May the Best Man Win |×| Fred Weasley | 1 |×|

×| THIRTY-NINE |×

SHE WAS SWIMMING IN A WHIRLPOOL OF SUGAR AND CINNAMON. His lips were soft and smooth and gentle, delicately brushing against her own as a fluttering of fairy wings. For a moment, he stilled, perhaps in thought and she breathed in the sweetness and relished in the warmth. Then his hand came to cup the side of her face and the pad of his thumb stroked against her cheekbone - carefully tracing the curve of a work of art. Around them was nothing. The light from her wand danced over her closed eyelids, painting them red and yellow and pink. His lips moved again, and Evelyn let herself melt into the embrace, afraid of the cold that would greet her should he break away.

She was pulling out of a wronski feint - the plummeting disaster of a night suddenly ablaze at soaring heights. She rose to her tiptoes and then to the clouds, lifted by the butterflies swirling through her body. Her head became dizzy with the twisting inside as half-finished thoughts drifted away, so her arms pulled her closer; she didn't want to fall. They were two sides of a magnet, they wouldn't be pulled apart. Like the first splash of rain in a harrowing drought, there was something refreshing and freeing exploding around her. There had been no hesitation. No uncertainty. Only unquestionable rightness. Fred's touch was impossible - exactly how Evelyn dreamed to be kissed.

Her eyes burst open. Star-speckled cheeks and flaming-red hair. It was impossibly impossible.

It was Fred.

Evelyn pulled away.

The cold was agonizing.

Evelyn tried desperately to look at anything but him. Her fingernails dug into the cuts on her hands but she ignored the reignited pain and kept her fists squeezed closed - it overtook the icy burns that blistered on her skin in the absence of Fred's gentle touch. The thumping of her heart sent a rush of crimson blood to her face as though in a panicked search for his missing lips. Her head pounded as booming beats of pain and realisation echoed through its depths. Her heart willed her forward, her mind urged her backwards, and Evelyn stood caught between two rights and two wrongs.

The first right: get away. The second right: stay close. The first wrong: get away. The second wrong: stay close. It shouldn't have happened. Or maybe it should have. But she was supposed to kiss Ethan. Or maybe she wasn't. They were just friends. Or maybe they weren't. She'd done the right thing - pulling away. Or maybe she hadn't. The truth was putting a toe to both sides of the line - and the line between right and wrong was a fine one.

"Evie?" Fred didn't sound like usual - his voice quiet and cautious and hoarse. Evelyn looked up. Fred didn't look like usual either.

He'd stuffed his hands in the pockets of his Muggle jeans and was kicking at the leaves and dirt on the ground. His brow was creased and a defeated frown hung limply on his face. His eyes asked a question and one thought ran through Evelyn's mind.

The way he'd kissed her... It had felt so much more perfect than any of Ethan's kisses. It had felt so right. But then it ended and the overwhelming wrong had bubbled up around her. The guilt had boiled into a suffocating steam and she could only see two ways out.

One of the ways led to warmth and desire. The other way led to darkness and isolation. Evelyn's head told her, perhaps unwisely, to go with the latter.

"I have to go..." Her voice sounded alien as she made her excuses, aching as she made to get away. She walked backwards slowly, eyes on the ground until she turned around and the little steps escalated to a jog and then the bounding strides of a run. The light from her wand acted as a shield as she fled through the trees, the final defence from the world closing in around her. Her heart pumped like thunder, breath hitching in her increasing distress. Her cheeks were sticky from tears she didn't know we're falling as she ran, ignorant to the thudding of footsteps and the calls of her name behind her.