Sitting on my own,
Chewing on a bone –
A thousand million
Miles from home
When something hit me,
Somewhere right between the eyes.

The Christmas tree is as perfect as it always is. It gives off an aura of unattainable perfection, each light shining with meticulous care, each piece of tinsel placed just so it appears that it has been slaved over for hours before reaching its incomparable beauty. It doesn’t surprise her, how well it turned out. After all, she knows that she has an eye for detail – that she can give life to something as mundane as an evergreen tree. It’s the predictability, if anything, that makes her resent the sight before her.

Unwillingly, she is reminded of him. Of his last letter. Please, talk to me, was all it said, its words a testament to the hope it tries, in vain, to conceal. She can’t make sense of it, how the four short words are substantial enough to cause her to fold the note into sixteenths, rip its corners, crumple it into a ball and throw it across the room, yet are a tribute to a promise that she cannot let go of; one she cannot throw away. But she wants to. She needs to. She hasn’t forgotten.

Talk to me.

If only it were that easy.

She reaches out her arm to adjust one of the baubles. It’s too close to another, and she can’t stand it like that. She fingers the blue glass and stares at her reflection in it for only a moment before she throws it to the ground and watches it break.

Sleeping on a plane,
You know you can't complain,
You took your last chance
Once again.

She has ignored all of his letters. She hasn’t spoken to him since she graduated. Since he left her. She tells herself that she wants nothing to do with him, after all. It’s easier that way. She does not trust herself to forgive him, and she doesn’t know how he expects her to forget everything – all the pain that he caused – simply because the war is over. She does not know what happened to him, but she does not care, and so she convinces herself that she never needed him. That he meant nothing to her.

But she fingers the scars on her arm and she knows otherwise.

I landed, stranded;
Hardly even knew your name.

It’s late when she arrives at the pub, but she prefers the atmosphere of the place after dark. There’s less chatter, and the air is lighter, more conducive to clearing her head. She has taken to visiting the inn, lately, though she can’t say why. She’s never cared much for drinking, but there’s something addictive about the mood. About the way that sitting in a room full of strangers can make you feel like you have somewhere to be, an obligation to uphold. The way that sharing in the same hushed silence makes it easier to pretend that you have something in common – a mutual resignation to the fact that this is as good as it’s going to get.

She loves it and she hates it, but tonight she does not pay it much thought as she approaches the bar; her only goal to drink and forget and pretend that it isn’t Christmas Eve. That she isn’t alone.

“I’ll take a firewhiskey,� she says, sitting down at the bar and paying the man behind the counter. She registers vaguely that someone sits down next to her.

“Thank God for Apparition,� the stranger says, removing his coat. “It’s an awful night to be out.�

She nods, focused intently on the wall behind the counter – a mural of brown, a tribute to monotony. It is nothing to look at, but she begins to think that if she stares long enough, no one will notice if she decides to fade away.

For this reason, she’s unnerved to hear the stranger’s voice persist beside her.

“What brings you here?�

She accepts her firewhiskey wordlessly and shrugs. “I couldn’t stand being at home any longer.�

“Too hectic?�

“Too empty.�

She traces the bottle cap with her fingers as he orders a drink, and she sighs. “What about you?�

She doesn’t know why she’s asking, because after all, she’s not very curious. She glances up at the man sitting beside her. He does not seem to be much older than her, but he couldn’t have gone to Hogwarts, because she doesn’t recognise him. He has light hair, clear eyes, soft features. The sort of person who you pass on the street every day; the one you don’t notice until you run into them and their appearance comes into clear focus – more distinct than ever.

He grins before taking a sip of whiskey. “I have nowhere else to be.�

“Funnily enough, me neither.�

“I would expect that a pretty girl like you would be married by now. Or at least have someone to spend a night like this with.�

She shrugs, ignoring the compliment, knowing that the words are empty and that he’s only making conversation. “I haven’t been with anyone for a while. My last relationship ended badly.�

“Don’t they all?�

She shrugs. “He just left. He got a job promotion and it obviously meant more to him than I did.�

She wishes she hadn’t said anything. It is easy enough to hear words of solace about her situation. In fact, she has heard them all before, so many times that they play through her subconscious like a recording that doesn't understand its time has come to an end. He’s worthless. Anyone who would do that – leave without a trace, without looking back – isn’t worth your time. Move on. You can live without him.

I wanna talk tonight,
Until the morning light,
About how you saved my life.
You and me see how we are.

There is a time when she let herself believe them, when she let herself be comforted by their empty words, which were always enough to fuel her anger, to give her a foundation for her resentment. But she is tired of it. Tired of their worthless consolations. Tired of her friends and family trying to understand, or worse yet, not bothering to acknowledge everything that they conveniently left out of their supposed motivational speeches. Everything that defined her, everything that she had ever needed to hear them say.

You can live without him. If only they knew. Sometimes she thinks that they do, but that it’s easier to be judgmental from a distance.

She is so lost in her thoughts that she is surprised to see that the man is still staring at her, grey eyes unblinking, expecting her to elaborate. She doesn’t know if he’s bored or if he’s one of those people who thinks he’s doing a good deed by listening, but somehow, she does not expect him to care about what she is saying. This reason, if any, is what makes her keep talking.

“He keeps trying to write. He’s obviously sorry for what he did, but I can’t forgive him.�

“Why not?�

“I just can’t.�

All your dreams are made
Of strawberry lemonade,
And you make sure
I eat today.

He raises his eyebrows at her and she stares back, determined to tell him with that one gaze that she doesn’t need help. She doesn’t want his advice and she cringes as he opens his mouth, knowing that she’s going to receive it.

“A while back, I left this girl I was with. I was afraid. Of a lot of things, and I didn’t know how to tell her. So I just left.�

He pauses and she looks away.

“There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t regret it.�

“That was different. He wasn’t afraid. He just cared too much about his job.�

“You’re sure of that?�

“Yes, I’m sure.� She drains her bottle and orders another.

“You ever think that he hid his insecurities behind his ambition?�

“You don’t know him. He was never insecure. That was always me. He… always knew how to fix me.�

“Maybe he still does.�

You take me walking
To where you played
When you were young.

“Too much has happened.� She sighs. “What happens when you love a person so much that they turn into the reason you’re alive? What happens when they leave? Do you keep living?�

It’s the sort of question that she doesn’t want to ask, because she’s afraid of the answer. But she takes another sip of her drink, convincing herself that it will make it easier to hear what he has to say next.

“You find someone else.�

Wrong answer.

“I put so much faith in him,� she whispered. “He saved me. I always took for granted that he would be there to do it again. But I hate this… this person I’ve become. Every day I look in the mirror and expect to see someone else. And I try to hate him for it. I try to tell myself that I don’t need him, that I don’t care. Sometimes I can even believe it.� She sighs. “I do resent him. Sometimes, I hate him, and I read his letters and I get so… indignant about the way he’s acting like no time has passed. But I don’t blame him. Everyone expects me to, but can you really blame a person when it’s your own fault for not seeing what was always there?�

She hates that she’s saying this – that she’s explaining herself to a person she does not even know, but the words are rushing out of her mouth faster than she can bother to stop them.

“I always knew he would need something better. It’s hard to pretend that you mean anything at all to a person when they mean everything to you.�

“But you love him.�

It isn’t a question.

“I don’t want to,� she whispers.

“Why not?�

“I don’t want to feel that way again. It’s easier to be numb, to just go through the motions than to constantly live on the edge, never knowing what’s going to push you over. I can’t let him do that again.� Her voice shakes and she clutches the bottle harder than ever, surprised that it hasn’t broken. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid that he’ll hurt me again. Or that I’ll hurt myself.� She bites her lip, stopping just as she begins to feel the pain, and she changes the subject. “During the war, toward the beginning… things were different. He wasn’t on our side. On my side,� she adds, reminding herself that she isn’t familiar with the person sitting inches away from her.

She doesn’t say what she means to: that he believed that the Ministry was right, that he stuck with their narrow-minded ideals until the very end. That she doesn’t know what would have happened to them even if he hadn’t left – that she isn’t sure if she would be able to recognise him, even if he were sitting beside her.

“He said in one of his letters that his family’s forgiven him for what he did. At one time, that would have been enough to convince me that he’s changed.�

“Maybe he has.�

She can’t tell if he’s getting impatient with her, or if he truly believes what he is saying. She rubs her eyes and she orders another drink, although she hasn’t finished the one in her hand.

“What if he has? Does it really matter?�

“Why wouldn’t it matter?�

“When you spend your life waiting, it’s easy to forget what exactly you’re waiting for. And how are you supposed to just move forward without looking back on everything that’s happened? Just because I loved him… things have changed. Too much is different. You don’t understand.�

He frowns, and is silent for a moment. Long enough so that she begins to forget what his voice sounds like. Her head is spinning, and she puts down her drink, running her hands through her tangled hair. She thinks of returning home, but notions of her empty house with its lonely tree stop her. Half way through rising out of her seat, she sits back down, and glances over to find that the man is once more staring at her, trying to catch her gaze.

“Just because it’s hard to look back, and to accept everything that’s happened… maybe it’s what you have to do.� He lifts his coat and makes to stand.

I'll never say that I
Won't ever make you cry,
And this I'll say –
I don't know why,
I know I'm leaving
But I'll be back another day.

When he is half way across the room she calls, “Whatever happened to that girl you were with?�

He stares at her and slowly walks back, closing his eyes when he reaches the bar. She is unsure if he is remembering in resentment or with acceptance. It’s hard to tell, from the way he frowns and raises his hand to his temple.

“I walk by her house sometimes. Sometimes I just stand there, even if it’s raining, and I wait for her to open the door. She never does.�

He sighs and lifts his gaze to meet her eyes. She wants to look away, but she doesn’t. “I may not understand, but there’s only one way to find out if he does. You can love and hate a person at the same time, but eventually, one of them is going to give way to the other. Talk to him. You need to.�

She shakes her head, allowing her hair to fall in front of her face as she begins to cry.

He stands to leave, and still she does not look up.

“What’s your name?�

“Penelope.�

It isn’t until after he is gone that she realises she never asked his name. This isn’t nearly as surprising as realising that she is not at all curious.

I wanna talk tonight,
Until the morning light,
About how you saved my life.
(You saved my life.)

She does not want to be at his door, but there she is. She does not want to knock because she does not know what she is going to say. She does not want to see the man who broke her only years after he saved her.

Her hand rests on the door and she closes her eyes, tears leaking out of the corners, as she remembers everything that she has spent her life trying to forget – everything that has been at the tip of her tongue the entire night, that she has been too weak to say aloud. As she remembers the pain and depression that she experienced after her mother died. As she remembers the boy who sat down across from her in the library and introduced himself, hours after she had decided to end her life.

I wanna talk tonight,
(About how you saved my life.)

She rings the doorbell simply because she can no longer bear the silence, and she does not bother to wipe her eyes, because she knows that it does not matter how he sees her when all she wants is for him to hear her. A thousand words run through her head and she forgets them all as the door slowly opens.

Hands trembling, she opens her eyes. “Percy.�

His face registers the shock only briefly, before he opens the door wider and lets her inside.

I wanna talk tonight,
(About how you saved my life.)