you're still a traitor [tomie]

JR stretched his arms above his head as him and Tomie walked down the path leading away from the castle, feeling a warm breeze on his cheeks, the early summer sun making him squint as water reflected off the surface of the Black Lake. He had slept weird on his shoulder last night and it still ached, despite the cushioning charm he had attempted and clearly failed at during the sleepover in the Great Hall last night. It was weird to think their second year was almost over. Actually, that it was over. They only had the leaving party tonight and then the train ride home tomorrow. Speaking of.

"Hey, my mum said she wants to meet your parents tomorrow when we get to King's Cross since we're going to all those events this summer. I dunno why, but she owled me like twelve times to remind me to tell you," JR said as he brought his arm across his body and bringing the other up to hook around to stretch the muscles even more, his mind caught on the letter his mum had sent just a day ago. "Oh and she has that cloak I got you. She said she got it tailored for you so it should fit perfectly."

He gave her a broad smile as they neared the lake, the path curving before them as he shook out his arm and then eased his hands into his pocket before he glanced at her and then slid his hand into hers. It was still a little weird, hoping his hands weren't clammy but she seemed to like it, and it seemed especially cool to do it when people were around to witness it. He wondered if the older students lounging by the lake even noticed them. "So what'd you want to talk about?" he asked mentioning the reason why they were out here in the first place, glancing over at her.

@Tomie Vos

“Um.”

So.

Tomie hadn’t slept much, and it showed; the skin under her eyes was darker, and she had a very unusual frazzled air about her. After the super-late-night talk with Cass, she’d crept back to her sleeping bag and stayed awake for about a thousand years. She’d caught a glimpse of JR’s sleeping face and been amused and endeared and guilty and annoyed all at once. It was a bit too much to handle, really, and when Tomie got overwhelmed it all tended to lean towards anger and frustration.

Like, right now, for example. His hand felt so weird wrapped around her own. It was weird to the point that her thoughts were unwaveringly focussed on the sensation; it was distracting, irritating. It felt like she’d put her hand through the fireplace and let just anyone on the other side grasp it. A stranger’s hand. Ugh.

Tomie pulled her hand out from his with the excuse of slipping a chocolate bar out of her pocket. It took two hands to tear the wrapper. She tilted it in his direction first, silently asking if he wanted any, before she took a bite herself, pocketing the foil with her other hand. Owled me like twelve times. His words bounced around in her head and she wondered if he even registered that she hadn’t told her parents about him. He should know that; she’d told him that her parents were conservative enough that they wouldn’t let her play quidditch. He knew they were strict.

“I... can’t come to that gala thing,” Tomie said, eyes low and ahead again.

He tightened his grip automatically at the first sign of her pulling away, but he glanced at her and then let go, belatedly realizing she wanted a snack. JR grinned and shook his head at the offer, amused. Typical Tomie. Always having snacks. He put his hands in his pockets, but kept an eye on her snacking as well too, just in case she finished and wanted to go back to handholding. It was kind of their thing lately.

She seemed reluctant to tell her and her news made him turn his head to look at her, his brows furrowed. "What do you mean? I already told my mum we could go," he said in confusion. The last time they had talked about it, she had sounded excited. Or wait, was that about one of the other events they had talked about this summer? They were starting to run together a bit, but whatever. Either way, it was all the same. He shook his head at her. "Look, if you're worried about dressing up or whatever, don't be. My mum can take you shopping if you want?" he offered even though he had not cleared this with Mrs. Hawkins yet. He could just do some light persuading and pleading and she'd probably give in. She apparently was very interested in his relationship with his first girlfriend.

I already told my mum we could go.

Tomie felt irritation lap at her insides again, hot and slick like a flame. Could he not have waited until she’d said she could go? Or until she’d asked her mum? He was so enthusiastic about everything — it was really a side of him she’d only gotten to see recently, in the weeks leading up to the summer holiday. As if he’d saved it all up just for now.

 Just for her. (Ugh, guilt).

Shopping? She swallowed her mouthful quickly, waving one hand. “No!,” Tomie said quickly. No shopping. Nope. Cass’s midnight wisdom echoed in her head. Makes me feel obligated to them who's buying everything— “I don’t want that, I—” Tomie sighed a tense sigh. It felt as if anger was the hungry fire at the end of all feelings; all paths led there eventually, to be chomped up and reconstructed as something cleaner that burned hotter.

“Look, JR,” she started, still looking ahead. The feeling was useful; a chemical push to help the words come out. A guilty squirm made her tummy tighten, but guilt bled so nicely into frustration now. “I can’t come to the gala.” She didn’t pause, not wanting him to start talking. If he started insisting, or offering to buy her more stuff she might explode. A small rock in her path begged for an aggressive kick; she restrained herself. “I can’t come to lots of stuff, I think—” She slowed to a stop, made herself look at him. “I think we should just be friends.”

She didn’t say it like a question, but the frown she gave him then definitely had a searching, quizzical element to it, like she needed his approval. Tomie didn’t like that, so she looked away, glancing at the ground.

JR smirked as she quickly naysayed on the shopping, a bit amused mostly because Nola would've jumped on a shopping opportunity like that, but as usual, Tomie didn't go the usual path. Maybe that's why he liked her so much. "Alright then," he said easily with a shrug. "But if you change your mind, I think it'll be--"

Look, JR. He stalled as she talked over him and he turned his head to look at her, confused by her expression. Why did she look like that? Was she sad the term was almost over like he was? Sure, the events they had talked about this summer were cool, but these past few nights he had imagined what a good summer would feel like if he could stay here at the castle instead of returning home. He didn't even want to think of all the drills and practices and strategy sessions Wyatt Sr would have him do.

He realized a bit too late that he had spaced on whatever she was saying, but tried to look as if he had been paying attention all along. JR nodded a few times, but stilled as she met his gaze. A question in her eyes that he didn't know how to answer.

He replayed her words back in his mind, paying attention this time, and then spluttered. "Wait, what?" he asked and then a second later, he narrowed his gaze with a hint of a smile on his lips. "Are you messing with me?" he guessed, but there was a note of trepidation in his voice too.

His brows furrowed as she glanced down and his chest tightened. She didn't seem like playful Tomie right then and it felt all wrong. "You are joking, right?"

Cass had commented on boys’ egos, but they weren’t the only ones who had them, she thought, making herself look at him again. “It’s nearly three months ‘til we’re back at school,” she said, protesting gently even though she had the sudden, violent urge to kick something or go for a sprint around the castle. Tomie was a physical person, she needed a physical outlet for her pent up feelings. “And, I know there are all these plans,” she added, “but JR, my parents aren’t gonna let me do shit.”

JR was popular, but Tomie was better liked, and she thought it was because she didn’t come off as smug like he sometimes did. She was better at people, she thought. But it wasn’t because his ego was way bigger than hers, or anything; she was just better at hiding it. She knew to keep the way she felt after a loss to herself, if she could help it. She knew how not to seem full of herself after a victory. And she didn’t really need confirmation from the older girl about boys’ egos; Tomie knew exactly how JR would feel right now because this part of them was the same.

“So…” She’d looked at him for long enough that it didn’t feel cowardly to glance down again now. The last bite of the chocolate bar was in her hand, its layered chocolate and nutty bits melting from the heat of her skin and being gripped too tightly. She didn't relax her fist, though. “I just think… It doesn’t make sense. To still... Y'know.”

"Yeah, so?" he asked. What did the summer break have to do with anything? They were going to be hanging out a lot of the time anyway. The pool party he had planned, the different quidditch events they were going to. It's not like she wouldn't have fun. Merlin, he had even asked/argued with his parents so that Tomie could come to some of the cooler ones. He wanted to see that look on her face that he had seen when she had been at his house after last year's Griffins win, surrounded by pro players and all that. He turned to face her a bit more and rolled his eyes. "It'll be fine. Your parents will agree just like they did with camp and coming over to my house for the Griffins party last summer. It's not like we're even doing anything bad, my parents will be there," he listed out the reasons, thinking that refuting her argument piece by piece would make this go away.

But when she met his gaze, he felt a lick of anger course through him. So she wasn't joking. He felt his hand burning in his pocket as if it had just realized how idiotic he had been holding hers when she really just brought him out here to.. to break up with him.

"So.. you want to break up?" he asked, the words sticking in his mouth, his gaze turning into more of a glare as leaned into the anger and skepticism that hid other things. "Just because of summer holiday?"

It’ll be fine, he said. Merlin help her, she was going to kill him.

JR kept talking, and she started talking too, the words spilling out of her with very little effort on her part.

It's not like we're even—

“My parents were so close to not letting me come to that stuff, Benny’s mum had to beg mine after she’d already said no—” Tomie cut herself off, shutting her mouth and finishing an exhale through her nostrils instead. The only reason she’d been able to see him in spring was because she was staying at Shelby’s house for the easter break when her parents went overseas. Hadn’t she told him that? If she’d been at home she would have had to lie and sneak out to see him, and if she wanted to see him in summer she’d have to lie all summer just to hang out.

Her silence didn’t last. JR’s expression shifted from confusion, uncertainty and maybe even a bit of hurt, to something else entirely. He reflected her own irritation back at her like a mirror.

Just because of summer holiday? Her guilt disappeared. It was actually unbelievable how similar they were in some ways, but how he just had no idea who she was, where she came from, in others.

“You’re not listening to me,” she accused hotly. He’d probably convinced himself she’d agreed to heaps of stuff over the summer she hadn’t, she thought. Each hesitant I’ll ask my dad, or I hope I can come over the past few weeks had probably turned into a ‘yes’ in his head. Not to mention every time she tried to insist that she couldn’t afford something, or even that she could pay for her Honeydukes basket herself, he had to swoop in like some stupid prince charming and ignore her protests.

(No, she was not about to have a conversation with JR about how much it irked her when he paid for stuff without telling her. She was not about to try to explain why she kept a mental tally of everything he’d ever bought her, or that her first thought when she opened her birthday present was that she was so glad they’d started dating after his birthday because there was no way she could afford something so expensive.)

Tomie felt it all bubble up in her chest. All the stuff she’d been thinking about, the things she’d brushed on with Cass last night. All the money-disparity stuff and the strict-parents stuff and any and all annoying habits of his, along with the fact that he was still better at throwing and catching on a broom than her (ugh), and of course her idiot brain chose NOW to spin up Wendy, and Trudy, and that damn Shelby-kiss, when she’d really been trying to push that shit down even harder than usual, recently—

“I just think it makes sense to go back to friends,” Tomie insisted defensively.

"Yeah, but they still said yes, I don't see what the big deal is. Want my mum to owl yours?" he asked, cutting over her in attempt to smooth all of this out. JR knew his parents could be prickly sometimes too, but even so, they had still said yes and it's not like he was a bad influence or something. Unless, a little voice piped up in the back of his mind, she was just using her parents as an excuse? No, no, she had mentioned a bit before how strict her parents were. He couldn't believe this was all some sort of elaborate lie.

"I am listening to you. You want to break up and 'just be friends,'" he threw right back, his voice taking on a mocking tone, high-pitched and reedy. He didn't understand why she was doing this, why she wanted to ruin everything, but he also couldn't help thinking that he was glad they had at least walked far enough away from the castle that there weren't that many other students around.

She didn't want to date him? "Fine," he said as he crossed his arms in front of him. He wanted answers, he wanted explanations, he wanted to know what he had done wrong, but there was this ugliness in him that reared its head. "Seems really stupid that you would do this just because we're going on break, but fine. I don't want to be your boyfriend either."

Shouldn’t it be illegal to argue when someone was trying to break up with you? Tomie thought so. Maybe she should pull a Trudy, write a letter to the ministry and all that. He suggested his mum owl hers and she almost exploded.

He was mocking her. Tomie squeezed her chocolatey hand a little more tightly, the last bite of the bar fully gooey and a teeny bit squelchy through the gaps in her fingers by this point. She’d said you’re not listening to me, but what she should have said was you don’t listen to me. You don’t. It made her mad that he called her stupid, and that he was glaring at her like that, and it made her especially mad that he liked her so much and that she knew him well enough to know that he was hurt underneath it all. What was the difference between friend-liking someone and romance-liking someone anyway! Tomie didn’t know what to do with it all.

Seems really stupid... If she could explain more of her feelings, would he think they were stupid, too? He was always so smug about how well connected his family was, and about his new broomstick, and about all the cool shit he got to do over breaks because he was rich. What would that smugness look like if she wasn’t someone he wanted to share all that stuff with anymore? If she tried to explain how she felt about money stuff and then he turned around and used it against her, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. Let alone if she shared any of the other stuff...

“Well... Good,” she said, her tone halfway from sulky to impudent. It was all she could do not to snap back at him properly. She almost tacked a glad we agree onto the end, but bit down hard on the words before they could escape. “I’m gonna go, then,” she told him instead, pointing over her shoulder with a thumb. She took a couple of steps backwards before he could leave first.

Tomie was gonna go kick some trees or something, then go find some Gryffindor friends to hang out with, but even as frustrated as all of this had made her, she had the grace not to say she was going to go hang out with Benny. She probably wouldn’t tell everyone she’d dumped him, either — not unless JR started telling people it had happened the other way around. It seemed friendlier like that, and she still wanted to be friends in the end, right?

JR gave her a quick nod back towards the castle. "Go on then," he encouraged her, wanting so many things at the same time that he couldn't decide which one he wanted more. He wanted her to stop and think about what she was saying and realize that it was really dumb and take it back. He wanted her to stop walking away from him already, so quickly, like she couldn't wait to be rid of him. He wanted to stop that feeling in his chest like his insides were twisting themselves over and over.

Merlin, this felt worse than spectacularly losing Quidditch games and he hated that. How could someone he liked so much, or used to like so much, mess up his head like that?

She wasn't even saying very much, as if he wasn't good enough to give a proper explanation of why she really wanted to break up because the summer break thing was just ridiculous. His brows pulled low over his dark eyes as anger stirred within him. "Seriously, go," he said as he waved a hand back toward the castle. He didn't even want to look at her anymore because all he could see was a liar and a traitor.