It was raining the first time she saw him. His hands were in his pockets, his shoulders hunched so he looked like a shadow looming on the apex of her favourite bridge at the botanic gardens.
She pretended not to notice the new furrows in his brow.
It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him, of course. Just the first time since she’d left.
She wondered if she should leave now. It’d been six months and he hadn’t been to any of their places: not to the corner cafe, or the french bakery with those lemon tarts she liked, or even to the farmer’s market on friday afternoons to listen to the violinist while sitting under the oak trees.
Not that she’d been looking for him. Or hoping. She wasn’t hoping. She was the one who’d left, after all.
But this was her favourite spot.
And he knew. She’d pulled him right to the center of that bridge, her thin fingers laced with his large ones, and shown him how the willows bent over the water and the reflections turned gold from the banks of daffodils. Then she’d taken a picture where everything was light and movement and one would be forgiven for not realising it was a photograph at all, and he’d said she should put it in her exhibition. Then he’d bought it and hung it on his living room wall.
There were no daffodils now. But she wondered if he were thinking of them. She wondered if he still had her photograph. That was the problem with Neville Longbottom—always making her wonder.
Rain dripped down her cheeks, but still she was frozen at the foot of the bridge. Maybe he was so deep in thought he hadn’t noticed. Or maybe he didn’t recognise her anymore. Maybe he’d moved on and his appearance on this bridge, on this day, was coincidence.
There was a time she could have apologised, but that was long, long past. He’d stopped writing when she blocked his number, and she knows how that would have hurt him—she could see it now, written in every line of his face. But how could she tell him that she didn’t know how to unzip her heart without hemorrhaging fear, that each time he said he loved her, panic rose up to burn her chest?
A gust of wind sent the autumn leaves whirling past her face. As if drawn by their movement, he turned. She watched, that familiar fear rising—amorphous and undefined, threatening to strangle her throat.
Rain trickled from his hair. It tracked his cheeks and met the line of his jaw, disappearing in the curve of his neck. He was looking right at her and she couldn’t help the hand that rose to her chest, as if that meagre pressure could keep her from flying apart.
“Pansy.” He said her name slowly, as if he couldn’t believe the proof of his eyes. “Are you—“
His mouth snapped shut. She knew what he’d been about to ask: “are you okay?” It was what he always did—take care of her.
She couldn’t move as his jaw worked. And she wondered if he’d leave now. If he’d even bother to say goodbye. Before he could make the first move, she jerked her gaze down, fixing it on the leather quilted handbag clutched between her white fingers. She couldn’t bear to watch, even though it was what she deserved.
She realised she was squeezing her eyes shut when rough fingers skimmed her jaw, the touch featherlight, almost like he still cared. But then… he always had been careful with broken things. How many times had she spread one of his hands in both of hers and marveled at how something so large could be so gentle?
It brought back other memories: of those hands holding her hips, circling her waist, spreading her thighs—things she’d been careful not to think about. But that was something else Neville Longbottom was good at: breaking her defences, ruining her plans.
“Pansy,” he said again, when minutes had passed and she hadn’t moved or opened her eyes. “Why are you crying, sweetheart?”
Did he have to call her that? After everything? Didn’t he realise what it did to her?
She didn’t know if she fell into his chest or if he pulled her. His arms circled her shoulders, surrounding her, squeezing like he could single-handedly keep every trembling cell in her body from falling apart.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.” Her voice was awful: ragged and broken and she couldn’t stop, the words that kept tumbling, pressed into his chest, pouring from her heaving lungs to dissolve into the dark wool of his jacket.
His hands moved to cup her face, cradling her jaw, fingers circling the back of her head. “Will you look at me, sweetheart? Please?”
He was here. He hadn’t turned away. If he could be brave enough to cross that bridge and come to her, she could do this. So she nodded against his palms, dragging in a ragged breath, and opened her eyes.
“Hi,” he said. He was looking down at her with all the warmth and love that she remembered. And he was smiling.
