meet me in the garden

4

"I hardly know you," Regulus whispers.

"Do you want to know me?" I ask.

He pauses and I wait for him to give me a black eye for saying it.

"I do," he says. "More than anything."

I feel relief loosen my body again.

I'm not sure if he wants me in the way that I want him, but this is good for now. Maybe I can even help him to reconcile whatever happened between him and Sirius.

It's as though he can read my thoughts.

"This doesn't mean that I will wait for Sirius," he murmurs.

I nod. Then I realize that he can't see me, so I whisper "yes" into the side of his head.

My lips brush his hair. I'm trying to torture myself.

It feels like he's curling into me, much like I wish I could do to him.

Maybe he just needs a hug, someone to cling to. I can be that someone, even if it ends up killing me to be so close and yet so far from him.

I've never understood the nature of falling in love, nor how it can happen so fast. But I feel like I have an understanding of this boy that spans over centuries of great loves. I wonder if every person leading up to this moment knew about the butterflies that would tumble through all the parts of my being every time that he shifts his body. If I were a writer, I would be able to describe this better, but just being next to him feels like being absorbed into a star. I'm worried that it will overflow me and spill out into my words for him to hear.

I press my lips into the back of my hand, suddenly too nervous to be collected.

"Hey, are you alright?" he asks, sitting up slightly.

He takes my hand and squeezes it. I can only stare at him.

What am I supposed to do?

He squeezes my hand again. There's a soft grin on his face.

"Don't worry," he says.

I can't tell if he's read my thoughts again or if he just means to not worry in general.

"I can help you too, if you want. I understand more than you know."

Normally panic would take over my body, but he's being so casual. Maybe this has happened to him before, a boy falling in love with him. Perhaps he's kind about it, good at the letting-you-down-easy part.

I force myself to sound relaxed.

"Don't worry about it!" I say cheerfully.

He searches my eyes, as though unsure of how to react to my sudden brightness.

"I'm serious," I say. "I'll be fine. I'm still a little bit drunk from earlier."

"Oh," he says.

I notice that his demeanour completely changes. He puts some more distance between us, a subtle shift in energy. His eyes are guarded again.

I know that I have caused this, but I'm not sure why. I'm just making things easier for both of us.

"Um—I can sleep on the sofa tonight," I offer.

"If that's alright," he mutters.

His coldness bites.

I watch him as he stands up and leaves the room.

That went awfully. I resist the urge to smother myself with a sofa cushion.

Part of me wishes that I was still at the ball right now. I would be doing exactly what my mother and everyone else expects me to do: courting Lily Evans and planning our engagement day with well practiced rapture. I try to think about her, slender gloved hand in mine as we twirl across the ballroom in my mind, but the only hand coming to mind is Regulus's. It was so tantalizingly close to mine, mere minutes ago. I almost picked it up just to kiss it.

And that's precisely why I had to stop. I could tell that nothing would come of it, save for an embarrassing let-down. Regulus seems gracious enough not to call the police on me, perhaps thinking that this is a "temporary affliction" of mine, but he'd never speak to me again if I ever tried anything.

If being a little bit cold to each other for a few days is the price of keeping him around, then I can live with that, no matter how much it hurts.

I stand up and walk over to the couch, slow with exhaustion. The alcohol in my system isn't as strong as I led Regulus to believe, but it's still there, heavy now rather than the initial lightness that it gave me.

I lie down, stretching myself from edge to edge, and let my body begin to drift away.

The apartment smells softly of blossoms, gentle and vaguely tickly in my nose. I imagine that Sirius must have open bottles of perfume hidden all over the place, otherwise I'm not entirely sure how he can possibly keep the scent alive.

Admist my sleepy reflections, I sense that I am no longer alone in the room.

I open my eyes and watch as Regulus walks from the hallway to the foot of the sofa. He is a soft blue shadow in the dark.

"Are you awake?" he whispers, leaning over my legs.

"Yes," I whisper back.

The butterflies are back, racing below the surface.

"I'm sorry for just leaving," he says. "It's been a long day."

I wave his words away with a smile that I hope he can see.

"Don't worry about it, love."

"Love?" he says.

He must be grinning, his eyes are scrunched up.

"Just how I talk," I sigh.

If only he knew. I would die if he realized how much i mean it.

"Sure, love," he murmurs.

We wait in silence for a long moment. He's still and so am I, but on the inside I'm all soft glow and running blush.

"So I'm back to tell you two things..." he continues.

My stomach tightens in nervous anticipation.

"One, I bid you a proper goodnight."

I smile.

Of course he would be sweet enough to feel guilty about not saying that earlier. Despite his cold, removed appearance, I think he feels more than many people probably give him credit for.

"Goodnight to you as well," I say.

He bows ceremoniously and then walks around the couch until he's next to me.

He crouches down and rests his chin on my shoulder.

"Second," he says into the side of my neck, "you forgot to take your glasses off, James."

I blush on the outside this time. There's no other way to react when he says my name like that.

"Fancy you remembering and not me," I laugh quietly.

"I think you had other things on your mind," he says knowingly. "Evidently, so did I."

I catch my breath, running through the thousands of things that he could mean, all the while purposefully ignoring the one thing that I know he does mean.

He reaches over and gently slips my glasses from the bridge of my nose.

"Goodnight, James."

And then he is gone, back into the deep blue, and I wonder if he was ever really here. Only my missing glasses prove that he was.