Luna(tic) (Marauders Era)

18. The Tightrope Walker

The next weeks blurred. Luna's classes picked up. Her friendships solidified. Her world steadied. Things worked. Or, at least, they worked as much as they ever could for a mad girl with an invisible friend.

And if there were moments when Luna caught Sam staring with that same tired, worn expression that was all too familiar from a lifetime of catching her mother's falling face, she pretended she didn't see it. Pretended it didn't matter. Pretended she didn't care.

Of course, the truth was that she did care. Very much. Just not quite enough to do anything about it.

It made her stomach jerk every time she thought about it. Made her heart twist and her chest ache and her whole being wish and wish and wish that he could just have been... solid. Visible. As real to everyone else as he had always been to her.

He wasn't though. He never had been and he never would be and as much as it tore Luna apart in those moments where she caught him smoothing over an expression that looked like a scream or a plea, she also knew she couldn't change it. She had known that long before she had ever stepped foot in this school. And besides, now Sam wasn't everything. Now, there were moments when Luna smiled and it wasn't because of him. Moments when there were people - peers - around her and she wasn't terrified. Moments when she thought she might almost have been comfortable.

Almost.

It would have been hard, Luna thought, to ever be entirely comfortable when she spent every day walking a tightrope. When she could feel the wire beneath her feet, the drop on either side. When she stood, refusing to even extend her arms for balance in case anyone saw them raised and wondered what she was doing.

Because it was a balancing act. A careful, fragile, desperate balancing act that no one could ever know she was attempting.

And Sam had been right about it: he didn't seem to like what balance looked like. But he had also been kind, even in his displeasure, as Luna had known he would be. Because for all Sam's anger, for all his frustration, for all his loud words and demands, when it came down to it, Sam took care of her. Sam protected her. It was what he had always done. And he was careful never to push her. Never to disrupt her balance. Never to be the breeze that made her trip and fall and give it all away. He was careful to stay silent when the night belonged to her newer friends. Careful to linger on the sidelines. Careful to vanish when she needed him to.

In return, Luna was careful to make space for him. To make excuses to spend nights or afternoons alone, tucked in some side room where they could talk freely. Or as freely as any spoken word could be when it was kept to a whisper.

And Luna always whispered.

She knew Sam hated it. She would have guessed it even if she couldn't see it, but she caught the twitch in his face every time. The tightness in his mouth. The deep breath, that she thought might have been as much to steady himself as to speak sharp words that never made it passed his lips.

And she was grateful for that. Grateful that he didn't mention it. Grateful for his silence on this front. She did not want to hear him call her a coward. It was hard enough to block out her own voice in her head whispering it. She wasn't sure she could bear it coming from him. From someone who's opinion had always held more sway than her own.

And maybe that was why, every time they sat in those classrooms, every time she heard that deep breath, Luna held her own. And she wondered. Wondered if this time he would say it. Wondered if this time he would snap. Wondered how long it would be before all this swallowing of things she didn't want to hear made him explode.

But he never said it. Never dared. Or perhaps, Luna thought, he simply knew the rules as well as she did. Knew that sometimes, words weren't meant to be spoken. Sometimes, no matter how bitter they tasted, it was better to swallow the poison than let it out into the air to wreak havoc on everyone else too. Because some things were best left unsaid.