show me how [ marylene ]

I'm turning around
I'm having visions of you
But then I understand
The friend I'm dreaming of is far away
But I'm here
I'm here

Show me how you're proud
Tell me how you reach the moon
My thoughts err away tonight…

Marlene has always felt small, compared to everyone else.

Fifth year. Her peers have grown so much since they were 11 years old, they are almost unrecognizable. Taller, broader at the bottom of the abdomen, shoulders, more volume, everywhere, a sharper jaw, a small voice that becomes a calm, serious tone, or softer and more curved.

Sometimes they would greet her down the hall and she would joke, waving her hand above her head,

“Since when are you taller than me?”

Because, of course, they have all matured over the summer. And they've done a lot, while she's spent her days playing Quidditch with her brother in the backyard, and then walking with her best friend through the busy streets of London, arms linked, but always one step behind, watching her as she flutters her eyelashes at some boy and then moving closer to her, whispers:

“How about him?”

Neither good nor bad, she would always say, how can someone judge something that they have never tasted?

And, when night came, already at school, all the girls would huddle on a bed, with the duvets covering their mouths and laughing softly, while one of them would tell them about some guy, was him a good kisser?, did he do it?, how far did you get? How far?

So far.

And Marlene can't help but feel far away, in a corner, behind a glass panel, like a mere observer. And while the girls laugh, she notices how her eyes redden a little, just a little.

It's even worse when one of those girls is Mary, and she drags her daily to a corner of the common room, with a wide smile and an amused look. With her legs crossed and a hand resting on her cheek, Marlene listens as she talks about one of the boys she's been with, and she wonders what it could be like to be kissed, in that very specific way she talks about, lips ajar on her, a little piece of soul perched on the corner of her lower lip, a mark. Marlene watches them, very red and bright, trying to decipher something different in Mary.

Now she's only half listening.

Mary is so different from her. And that stumble, that almost unnoticed step gets bigger and bigger every time.

But Marlene doesn't care, not really. Mary has always been there, and they've been friends since they entered Hogwarts, and she should be grateful to have been with her from the beginning, when she'd notice suspicious glances in the halls the first few days, and Marlene had to reassure her, promising her that it would be fine, that everything would be fine, that everyone would end up loving her.

And finally, it had been so.

Marlene would smile. Actually, watching someone grow is very nice.

Growing up brings change though, and Marlene really wasn't ready the day Mary sent her one of those many letters over the summer, explaining what she and her boyfriend had done.

It was a reality check. Now they were supposed to do that?

"Don't you think...it's a little early?" she said one day, sitting on the rug, while Mary delicately braided her hair.

"Life’s short" a finger slid through a lock and curled in on itself, Marlene closed her eyes.

…

She opens them again, and now she is back in fifth year. Moonlight seeps through the curtains.

It's midnight, and so is her birthday, Marlene is thinking of absolutely nothing, and, of course, she's too lost in thought to realize that those familiar footsteps that make the boards wood on the floor creak approaching her. She pulls open the velvet curtains on her bed and sticks her head out.

There she is.

“Happy birthday, my girl!” Mary sneaks her dark curls and big smile into the bed, sitting across from her and hugging her, wrapping her arms around her back, her fingers gripping the fabric of her nightgown.

Marlene, half asleep, gives her a shove and her friend falls on the mattress, giggling.

“Mary, please, I want to sleep,” she groans, stretching.

"No" her jet-black eyes twinkle in the dark.

"No?" repeats Marlene, confused.

Mary doesn't answer and draws the curtains, leaving them ajar. The flickering light of a wand illuminates her face, then slipping into the cabinet in front of her.

"Come on, Marls." Mary picks up a short, emerald-colored dress and tosses it on Marlene's bed. “This going to be the best night of your life.”

Marlene frowns, fixing her gaze on the dress next to her, a somewhat bluish color, which strangely combines especially well with the crystalline tone of her eyes.

“This isn't mine,” Marlene points out, holding the dress up.

Mary smiles.

“Mine” the girl begins to open drawers of the small nightstand, revealing tons of makeup, palettes, crimson lipsticks, darker or lighter, and earthy eye shadows that she throws on Marlene's bed.

"Leave it to me" before she can even answer, Mary is already in front of her, brushing her pale skin.

…

The music and the hollow sound of the record player pierces the bedroom walls. Mary applies the pink lipstick to her lower lip, Marlene slightly opens the corner of her smile, the one that has formed out of nowhere, and of which she isn't even aware. Mary, it seems, catches it and returns it to her.

"Yes?" she asks, holding out her hand.

After that, Marlene can only hear the click of her heels and the sound of her own breathing.

…

She was supposed to change, after all.

And after two or three drinks, Marlene really thinks she's done it.

She feels bigger, less self-conscious and much freer. Her mind is completely clear and she is happy, she is very happy because, after a long time, she feels like one more. Now nobody is aware of the boys, nor of the kisses, nor what is the next step, and, most importantly, Marlene feels like a normal teenager, while everyone sings happy birthday to her half screaming.

Maybe you have to give time to time, nothing has to be rushed. And what if you haven't had your first kiss? So what if you're wasting the best time of your life?

Because, as Mary says, life is very short, what does it matter? There will always be a time for everything, because now, in the middle of the night, the stars seem to shine brighter, the songs rise above their own voices, shit, she doesn't even feel her voice escaping her throat, and the foam of beer does not stop increasing, they have all the time in the world.

The effect of the alcohol begins to slow down her senses, and now Marlene finds herself leaning against one of the pillars, a glass in her hand and her eyes half-closed, her head tilting slightly to the side due to dizziness.

It may be time to go. The party atmosphere is booming and people whoop and clap while Remus plays another song, and it must be barely after two, but Marlene has zero tolerance for alcohol.
The girl observes her companions, their rosy cheeks and their crystalline gazes. Maybe it is something that is trained.

She hasn't done wrong, for the first time, after all, hasn't thrown up.

Marlene walks slowly up the spiral stairs and toward the girls' dorms, holding on to the walls to keep from falling. Upon arrival, she collapses on the bed, throwing off her shoes. She closes her eyes, though she's not really very tired, just terribly dizzy.

"Oh, are you asleep?" a hesitant voice, one she knows very well.

Marlene pretends to be.

"Marls, I know you're not" a weight that sinks the mattress next to her.
“I've been looking for you all night, but there were so many people, I didn't plan on leaving you alone…”

Marlene opens her eyes and sits up, leaning on her shoulders. Mary is sitting on the edge of the bed, covered in a halo of golden glitter and an intense red dress, the same shade as her lips.

"I've been fine" her own voice sounds strange, weird.

"You're drunk" laughs.

"You're too"

“Yes, but I'm used to it, and you're not,” Mary clarifies, turning to look at her.

Of course, because Mary had done that before, everyone had probably been drunk before, and she was the last, the last at everything, like always...

“How do you feel?" Mary asks.

“Well, it could be worse”

"That's not what I mean." Mary shakes her head. "Fifteen. That's a big number."

Fifteen. She hadn't even digested that yet. Marlene feels how that pre-alcohol anxiety eats at her again, like a reminder.

"Yeah, I guess..." A pause, her thoughts bubbling away, out of reach. "I haven't thought much about it...I don't know, sometimes I feel like I'm still a kid."

"Why's that?"

“I feel…” here it comes. "I feel like everyone has done so many things, like you've done it and... You've matured so much and I... I'm falling behind"

Marlene looks away, and she doesn't answer, so she continues, because now she can't stop. She needs to vent to Mary, but it's so pathetic, her cheeks turn red.

“ I wish I was a little more like you, that I cared about the things that should matter to me. But they don't. And while you… advance, you are moving away, and I…”

“Are we talking about the kissing thing?” she interrupts, shuffling back to catch up with her. "No... there's no rush, Marls."

Mary is looking at her with pity, it's that face, the one that all the girls make, every night, when her turn comes and she doesn't have a boy to talk about, no touches, no kisses. And further, further and worst of all, she doesn’t make even the slightest effort to change it.

“Yes, there is a hurry, Mary, don't lie,” Marlene spits, her words acid. “And I just don't care enough, because I… I've never looked at a guy the way you do, and, I don't know… maybe I’m afraid, afraid to do something, to look, maybe I'm actually terrified."

There is silence, long and stretched, that extends through the dome that rises in the tower, and there is an echo, the blurred echo of laughter and a Bowie song, which errs in a few seconds of aesthetics when it ends, and then, another one is ringing.

Show me how you care
Tell me how you loved before
Show me how you smile…

Marlene doesn't dare to look her best friend in the eye, she notes how the tears fight to come out and if she looks up, it will break, she knows it will break. Alcohol is horrible, was that the price you had to pay to feel good, even for a few moments?

Tell me why your hands are cold
(Show me how)

Her hands, delicate, on both sides of her face, almost caressing her, a sudden icy shudder that bristled the pores of her skin. It is very fast, it is almost a breath. Mary deposits a soft kiss on the corner of her lips, and, in a matter of a few seconds, a throbbing heat runs down her spine, which only disappears when Mary moves away from her, leaving her lower lip slightly swollen and crimson.

"You see? It's just a kiss. Nothing to be afraid of” she whispers, exhaling a warm breath.

It wasn't just a kiss, it was something else, an exchange of words, something else. The only thing that Marlene wants, without censoring or sucking in any kind of thought, to process beyond what is understandable, is to kiss her, just like that, over and over again until she gets tired of the smell of her perfume, until her lips crack.

And they are still very close, Mary leaning forward slightly, their shoulders touching.
The bed is too small, the entire space is. Marlene can barely think without worrying about the hammering of her heart, slowing it down, hoping her friend can't feel it. Feeling the knot that has formed in the pit of her stomach and the halo of breath that she is still holding and unable to release, her limbs clinging to the sheets, her fingers holding the mattress tightly, as if it were going to fall, and she's very, very dizzy, even more than before.

Maybe Marlene was interested in that kissing thing after all.

But, fuck, that change scares her so much, and it's so sudden, and Mary is standing in front of her, her best friend, the insecure girl who used to cry on street corners, and she's looking at her with an expression she can't read, and now Marlene is looking at her too, but this time for real.

How did not notice before? How could she feel like this?

Would Mary feel the same as her?

A stab in the chest. Mary is the girl who goes to parties, the girl that everyone loves, the girl who, every night, is the first to speak, the one who laughs, the one that Marlene sometimes discovers, unexpectedly, in the lap of another of her long list of suitors, the girl who is normal.

And now she just wants to get out of there, to feel small and unconscious again, to be patient, because losing Mary is much worse than not feeling her lips again. Right?

One step at a time

One step behind?

“Mary?” she breathes, sitting up a bit.
She looks down at her hands, her gaze, blinking, oscillating between her friend and her fingertips. Marlene had never seen her so…lost, so out of place. Mary had never looked so much like her.

"Marls, did I screw it up?" her voice, always so confident and imposing, almost unattainable to her own vulnerability is broken, Marlene hasn't seen her that way in years, she swallows. "I feel like I've screw up."

Marlene feels hurt. A mistake? For her, it has been the closest thing to a miracle.

"It's okay” she forces herself to say, clearing her throat.

Now Mary has moved away, sitting on the corner of the bed. The right side of her bed feels empty, but she doesn't say anything.

"But it was your first, right?" she asks, gesturing nervously with her hands, Marlene feels a chill and turns her head away. "Of course it was, you would have told me otherwise!"

Yes, she would've.

“It should have been anyone else, anyone. Not me.” Marlene stifles the cry that rises from her interior, the one who advocates feelings that she does not fully understand, the one who wants to break everything and say: No, it could only be you!

Marlene struggles to keep still and not to pounce on Mary again, breathe her scent again, feel her again, or just walk out the door. Still, she could blame the alcohol.

"It's okay, Mary" she manages to say, playing with the folds of the dress, her dress. Then a jolt of realization floods Marlene's mind. She wears her clothes, her makeup, and, at the end of the day, they share a room, and sometimes, the same bed, her bed. Marlene lives in her world, and has always been a part of it. She doesn't want something like this, something so easy to forget, to bury and lock up, to break the world they've built together.

Marlene isn't ready to become an outsider, and losing her best friend is definitely not in her plans. Because Marlene knows very well that things like this break relationships, she's seen it many times. Marlene suppresses a lump in her throat, something that is growing, little by little, as night closes in and dawn comes.

That's all it could ever mean to her, to each other.

To be something else would spoil everything. To be something else would end their friendship. If there is still any trace of dignity, courage or conscience, Marlene uses it to get out of bed and stand in the doorway, smile, try to act as normal as possible, and affirm:

“We are fine, nothing has happened.”

Nothing has happened.

Liar.

A melody that comes from the common room rises again, between shouts:

My thoughts err away tonight…

Marlene sits on the stairs, leaning against the wall. Her nerves on the surface, her senses still sharpened, an enormous amount of words that bubbled in the whiskey clinging to her tongue.

No one to tell. Nobody. The only person she could talk to about kissing Mary McDonald was Mary.

What could she do with all that inside her?

It would have been so much, much easier to be little again.