when summer goes; two paper boats { nola }

Billie was probably right, surely in the last four and a half (already? That was so wild!) someone at some point might have liked her. But it was never the right person, never the ones that she wanted to be liked by, and in the end, that’s all that really mattered, that you were liked by the person you liked at the same time. That’s when connections actually happened. Otherwise, it just felt like a big disaster. No matter how much Magnolia complained about not having a boyfriend, she also wasn’t really doing much to put herself out there. Well, she had made a new friend, sort of, but it had already turned into a crush and those sorts of things never ended in her favor. She was most certainly cursed.

“Oh,” she fell quiet for a moment, trying to figure out whether kissing being on the table was progressive or conservative. Her parents probably wouldn’t want to hear about her snogging adventures (if she ever had any) but at the same time, she didn’t think they’d be entirely disappointed if she had done it, much better than saying she’d done anything else. And while she didn’t know Billie’s parents, she’d never been invited over to Billie’s home or anything, she figured that maybe they were just being overly protective. There was no way a parent actually did stuff like that.

“Mm,” she said with a nod, really curious about the sort of background that Billie had had growing up. There was so much the two didn’t know about each other but that was perfectly fine because they had the next two years to figure it out. But really, there was nothing that could have prepared her for the truth bomb that came soon after, making her screech so loudly that her cat, suddenly startled, sank her claws into her leg and just about jumped out of her lap. ” What? she said, significantly quieter when she realized that her mum would be none too pleased about all the noise upstairs, it was nighttime after all. “Wait, what?” she repeated, putting Queen Victoria on the bed, the cat jumping right off of it soon after as she turned her full attention to Billie.

“Oh Billie you have to tell me now! I thought we were on the same page and here you are lightning years ahead of me!”

Billie jumped, as startled by Nola’s sudden shriek as her cat clearly had been. She put her face in her hands, appropriately embarrassed. “Ah!” The smile hadn’t left her face (she couldn’t seem to stop smiling), but she was also blushing profusely. “Nola,” she complained in a much quieter voice than the one her friend had exclaimed in. She shook her head quickly from side to side, a few loose strands of hair slipping from behind her ear.

The lightning years comment was (funny, but also actually) true in a strange way; Billie hadn’t really thought about it before. Why did she feel so awkward and inadequate speaking on these things when, in fact, she was the more knowledgeable one? Hadn’t her friend just said that she’d never been kissed? It was absurd to Billie that she had experience with things that Nola was so obviously curious about, but hadn’t experienced herself. The blonde was so used to being behind on these sort of social things that it barely felt real.
 
“I don’t know what to say, I feel so awkward,” she complained quickly through her fingers, a whine in her voice that was really reserved for close friends. She laughed, wondering if she should feel more guilty, having the conversational spotlight fixed so firmly on her.

Really, she should not have been shrieking like a banshee but Magnolia could simply not contain that strange feeling between excitement and enviousness that suddenly took over her common sense, not that she ever had much of that, to begin with. It was one of those unspoken things where she wanted to congratulate her friend for reaching the sorts of self-imposed goals that the Gryffindor had been imposing on herself for some time now. One of those big must do’s before becoming a proper adult.

But at the same time, it made Magnolia wonder if this meant that she was doomed to this life of falling behind everyone else in everything. She had already given up being the brightest witch at Hogwarts and had laid unwilling claim to the title of gossip queen but was that it? She’d like to hope she would graduate with a little more experience than sticking her nose in everyone's business.

“But like how,” she tried, thought Magnolia knew that it wasn’t enough of a question and if Billie couldn’t answer her what she had asked so far, it seemed unlikely that she’d go into detail about it. “I mean I know how,” she clarified cheekily. Magnolia hadn’t paid any attention about it in class, either, so it wasn’t like her knowledge was completely mechanical, she knew things that would probably make Billie blush, though she didn’t actually know anything in the sense of experience. Reading it had to count for something, though. “Okay, okay,” she decided, trying to keep a straight face, “So, when did it happen?"

“How!” Billie repeated through her fingers, feeling scandalised but trying to be polite about it. “Ah–” She made a sound, somewhere between a protest and the start of a sentence, but she cut herself off because she wasn’t sure what she was going to say. She had to think about it first; What exactly was Nola asking? And in what sort of detail was she willing to respond? All she’d said was that they’d done more than kissing; she wondered if Nola wanted a play-by-play of anything more…?

She lowered her hands but only so she could hug the pillow a little closer. “Well – as you know – we got together at the start of summer,” she started, clearly flustered. Politeness was the safe place for Billie to fall back to, so naturally she wanted to let that part of her take over now. It seemed impossible, though; how could one remain polite while speaking of such private matters? She smoothed out the pillow’s texture with her hands. “And then… We were at school, so…” So bathrooms and empty classrooms weren’t really adequate or appealing to her at all. She gave Nola a look like she should understand, but then looked away out of embarrassment.

A part of her wanted to spill anything Nola wanted to hear; it was in her nature to comply, after all. It was clear that her friend wanted more, so shouldn’t she share? Didn’t Billie want Nola to like her? Wasn’t that a part of being a good friend? Phillip wouldn’t like it though; she didn’t have to think much about that to know it was true. He was a private person; he wouldn’t like anyone to know those kinds of intimate details, and especially not someone he didn’t really like. She didn’t spend time wondering what it was she wanted; worrying about the others first came naturally to her. “And now it’s... winter break…” Billie trailed off, clearly not having answered Nola at all.

Magnolia leaned forward a little as she started to speak, the Ravenclaw was terribly sweet but also the pace at which she was speaking was absolutely titillating, so much so that the girl wished that she’d just get to the juice as soon as possible. Then again, Magnolia was the sort to skim through the important scenes in books just to get to the good stuff and later realize that she’d missed an important detail (or a few). But she had so many questions and though the girl was certainly giving her some information, it was still pretty vague.

“Right, right,” she had heard about them spending time together during the summer, it was why the two of them hadn’t had much of a chance to hang out. If Phillip barely let the girl out of his sight at Hogwarts, during the break the positively must have spent every breathing moment together. Oh it finally dawned on her, because with too much time on one’s hand and a boyfriend, then who wouldn’t go there. Even though she wasn’t really sure where to draw the line with her assumptions, she had gone far beyond in her own head and was imagining all sorts of things that didn’t seem like Billie at all. What an interesting turn of events, indeed!

“At school!?” her voice raised just a little but she was mindful enough to quiet it down before her mum caught wind of what they were talking about. So maybe she hadn’t been entirely off about the prefect’s bathroom but if that had sounded a little weird or gross to Billie, then where? She hadn’t so much as seen her kiss Phillip in front of her, not that she could remember, but then again, as soon as Phillip made an appearance, Magnolia made it a habit to look in a different direction.

“So like,” she paused, looking around the room as if someone would appear before lowering her voice, “recently,” she offered as if it were some secret. In a way, it was, she wasn’t going to go announcing this sort of thing even though she’d be terribly tempted to every time the topic of Billie or Phillip came up. “Did the two of you actually go…all the way?” Magnolia needed to make sure they were still on the same page here.

“Recently,” Billie breathed, finding this kind of conversational ambiguity a nice and satisfactory place to be. Recently? Well, that was relative, wasn’t it? In September, it had been just as frustrating to adjust to the lack of privacy as she’d expected it would be. They’d had the whole summer together, and not just together but alone. He’d come over for dinners and so on, but because he could apparate, they could be anywhere they wanted, not to mention the empty Maidstone house they’d spend so many hours in.

At the start of the summer, they’d started working on a project together in that house. Needless to say it didn’t get done. Going back to school after a summer like that – especially for two people who weren’t exactly the type to be making out in the great hall – not to mention her new prefect responsibilities, and OWLs – was tricky. So a few days ago, when they'd finally been able to be properly alone again... Well.

A moment later, it was clear that Nola didn’t take the hint and swap, like Billie had, to being exceptionally vague about everything. “Nola,” she complained again. She'd always wondered what happened on these kinds of sleepovers, and what it felt like to be on the insides of circles like the one she'd been hovering on the edge of all year. Now she knew. Billie took a deep breath. "No," she answered. She knew it would be disappointing, though, and Billie's need to please outweighed her tendency towards privacy. She put the pillow down in front of her friend and then folded over, the side of her face pressed into it as she snuck a sideways look at Nola. "Nearly though," she added quickly, in a very soft voice. "I think we might."

Magnolia had been so caught up in her own drama recently that she had completely dismissed all of this other, much more interesting stuff that was going on around her and felt a little careless for it. Not that she would have known anyway, but hearing all of it made her feel like there was so much more to Billie that she simply did not know and wondered if the girl had told someone else in their group or hadn't felt the need to share at all. Just hearing the word recently felt scandalous to the teen, as if she had just missed this grand thing she wasn't going to be privy to regardless. And her response only opened an entire host of questions she became curious about. How recently were they talking about? Had she inadvertently seen something but hadn't really understood the entire thing until now? Was this recently like within the last month? Last week? Last few days? The Gryffindor couldn't even begin to wrap her mind around Billie (or anyone she actually knew in real life) doing any of the sorts of things she had read about in novels, it felt surreal.

Billie had said her name in a way that probably meant this wasn't the sort of conversation she wanted to be having but the witch couldn't help herself, not when she was finding out so much so late. She just had to know. "Oh," she said in response, though she was sorry of trying to still process what Billie was telling her, she wondered if her response had sounded too flat. "Not like oh that's too bad, mind you," she smiled excitedly, getting more comfortable by laying on the bed, as she stared up at the ceiling, her mum had charmed the ceiling with some glow in the dark stars, the girl couldn't stand sleeping without a nightlight, but they gave her room a nice view even with the dim lamp next to her bed turned on.

"What was it like?" she wondered. Magnolia knew they hadn't gotten there just yet but the build up was just as good, wasn't it? The girl wondered if they had gotten interrupted or she had gotten nervous or something else. "It's kind of romantic you've waited though," she concluded, it was very like the girl to romanticize what she heard after the overwhelming excitement and curiosity within her was satisfied. "I heard guys never wait longer than like...I don't know," she shrugged lightly, her shoulders brushing against her blankets as she did. This was all unsubstantiated information. "I read that American girls do it after three days, three," she emphasized.

The bed bobbed a bit as her friend lay down in the bed beside her, and Billie adjusted herself so she was lying down properly, too, on her back with her legs stretched out. She shifted around a bit so she could go under the blanket, pulling it right up to her lips. She could feel that intimate-sleepovery feeling intensify like this, lying side by side as they were. It was easier to talk when Nola’s eyes weren’t on her. “Intense,” Billie answered honestly. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go into too much more detail than that, but if she could only use one word, then that would be it. “Irresponsible, nearly,” she added, her voice so soft she was nearly whispering.

It was funny that Nola commented on the waiting, because Billie had been serious when she’d said that there had been a time she didn’t think she’d do more than kissing until she was married. Or like, not until she was a proper adult at least. She and Phillip had been together for six months but most of that time they’d been at boarding school together, and while she was sure some people enjoyed the chance of being caught by a professor or something, Billie hadn’t really experienced that thrill. She was a prefect, and took her responsibilities seriously. She’d literally rather die than be caught doing anything more than kissing at school.

So in one sense, she didn’t think there was much waiting happening at all. Six months didn’t seem so long to her on paper, especially since they’d only had the one summer and the past few days of the winter break to spend any time properly alone. Of course if she thought about it through the lens of her feelings – which came very naturally to the witch – in another sense, she and Phillip had been extremely close friends for so long; it felt like they’d been together at least a year.

She shook her head. “Phillip would wait forever if I wanted to.” Forever was a bit hyperbolic, but only barely, she thought. "He asks so often if I'm okay... It's almost annoying," she half-joked quietly, affection clear in her tone. Three days? "Gosh," Billie said, turning a bit to look at Nola's profile. She'd learned a long time ago not to listen to everything Nola said, but this did sound like more American nonsense to her, and she wondered if there were some kind of truthful aspect to it.

Intense, she had said, and almost immediately, one of the covers of her favorite romance story popped into her head, the entire plot unfolding in her head as she pictured Billie and Phillip carrying on in a similar fashion. It almost seemed out of character for Magnolia to be hearing something like this from Billie out of all of their friends and started to sound more like a tall tale when one took into consideration how brooding her boyfriend was. Then again, it was usually those sorts that were up to all sorts of wicked things, weren’t they?

Maybe the entire thing wasn’t so far fetched after all. All she could hope for was that Phillip wouldn’t be the kind to break her heart when he had gotten what he wanted. It was a trope all too common (and really, the worst kind) in those novels on her shelf. But only moments later, Billie added Irresponsible, too which Magnolia figured was decidedly more like the Billie she knew. It was obvious that the girl was smart enough to take care of herself just fine, Magnolia would not have survived without her gaggle of friends but Billie had only joined them recently. Though the Gryffindor was no expert in reading others, she could just tell that Billie had that something, that spirit of survival.

Saying that Phillip would wait forever sounded romantic to a certain degree, then again, it also felt terribly unbalanced. Magnolia thought that when it came to things like desire, balance worked best: not so fast that she felt like her significant other only wanted that but also not so long that she’d start questioning whether her partner wanted her in that context at all. Then again, what did Magnolia know, she’d only ever had boyfriends in her head and they’d always said and did whatever she wanted them to. Even in arguments, she assumed she’d have one day, they responded in a way that she’d deliver her best lines. It was easier to imagine what the ideal relationship was like when another person wasn’t involved. And that only made her feel more alone than she had moments earlier.

“That’s sweet,” she said after a moment, not sure if she completely agreed with her own statement but also not wanting to go into a spiral of despair on her own inability to have a relationship. “How do you even know you’re ready though, like did you two talk about it or…” was it just action? It all sort of seemed to work out in novels but how? One inquiring mind was dying to know.

“Er,” Billie started, hating the placeholder word, but needing to stall for a moment to turn the question over in her mind. It was a good question, she thought – something that she had only really thought about abstractly. Billie read a lot, and she read a vast array of genres; these were the kinds of conversations that happened in teen novels all the time, but she hadn’t really been in one herself.

“I’m not sure,” she said, after being silent for a little while. “I suppose you just get comfortable with someone, and get more intimate, step-by-step…” Billie’s eyes were drawn to the fake stars on Nola’s ceiling; they reminded her of the Ravenclaw ones, and subsequently reminded her of Phillip. Everything seemed to lead back to him; though they hadn’t really talked about him specifically, even this conversation orbited him, in a way.

“We sort of…” She trailed off, consciously calming the tension in her chest, the part of her that wasn’t entirely comfortable speaking on such private things. “Talk as we go,” she finished vaguely. Billie turned on her side, eyes on Nola in the dim light. She wasn’t sure, but she felt insecure; maybe she was looking for some reassurance that she was doing this whole sleepover thing right, or something similar. She knew that Nola wanted details, as she’d said earlier, but Billie hoped that her vagueness wasn’t insulting, or boring.

“A couple of days ago, things got fairly – ah – heated,” she said in a quiet voice. She spoke quickly, unwilling to linger on such scandalous words as heated. “So we slowed down and talked then.” It was easier to talk like this, when Nola’s questions were more musing and genuine than dramatic and interrogatory. She was pushing herself to meet her friend halfway. Of course, her cheeks were still dreadfully flushed. "I'm not not nervous, though," she added, an afterthought.

In the school of romantic literature, the thoughts on dialogue during action was divided: either the characters would get too caught up in the action and not say much (but make a lot of decidedly weird sounds) or say a lot but not the sort of thing Magnolia would ever feel confident enough to say to a boy. And just thinking about it made her nervous because she wasn't sure if she'd want to do anything with a boy she couldn't talk honestly to. Though she wasn't in immediate danger of doing anything remotely close to what Billie had apparently been up to (it was obvious by now that Isaac was a lost cause) the pressure to say and do the right thing when the time eventually came was vexing. 

Then again, wasn't the whole point of that not to talk? Sometimes the girl wondered if things would have been significantly easier had she the courage to just go with it at some party with some stranger and get the awkward part over with. But even then, she knew she'd be wishing it would turn into some sort of unexpected romance. That narrative only made sense in books, not in real life. 

But Billie's response to her question sounded much more mature than the fantastical musings of a girl with absolutely no experience and as she explained how things worked in her relationship, Magnolia felt the gap between her and Billie widen. Sure, experiences were all relative and there was no need to measure herself to the experiences of her friends but she had a hard time not doing that. 

Was she wasting her time waiting for things with Isaac to happen when he had been blatantly clear that they wouldn't? Well not clear in the sense that she had dared to confess and he had said no. Rather, in the sense that she had taken bits and pieces of conversations they had had and reached her own conclusions. 

"I think I'd be too embarrassed to talk about it while it's happening," she decided, not feeling the need to pretend she was any braver than she was around the girl. That was one of the many good things about Billie, she wasn't in the habit of pointing out the flaws of others, it was one of the many reasons the girl liked her so much. And it worked because Billie wasn't trying to talk herself up either. "I know he doesn't pressure you exactly," Magnolia wasn't completely convinced but she would take her word for it this time, "but does he know you haven't…?" she sort of gestured again. 

Magnolia had heard that some boys were terribly bothered by being the first, felt too much pressure, "...wait, you haven't, right? Or did I read the entire thing wrong?" Magnolia knew she hadn't done it with Phillip, that was clear, but she wasn't sure if there had ever been another guy. The girl was pretty private. 

Billie thought she understood what Nola was getting at. Until summer she couldn’t imagine actually talking with all of that happening, even the idea would have been mortifying. It was still intimidating sometimes, to break the mood and share her thoughts, but she supposed that was why it was so nice that Phillip always checked in. She checked in, too – it was instinctive – though she didn’t think he needed it as much. Things seemed more straightforward for him, and she assumed that was probably just a boy thing.

“I understand,” she said, nodding slightly. “I suppose the pacing is different to how you imagine. Or, different to how I imagined,” she corrected softly, not wanting to assume Nola felt the way she had in case it sounded condescending.

Billie didn’t really talk about these things with friends; until this year, most of her knowledge about bedroom-related things had come from novels and magazines – like the small pile of Nola’s she could feel by her leg. Some parents taught their children about sex, apparently, but she’d never experienced that; there weren’t any parents around to teach her, and her aunt had had never tried to speak about it with her. Billie wondered if she would have by now, if she were still alive. She felt a small pang in her chest at the thought and tried to push it down.

There was always Kendrick, of course, but the idea of talking to him about it made her want the earth to open up and swallow her whole. He might be disapproving, or (far worse), disappointed. He might forbid her from seeing Phillip (unlikely, she thought, but not impossible). Possibly most mortifying of all, though, was the fact that he was a man. She wondered what things might be like if she had a mother figure to ask about all of this. She wondered if she would have done anything more than kissing at all if her parents were still alive and taking care of her. Probably not, she thought, and the idea that she might have disappointed them made a crease appear between her eyebrows. Something to worry about later, she thought.

“Oh, no,” Billie said quickly, the thoughts dispelling as she laughed a little. “He knows, he knows,” she said. “I haven’t… Hadn’t...” She waved a hand; Nola would understand what she was trying to say. “Each to their own of course, but for me, I don’t think I’d want to do… Well, any of it with someone I didn’t, you know, love,” she finished, obviously a little flustered again. Billie pulled the blanket up a little higher. “I haven’t had a boyfriend before,” she added, though she’d always thought that was rather obvious.

Magnolia supposed that considering the books she read were clearly fictional, using them as guides for how to do things probably didn’t make much sense. There was probably a genre out there for teen romance novels that were much more realistic than the The Witch’s Apprentice or whatever provocative title the girl housed in her shelves but those were decidedly much less exciting. But more than just excitement, things that hit too close to home made her a little uncomfortable.

Magazines weren’t any better in making her feel more comfortable about her body or the things she was supposed to know how to do with it and oftentimes, she’d find herself looking up buzzwords that would lead her down rabbit holes of information she didn’t really want in the first place. So the more knowledge she exposed herself to, the more behind she felt, and in order to catch up to all that, it seemed better (or at least more accepted) to express what she thought she knew rather than wait until she experienced it herself. Her own form of preparation, she supposed.

But she understood what Billie meant by pacing because she’d often wonder how the characters in novels got from point A to point B without so much as a word or a question or permission. Everything was assumed as if everyone had been born with the ability to reach everyone else’s mind and she had sort of been left out of the process. It was a secret everyone at a certain age because privy too and it was not her time yet.

She felt behind. Now, Billie knew something that she didn’t, and no matter how much (or how little of it) she explained, Magnolia couldn’t help but to think that she probably seemed a little childish, still relying on the things she had read talking to someone who probably knew much more than she’d ever know. There was her dramatic teenage fatalism talking again, but she could not really help it. Magnolia was sixteen for Merlin’s sake, and if she did not hurry up, she’d be the last virgin at Hogwarts.

“You haven’t?” her eyebrows raised a little in surprise, considering how popular Billie seemed with the boys in their year (only a handful, really but it didn’t’ stop her from exaggerating) she would have expected Phillip was more along her second or third. Now it really seemed romantic. “I used to think that too,” she started, though a part of her still did, “but then if I did it with the wrong guy because I thought I was in love I’d never get over that and it just feels stressful so, nowadays I sorta just want to get it over with…I guess?,” she said but her tone of voice didn’t even convince her. “But I’ve got to find myself a boyfriend first to figure it out,” she laughed a little, in more of a self-deprecating way. Yes, in this topic, Magnolia did not enjoy being the center of the conversation. “Do you think it will change things? Reaffirm your feelings or something like that?”       

Billie shook her head in response, more than a little amused that Nola thought that she might have had boyfriends in the past. It was pretty clear in conversations like this that the Gryffindors really hadn’t known her that long. Billie didn’t mind; being a wallflower had been comfortable and easy for her for these past few years – and it wasn’t like she was suddenly the center of attention, or anything – but she liked herself better now.

“I understand,”  Billie said, even though she definitely did not. Nola was a far more modern girl than she, obviously. Billie was not a judgemental person, and her opinion on issues like this could easily be swayed, depending on who she was speaking to. She was naturally malleable, uncomfortable with asserting her own opinions. The idea of wanting to get it over with, was so foreign, though, that she couldn’t quite place herself in her friend’s shoes.

“You will,” Billie said, turning her head a little so she could give her friend a reassuring smile. She tugged the blanket up a touch, then tucked it neatly under her chin. Her face still felt warm, so it was probably still red. It didn’t help when her friend kept asking questions, but at least this one was easier to answer than some of the others had been.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. She frowned slightly, but then laughed a light laugh. Billie was fifteen and in love – sex simultaneously seemed very weighty and romantic and yet also very unimportant when juxtaposed with all of her other feelings. She trusted Phillip, and that was the main thing. “Some people say it changes things. Changes you…” Billie trailed off. She didn’t know who some people were exactly, and yet it did indeed feel like they said such things.

Billie didn’t really say much, Magnolia decided, but what she did say sounded nice and supportive, though it was sort of hard to figure out whether she was just agreeing to be polite or because she believed all the nonsense Magnolia was getting into. Either way, that smile on her face looked rather reassuring even if it was accompanied by her obvious embarrassment. Naturally, Magnolia ignored these signs, her curiosity much more potent than her need to adhere to social protocol. They were friends, Billie would just tell her no when she didn’t want to answer something, and Magnolia wouldn’t push it (or maybe she would just a little).

“I heard it changes you too,” she nodded in agreement though she could not really remember if she had heard it or had read it or had sort of assumed it based on some of those romance novels she read. “But for the better? For worse? Like what if it's bloody awful and then you’ve got to live knowing that that person was your first,” she shuddered visibly, and rather dramatically, at the thought. “And they’d see everything,” she added for good measure. That wasn’t the part she was excited about at all, another reason why she’d just want to get it all over with. Or maybe she’d inhabit the role of one of her favorite heroines, the cool and collected beauty from her favorite books that possessed an immeasurable amount of confidence.

“I still don’t like Donnelly,” she said after a few moments, making a face before giving her friend her own version of a reassuring smile, “but you two sounds cute, I bet you’re all lovey-dovey when you’re alone, right?” she teased.