I ask, how long did your ex last? [Circe]

There had been no reply to his letter. He had thought that this was okay for the first few days, but the longer it took the more he worried. Had he said something wrong? He replayed it over and over in his head. What had he said wrong? He had told her he loved and missed her. He had explained the night at the concert as best as he could. He had left out the part where he wanted nothing more than the shove his face against the other man’s face, but that wasn’t appropriate to tell her and he didn’t think that he had done anything necessarily wrong in having a little crush. It wasn’t like he was going to dump her and throw himself at the other man’s feet. He was realistic. He didn’t have a chance with him, and even if there was shallow sliver of a chance the other might oblige him, they would never last. Her knew nothing of the man aside from his magnetism. There was no relationship prospect on the horizon. Unlike Circe, who he had known and loved for years, he didn’t see any future between himself and this Rockstar.

Even so, he was eager to see Circe. He missed his girlfriend, a lot. He had been moping around the apartment and wishing she were still there for cuddles. They had spent a few nights near the end of the summer cuddling in his bed—just cuddling—but his bed had been empty ever since then. He had been well-behaved as far as other girls were concerned. He hadn’t passed even a flirtatious comment one way or the other. He had been trying, and was proud of himself. He was the kind to flirt with everyone, always making suggestive comments even when he didn’t mean them. That was just his nature. He was still a clown, loving the attention of a crowd, but he hadn’t chatted up anyone or really gone out that much at all, really. Janae was still a little sour with him for leaving her at the concert, but they were getting along better, and she was really his going-out partner. Jam was always busy lately with work.

He smiled as he saw Circe walking up from Hogwarts and ran towards her. “Hey!” He greeted, large smile on his face. “I missed you so much, girl.” He opened his arms for a hug. “Where d’ya wanna go first? Want to get a drink or something? I brought you a little surprise.” It was bud, as she probably suspected.

@Circe Sutcliffe

Circe had been turning this matter over in her mind for a few weeks now. Something about being with Ezra wasn't right, and even her cards kept telling her so. She needed to break things off and she knew it. She'd been ignoring his letter for days. Thinking about him used to make her happy, but now she just felt sad and empty. She didn't feel like he was being completely honest with her. She didn't feel like he actually missed her. Especially after the way he'd gone on about Ollie. Hadn't he ever felt that way about the two of them? Apparently not.

The thought had hurt at first, but she had made her peace with it. This was the right thing to do. In an effort to make herself feel better, she had at least tried to look her best for Halloween. Sid was a pretty fantastic Freddy Krueger, who she honestly had only known about because he had forced her to watch the movies. Circe, on the other hand, was a woodland fairy. She had repurposed an old Poison Ivy costume that she'd made for the bodysuit and wore a blue tutu over it. She wore fairy wings on her back, wore butterfly clips in her hair, and had embellished a pair of fishnet stockings with gems and fake flowers. She wore blue ballerina flats on her feet, and thought that the look was pretty well put-together for not having had Jae's help this time. Manny had helped a bit.

Circe was also still a bit cross with her soon to be ex boyfriend for leaving their friend alone in the city at a party like that, especially after how he had described who he had ditched Janae for. Did he even realize how annoying he was? Or was she just being a bitch? No, she'd talked it over with Manny. It was definitely Ezra. Not her.

Still, she felt a little guilty. She forced up a smile and gave him a hug like he'd wanted. "Actually, Ezra, I... think that we should talk? Maybe we can find somewhere more quiet?"

This hit him right in the chest. We should talk. How often had he heard that from girls? It was to the point where he felt his eyes instantly well up with tears, though he did a fairly spectacular job hiding it. She was breaking up, wasn’t she? Was he being paranoid? Why was she breaking up? Was there some other guy she had her eye on? Was it Sid? He always thought she and Sid were abnormally close and he was angry in advance. How many of his girls was Sid going to take before the other man got over it. Why did Sid pick on him? Did he just scream ‘easy target’ or something? He wasn’t the best boyfriend ever, but he tried. Had Sid ever tried at being some girl’s boyfriend? Did he ever like anyone, really? Did he ever commit?

Perhaps Ezra was a little biased, having liked the other for such a long time and been touched and taken but not acknowledged. Sid hadn’t cared for him one way or the other. He wondered if Sid was like that with everyone because that was how he acted. He tried not to put words in Circe’s mouth, though. He would listen. Maybe it was just an ultimatum. Maybe there was saving this, yet.

Did he want to save it? His instinct said of course he did, but deep down he wondered if she was right. Long distance was hard. He had built up being with Circe into this great unattainable thing in his mind, but now that he had her, he wasn’t quite sure where to go from there. He hadn’t planned that far ahead. It was different than he thought, too. She had been hurt before, very hurt, and that made her extra delicate. Ezra was not good with delicate things. He didn’t want to break her, but he also wasn’t really getting things he needed from this relationship, if he was being completely honest.

He wished he were high. He would feel more capable of handling all these thoughts in his head, he would feel calmer. “Sure, uh, cool.” He said, not convincingly. He didn’t take her hand. “Lead the way?”

Circe watched Ezra's facial expression change and felt guilty again. Still, she had to. There was no turning back now. She offered another small smile and a nod before leading him away from the crowd to look at some Halloween decorations that one of the residents of Hogsmeade had put up. She'd always loved Halloween. It was a shame that she had to ruin it like this.

"I've..." She released a breath that she hadn't realized that she'd been holding. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I.. I think that we were better friends than we are boyfriend and girlfriend." There. It was out. She couldn't bring herself to look at him again, and fixated upon an impressively realistic looking skeleton hand that was sticking out of the dirt. Whoever lived there had really outdone themselves. There were jack-o-lanterns everywhere. "Things have just seemed... really weird, you know? You've seemed distant. And I get it. I'm hundreds of miles away most of the time. It won't be better once I'm living in Paris." She sucked in a quick breath, willing herself not to tear up. "I'd like to go back to being friends. If that's okay? I mean, I understand if it isn't..."

She worried that he'd never speak to her again. That would make things pretty awkward whenever she wanted to visit Jae. She doubted very much that Jae or Jam would stay mad at her for breaking things off with Ezra, and she already knew that Sid didn't really care. People always thought that she and Sid were a thing, but honestly they weren't each other's types at all. On paper, maybe, but not in practice. He was more a brother than anything else, what with having lived with her family for a short time.

"I'm really sorry, Ezra."

Ezra was surprised by how careful of a breakup this was. It wasn’t accusations and yelling, for once. She just wasn’t feeling it, he guessed. He was still upset, still bummed, still sad—but somehow, he didn’t feel like crying. He swallowed. “Oh, yeah.” He shrugged a little. “I mean that’s fine.” He assured. “I know… you always said you liked me more like a friend anyway, so I guess I should’ve expected this, I guess.” He sighed. He decided not to linger on it with her there. He would put on his happy face like nothing changed.

Deep down, his heart hurt. Rejection always hurt, especially someone as delicate as him. The fact that he’d liked Circe for so long only further exacerbated it, but of course she had been nice about it. He could thank her for that, later, maybe.

“Do you wanna head back to the group?” He asked. “Jae and Sid are prolly gonna run off together to play Freddy vs. Jason if we don’t get back soon. They probably think we’re making up for lost time.” He swallowed. He supposed there was no chance of that. “…and Jam is dating some girl now, right? We might end up alone together regardless.”

He blinked, looked away, then looked back at her. “No hard feelings. Just friends.”

Circe was glad that Ezra still wanted to be her friend, but couldn't help but feel guilty. She knew she was doing the right thing, but she hated that he looked so hurt. Didn't he see that she was doing him a favor? She was setting him free. He didn't seem like he really wanted to be with her anyway. Still, at least he was being nice about it.

"Yeah, we should get back." She nodded and offered him another small smile. "They're supposed to be meeting up, I think."

She felt awkward, but tried to keep a sunny disposition. "I'm glad. You're a really good guy, Ezra."

Ezra was hoping that his friends would still all be around when they got back to the group. He led the way back to them, quicker than his usual speed, afraid of spending too much time alone with Circe. He was already aware everyone was paired off now—Janae and Sid, Jam and his girl—but where did that leave him and Circe? To his surprise, his friends were still lingering around the entrance of Hogsmeade goofing off. He supposed they hadn’t been gone very long.

“Heyyyy” He greeted them. “So, you guys ready to go have fun, or what?” He asked, sticking close to Jam. “I am starving and ready for a really big whiskey.” He admitted. “Jam, when are you meeting your girl? Wanna get up to the Three Broomsticks for a bit?”

He eyed Circe up a bit when he didn’t think she was looking, sighed, and slung his arm over his best friend’s shoulder.

[out]