6
6
When James woke up the next day he knew he was screwed.
After he finished the training at the gym he knew he was screwed.
And when he got to his office he knew he was screwed.
Because all he could think about during these activities was Regs. And all he could feel during his mundane tasks was the excitement of their future phone call. Which they still haven’t decided, but James doesn’t need for things to materialize to get attached to them. The mere promise, the possibility, is enough for him to feel like a kid on Christmas Day.
He is screwed because he can’t deny, not anymore, that he has a tiny little crush on Regs, on this sly, cheeky stranger on the other side of the phone. Maybe not even that tiny if he has to take into account the hard beat of his heart everytime he thinks about him or receives his text.
But James feels ridiculous too and slightly pathetic: he promised himself not to get attached so easily, not to get his hopes high. He got burnt too much in the past. After all, he doesn’t know anything about Regs and maybe he is not interested in that kind of relationship.
What if he was reading too much into the signs, between the lines of their texts?
He wrote him a good morning as soon as he woke up to which Regs replied with another good morning but after that Regs went MIA.
It’s okay, it’s just a day, James reminds himself. He doesn’t have the right to feel disappointed, and if Regs rejected him, he wouldn’t have the right to feel bad.
But he would. James knows he would. That’s how he functions, and he can’t force himself to work in any different way, no matter how much he tries.
Then he gets home and still no text from Regs, not even after dinner, which is enough for James’s chest to feel choked and his heart disillusioned.
His phone starts to buzz and he snatches it from the coffee table, with too much hope. But it’s not Regs, it’s Lily, the name that appears on the screen.
He loves Lily, really, but the disappointment he feels at her not being the real person he would have liked to hear from now is difficult to ignore.
Nevertheless, he replies trying to put his usual enthusiasm into his voice.
“Hi!”
“Hello, Jamie!” Lily greets back, cheerily, using the same endearing nickname she would use when they were a couple. That would never be lost. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Not at all. I am dead on the couch, I feel like an old man”.
Lily chuckles. “We are entering the thirties after all”.
“Shut up! It’s not like our lives are gonna end on that threshold”.
“But we are fully on the adulthood path and that’s exhausting”.
“I miss being a teenager”, James whines. What he doesn’t say is that he misses being a teenager for other reasons, not only the young shenanigans that never brought exhaustion.
“Well, I quite like where we are now”, Lily says, her voice more serious now. “We did a pretty good job”.
James lets a few seconds pass before replying. “We did”. Then “Did you need anything?”
“I was wondering what we need for the party tomorrow”.
Right, the party.
“I think Sirius and Marls got it all covered. They should bring booze and snacks. I’ll also go buy some beers”.
“So you sure you don’t need anything?”
James takes some moments to think about it. “No, unless…”.
“What, Jamie?” Lily urges noting his hesitance, a mischievous undertone in her voice.
“If you don’t mind I would really really love that liqueur you know of. The one we purchased for our first anniversary”.
“Right! I’ll get it”.
“If it’s not a bother, of course”.
“James, please. It’ll take me twenty minutes at most. Don’t worry. You can ask for things, you know”.
“Right”, James exhales, rubbing his eyes under his glasses to try to shake off the slight uneasiness he’s feeling.
“So, James’s favourite liqueur. I’m on it”, Lily’s cheerful voice pops again in his head pulling him back to the present.
“Thank you, Lils”.
“No problem. Since I called, how are you? How’s been your day?”
James appreciates the genuine interest but he is not in the mood for that. Still, he replies, trying his best at sounding casual. “I’m fine, nothing special. Gym and work mostly. And you?”
Lily sighs. “I don’t know. I am okay I guess. Just… Well, I met my sister. By accident, at the supermarket. I don’t even know what she was doing in that area. Tried to do some polite conversation, asked her about the child, but… she didn’t even try to hide her annoyance. If looks could kill, I swear, James, I would be dead right now”.
James’s heart aches for Lily. Besides, what’s all this issue with his friends and their siblings?
“I am sorry, Lils”.
Lily’s older sister, Petunia, has been a pain in the ass for years. James met her once, when he and Lily were dating and was really tempted to smack her face against the apple pie their mother baked, even if he isn’t a violent person and doesn’t usually hate people. The worst thing is that there is no real reason for Petunia to hate her sister, not a reason Lily can think of. Petunia’s probably jealous because she could have never reached the confidence and the freedom Lily possesses, ending up stuck with a boring, below-the-average middle-class man who she married to ensure for herself an apparent security and deliver his spawns. And Vernon Dursley is even worse, convinced to be a God-knows-what kind of important asset for his company when he is not even in the top ten of the social scale.
Not that it matters to James or to Lily. Even though coming from a wealthy family, James has been raised to be humble and not judge people based on their status, money or background. He knows how to not do that. Dursley doesn’t. And he is not a fan of being kind to those who treat the people he loves like shit.
“It doesn’t matter”, Lily concludes. “It is what it is. I actually feel sorry for her”.
“She doesn’t deserve you”.
“No, she doesn’t. I tried my best”.
“You did”.
“Hey, if you don’t have anything to chat about, I’m gonna go. I still have to run to the laundry. My washing machine broke again”.
“Don’t worry. You go”.
James is tempted to tell her about Regs, just for a second the thought crosses his mind, but he decides against it. He wants to keep Regs for himself, just to taste the water, to see if things will become more real. Telling someone about him would make him more concrete and his feelings stronger and he doesn’t need that. Also, he doesn’t want to give a voice to everything he’s thinking about.
“See you tomorrow, James”.
“See you tomorrow”.
Lily ends the call and James stands there staring at the screen of his phone for a few seconds. It’s in times like this that he cannot but be thankful for his friends. He has known them since school when they were all little eleven-year-olds running around and creating mischief. Well, James and his gang of Marauders, Sirius, Remus and Peter. The girls came into the picture after, when they decided to be less of pricks and more considerate. But Lily has always and will always hold a special place in his heart; she’s been his girlfriend for more than two years, getting together at sixteen, even though James started to chase after her and swoon her since they were twelve. She used to hate him back then and always had a pretty long list of creative insults to throw at his face - insults that would never have any effect on him or make him buckle. It was fun to watch. Eventually, when he finally made himself conquer her heart, the entire school celebrated and talked about them as if they were celebrities. Which, they were actually, in the school. James, the school heartthrob and rugby champion and Lily, the beautiful girl too smart for her own good who everyone thought would become a prime minister one day. And when they broke up that was also a significant day for the school, somewhere even sad as if they were watching two very famous actors breaking up after years and years of relationship and a bunch of adopted kids. But that was also the time when Sirius and Remus got together so the school had something else to talk about.
The break-up wasn’t taken too badly by either of them. It was actually boring. They simply realized that they were not meant for each other; also, James started to question his sexuality. Lily understood all of that and set him free, dragging her the courage to cut the relationship and reveal what both of them were feeling. James had been scared of the relief he felt when they broke things off, but it was the right thing to do. There were no hard feelings, no broken hearts. And they stayed friends, best friends.
James will always love Lily and Lily will always love James. In a totally different way from a relationship between two lovers, but they’ll still be there for each other. Lily actually already proved that; she’s been there for James at his lowest when he couldn’t even look at himself in the mirror and cried over his body and life and the things he lost after that fateful day. She’s been there when he felt broken beneath repair, damaged from the inside and the outside when he was convinced that his body wouldn’t be able to work like before ever again.
He still feels a bit embarrassed sometimes for what he asked her one day when he got back from the hospital. Well, he didn’t ask, she offered. He called her in desperate need of a talk and he didn’t want to bother Sirius or his parents any more than what he already had, and also, that wasn’t quite a conversation he wanted to have with them. But he didn’t plan it either. It just came out. He didn’t want to spill out like that, it was embarrassing, for James it meant digging into the depth of his most vulnerable part at that moment and tossing it at someone else to catch it without breaking it. Luckily, he could trust Lily. It didn’t take her long to understand what was wrong. It was quite obvious.
Sex was just another part of his life that changed with so many others and maybe the most traumatic. James felt so disconnected from his body for a long time.
So, Lily came to his house when his parents were at work and Sirius was out with Remus and she said they could try. After all, they dated, they had sex, many times, they knew each other like the palms of their hands. They have been naked in front of each other. But still, for James, it was an ordeal. Getting naked again in front of Lily after changing so much, with half of his body completely useless, was… Overwhelming. She had to help him, getting undressed that is. And James felt even more ashamed, he felt small, like a baby who’s learning basic stuff. Except that he was an eighteen-year-old who struggled to remove his pants and move on the bed.
But Lily, bless her soul, never made him feel bad about it, never mocked him. She kissed every inch of him, she drew her lips on his body like she used to do before, his body under her perfect and beautiful like before. For her, he was still her Jimmy Jam. She whispered soothing words in his ear, “you are okay, you are beautiful. Don’t worry, Jem” and James relinquished in them like a poet in a perfect rhyme.
They tried.
Oh, how they tried.
But it didn't work. James couldn’t get off. He couldn’t even get a hard-on. He couldn’t feel anything.
He crumbled down feeling utterly useless and disgusting and broken and unlovable. He cried in Lily’s arms and she did her best to calm him down, cradling him, caressing his hair and back, squeezing him against her warm body where he spilt out all his tears on her chest like a river flooding houses, trees and everything in its way.
She kept repeating “don’t worry, it’s gonna be fine” over and over.
What James didn’t take into account is that his mind wasn’t in the right place that day and his body was still recovering and he was still in shock, physically and mentally.
It felt like a tragedy to him, a giant failure on his part, his manhood disintegrating in front of him. Because he was eighteen years old and he wanted to experience sex like every teenager does, like he used to do. Instead, he couldn’t. He had to re-learn that again. Or give it up.
He wasn’t ready for that.
After he calmed down he apologized to Lily profusely. She would hear none of it. “I offered, James. And I don’t mind. We are both single adults and friends. I am here to help. Whatever you need”.
James smiled, grateful for that. Grateful to have her in his life, for having someone to trust him with his most intimate part and not fearing to see it carelessly exposed. Still, he struggled to act normally around her for some time after that, but she never ever used that against him.
Eventually, things got better and James learnt how to use that part of his body again. It came with issues and some other embarrassing moments but with time he improved. He’s still wary of that topic though and the whole issue has built in him a crust of insecurity that keeps him on edge from time to time.
His therapist says not to be impatient and to indulge in things he likes and finds enjoyable when it comes to sex, to try things he didn’t even think of before. To keep an open mind.
Yeah… Maybe he wasn’t quite sure of all of that.
His phone pings with a text message.
Regs: I don’t remember the last time I had such a long and excruciating day.
James smiles a little endearing smile.
James: hey, stranger. Maybe you are overworking yourself. Take some time to rest.
Regs: I wish.
James: didn’t know being a dancer takes so much time. I thought it was just fun jumping up and down the dance floor ;)
Regs: -.-
Regs: it is fun but between the rehearsals and the dance school I’m pretty overbooked.
James: hmmm
Regs: don’t judge. I don’t regret it actually. Keeps my mind distracted.
James muses about these words. He is sensing that they are getting into some personal stuff and he’s not sure how he should act: pry a bit to get to know something more about Regs? Change the topic so Regs doesn’t have to reveal something he might regret?
He settles to something in between.
James: I gather that you have a lot of stuff on your mind.
James: sorry for asking. You don’t have to reply.
Three dots stay on the screen for a while before a reply comes in:
Regs: don’t worry. Let’s just say that some things of my past are haunting me since I’ve returned.
Regs: and my past is not something I really like to remember.
Oh.
This is revealing. James is dying to know more but he also doesn’t want to seem too eager or nosy.
James: you returned? Where’ve you been?
Regulus’s replies are coming back slower and slower and a couple of times James fears that he might’ve pushed him away.
Regs: I lived in New York for a few years. And in Paris before that.
James: oh, wow! And you can speak French?
Regs: oui. Le français est ma deuxième langue.
James: *__*
Okay, this is really not helping me.
James: I’ve got no idea what you said but I can totally say I love the way it sounds.
Regs: you do know there are translators >.>
James: ugh.
James: not really thought about that.
James: but it would defy the mystery of what you are saying which just adds to the sexiness.
Regs: you are a menace, you know that?
James: people used to tell me that quite a bit.
Regs: no wonder why. Good to know I can insult you without you knowing.
James: ;( ;(
Regs: stop it. I know you like it when I’m mean.
James: maaaaaybeeee.
Regs: I hope you know it’s not very healthy.
James: well, people do a lot of less healthy shit, so I won’t worry about it.
Regs: have you ever eaten cement?
James: why you ask?
Regs: just proving a theory.
James: uhm, maybe I did.
Regs: OH MY GOD!
James could practically hear Regs yelling in his room and he wonders, what does his voice sound like?
It’s pathetic, isn’t it?
James: I was seven! I didn’t know what it was.
James: but did I pass your theory?
Regs: not even in the slightest.
James: :(
Regs: goodnight, Prongs. I hope you choke on your own saliva in your sleep.
James: I hope you have sweet dreams :)