when summer goes; two paper boats { nola }

“Oh no, don’t say that,” Billie said, amused at Nola’s dramatic shudder. Privately, of course there was a part of her that was worried it would be “bloody awful”. She’d heard all sorts of horror stories — not from any actual person, mind, but allusions in books and comments people made or — well, she wasn’t exactly sure where she’d heard them, but there was a lingering sort of fear about the whole sex thing that had to come from somewhere, right? Girls often had terrible first times; everybody knew that.

She grimaced a bit at the everything comment. Nola was so pretty, and usually so confident; from the outside it seemed like she was brimming with self esteem. In contrast, Billie had always quietly hated her body. She preferred not to look at herself naked, and couldn’t really understand why anyone else would want to. She didn’t want to linger on this part of the conversation, though. Especially not when her insecurities and thoughts were directly connected to a real person, while Nola’s were abstract.

Billie felt herself frown slightly when Nola reiterated that she didn’t like Phillip. She knew it, of course, knew that her newer friends didn’t have the best view of him — they just didn’t know him like she did, and she’d defend him until her dying breath — but even the Gryffindors weren’t usually so explicit. “Yes,” Billie answered, feeling herself relax a little in response to the lightness of the teasing. She nodded, her cheeks nice and warm still. “I know he doesn’t seem it from the outside,” she prefaced, knowing full well how it would sound to Nola. A small smile appeared as she went on, “but he’s really so sweet to me.”

“Well, you know what I mean,” Magnolia added, a little sheepishly. A part of her felt like she should be the cool one and act unphased by the entire act and anything associated with it. At least in front of most of her friends she played the confident type pretty well and for the most part, as long as none of those parts involved another person (especially not a boy), she was relatively comfortable and confident. However, when it came to things like this, she felt lost somewhere in between what she thought she was supposed to do and how she actually felt about it all.

The best thing about Billie was that there wasn’t this condescending, judgmental sort of aura around her the way there was around some of her other friends, she didn’t feel like Billie was disappointed at her lack of experience or something. If Billie did have something mean to say about her, she kept it to herself, and that was nice, too. The point was, she decided, that she didn’t feel awkward talking to Billie about these things and it was obvious that she felt comfortable enough to respond to her questions, even if she did look embarrassed.

“He better be,” Magnolia threatened lightly, though what she really meant was something along the lines of I should hope so, but she decided against putting it like that. What it really boiled down to was that you could not really help who you liked, she supposed. In that one fairy tale, the pretty, bookish girl fell for the beast, after all, and though no one cared for it she supposed they did okay if happily ever after meant anything.
 
Even though Magnolia didn’t think Phillip would turn into any sort of prince through true love’s first kiss (he sort of only had his height going for him, and just barely) she figured if Billie was happy for now, what else could she do? “Still think Ki is sweeter,” she mumbled, shrugging as if it were none of her business, though she had obvious made it her own, “But that’s just me,” she added with a smile. "Well," she started, "when you do do it, you've got to tell me all the important stuff, okay?"

She hoped Nola believed her, but she didn’t hate the fact that her Gryffindor friend felt a little protective of her. Nola wasn’t the only one, either; Billie marvelled for the millionth time at the fact that she’d found a little group of people who wanted to look after her. It was very Gryffindor of them, she thought distantly. She didn’t deserve it.

“Sorry?” Billie asked, eyebrows raised politely. Nola thought Ki was sweeter? There had been a time a couple of months ago where she’d wondered if there was something between Killian and Magnolia; Billie wondered if perhaps she’d read that right after all. Most of the time, Billie tried not to have those sorts of thoughts; gossip and speculation was something she took part in when invited by other people, not something she did much of alone. Nola said: That’s just me, and Billie nodded, wondering what that meant.

“Ah,” Billie said, her embarrassment ramping up again. Her face hadn't really lost its pinkness this whole conversation. “I don’t even know if we will,” she said. “So we’ll see.” What even was all of the important stuff, anyway? Probably more than she’d be willing to share, she thought distantly.