A/N: The first part of this chapter (the part with Lily and James interacting) was inspired by one of my best friends, actually; she'll hate me to death for saying that, considering what happens there, but it was her I originally wrote it about…before promptly warping it to fit the angst of the moment. Haha. But, with that being said, enjoy. :P

Side note: Things I'll Never Say (Avril Lavigne) and Leave Me Alone (The Veronicas) were the main reasons (besides my friend, lol) that this chapter came out the way it did. :) For James, Are You Happy Now (Michelle Branch) and Crash World (Hilary Duff) helped tons.

Lily

April 11th

Dear Diary,

I don't know what James Potter means to me anymore – that's the simple truth of the matter I'm about to rant about for the next few minutes. I don't know; whatever I thought before – just forget it. What I'm about to write is what I really feel – for everything. All the good and all the bad. Just listen; it'll somewhat make sense after I'm done.

See, it all started today, I was in my dormitory, rotting.

Yes, I was rotting.

I felt quite odd; like I was trapped. I didn't like being trapped, of course, but generally when I feel trapped, I can get out all right. I can fight my way out whenever I'm being held down (though some instances take longer than others do) and it has served me well. But today, while I was rotting, I was stuck inside my own head, and there was no escaping it.

I had never felt so confined before; there was no escaping these thoughts. I couldn't get myself to move. I lay back on my bed, wanting to run, scream, and rage, but finding myself incapable of doing any of it. My head was pounding with a dull ache, but I couldn't cure it. I couldn't cure any of what I was thinking of.

There was only one thing I wanted – James. I yearned for him. I dreamed about him. I got ABC's concerning him. His eyes, his smile, his hair, his face, his mouth – it was painful how much I needed every bit of him. I could've bled to death with the hurt of it all. I could've cried out all the fluid within me. I wanted him so, so badly, but I wasn't going to get him.

That was another thing that made it worse – being trapped while being free. I could go to James any day and tell him how I felt. But I couldn't – I had either the opportunity or the guts. Even though I tried to be strong after everything that's been going on, I didn't have the last couple of nerves required to let myself admit how I felt to another human being. The irony of life – what was never supposed to happen, one of the few things I hadn't been prepared for, had happened to me anyway.

Did I mention how much I loathe irony?

All I've ever wanted was to be loved, as has been stated before. That's all anyone has ever wanted, but that doesn't exclude my longing at all; I want to settle down with the right guy and let everything fall into place. Despite that, I was afraid of loving blindly, and only gave my heart away quietly so that I could easily take it back when I wanted it. This year had been the year I really gave myself to another, and what had I got to show for it? A huge mess of heartbreak. I don't want to go through that again, and that was why I wasn't in James's arms and kissing him with a passion.

Fear and desire – those are the two things that were circling through my mind, tormenting me. When you mix them with lethargic restlessness, you get a contradicting jumble that makes your head throb. My sense of survival tells me to work so that I can avoid this, but I can't; nowadays, I do my work in class, or else I won't get it done – that's the exact opposite of how I was at the beginning of the year. I'm starting to lose my mind, diary, and what bothers me the most about that is I'm losing it to James Bloody Potter.

To try to clear my poor little brain, I decided to go outside and get some fresh air – I had been cooped up in the school for too long. I went outside and sat on the stone steps outside of Hogwarts, and I just thought. It was a beautiful day, but I was, of course, feeling somber and reflective; being outside helped considerably though. While I was there, however, James decided that he must come and sit beside me; was he spying on me or something? How did he always know just when not to find me?

"Hey Lily," he greeted me cheerfully. "How are you?"

"I was fine, up until just now," I told him moodily.

He smirked. "Well, though your sentiment was extremely sweet, I'm asking because you look a little worried. Is there anything you want to talk about?"

How the hell did he always do it? How did he always pick up on what I felt and ask me if I wanted to talk? It was as though he knew exactly what was going on in my mind; I still stand by my theory on Legilimency.

"No; not to you, anyway," I told him nonchalantly, taking care to add a certain inflection on the statement to make it sound exactly opposite to what was really going on in my head.

"Do I sense some lingering doubts coming from you, Miss Evans?" he questioned after a momentary pause.

Merlin, I wanted to murder him for being so bloody perceptive. Since when had James Potter been perceptive??

"Why yes, you do," I decided to tell him. I mean, he'd earned it, hadn't he?

"I wonder why that is," he mused. "I think that I've been reasonably well-behaved lately; wouldn't you say?"

I snorted. "Yeah, sure." That one I meant; he had, by no means, been well-behaved.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He pretended to look extremely offended, but I just gave him another smirk.

"You know very well what it's supposed to mean; why do you even ask?" Yeah, why did he ask? He usually knew the answer before I even thought of it myself.

He sighed. "Evans, can I tell you something?"

"I have a feeling I'm going to be told no matter what I say." It was so easy to snipe at him; I wondered why it was that way.

"You're right," he agreed. "But I need to tell you that I really do want to take you out some time. It doesn't have to be anything fancy; just a trip to The Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer would work. Please?"

"I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I know that it wasn't that," I murmured.

"I've tried to ask you out so many times, Lily! Can't you agree to one of them? You may even have a good time; you won't know until you try though," he tried to convince me.

"No," I said curtly. "Not even if my life depended on it." Lies; it sickened me when I told such horrible lies, especially to him.

James licked his tongue with frustration. "Lily…"

"Don't say my name." I felt so awful and unworthy – I couldn't let him make my name sound like music, like he always did when he said it.

"Lils," he tried.

"Stop it."

"But that's not your name."

"It's a nickname – a type of name."

"That's not valid, Lils."

His teasing was cute, but I wasn't in the mood to take it – I asked him, "Are you trying to get yourself injured?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I doubt it."

We stared at each other with cool eyes, daring the other to speak first. It ended up being James, of course.

"All right, well, another time then."

"Whatever." I hadn't meant it to sound as harsh as it came out, but after I had spoken, there was no taking it back. I wanted to kick myself; why did I always lose my head when James was around?

He then surprised me by stroking a lock of my hair. "You've got gorgeous hair," he complimented me.

I raised my eyebrow; he had obviously not seen it in its customary tumbleweed form in the morning before I attacked it with hair products. "Not really."

That made him smile. "Lily, you always have something negative to say. Why not anything positive?"

"Oh go away," I said, unwilling to take our conversation in that direction. It didn't come across rudely, like I'd wanted, though; it came out as something I might to say to Leila when she's annoying me (which does admittedly happen often); it just seemed to come out in a playful sort of way. Irony again – the time I wanted to be nonchalant, it came out badly, but when I wanted it to come out badly, it didn't. Why couldn't life cooperate with me?

He did catch the accidental teasing in my voice though; I knew it when he spoke again. "Are you sure you want me to leave?" he asked, sounding almost flirty.

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't have said it," I pointed out waspishly.

He shrugged with an air of clear skepticism before getting up to join his friends. I was glad to see him go, but I was still thinking about how unusually…friendly our conversation had been; as you, my diary, know, that was kind compared to some of the things I've said to him in the past.

It felt natural, in a way, when he had been talking to me. It felt like I was talking to a friend I'd once known, lost touch with, and found once again years later. That's why I think that we've become friends now. Not bosom friends, but just on-the-surface friends. I'm not going to tell him all my secrets or hang around with him for the fun of it or anything, of course – I'm still going to keep a wall of some sort between us no matter what he says or what I feel – but I suppose I'll be a little bit nicer to him now.

I think that I will deeply regret this choice in a few days time, but I think I'll take the risk anyway.

I went back inside after that little incident, no longer happy outdoors, and I found Leila. She was lounging around in the common room, sipping a glass of water while doing her homework. When she saw me enter, she smiled and asked where I'd been.

"Out," I said. "How are you?"

"Fine," said Leila. "I saw James a minute ago though. He looked kind of pissed; did you say something to him?"

"Well, yes," I confessed. "I was outside, sitting on the steps, and he comes up and asks me if I'm all right."

"Aww, that's sweet of him," she said. "What did you say?"

"Simply put, I told him to bug off," I said.

Leila groaned. "Why the hell did you tell him that? He was trying to be nice."

"If he wanted to be nice, he would have left me alone," I insisted.

She rolled her eyes. "Lily, you're just being stupid right now. He loves you! Why can't you love him back?"

"Leils, love is not just a favor I can grant for him whenever I want," I said. "I believe in falling in love for real – heart, mind, and soul. I haven't felt like that about him just yet, and I won't be able to if you keep trying to push us together."

"I'm sorry," Leila said. "Really, I am, but you belong with him. It's just one of those things that you inexplicably know; you can't explain it, you can't describe it – you just know. You're going to be together one day, you and James, and I have to keep pushing, otherwise you won't go forward or make a move. You've already fallen for him heart, mind, and soul, honey; stop denying it."

She had hit the truth; she didn't even know how much so. I sighed and I said, "My heart, mind, and soul still belong to me and I will never give them away to a cause as trivial as a man." Of course, James was the farthest thing from trivial, but I wasn't about to tell Leila that any time soon.

Leila pushed her papers aside, and the look she gave me was the most severe I had ever seen. She put her hand on top of mine, and she said, "Lily, there comes a time when things change completely. There are people we will meet during these changes – some good, some bad, and some that are disguised – who hide what side they're on by putting on a façade. In life, you have to take the good ones to heart and push the bad ones out – but, of course, it's not always that easy. James Potter is one of those good people in disguise – he doesn't seem to be someone you would like, but once you take a few minutes to talk to him, he just is. If you don't embrace him now, Lily, you're going to miss your one big chance. You can't run away from yourself – you know how you feel, even if you don't tell anyone. Go for him; spread your wings and fly."

I swallowed hard and bit my lip, unable to think of a response. Finally, I found my voice; "I don't want to fly," I whispered.

"Well, when you're ready to live again, let me know," she said coolly, packing away her things. "Bye."

She left, and when she did, I got the distinct impression that I'd somehow offended her. Maybe it was because she had really tried to give me advice – advice that was actually quite helpful – and I'd responded in the most cowardly way feasible. I wasn't sure; I just lay across the sofa, aggravated with myself, and pulled you out of my bag, like I always do when I'm feeling that way. What would I do without you, diary? Leila and James, both pissed in one day! New record for me, I'd reckon.

Oh, wait, no; at the Firehouse, I pissed off James, Leila, and Kyleigh too – that was my record.

Geez, I really am a pitiful person, aren't I?

Anyway, I think that I'm just going to do exactly what I told Leila I would do – hide under my bed and hope everything goes away soon. In a perfect world, that tactic would work; things would be bright and sunny the moment I was ready to behave.

But, of course, we don't live in a perfect world; I mean, we can't be, if I'm here alone in the common room and James is off somewhere thinking I don't care about him when I do – I care about him more than is rational for a sixteen-year-old girl, and he doesn't even know it.

I just want to know though – why can't we live in a perfect world? Why can't things be bright and sunny like they used to be? And why in the name of Merlin can I not make myself just walk up to James Potter and tell him that I'm utterly obsessed with him and want to snog him until his lungs give out?

Answer that question for me, someone, and maybe this imperfect world of ours will redeem itself just a little bit.

James

April 11th

Dear Diary,

I'm at a point right now where I wonder why the hell I even try; Lily Evans really does hate me, and I can't do anything more about it – nothing.

Why am I so pessimistic and angry all of a sudden, you ask? Well, I think it's because today I found out that there are just some things in life that, though destined to work, won't. I thought I saw it flashed across the sky the first night I met her that we would be together, but I must have read it wrong; we weren't ever going to be together because she bloody hated me and still does. Everything I've been before this afternoon seems to be crashing down on me – my fame around the school, my many girlfriends, my athletic talents; they're the reasons Lily doesn't see me as a real person – they're the reason she thinks I'm just an over flirtatious prick when what I feel for her was and will always be something real. I wish I could start over and do everything right, but I know I can't. All I can do is try to move on and hope that one day, years in the future, Lily can spare a moment to think of me when she's out with her perfect husband and perfect family; it's the only thing I can think of to be with her somehow.

Unrequited love sucks on ice.

Out of everything I've ever wanted, it was Lily Evans that I've needed the most. That bloody girl is the reason I write in this damn diary; she is the reason I feel like I'm breaking apart at the seams, she is the reason I don't sleep, she is the cause of every major bout of misery I've suffered, she is the sole reason I want to exist, and what does she do about it? She gives me a sarcastic remark and blows me off. Just walks away without even looking back at me once and probably without giving a single thought to how I might be feeling. How can she just do that? How can she not care at all about the way she's just destroyed me yet again? There are only so many times she can break my heart without breaking the rest of me along with it.

I don't know who I am anymore; I really don't. I was James Potter, the fantastic Quidditch player who dates like crazy while off the pitch, but now, I'm nothing. It's like I've been living the cover of a lie – that I've been one thing, thinking it's who I am, but found that there's more somewhere inside. It's weird (and cheesy) to say this, but I'm feeling like I've found myself. I've found that there was a lot buried under my Quidditch glamour, but the problem is that now I don't know what to do with what I have. Am I supposed to give up what I've been doing before and find a new life at the age of sixteen? It's a bit too early to be having my mid-life crisis; what's wrong with me and how can I fix it?

The simple answer – Lily Evans. The more realistic answer – there is no answer at the moment, so try again later.

Now you probably want to know what actually happened, since I've ranted for quite a while now. Well, it was during the afternoon – it was nice out, and I had gone for a short walk. Actually, I'd wanted to admire the Quidditch field I wasn't allowed to play on just yet (we aren't allowed to play during the day – only during practice can we go out and play any Quidditch, which sucks), but the trip was, in essentials, just a walk. On my way back in though, I noticed Lily was sitting on the steps, looking rather moody. I can't resist her – of course I can't – so I went up to her and sat beside her.

"Hey Lily; how are you?" I asked her.

"I was fine, up until just now," she told me shortly.

"Well, though your sentiment was extremely sweet, I'm asking because you look a little worried. Is there anything you want to talk about?" It was just a simple question; I wanted to be of some use to her, rather than aggravate her, but I needed to know how I could help before I did anything. That was the reasoning for me asking – I swear it.

"No; not to you, anyway." She said it quite coldly; I was taken aback by the hostility. What had I done to deserve it? Asking questions was not against the law.

"Do I sense some lingering doubts coming from you, Miss Evans?" I asked her after that.

"Why yes, you do," Lily said snappishly.

"I wonder why that is," I said, trying out the mock-thoughtful approach in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. "I think that I've been reasonably well-behaved lately; wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah, sure," she said with a snort. How rude.

"What's the supposed to mean?" I had one last-ditch attempt at lightness.

"You know very well what it's supposed to mean; why do you even ask?"

I sighed; time to get to the point that had just come to me. "Evans, can I tell you something?"

"I have a feeling I'm going to be told no matter what I say."

"You're right," I said. "But I need to tell you that I really do want to take you out some time. It doesn't have to be anything fancy; just a trip to The Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer would work. Please?"

That, of course, started off a string of word games that pissed me off beyond belief. I'm not going to detail them, seeing as they're not important, but she is just so sassy! She always has something sarcastic to say, and it's always freely blunt – she doesn't give a damn about how I'm going to take it because she just assumes I won't care. How does she know that? She doesn't know me at all! She has never wanted to, but she never even took the time to try. I kept things light and flirty with her, because I still somehow loved her, but on the inside, I was fuming; how dare she?! I just couldn't get past the sheer arrogance of it – she always accused me of being arrogant while she herself bad-mouthed me like she was better than me and could just because I was softer on her. It was simply unbelievable, the way she acted.

I stormed right back to my dormitory, my day permanently ruined, and I found Remus doing his work on his bed. I flopped across my bed and lay there until Remus realized my presence and asked me what was up.

"What's up? Well, other than Lily Evans rejecting me for the bazillionth time this week, nothing," I told him sulkily.

Remus made his sympathetic noise and moved to the bed across from mine. "Aww, I'm sorry. What happened?"

I swiftly recounted the tale, and by the time I was done, I was ready to pull my hair out (which is weird, since I like my hair) and Remus was also looking a little pained. "What is her problem?" I finished up my angst with. "Why does she lead me on and then just leave me there to deal with whatever mess she left behind?"

"I'm sure she doesn't do it intentionally," Remus said. "Teenage girls are complex creatures; she probably had her own reasons for acting the way she did today."

"It's not just today though," I said. "It's every day for the last five years. I mean, on April Fool's Day, she actually looked at me and touched me like she loved me. Then today, she gives me this…this…this…stupid bitter routine! I've had enough of those; I just want her to love me back."

"It's kind of hard to convince someone to love you," he pointed out. "Love is a gradual thing – it can only be developed from trust and friendship. You can't cut straight from hate to love."

"I wish we could," I sulked. "She has me heart, mind, and soul, but she abuses it as though she has it for granted."

"Look, James, I'm not a psychologist, nor am I particularly experienced in having a relationship, so all I can really tell you is that if you really love her, you'll wait for her," he said simply. "I don't see why you insist on hanging on, but if you want to, feel free to do so. It won't be easy, but I'm sure the reward will be well worth it."

"Thanks for trying, Moony," I said with a heavy sigh. "I think I'll finish my Transfiguration homework now."

"Really? We don't have any today – oddly," Remus said.

"I know; I'm talking about last week's homework that I didn't do," I clarified. "See you."

Remus rolled his eyes, but went back to his own books, and I went to mine. Actually, I wrote in here instead of working, but I will once I'm done. It's just that I needed to get these thoughts out – I truly was hurt by her, and when I am, there's nothing more unbearable in the world. I want her to either love me back or give me my sanity back, but somehow, I can't have either; she's taken everything that I was, and now she won't give it back, nor will she return any of my emotions. It's not fair – not at all – but what am I supposed to do? I guess I'll wait, like Remus advised me to do; that reward…it had better be good, after all I'm giving for it.

Like I've said before though; Lily Evans has and always will have me heart, mind, and soul – she just needs to realize it and maybe, just maybe, give me a bit of her as well.

A/N: So guess what? I like high school…except the homework part. That's the part that keeps me from updating – you're lucky I didn't have as much today; that's why this is up right now rather than in another week or so. :P Don't expect me to do anything more for a few days though, okay? High school is pretty damn hard. But do review this chapter – your thoughts do help my process considerably. :) I know this chapter wasn't anything fabulous, but it was quite difficult for me, considering the angst I had to somehow pen down, as well as the whole school-starting thing going on too. But I hope it flows okay, that you can somehow bear it and that you won't give up on me just yet, even though I've presented you with utter crap these past few days. :)