17
17
Regulus didn’t call back that night. James stayed up late hoping to at least receive a text. Radio silence. He thought of sending him a message, he even typed something, but then deleted it. He didn’t want to be the one reaching out as per usual. If Regulus wanted to call or text he would do it. After all, he was the one who ended the call suddenly.
But the more the time passed, the more James got nervous, and then anxious, and then disappointed.
He fell asleep from exhaustion and woke up the next morning grabbing the phone like a maniac to see whether Reg called or texted during the night.
Still nothing.
The worst case scenario he feared since the beginning has become a reality now, and he wasn’t prepared for it. He let himself believe that Regulus wouldn’t be that kind of person, that he would be able to understand and accept him. But, thinking of it, why would a beautiful guy with a perfect body who is also a dancer accept to go out with someone who can’t walk and dance with him?
James dries the moist under his eyes and forces himself to get up. He won’t let himself go down the self-loath, self-deprecating path again. There is no point in crying over a guy.
And he isn’t a fucking teenager anymore.
He gets ready and jumps in the car heading to the gym. Maybe training for an hour will help him distract his mind, but it happens to be harder than what it seemed. Benji is pretty chatty as usual, but James can’t find in himself the will to give more than one-syllable answers.
“What’s up, James? You are pretty quiet today”, the trainer asks after a while.
James sighs. He hates it when other people notice his moods. “Nothing, it’s just… Let’s just say that someone I really cared about decided to disappear all of a sudden”.
“Oh”, Benji utters. “Was that a… Love interest?”
James nods, looking forlorn.
“I’m sorry, James. That sucks. But it’s their loss”.
“Yeah”, James exhales, not really convinced.
It’s easier to say than to convince oneself. Alice told him the same thing, and his friends would agree and – as much as James knows it too, logically – he can't help but feel heartbroken; yes, he can say all he wants that being rejected because of his disability is not his fault and it’s better to lose those people than to gain them, but it still hurts like Hell. And also, he wonders whether this is going to be his life, if he will remain forever single. He is a romantic person, he always craved a deep, loving connection with someone, to have a partner and a family. But trying is becoming exhausting. Finding someone who loves you for who you are shouldn’t be this hard, not for James who isn’t someone hard to love – at least he has the confidence to say that he can be a very supportive and loving partner.
At work the situation isn’t better either; the phone keeps distracting him but the only messages that come through are from his friends’ group and so he puts it in his backpack to get some work done.
He even tries to chat with Valentina a bit, but then doesn’t really know what they have in common to talk about and fears he might give her false hopes if he suddenly shows interest. He might be heartbroken but he’s not going to behave like a jerk. Like someone else did.
Okay, stop whining, James. It’s not worth it. And you have better things to do.
~•~
After lunch, they have a meeting. Unlike many other people, he doesn’t despise job meetings. Maybe because it’s a small team and they all feel like a little family or maybe because their meetings are not the boring kind and Caradoc can make them really fun or maybe both; whatever the reason, James likes them.
But today it’s not the right day and James can barely keep his focus in the room.
“We should be able to launch the new game this Spring. And I know we are taking a slightly different turn, but I still want our fans to have a saying…”.
What if something happened to Regulus? James muses, what if he was kidnapped or had an accident or…
No, okay, stop imagining things, Potter.
Maybe he should just text him and get his answers. Unless Regulus blocked him. Oh God! What if he blocked him?
Okay, okay, calm down, James. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
Caradoc claps his hands on the desk and the noise makes James jolt in his wheelchair. He looks up at his boss, realising that he lost part of the meeting. Caradoc throws him a glance before his lively eyes scan the entire room.
“We are heading towards big changes, guys. We are going to make it big”.
“You have been talking about these changes for a while, boss”, Hestia says, with a hint of irony in her voice.
“You’ll know more when the time comes. I’m so excited”.
James’s lips pull up in a little smile. At least someone has something to celebrate.
“James, Valentina, keep up the good work. Just remember to add that little detail I showed in the slide…”.
Oh, shit, he totally missed that part. He’ll have to ask Valentina, hoping that she was listening.
“And if you should have any issue just ask me. But not Thursday and Friday because I won’t be here. I have an important meeting, but we’ll talk about that in a later moment”.
That’s… interesting.
“Thank you, guys. I appreciate your time”.
“No prob, boss!”
One after the other, his colleagues file out of the room.
James is the last remaining, along with Caradoc, and starts wheeling himself to the exit too.
“Hey, James”, Caradoc calls him. “Are you okay?”
Oh. Oh fuck!
“Yeah!” He says with a heavy huff. “I’m just… Tired”.
“Do you need a break? You can take a couple of days off”.
“Oh no, no. It’s not– I’m fine, really. It’s just probably the weather”.
Caradoc smiles and shuts his laptop, throwing it in his bag. “Yeah, I get it. Take care, though. I’ll see you later, ‘kay”.
“Sure”.
And finally, James is able to leave and keep wallowing in the safety of his personal working station.
~•~
James is relieved when he finally gets back home. So now he can eat dinner, watch some trash programs and try to forget about this day.
He heats up some frozen pizza because it’s a comfort food and eats it on the couch, checking the messages that piled up in his phone. Still nothing from Regulus and by now James doesn’t even want to engage his mind in pointless reasons.
He catches up on the friends’ group; at least he can count on them.
James: Pete, you are too good to be hanging out with us <3
Peter: thanks, Prongs!
Sirius: PRONGS! Where’ve you been all day? I was about to call the police D:
James: sorry, busy day at work.
Marlene: at least one of us works.
Dorcas: shut up, Marls! I ran all the errands today because you kept complaining about your fucking cold!
Marlene: u know how I get with this weather.
James: it’ll never stop amazing me how you two live together and still talk to each other through this group.
Marlene: ‘cause we love u so much that we want u to be part of our couple life.
Dorcas: as if Sirius and Remus aren’t the same.
Remus: that’s Pads’s fault.
Sirius: MOONY!
James chuckles lightly and takes another slice of pizza when his phone buzzes in an incoming call.
It’s just Lily.
He picks it up trying to sound the usual, funny, chatty James.
“Hey, Lils”.
“Jimmy Jem. How are you?”
“I’m… Okay. You?”
“Tired. But okay. You remember that Chinese restaurant close to my house that’s been closed for a while?”
“Yeah”.
“Well, apparently someone bought it and now it’s a pub. It seems pretty cool. Maybe we could go with the gang. I checked it quickly, seems accessible, there’s a ramp, but I’ll look at it better when I have more time”.
James lets out a silent sigh, all of a sudden feeling several kinds of emotions hitting him all at once. His friend thinking about his needs first and foremost, paired with the feeling of rejection that loomed over him the whole day, open a faucet inside of him so his eyes start to prickle with tears and he has no strength to fight them.
“James?” Lily calls with a soft and worried tone when he doesn’t reply.
“Yeah, sorry, yeah. Sounds dope. Maybe when the weather improves a bit we can go”. James sniffles.
Lily catches on immediately that something is wrong. “What’s wrong, Jamie?”
Fuck! He should have taken some acting classes. He is tempted to lie but it would be pointless now, so he braves himself and explains the whole ordeal with Regulus.
“Remember the guy I was texting to? And that maybe there was… Something?”
“Oh yeah”.
“Well, I told him about… The wheelchair and… He seemed fine at first but then… He said he had an emergency and hung up. That was yesterday evening and I haven’t heard from him since”.
“Oh, shit!”
“Exactly”.
He hears Lily sigh on the other side. “Okay, maybe… Maybe he really had an emergency. Did he block you?”
“I– I don’t know. I didn’t text him. Or called. Don’t feel like doing it, really”.
“Yeah, sure. He should be the one to reach out”.
James blinks a few times to shoo away the tears.
“Do you want me to come to yours? We can eat some trash food and curse him”.
James chuckles. “No, I don’t want to waste your time”.
Lily tuts. “Oh, please. I have nothing to do, really. Spending time with you would be better”.
“No, really. Thank you, Lils. I– I’ll go to bed soon, anyway”.
“Look!” she says. “If he doesn’t text or call by the end of the week, me and the others will come to you with some booze and use his picture to play darts. Okay?”
This manages to rip a laugh out of him. “Okay”.
“I love you, James”.
“I know. I love you too, Lils”.
“Call me if you need anything. Anything”.
He nods. “I will. Thank you”.
They end the call but the faucet has already been opened and after such a long, heavy day James finds himself breaking down, tears spilling out of his control. He didn’t want to cry, but sometimes you have to release all the bad emotions and he’s been suppressing them for too long.
And when he feels a sob cutting through his throat, James covers his face and lets everything flow, the disappointment, the sadness, the anger, the anxieties of the day...
~•~
In the end, James prepares for bed, hoping that a good night of sleep will soothe his spirits. He goes through his night routine and gets settled under the covers, swiping through his Instagram feed to distract his mind.
Sirius texts him.
Sirius: dinner tomorrow at the Thai? With Wormy and Moony?
James: sure.
James gets back to the doom scrolling when his phone pings again. He’s sure that it’s Sirius again and he’s ready to ignore it and reply later, but checking the notification, his eyes go wide and he stops breathing for a moment.
Regulus’s name appears almost bigger on the screen of his phone now. James remains with the phone in front of his face for a whole minute and a half, fearing the content of the message. But after hoping for contact the whole day, it wouldn’t look good to chicken out right now.
So, with slightly shaking fingers, James taps on the message.
Regulus: hey! I know you might be angry at me, but I had the worst and longest 24 hours of my life. Could we Facetime if you are still awake?
James takes a deep breath and tries to put his thoughts in order. He now feels guilty for not texting him and checking that he wasn’t actually in some kind of trouble or hardship, but the negative past experiences and his tendency to jump to conclusions had a better grip on him. This surely will teach him a lesson. But there’s no point in crying on spilt milk, so James grips his phone and sits against the bedrame, starting the videocall.
Regulus is quick to reply, and when James sees his face he feels the sudden and overwhelming urge to hug him tight and keep him close as long as he can. Regulus looks very tired, with heavy bags under his red-rimmed eyes. But he’s still pretty. So fucking pretty. And still manages a smile, even if a small and apologetic one.
“Hey!”
“Hey”.
“James, I’m–”.
“Reg…”. They start at the same time. “Okay, you go on”, James says after a moment.
Regulus draws out a deep sigh. “I’m really sorry for disappearing for twenty-four hours. I– When we were talking yesterday I received a call and a few messages because… Well, long story short, one of my best friends had a heart attack, sort of. Evan. He has a… A heart condition since he was a child and… Well, I won’t go into details because it’s his story, but it happened before, but it was worse this time and… He had to be admitted in the hospital and his boyfriend, Barty, is not very good in these kinds of situations and he was panicking and fearing that Evan would die and… Well, it was a crazy night. Pandora and I rushed to the hospital, we calmed Barty down, made sure that Evan would be okay and we stayed there the whole night… Then I had to go to the theatre for ballet stuff and we almost didn’t have any break if not for lunch when I had to go back to the hospital to help Barty and Evan and after the theatre I had work with the dancing class and— Really, I think it’s a miracle I didn’t pass out at some point”.
James has to swallow down and blink a few times to get himself out of the stupor. Okay, yeah, he should have checked out for him at least once that day. He can’t blame Regulus for being tired nor for disappearing. He’s almost quite sure that he heard his voice cracking at the end of the recounting.
“Wow, Regs, that’s… You had kind of an endeavour, I’d say”.
“Yeah, but… At some point my phone’s battery died and I couldn’t charge it until I got to the dancing school, so… I am really sorry, James, I–”-
“Hey, hey!” James interrupts, running a hand through his hair. How can he be angry at Regulus after all this? “It’s okay, you– You don’t have to apologise. It’s not your fault”.
“Yeah, but you were telling me something important and… I just…”. Regulus exhales a loud sigh, and now more than ever James wants to hug him and reassure him that everything’s fine, no matter that he spent the whole day collecting the pieces of his broken heart. He feels so utterly stupid.
“Oh, Reg, please. It was just bad timing, okay? It can happen. Just tell me… How’s your friend? Evan, right?”
“Yeah, ehm…”.
James watches Regulus shift his phone in his other hand and get comfortable on the couch.
“He’s fine now. He got home, but… He’ll have to run some tests in the next few days, so… He’s resting and Barty is probably fussing over him, so… He just scared us, that’s it. I– We are a very tight group of friends, so… Losing one of them would be like losing an arm or a leg”.
“Yeah, I get it”.
James thinks that if any of his friends were to have a heart attack or any other serious health issue he’d lose his mind from fear and anguish. He can’t blame Regulus for that.
“I’m glad your friend is doing better. I hope he– I hope he recovers”.
“He’s strong, he was mostly sorry for making us worry…”.
For some reason, this Evan reminds James of Remus. Who knows, maybe Regs’s friends and his will get along. Maybe…
James chuckles and stares into Regulus’s bright eyes. Again, he has a light feeling that he met those eyes before, maybe on someone else, but he dismisses it. It’s probably just a trick of his mind.
“Regs?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you sleep at all?”
Regulus seems to think. “A couple of hours this morning”.
James’s eyes almost bulge out of his head.
“Shit! Go to sleep. Now”.
“I will, but I had to call you and make sure that you didn’t think I had… Well, that what you told me didn’t change my mind about… Wanting to meet you”.
James’s lips pull in a soft smile as he tries not to have another breakdown, this time in front of Regulus. He’s sure Regulus doesn’t know about the internal turmoil James has gone through, but maybe he’s just smart enough to understand how the situation might have appeared from someone else’s perspective. Jesus, this guy is so smart. And so sensitive too.
“Don’t worry about that. We can talk another day. Go to sleep, now, Regs. Okay?”
Regulus nods, looking sweet and fragile and very much vulnerable.
“Good night, James. Thank you”.
“Don’t thank me. Just sleep. Good night”.
When they end the call, James takes a couple of deep breaths and slumps on the bed, a small laugh escaping his lips. He feels stupid, but also relieved.
Fuck, next time he will definitely search for explanations before jumping to conclusions. But hopefully, there won’t be a next time.