Vulnerability

Chapter 14

When I woke up the next day, my body ached and I didn't even drink! I got up and stretched before heading downstairs. The common room was quiet, I checked the time and was surprised it was quiet... I suppose people may be hungover or still in other common rooms. I remember last night's events and sighed to myself as I walked out of the common room.

"Woah," I say as I find a few passed-out Hufflepuff students, they were so close to making it into the common room.

I decided to leave them as I went upstairs, today was a weekend and tomorrow is when a lot of students are going home for break. Not me though, I have to do the final trial. When I went upstairs there were hardly any students out, this is creepy. Where are the younger kids? I've seen only a couple of students since I made my way to the Great Hall.

"Freya!" a voice says and I turn in surprise, Poppy.

"Good morning, where is everyone?" I ask, I mean it's like everyone is missing.

She shrugs, "It's a weekend, people sleep in and people are hungover. I heard a few of the younger years have left already,"

Ah.. that'd do it, "That makes sense,"

"So..." she rocks back and forth on her feet, "How are you after last night?"

"Which part? The bet or Atticus fucking Evangeline?" I ask.

"...Both?" She asks.

I sigh, "I don't know... yes I'm pissed but I don't know if I can stay mad that long at Sebastian. I'm helping him find a cure for his sister but he's going to have to work for my help again,"

"I'm sorry, I guess I thought it'd been off or just rumors," she says.

"I guess I'm to blame, I forgot about it and maybe fell a little bit for Sebastian..." I pause, I never actually acknowledged those feelings till now, "But now... I don't know what I feel towards him... I mean he did string me along for a while, who knows when he decided to back out,"

"That's true," she says as we sit down for lunch, no one else is really in here so more food for us. "It was really messed up what Evangeline did, I'm so sorry,"

"That was actually not that surprising, Evangeline did say she was jealous that I had Atticus' attention. She just wanted some on her. She was never that kind to me, I could tell she thought I was some competition for Atticus... Which is strange," I say. "Atticus will sleep with almost everyone so I was surprised he hadn't slept with her yet... all she had to do was ask,"

"Do you think Atticus slept with her as a way to get under your skin? He didn't really fight you when you kicked him out last night," she points out and I remember the way he looked at me when he realized I was truly mad at him.

"You can never be sure with Atticus," I say taking a bite of food.

"That's true," she says.

We eat in comfortable silence as we look around the mostly empty Great Hall, it's a shame the food is going to waste. I'm sure the house elves will leave it out longer so students can stop by whenever they want. As we're gathering our things to leave, Poppy's eyes widen.

"What?" I ask.

"Uh oh," she shifts back and forth uncomfortably, she's looking past me so I follow her gaze. My eyes meet Sebastian's. Uh oh.

He comes up almost immediately, he doesn't say anything for a moment. I try to ignore him but then he speaks, "C-Can we talk?" his voice is so quiet, I barely heard him.

"What's there to talk about? What I'd like to know is when you decided to drop out of the bet," I snap turning around, "Maybe it was after the scriptorium because you realized what you did was not going to help your chances of me sleeping with you," Then I notice he has been crying at some point, his face is flushed and his eyes are puffy, he's also sniffling.