month."
"No, no, they did pick me," he said. "They had to choose a little earlier than expected."
Jane let out a small laugh and smiled brightly at him.
"Oh, Will, that's great!" she said, hugging him tightly.
Will closed his eyes as he gently pulled away from Jane and held her at arm's length. Jane was confused by the almost painful expression on his face. Her smile faded a bit.
"I don't understand," she said. "Why aren't you excited about this? You've been obsessing about it all school year, and they picked you. Why do you look like someone's just died? You should be happy; we should be celebrating!"
Will was quiet for a moment, and Jane waited for him to explain with a confused look on her face. He shook his head.
"Jane, they didn't pick me to be a reserve," he said quietly.
Jane was really confused now.
"What do mean? You just said that they—"
"No," Will said, "I'm on the team, but I-I'm not—Jane, I'm on first line."
Jane didn't quite comprehend what he was saying at first. When it finally sank in, Jane felt like that weight that had been lifted off her shoulders just seconds ago had just been dropped right on top of her chest, like it was crushing her lungs, and she couldn't breathe for a moment.
"But, um, that-that means that I won't get to see you," Jane said, putting everything together.
Will nodded a little before hanging his head. Jane could feel tears stinging her eyes, and she immediately wiped them away before they could fall. She took in a deep breath and forced the best smile she could manage.
"Well, that-that's great!" Jane said in a voice that would've been cheery if it hadn't been shaking.
Will looked up at her, but she wasn't making eye contact with him.
"We, uh, we need to celebrate," Jane said, beginning to pace back and forth, not taking her eyes off her hands as she wrung them together.
"Jane," Will said, but she didn't seem to hear him, or pretended not to.
"We need to tell everybody," she said, talking more to herself than to Will. "You worked really hard for this, and you deserve it."
"Jane."
"We to need, um, set up a party in the common room. May-Maybe next weekend, and-and—"
"Jane!" Will said loudly, snapping Jane out of her train of thought.
She stopped pacing and looked at him. It was written all over her face that she was trying very desperately to hold back her tears. Will walked up to her and grabbed her hands, stopping her from twisting them so hard. He gently rubbed his thumbs over the back of her hands.
"You don't have to do that," he told her. "You don't have to pretend to be happy about it."
Jane's eyes welled with tears as she found it harder to fight them back. She looked down at their hands.
"Yeah, I do," she said in a quiet, shaky voice that made Will's heart sink. "What kind of person would I be if—I mean, it'd be selfish of me to…"
Jane couldn't seem to find the right words, and a lump had formed in her throat, making it difficult to speak anyway. Will closed his eyes and rested his forehead on hers.
"It's okay," he whispered to her.
Jane couldn't hold her tears back anymore, and she began to cry as Will wrapped her in his arms tightly. Jane clung to him, almost afraid to let him go.
The next week felt like absolute torture, but Jane managed to keep a smile on her face. She and Will had decided that they weren't going to ruin the time they still had left with each other by moping over something that should've been good news. Jane and Will both sort of pretended like it wasn't happening, which was made difficult because Jarod and Brenton had told the whole school. Every time someone stopped them in the corridors to congratulate Will, both of their hearts sank a little. Even Quidditch practice was a constant reminder of what was to come.
Of course, while they waited dreadfully for the end of the term, Jane and Will were inseparable. They were always together, save for when one of them had classes. Jane hardly ever slept in her own dorm anymore, opting to stay with Will at night, falling asleep on his chest and wishing that she could stay like that forever.
When Will was in class, and Jane wasn't, Jane wanted to be alone most of the time. However, her friends wouldn't let her spend too much time alone. They kept telling her that it wasn't good for her to isolate herself. She didn't ever really bother to argue with them because she knew that they were right, but it didn't stop her from wanting them to leave her alone sometimes. She didn't like the feeling of having a babysitter. It was like they took shifts: Remus and Peter sometimes, Mary and Marlene some other times. Frank and Alice, Sirius, James and Lily.
Jane liked it better when James and Lily were with her. So often, they were too busy arguing with each other to even try and get her to talk to them. Plus, they were good entertainment to take her mind off things if only for a little while. Remus and Peter never really prodded her to talk about anything either; she usually just sat and played Wizard's Chess with Remus. She hadn't won a game yet, but she was getting a little better at it. She even won her first game of Exploding Snap against Peter, though she had a feeling that he had let her win.
Jane also didn't really mind Alice and Frank or Mary and Marlene all that much. Frank liked to tell her really dumb jokes to make her laugh, and Alice always seemed to have a stash of candy hidden in her bags. Mary and Marlene liked to lay around the dorm and read magazines. They'd braid her hair and paint her nails for her as they updated her on all the school gossip. The only thing that really seemed to get Jane down was seeing how happy Frank and Alice were together. Even Mary and Marlene, though they were hiding their relationship, made Jane envious. They got to be with each other while hers and Will's relationship was going to fall apart as soon as term ended.
Sirius was the worst of them all because he tried so hard to get Jane to talk about it, to talk about how she was feeling. Jane wasn't exactly sure what he wanted her to say. It sucked profoundly, and there wasn't anything she could do about it, and that pretty much summed it up. Sirius seemed to think that she was bottling everything inside, but really, there wasn't much to it. She was sad, and she felt guilty about being sad; she thought that she was displaying those emotions well enough. On the one hand, all she wanted really wanted to do was cry about the whole thing, but at the same time, she wanted to be happy for Will. She was confused about how to feel; therefore, she was confused about what to say and how to act.
On the rare occasions that Jane did find herself alone, she tried to imagine what life was going to be like without Will. But it was a hard thing to do, and it hurt way too much to try and think about for too long. And it didn't just hurt emotionally; it was a physical pain, like a terrible visceral feeling of someone punching her really hard in her chest, knocking out all the air in her lungs.
To make matters worse, she just kept hearing Tyler's voice ringing out inside her head: "Long distance relationships don't really work out too well…"
Will was having a difficult time as well. Jarod and Brenton tried cheering him up some, but like Jane, when the two of them weren't with each other, Will liked to be alone. He had written letters to his parents, telling them about how he was feeling, about all the second guessing he was doing on going through with this whole thing. They didn't understand. They kept telling him that this was his future he was talking about throwing away—and all for "some girl."
It made him angry when they called her that. Jane wasn't just "some girl," she was everything to him. His parents kept trying to tell him that he'd get over it, that the pain of heartbreak doesn't last forever. They tried assuring him that he'd fall in love again with someone else. But Will didn't believe them, and even if he did believe he'd fall in love later on with someone else, he wouldn't want to.
Will stressed himself to the point of physical sickness sometimes. He had a hard time believing that he was ever going to be okay at some point. And there was the little voice in the back of his head that said: You don't have to leave.
He had already talked to Jane about this, about the possibility of him not accepting the position, but she wouldn't hear any of it. She told him that he had to go, that he might not ever get another opportunity like this again. Still, the thought was there, and between N.E.W.T.s reviews and Quidditch and this whole big ordeal, Will was completely drained.
With the deadline for his response just around the corner, Jarod and Brenton were getting worried. Will hadn't sent the letter yet, and they were beginning to think that he wasn't going to. Whenever they asked him about it, he just kept saying that he was going to send it, but he never did. Once, Brenton even offered to take it up to the Owlery for him, but Will had finally snapped at him and told him to bugger off, that he was going to do it himself. However, he didn't do it, so Jarod and Brenton told the only person that they knew Will would listen to.
That Sunday as Jane and Will sat on the couch in the Gryffindor common room, looking at one of Jane's scrapbooks and laughing about some picture from back before the Christmas holidays, they were accompanied by Jarod and Brenton. Jane looked up at Brenton who'd just sat beside her.
"Whatcha doing?" he asked.
"Looking at pictures," she told him, motioning to the scrapbook in Will's lap.
"Oh, look, that's right after we crushed Slytherin last term," Brenton said, getting side-tracked and pointing to a picture of the team back in November.
Jarod rolled his eyes at Brenton and sat down on the arm of the couch.
"What do you guys want?" Will asked.
"First of all, ouch, I mean, we're your best friends; we can't just want to hang out with you?" Brenton said in a mock offended tone.
"Second of all, we were wondering, seeing as how the deadline is Wednesday, when you were planning on sending your letter in?" Jarod asked.
Will groaned a little in frustration, and Jane furrowed her brow.
"Will, I thought you told me you'd already written it," she said.
Will scowled at Jarod.
"I have," he told her. "I just haven't sent it yet. Don't worry; I'm going to."
"Yeah, I know you are. Today," Jane said, standing up and heading towards the stairs to the boys' dorms.
"Jane, wait—I hate you guys," Will said to his friends before following Jane up the stairs.
When he got to his dorm, he found Jane going through the drawers in his bedside table. She looked up at him when he walked in.
"Where is it?" she asked. "Where's the letter? Give it here."
Will reluctantly grabbed the Advanced Charms book off the foot of his bed and pulled an envelope out of it. Jane reached for it, but Will pulled it out of her reach.
"Wait, Jane, are we not even gonna talk about this?" Will asked.
Jane snatched the envelope out of his hand.
"There's nothing to talk about, Will," she said, opening the envelope and reading the letter to make sure that it wasn't actually a letter telling them that he was refusing the offer.
Jane looked up at him with a tired expression and sighed before tucking the letter back into the envelope and sealing it.
"Let's go to the Owlery, okay?" she said, holding out her hand to him.
Will gave her a sort of defeated look before taking her hand in his and squeezing it a bit.
Their trek to the Owlery was mostly in silence. Will was wondering how Jane was doing this. He had tried to deliver this letter at least five times, but he always turned back halfway to the Owlery. He didn't understand how she had already made her mind up for sure that he was going. Didn't even a little part of her want him to stay?
When they finally reached the Owlery, Asha flew down from her resting place and stuck her foot out happily—Jane hadn't been writing many letters lately. But before Jane could attach the letter to her owl's foot, Will put his hand over hers to stop her. Asha hooted indignantly at him and nipped at his hand.
"I don't have to go," Will said quietly.
"Will—" Jane started in a tired voice.
"Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that you want me to leave?"
"It's not about what I want," Jane said. "You've been dreaming of this since you were a little kid, Will. You used to talk about it all the time. You want this more than anything in the world, remember?"
"Not more than I want you," Will told her quietly, brushing some loose hair behind her ear.
Instantly, that visceral feeling came back to Jane, making it kind of hard to keep her breathing steady. A lump was forming in her throat, and though no tears had swelled in her eyes yet, she could feel the slight burn in her tear ducts.
"This is your dream, Will. This is it right here," she said in a squeaky voice as she shook the letter in front of him. "I can't, and I won't, let you throw it away all because of me. I wouldn't forgive myself knowing that you gave this up for me. And you'd say the same thing to me if the tables were turned, and you know you would, so please, don't try and fight me on this."
Will cupped Jane's face in his hands and looked at her for a long time.
"I just don't wanna leave you," he said in a shaky voice.
"I know," Jane said quietly.
Will closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. Jane felt something wet fall onto her cheek, and she opened her eyes to see that Will was crying. She gently brought a hand up to his cheek and brushed one of the tears away before wrapping her arms around his neck as Will let his hands fall to her waist. And they kissed for a long time, and it was one of the most amazing kisses Jane had ever experienced, but it was made bittersweet from the salty taste of their tears as they ran unchecked down both their faces and mingled with their lips.
They finally pulled out of the kiss, but their faces were still only inches apart. And in a constricted voice, Will whispered to her:
"I love you so much, Jane."
"I love you too," she whispered back.
When they finally let go of each other, Will attached the letter onto Asha's leg, and they watched her fly away until she was nothing more than a speck in the sky, disappearing along with a future they had once hoped they'd have together.