[maidstone] objects in space { phillip }

The question kept turning over in his mind, and he asked himself what would happen if they didn’t stop. Of course, the teenager had some ideas, and some of them were unreasonable fantasies, but mostly he just wondered if they might keep sitting like this. The feeling of Billie’s head against his shoulder, her other hand tracing little circles along his collarbone, was such a comfort. Like wrapping up in a warm blanket after being out in the cold for months. Phillip had missed things like this too. Winter nights, when it grew dark early enough, they could enjoy the night before he dropped her off in Craven. He remembered sitting on the porch at Maidstone with hot cocoa, wrapped under a blanket, sometimes saying nothing for minutes on end.

They had already gone so far past where they should have been that it felt like it didn’t matter how much further they went. Phillip knew that was the wrong way to think about it, like playing with fire, but he was desperate for the excuse. Billie’s hands moved to the collar of his shirt, and her cold thumbs surprised him, but not as much as when she met his gaze. He was reasonably sure her eyes had been closed the entire time, so it was startling to see her looking at him now. She shivered, and Phillip remembered his jacket.

Careful not to push her away, he pulled his hands from where they had been glued to her thighs and shrugged off his jacket. One arm and then the other before he draped it around her shoulders, and she asked the question that was plaguing his mind. Then what, indeed. “Then we might regret it,” Phillip had so many regrets he was practically drowning in them. What was one more drop added to the ocean? He sighed; it was a stupid thing to say. He should have just been kissing her still.

She moved slightly as he withdrew his hands, as if she were about to glance down at her (bare) thighs and then thought better of it. There was a moment of confusion, reflected clearly in her eyes, before he straightened up enough to shrug his jacket off. Then she understood. Her hands slid down his chest, her palms resting neatly side-by-side. Should she help? She raised one hand to hover a few centimetres from his chest, to slide into a sleeve, or something, then placed her palm back down on his chest as she realised he was draping the jacket over her shoulders instead. She felt scattered. “Thanks,” she breathed, the word sounding a little too casual falling from her lips.

Billie’s one-word question had been rhetorical; she hadn’t wanted an answer. If she were honest, she didn’t really want him to say anything at all; there were so many more traps, twists and turns — and mistakes — to be made with words. So many ways to mess this up. So many things he could say that would hurt. Much simpler just to do everything else, wasn't it?

She hadn’t ever been as comfortable in silence with anyone as she had been with Phillip. Even now that she was growing closer with Killian (and Mavis, and the others), she hadn’t found anything like the comfortable quiet she’d had with him. And while Billie and her ex had had the occasional issue with communication, communicating lip-to-lip or hand-in-hand had come (surprisingly, to Billie, who had such limited experience with these things) incredibly naturally, from start to — well, start to now. She couldn’t bring herself to think something as definitive as finish.

There was no need for him to speak, right now; she didn’t want him to. And for a moment, it was just two sets of green eyes and the dark, in silence.

She frowned when he broke it. It was involuntary, an unusual display of unhidden displeasure — clearly she wasn’t paying half as much attention to the way she was being perceived as she did in her day-to-day life. Billie swallowed, tasting tequila and whiskey and whatever else, and wondering for the first time if he hated the taste of her lips tonight. She would have hated it, she thought, if she were him.

Phillip had said we. Phillip had said we, but it felt so incredibly crystal clear to her that no amount of regret could outweigh the wanting she felt, that he must have, just meant himself. He would regret it. Her heart hurt. It was a painful thing to hear, painful to understand. She wasn’t even sure what they were talking about at this point; was the potentially regrettable thing just more kissing? Or, she wondered, was it sex? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been thinking about that since the moment her lips had touched his neck. Maybe he was being unspecific on purpose though. This seemed more likely; maybe he just meant being close. Being here at all.

She should move.

“Um,” she said, her gaze slipping out of his, down to where their bodies met. What was she doing? Unsteadily, one hand on his shoulder for support, the blonde extricated herself from him, sliding one leg back off of the bench so she could shift her weight back before doing the same with the other. Her legs were a little stiff and sore from being in a bent position for so long. Standing in front of him, she smoothed the soft material of her dress down with both hands.

His knees were almost touching her legs; she looked at the tiny gap between as she tried to gather herself a little. Self-consciously, she reached up to fix her hair where she assumed he’d messed it up. Her fingers found a plastic butterfly clip and she let her hands drop back to her sides; it seemed an impossible task. “I’m… Sorry,” she said, her words unplanned, unsure and slow.

Phillip was half sure that stopping them was the worst decision he'd ever made, but he couldn't ignore the adamant aggravated voice in the back of his head that kept insisting on it. It should have been so easy to fall into old habits, to hold Billie like he used to, kiss her like he had so many times before, but it wasn't. Even though she felt so familiar, Phillip couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't the same anymore. That even though her skin felt like it used to under his palms, everything had changed. And if they'd kept going, it would have made things worse. His mind always triumphed his emotions, and Phillip forced himself to take a steadying breath as she pulled away.

Immediately he felt the cold rush into the space between them, and he stilled as she pushed off of his chest to stand in front of him. Billie was only half a foot away from him now, but it felt like kilometers out compared to minutes ago. She apologized, and Phillip frowned a little, unsure what to say or do next. "Yeah... me too..." Phillip stood up because it seemed like the most sensible thing to do. If she was standing, he felt uncomfortable still sitting on a bench, but he probably still would have been awkward if she were to sit back down. Things that used to be simple and easy took so much more thought now and reminded Phillip of stuff he was trying not to remember.

She fussed with her hair, and Phillip looked away from her face to the shorter blond locks. "Your hair looks nice," he said, even though he probably should have stayed quiet. It didn't matter that Phillip was still mad at her for lying to him and for betraying him. Or that she'd gotten drunk, and owled him, and kissed him, and made things more confusing. He still thought she was the most beautiful witch he'd ever seen, and he felt like an idiot for mentioning her hair at this very moment. Phillip looked away, shrugging slightly.

He was standing, too. Billie took a quick, near-stumbling step backward to give him space, but she didn’t move far enough; she found herself a little too close to his chest. She took another step, but just a very small one.

It hadn’t really sunk in, yet. Him pulling back, him telling her to wait. Her lips were still tingling and her legs ached, but mostly she just felt confused. Her mind was a step behind. Had he just rejected her? And what did that mean? And how did she feel? Again, her mind provided all of the same questions that would have cropped up if she were sober, but none of the answers. She didn’t have the tools to dig, and if she did then there’d only be more blankness. That was okay, she figured, her mind hazy and distant. She was sure she’d twist herself into pieces over all of this tomorrow.

Billie adjusted his jacket on her shoulders. It came down to the bottom of her dress, or maybe a little lower than that. She tugged at her hem again, trying not to think about how many times he’d made the exact same jacket-gesture when she was cold, or the first time, or the last time, or the fact that she still had one of his sweaters at home and had little intention of giving it back. It made her feel guilty, on normal days.

(A lot; astronomy tower, third year; the day before New Year’s Eve; it was dark grey)

Billie tried not to think about all of those things, but she didn’t try very hard at all.

He liked her hair. He thought it looked good. Briefly, she considered that he meant that he liked the way she’d styled it tonight, but the idea of Phillip Donnelly complimenting Mavis’ glittery pastel butterfly clips was so ridiculous that he could only mean the cut. Which was — something.

“I cut it,” Billie said unnecessarily. “It — I don’t know.” She looked back up at him, a little trepidation in her expression. She caught the tail-end of a half-smile on his lips and wasn’t sure what to make of it. Her heart hurt. “A break up thing, I guess,” She mumbled. The girl made a small gesture with her hand, like she wanted to shrug but couldn’t bring herself to partake in such a casual gesture.

She’d spent months feeling self-conscious about it; now that they were actually talking about her hair, it was taking a ridiculous amount of willpower for her not to start playing with it again. Her discomfort showed in her expression, and after a brief pause, she started talking again, glancing away here and there but mostly maintaining eye contact. She knew she was babbling; she could feel the path between her brain and her lips was unusually slippery right now. She couldn't seem to stop saying what she was thinking. “It’s, um. Quite short, I don’t know, I — I’m not sure about it.” A beat, then a quieter confession. “I didn’t think you liked it.”

Now she did give into the need to fidget, one hand coming up to touch just behind her ear. She tugged lightly on a lock of hair, trying not to think about the despair she’d felt when she’d realised how ugly and terrible it was.

Of course, it was difficult to empathise with her former self right now, after he’d just said that.

Was that too much to say? As soon as Phillip had said it, the worry had begun to settle in. It was a compliment, it was not as if he had said something mean, but still, everything was more complicated in the wake of a breakup. Phillip worried that telling her how beautiful she was would confuse things even more. Phillip had noticed the butterfly clips when she had touched her hair, but he didn’t comment on those.

Billie looked different than he remembered. And not only because she had cut her hair or because she was drunk, but just in general. She backed up half a step, and it afforded him a better look. He’d been distracted when he first found her at Maidstone and when they got here, and his attention had especially been elsewhere a few minutes ago, but now he really looked at her.

The shorter dress showed off her porcelain skin more and made her seem taller even though he knew she wasn’t. Her hair was shorter, and he liked how the ends seemed to curl outward a little bit more than before, still wispy but even lighter because of the new length. It was cute; it was whimsical. Phillip’s tattered old jacket, two sizes too big for her, juxtaposed against her new dress, new hair, and new makeup, made him think. It was like he could see the layers of Billie right then. His Billie vs. Their Billie. The ones the Gryffindors had helped shape, and even though that thought left a bitter taste in his mouth, Phillip realized there was a lot more to it than all the things he had disliked about the group of friends.

Right then, he was thankful she had people to talk to after the breakup. He remembered when it was just the two of them, and he knew all too well what it was like to have no one to talk to. Along that same train of thought, Phillip realized he had them to thank for tonight too. For (probably) convincing her to have a party in the first place and getting alcohol (he doubted anyone would sell Billie anything, not even in London), and maybe even a little bit for her newfound directness. Again, though, he supposed the alcohol had more to do with that than the influence of her new friends. Either way, Phillip realized he loved this new version of Billie just as much as he loved the old one. And most importantly, that it was not only possible but even more painful, that he loved her more now than he had before.

“I cut it,” She’d said, and Phillip nodded. He could hear the hesitation in her voice as she continued, and he wondered if it was because he’d brought it up or because of the haircut. “A break up thing, I guess,” Phillip nodded again, unsure of how to respond to her words and the gesture she made with her hand. A breakup thing, Phillip took this to mean she’d chopped off her hair because they broke up, and if she hated it now, then that was his fault. Billie went on to explain that it was very short, and Phillip listened.

It was a lot shorter than he remembered, but he didn’t see how she couldn’t like it. Then again, girls were a lot pickier about their hair, even witches like Billie, it seemed. Phillip had always appreciated that Billie was so different from the other girls at Hogwarts. She cared about her appearance, of course, but Billie made it seem effortless. She didn’t go out of her way to get attention with too much hairspray and layers of makeup smothering her face.

“I didn’t think you liked it.” Phillip shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the question he’d thought earlier popping back up again and more. He wondered if it was wrong to tell her he liked his hair. If it was against some unspoken rule, and that he wasn’t allowed to like her hair and still be mad at her at the same time. “Why did you think that?” He asked, instead of complimenting her again like he’d wanted to. He was still angry with her for everything, but that feeling had mixed in with so many others tonight that everything had turned into a confusing soup of emotions.

Billie frowned when he asked why she thought he didn’t like her hair, as if it seemed absurd to her that he didn’t know why she’d think that. Honestly, it did seem absurd. She could answer it a few ways; Because when I pointed it out you just described it as “shorter”? Because you hate change? Because you hate everything about me now? The last one sounded dramatic when he was standing in front of her not looking at all like he hated her, but it had felt true so often in the past four months that it wasn’t easily undermined by just a minute of snogging, a compliment and a half-smile.

So, her hair. Killian liked it. Mavis and Nola liked it. Barbara didn’t, but thankfully she hadn’t ever said that out loud. Rowen definitely hated it. Billie didn’t know what she thought of it; she’d been feeling so insecure all through the end of winter (and up until now, too, though it had felt like it had been getting a tiny bit better, before now) that the idea of having an original thought was simply out of the question. She hadn’t even picked what she was wearing right now, even though being between Barbara and Mavis at the mirror had been mildly stressful (Mavis had picked the dress, and Barbara had been polite in that way where Billie could telepathically understand that she thought it inappropriate). In the end Billie was more than compliant, and Mavis was louder.

But Phillip liked the dress, too. Or at least, he’d said so a moment ago.

Billie felt a bit overwhelmed and was feeling very silly about it. Her hand came to rest on her cheek. Alcohol, she thought distantly. It was the alcohol, making her even more emotional and scattered than she already was.

A part of her knew that she was too drunk for him to ever have let the physical stuff get very far, even if he’d wanted to (which was something he’d said he did, but also something that she found hard to keep believing now that they’d stopped). It didn’t make any sense whatsoever that he’d kissed her back, but importantly, it did make sense that he’d pulled away.

Billie felt confused. Frustrated still, but it had shifted to a different kind of frustration that seemed even more difficult to parse. He’d made it clear he didn’t want her to kiss him (because he’d “regret it later”), didn’t say much when she apologised for being all over him, or when she got up, expecting him to want to drop her home or back at the party, but now he was saying nice things about her hair? It felt unfair, somehow.

It was so painfully clear to her that she wanted nothing more than to just be with him, to the point where it was incredibly obvious to her that he was wanting to and strongly committed to the opposite; otherwise they’d be together.

But her brain wasn't really dissecting things so neatly, right now.

“I don’t know,” she said again, shaking her head slightly, the know in her sentence elongated in a way that sounded drunk, even to her imperceptive ears. She was mildly horrified by how petulant she sounded. Childish. Foolish. Stupid. “It sounds stupid out loud.” Her tongue still felt heavy in her mouth, and her words a little lazy, so she should probably just shut up. But she also still had such little filter between her brain and lips that it felt like too much effort to try. Billie sighed. “Maybe you think it’s too short, or…” She trailed off, her eyes distant, before looking back up at him and trying to guess his thoughts. His jacket was still wrapped around her shoulders, comforting in a distantly uncomortable way. She played with it's collar absentmindedly. The words slipped out. “Or maybe you just hate—” Me. “—it?”

Billie's words hit Phillip harder than they probably should have. She'd said she didn't know, but he felt like she was implying that he should have known. And maybe he should have, but Phillip didn't remember ever telling her that he didn't like her hair. Honestly, he was pretty sure he had not commented on it one way or the other, only stating the fact that he'd noticed it was shorter. That conversation felt like a million years ago now, and that version of Phillip certainly never intended to tell her he liked his hair.

Too many things happened tonight that probably were not intended.

Kissing her was the biggest one. The teenager couldn't stop thinking about it. Even as she got up and moved away from him, and now as she flailed to fix her hair, he'd mistakenly opened another can of worms by commenting on it. Images of her close to him, the way his pulse had raced when she kissed his neck, his hands on her thighs stuck with him. Billie repeated her words of doubt, and Phillip barely shrugged. Was he supposed to keep telling her that he liked it? Was Billie angling for him to say something else or just too drunk to stop herself from repeating the same thoughts? Phillip was confused.

It wasn't just this singular moment that perplexed him, though. It was the entire night. Why was he still the first person she owled when she needed help? (Was he the first person? Another worry crept in…) And why had she kissed him? And especially, why had he let her?. Physically he knew why, and emotionally too. He missed her so much that the need was almost palpable. It smothered him, and when she kissed him, Phillip was powerless to stop her. But he should have. He should have pushed her away because they broke up, and he was still mad, but he hadn't. And now they were in some strange middle ground that he hated even more than when they weren't talking.

The familiarity of kissing her had complicated things. For so long, all Phillip had wanted was to be close to her, talk to her without wanting to scream, but now that it had happened, what was supposed to happen next?

"Or maybe you just hate—" Billie paused, "—it?"

"I never said that," Phillip replied immediately. Phillip's eyes darted to focus on Billie instead of the willow tree swaying behind her. And he wasn't talking about her hair, either.

It seemed so stupid, so inane to be talking about her hair. Which was quite a contrast from her feelings on the topic the first few months after she’d cut it, when she’d poured all of her anxiety, insecurity, low-self esteem into fretting about it, all of the time.

To be talking about why she cut it, or why she thought he didn’t like it was just... It felt pointless, tiring. Was this how it felt to hate small talk, she wondered? Billie didn’t hate small talk at all, usually — she wasn’t half bad at it these days, even after spending so much time with Phillip, who hated most talk (and small talk particularly) and Killian, who just couldn’t seem to help but skip to the big talk.

Some people did, though. Hate it, that was. And Billie was starting to think that those people must feel like this. Because a moment ago they’d been kissing, and she’d been pouring her heart out and telling him how much she missed him — and he’d said I miss you too. (Billie found herself half believing that she’d made that part up).

A moment ago she’d slid her hand into his, and she hadn’t been nervous when she’d climbed into his lap. Now he was on his feet; in her head she was just counting down to the part where he wanted to leave, because why would he possibly want to stay?

And they were talking about her hair of all things.

For the first time since she’d left, Billie wondered if anyone missed her. She hadn’t been able to find Killian, Mavis, Barbara, or any of the others — not that she’d looked very hard — but how long had it even been since she’d left? Left her own party, at her own house. Ha. She really was hopeless at this kind of thing — why did any of them let her hang around them? She truly believed she had more friends than she deserved; it was something she'd known was true for a long time, but she really didn't want to go down one of those spirals right now, so instead she let all of her attention remain on him.

It was some kind of emotional whiplash, she decided. One second he was saying I miss you too (hadn’t he?), and then he was feeling her up, and the next he was stopping her and telling her it’d be some big regret, or, or something (whatever he’d actually said had already lost its clarity in her mind; she felt like she’d been rejected, ergo he must have said something that explicitly rejected her). Then he was ignoring her apology and complimenting her hair — and now he was snapping at her.

His eyes were on her now, and even though he hadn’t said anything confrontational, she wanted to wilt away under his gaze. I never said that. It was so defensive. So needlessly corrective — he did always have a bit of a need to be right, she thought.

But then she felt guilty for thinking it.

“I — well,” she started, feeling herself starting to get worked up, emotional. And for what? She couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but her frustration was clearly coming to a head, right there at the end of his sentence. Her first instinct was to shy away, agree, make herself smaller, but she was frowning now. Maybe she was just upset, belatedly, that she’d been rejected? Upset at that and confused about the rest? Maybe she didn’t feel like they were talking about her hair anymore, and that just made her more upset, because “ —Maybe you don’t have to say it,” she said, feeling emotional. Billie took another step back, needing the space. He was looking right at her, and her cheeks were so hot, and she had to look anywhere else but his eyes. “I mean, you’ve made it pretty clear—” Until tonight. The thought cut in, stopping her words in their tracks. She touched her cheek again with one hand.

Phillip did not know what would happen next or what Billie might say, but he did know that he did not like this feeling. Being confused was worse than being angry. Twenty minutes ago, he would be stuck in his anger, and then she’d kissed him, and everything changed. Phillip was still mad; of course, it was not like one kiss would change everything that had happened, but now it was different. He felt like he was looking at his anger through a foggy window. Remembering he was mad, and sure he would find his way back to it later when she was not standing in front of him, but right now, he was just lost. Billie cared a lot about her hair, and Phillip knew without a doubt that bringing it up now had been a mistake.

His little attempt to make something, anything between them a little bit better, had backfired. When Billie stood up and moved away from him, she had looked so uncomfortable, like he had said something awful, and Phillip’s first instinct had been to make up for it by saying something he thought was nice. Even now, even after she had lied to him and broke his heart, he had still wanted to make her feel better. Phillip’s instincts were not great, but this was the first time he had kicked himself for not wanting Billie to be upset. Despite everything that had happened, Phillip had always still cared about her. It was why he had never told his friends her secrets; it was why he had come tonight when she messaged him, and it was always why he hadn’t offered to bring her back to that party yet.

Maybe that last one had a little to do with his selfishness, too.

When Billie said she had thought he hated her hair, Phillip felt irrationally upset about it. It was not really about her hair, and it was not really something he could explain. The teenager felt like she was accusing him of being mean to her, and for once, Phillip did not like how black and white that accusation felt. He hadn’t been mean to her on purpose, but he hadn’t gone out of his way to be nice about her hair when he’d first seen it either. There was more to it than that, obviously, and going through it in his mind, Phillip felt like he hadn’t done anything wrong. They had been broken up, Billie was the one who had lied, and he had every right to be mad at her and not compliment her hair.

She moved away from him, speaking again, and Phillip’s face fell flat. “Pretty clear that what?” He asked, daring her to finish the sentence even though a part of him wished that she wouldn’t. Did Billie think he hated her? Phillip wasn’t sure, but he was starting to get the feeling that she might have. The idea was tough to swallow, but Phillip was struck by another question that perplexed him further. Did he care if she thought he hated her? Little by little, the anger he’d felt minutes ago started to creep back in. Like tiny cracks forming in the makeshift dam being close to her had created. It was spilling in, running down the wall, and pooling. Phillip grew quiet again as he waited for her to answer.

He was still close enough for her to touch, and a part of her wanted to curl up against him and bury her frustration — and herself — into his chest. She raised her hands, momentarily unsure where she was going to put them, then covered her face again while she tried to think. Her thoughts were so scattered, so all over the place. She was never drinking alcohol ever again, she decided. Never ever ever, ever.

There was still that confrontational edge in Phillip’s voice, and Billie hated it. Not to say she didn’t understand it! She knew why he probably felt like she was the worst person in the world, or something (she often thought things like this herself!). But she was less of a glutton for self-punishment when drunk, apparently; she didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to be around it. It felt like it would take too much energy to direct her thoughts, shape herself around his feelings like she knew she should. (And of course, the paranoia voice: maybe she’d been spoiled by her new friends, who didn’t know her, didn't know to hate her like he did).

"I don't know," she breathed. Billie moved her hands, first to tuck hair behind ears, then to oh — touch the clips, foreign objects atop her head — then to adjust the top of her cardigan where it had half slipped off of her shoulder. It was like some kind of quiet routine, like she needed to fix herself, make herself presentable and that that would somehow help her with everything else. Her throat was tight. “—That, you don’t want to be around me?” she said, gesturing with her hands in a contained sort of shrug before letting them fall to her sides. They’d been talking about hair, but they hadn’t, and Billie was too drunk to keep up the pretense.

As soon as he'd asked himself the question, Phillip realized unequivocally that he cared. Despite everything the wizard had tried to convince himself since they had broken up, Phillip didn't want to hate Billie. And he certainly hoped she didn't think that he did. He'd tried to tell himself that he should, that it was the logical thing to do in the wake of a breakup, but his mind and his heart never agreed. He missed her even when he thought he wanted nothing to do with her. Phillip found it easier to remember how he was "supposed" to feel when she wasn't around him.

And for everything that tonight had confused, it had also offered some clarity. Even if he wanted to, Phillip was having a hard time feeling as angry as he might have four months ago. Especially as she stood across from him, so close that he felt pulled toward her, and Phillip noticed how uncomfortable she looked. When she spoke again, it would have been so easy for Phillip to bark something back. To jump to conclusions or get angry at some principal he thought he was protecting. But something about the way Billie seemed to shrug made him pause and think about it before answering.

It was a moment or two before he spoke again, and even then, Phillip's words were hesitant. And the anger was still there, wrapped around everything else he was feeling, but his words weren't demanding anything now. "It's complicated..." He admitted before sighing and tilting his head back, indicating how annoyed he was with himself for saying it. It's complicated was such an understatement that it was bordering on being a useless platitude. Phillip hated those, too, like most things, but he certainly didn't hate Billie. "I don't know what I'm supposed to want now." He offered, looking away from her as he did.

Phillip was unsure of how they were supposed to move on when it was so clear that neither one of them was over it. And how could they be? Phillip had never loved anyone how he had loved Billie, but he'd also never been so betrayed. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and slid his cold hands into the pockets of his trousers, quiet again.

She was so emotional and all over the place; in comparison, he seemed so composed. Since when was he the composed one, of the two of them? She didn’t like the role reversal — didn’t like feeling like she was the only one ruled so absolutely by her emotions, like any thought she had was at risk of just slipping out of her lips, unchecked, while he seemed to feel so comfortable carefully choosing his.

A part of her would have preferred it if he snapped back at her. She hated the silence, hated the fact that she could feel his eyes on her, but was too nervous to look at him. She clasped her hands in front of her, to stop them from fidgeting more, and the second he looked away, she was studying his expression.

She was emotionally worked up again and her shoulders were tense, like she was waiting for something to happen. Waiting for him to tell her he was taking her home to Kendrick’s or back to the party. Or waiting for him to yell at her, or something. She wasn’t sure how to answer him, or if he wanted any kind of answer at all; he looked like he was just talking to himself.

Billie swayed a little where she was standing, and took a small step to steady herself. She sighed a frustrated exhale, catching his jacket as it tried to slide off of her shoulders. Absentmindedly, the blonde readjusted, sliding her hands into the sleeves with a little difficulty. Merlin, she was drunk. Was it always like this? Why did anyone ever drink? No wonder he hadn’t wanted to make out with her; she was messy. Her eyes were wet again; when had that happened?

She shook her head, still frustrated. She didn’t like his answer. “But what do you want,” Billie asked, her voice clearly thick with emotion as much as she tried to hold it back. She reached up to hastily wipe away a stray tear with the edge of his sleeve.

What did Phillip want? It should have been easy to answer, but like everything else, it was complicated. “I don’t know,” He answered honestly, but the words were more like filler as he thought about it. Phillip pressed his lips together, clearly lost in his thoughts, and grew quiet again. He felt like he was wading through different layers of emotion. On the surface, there was a part of him that wished he’d never found out, but of course, that was only a tiny bit of him. Beneath that, another layer wondered what it might have been like if Billie had told him first. He’d gone over it in his mind a million times, about how he might have reacted differently, about how they could have faced her secret together. But that wasn’t an option either, so even if he wished it had happened that way, it wasn’t something he wanted now.

Diving deeper, the teenager thought about the potential paths from here. Not what the rest of tonight might look like, but the rest of April, the school year, and beyond. Phillip never really thought about the future before Billie, but she still had that effect on him, it seemed. “I don’t want us to be like this anymore…” Phillip began, motioning between them with his hand moving back and forth, but that wasn’t a very good explanation, and the wizard knew it. It wasn’t a fully-fledged thought, but if he took away all of the calculations, all of the limitations, Phillip realized he just wanted her back. Even if they weren’t dating, he wanted Billie in his life, but he was still so far from forgiving her, it didn’t seem like a possibility. He continued quickly. “What I mean is I don’t want to be mad at you, but I still am.” It wasn’t something he could turn off. There was no switch for it, no magical cure, and it wasn’t like time turners or memory potions were healthy options.

Moving away from her, Phillip slumped back onto the picnic table bench, and it shifted a little under its weight. Absently, he wondered how long it’d been out here and who it belonged to, but that was just a diversion from what he needed to be thinking about. Phillip had never been the type to speak a lot, but he cared enough to give Billie better explanations. “And… well, I don’t know how to move past that.” Did he even want to forgive her for what she had done? Phillip still wasn’t sure. He could forgive Billie for who her parents were, and he knew it wasn’t her fault; that had never really been the issue; it was that she kept it from him.

The part that had hurt him the most was that Billie knew everything about him. Billie knew that Phillip had lost his entire family to death eaters and the war and that in the years following, he’d learned not to trust anyone. She knew how important honesty was to him, and yet she kept such an explosive secret. Phillip understood why she might have initially, but he didn’t know why she waited for him to find out on his own. That was the betrayal. That was the deepest cut, and it just wouldn’t heal.

Understanding his mind and what he wanted was a difficult thing to do, but Phillip was trying. The wizard knew he still wanted Billie in his life, the last four months without her had been the worst, but he also knew it would never be like it was. And he knew why.

“I don’t trust you anymore.”

Billie took a deep breath and sighed again, the sigh heavy with emotion. Once more, she was overcome with the feeling that all of this baggage, all of this emotional weight, was a more literal thing. She could feel it in her joints, in her heavy shoulders, her unwieldy tongue.

Or, maybe that was just the alcohol.

She really should have been all-cried-out by now — how much could one person cry in the span of four months?? It hadn’t helped at all that OWLs were fast approaching, and that she felt utterly convinced emotionally — if not logically — that screwing up her exams truly equated to screwing up her life. She really had no idea if that was irrational or just the truth; it fluctuated depending on the day.

OWLs were far from her mind right now, though. And she was definitely crying.

I don’t want us to be like this anymore…

Neither did she, but Billie didn’t really think they meant it in the same way. Unbelievable that they’d been talking about her haircut not two minutes ago.

I don’t want to be mad at you — this one was a bit more of a surprise, but she didn’t have much time to think about it because it was followed with a very reasonable: but I still am.

She nodded all the while, gaze lowered. He took a seat back at the table and she realised that a part of her actually felt quite appreciative that he was saying all of these things; Phillip had always erred on the frugal side when it came to verbalising his feelings. There was a little lingering frustration that she hadn’t expected; why couldn’t he have been this good at it while they were together? It wasn’t like he wasn’t under pressure now, or in an emotionally tense situation. It felt pretty clear to her that whatever mess they were in now was more confusing to navigate than a bad dinner or his jealousy of Ki or the fact that he didn’t like her friends.

But… Whatever heated feelings she’d been feeling were melting quickly into a more run-of-the-mill drunk hopelessness, so she didn’t hold on to the frustration for long.

“I — yeah,” Billie said, wiping at her wet cheeks. And — he didn’t owe her anything at all, she reminded herself distantly.

She was quiet for a bit, just nodding in silence.

She wiped away some more tears, wondering if she could go and sit next to him again, or if he’d hate that. After a beat, she went anyway, leaving ample space between them just in case. She sat right back on the bench, the table against her back. “I understand,” she said eventually, her voice soft. It felt like a punch in the chest, but Billie had thought far worse things about herself in the past months than untrustworthy. He could have said it so many different ways, she thought. Meaner ways. With more disgust. That was how she’d imagined it, anyway.

Billie was so short only the tips of her toes touched the ground, but she leaned forward anyway, elbows on her thighs and her face in her hands. She sighed again; when she closed her eyes she felt so unsteady. “I’m so drunk,” she said, her voice shaky. She was quiet for a while, sitting in the feeling and not enjoying any part of it.

Billie was drunk, and Phillip was using more than four words simultaneously; it was clear everything was upside down. As if the running theme tonight were to make everything as complicated as possible, and Phillip was tired. She nodded, answering in a way that was more like what he would have done, and Phillip didn't like the quiet. She'd been oversharing earlier, and he very much preferred that to this. When Billie came to sit next to him, Phillip was still again, careful not to move, not to give her any indication that she should not. Finally, she sat down a small distance from him, and Phillip was relieved. Kissing her again wouldn't solve anything; it would just make things even messier.

He continued, and Billie listened, but why did her "I understand" feel so hollow to him? Phillip did not know how to accept her answer because it was not what he had wanted. The wizard had not realized what he had been getting at when he said it, but now it was crystal clear. Saying he did not trust her was Phillips's way of begging her to change his mind. To give him a reason to feel differently. He knew it was wrong to put that sort of pressure on her right now, or ever really, so he went back to not explaining what he was thinking. Sometimes that was just easier, even if it was far less helpful.

Phillip watched as Billie leaned forward, arms on her thighs, and he nodded. They sat in the quiet for a while longer, the wind still rustling through the long grass, and Phillip shivered a little. He wasn't cold, he didn't want his jacket back, and he hoped she hadn't seen it. "We should probably get you some water…" Phillip offered, but the teenager made no effort to get up from the bench. He didn't want to take her back to Maidstone, and he certainly didn't want to leave this pocket dimension where they were communicating either, but he wasn't sure how much longer they could feasibly sit here.