It had been nearly a week since that night with Fred in her dorm room. She barely even remembered it, and couldn't remember it until she had a small glass of wine after her lunch in the dorms, when all the memories of the sunset, the drinks, the bottle, the camera, and Fred, came tumbling back into her mind, making her nearly choke on the liquid in her mouth.
Fred had put her to bed that day, taking the rest of the bottle with him. Maybe he was trying to get her to stop, if he even thought that way in the first place. Well, taking half a bottle of wine from Cherry wasn't going to stop her from being a borderline alcoholic. She didn't think it was that bad; yet, at least.
I mean, even Fleur didn't know. Well, maybe she would've, if she had talked to her girlfriend just a bit more, checked up on how she was doing. Cherry didn't want to worry or upset her. The two had only called about once the entire week, which was far less than what Cherry had been hoping for, but she had to cling on to what little her girlfriend had to give her, now that she was countries away.
They had texted a few times too, once every couple days, but it just wasn't the same, and neither was calling. Both missed each other, both wanted Cherry to go back. Or used to, at least. Now, who knew? Maybe the both of them were losing their grasp on the little they had for each other.
Cherry had made a few friends. Fleur was still busy with Beauxbatons, and everything that was going on in the school, it was all insane. Cherry was just starting to get settled in, just starting to feel slightly more comfortable in her empty dorm room, and the weird stairs at the school in the great hall, the paintings and the ghosts that seemed to love taunting each other. It was as if they no longer needed each other. But yet they still hung on to what felt familiar, even if they knew in the back of their head they wouldn't work out, still clasping their fingers tight until one of them would start to loosen their grip.
Cherry hung out with the twins a lot, after school especially. They made her laugh, they made her feel comfortable, they even showed her around the school and showed them some of the secret routes out of the school, anytime they ever needed something off the grounds. Hogwarts was starting to grow on her, and she started feeling at home almost. But she reckoned there was just something about Fred that just made him stood out a tiny bit more, a sort of comfort that Cherry never had, not that she noticed this of course. She was still tricking herself into believing that Fleur was the one for her.
She'd also made friends with Luna, someone she had met in the hall one day when she was running late to charms, and even though the blonde haired girl was two years younger than her, not to mention she was in a completely different house than her, Cherry couldn't help but notice the way her eyes could light up a room whenever she walked in.
Some of the Gryffindors and other students told Cherry that Luna was crazy, not right in the head, but that only made her want to be friends with her more. After all, she really did need friends, both of them. They sometimes talked, and made small talk whenever they bumped into each other in the halls. Cherry just hoped that these friendships she'd made would last.
~~
Monday morning, she had gotten out of bed after Fred and George were both pounding on her door, telling her that they were going to be late if she didn't "get her arse up and eat this really good roll over here we got from breakfast", laughing as they went back down into the common room.
Fred and George had sort of made Cherry their new partner in crime, the girl best friend, side kick, whatever the bloody hell you wanted to call it. She didn't mind obviously, especially if a certain red head was involved... she shook the thought of it out of her head, laughing at how silly she was being.
Groaning, Cherry had rolled out of bed and gotten her makeup and hair done in less than fifteen minutes, and slapped on a pair of lace up boots and a black pleated skirt matched with her Gryffindor tie and button up, with the usual amount of jewelry (which was a lot), and after topping it off with a pink flower crown that's shade was only a few shades darker than her starting to fade pink hair, and tossed a cloak over her shoulders, grabbed her bag and opened the door, trudging down the stairs to meet the two red headed boys that awaited her presence in the common room.
They sped down to transfiguration while Cherry had the buttered roll in her mouth, and they made it just in time for Professor McGonagall to start teaching.
Laughing, the three sat down next to some other Gryffindor students as the professor glared at them, and when class had finally finished, the two sped right back to the twin's dormitories.
The rest of the day was fairly fun, and Fleur almost didn't cross her mind at all that day, which was quite unusual, considering the fact that she was always contemplating whether she should shoot her a text or not. Now, I guess it was only fair to say that Cherry was finally returning the favor, waiting for the other person to make another move first.
It was like the start of their relationship all over again. Quiet, awkward, dreading and always waiting.
That night, after a rather exhausting day, she had drunk about five cups of coffee, and in her consequence, she couldn't sleep a single fucking wink.
Sighing, she grabbed a glass and she poured a cup of the red wine in it like a middle aged mom who's kids just wouldn't leave her alone, and had finally put them to bed at eleven at night. Grabbing her phone and her earbuds, she exited her dorm room and went into the empty common room, and sat down on the couch next to the glowing fireplace.
Plugging her earphones in, she clicked shuffle on her nighttime playlist, the song "We fell in love in October", by Girl in red. Clicking onto her phone, she took a sip of her wine and then set it down on the little coffee table in front of her, scrolling through her Instagram. The artificial glow of the phone slightly lit up the dark common room as she double tapped a few posts.
She had quite a bit of followers on her photography site, even though she hadn't posted in nearly eight months. She paused for a moment, considering what she was about to do, she clicked the little plus sign at the bottom of the screen and selected a few photos from her album, the ones she had taken in the last week of being at Hogwarts and posted them.
Only about a minute later, she already had a few people liking her post, and Cherry smiled to herself in the dark. Maybe she'd really do get into it again. After all this time away, it felt sort of nice, watching a notification pop up on her feed.
Then, suddenly out of no where, her phone rang through her headphones, cancelling out the Instagram home page the screen lighting up a bit brighter and Fleur's profile picture replaced what was previously on it, popping up onto her screen, indicating that she was calling her.
Cherry raised an eyebrow, confused as to why her girlfriend was calling her at this hour. Clicking on the green button, she turned the volume up through her earbuds and awkwardly said into the speaker on her earbuds, "Hello? Fleur?", not completely familiar or comfortable with the weird way her quiet and slightly raspy voice sounded in the completely silent common room.
"Cherry?" her golden honey sweet voice rung through the microphone. The sound of her voice was a bit raspy, a bit stuffy, almost like she had been crying.
Fleur was currently sitting in her and Cherry's old shared dorm on the edge of Cherry's old bed with the a burning cigarette that she'd found in one of Cherry's older drawers, after digging around for a bit, and it was the last one she had left.
She'd been sitting their for half an hour, crying, thinking, thinking about what she was going to do. Was she going to wait, try and make it work out? It had only been a week or so since Cherry had left her at Beauxbatons, but it seemed like an eternity, and it seemed like she wasn't going to come back, because she wasn't.
Then, Fleur had suddenly decided that she didn't want to feel that way anymore, so she picked up the phone, and still crying, she clicked on Cherry's call icon, the one next to the picture of her that she'd taken last month on the rooftop, completely unprepared. The phone had only rung twice before Cherry, who was still sitting in the common room, picked up.
Concerned, Cherry said into the phone, "Fleur? What's wrong?" Fleur noticed how awake Cherry sounded, and was still a bit worried, even considering what she was about to do, since she was still so lively at this hour of the night. There was a heaviness that resided in her girlfriend's voice, and even through the crappy little speaker on her phone, she could hear it clearly, like a weight hovering above her head, a bomb, just waiting to be dropped. And then it finally did.
"Cherry..." her girlfriend paused, like she was thinking about how to word what she was about to next. "I don't- I don't think that this long distance thing is working out..."
She almost couldn't comprehend what Fleur was saying on the other side of the phone. It was as if all the sound and all the noise had been blocked out from the world, the room, the glowing fire that cackled lightly next to her...
"Fleur? Wait-" she began, but then before she could say yet another word, she was cut off by the sound of the dial tone, a low beep that sounded like the color red, the exit light that glowed eerily in the darkness of an office building, or a muggle elementary school at night.
Fleur had hung up on her, and when the sound of the dial tone ended, the song Rue continued to play in the back of her earbuds, almost like her phone had no idea what had just happened, ignoring it, just resuming the playlist of midnight songs, playing Rue by Girl in red on loop.
It was the song that Fleur and Cherry had used to listen to together, when no one else had been around to witness their unholy and not very platonic relationship.
Stunned, she let the song play in the back of her mind, sitting their with her legs crossed on the comfortable couch of the Gryffindor common room, tears stinging into her eyes, with the half full glass of red wine on the coffee table, the fire cracking in the dim light of itself.
Cherry was upset, she was devastated, she couldn't wrap her head around what had just happened, and the thoughts of emptiness and negative energy seeped into her mind, screaming at her, blocking out all other sound as Cherry cried and rocked back and forth her her face in her arms, clinging onto to herself tight, because she was the only thing that was there for herself, even though she wasn't sure if that was staying much then anymore either.
~~