If Only I Could Hate Him.

‘Don’t push me, please, Dean,’ said Ginny, sounding rather irritated. ‘You’re always doing that, I can get through perfectly well on my own...’

‘I didn’t push you!’ I said, my voice sounding whiney. I actually hadn’t touched her as we climbed in. I used to help her, figuring I was being polite, but since last time I ‘helped’ her, she had made an annoyed noise, and, when asked what was wrong, she had proceeded to give me a lecture on how, just because she was younger, slightly shorter and a girl did not mean she was incapable of getting through the hole that opened up into our common room. I had actually not been helping her for any of the reasons she had listed, except for perhaps the one about her being girl, but it had not been because I believed her incapable, instead it was simply because I had been, apparently wrongly, under the impression I was being polite. It still stung that she had assumed that many things and that she had gotten that angry about something I had done while trying to be nice. I hadn’t been stupid enough to do it since.

‘Really? Because otherwise who was pushing me? I’m not insane, if I said someone was pushing me, somebody was pushing me. Okay?’ her voice had stared out fairly calm, but had managed to spiral in the short space of time to a much louder, hysterical shout.

I looked around for the first time, suddenly feeling faintly embarrassed and wholly humiliated. Thankfully, there was nearly nobody in the common room. Not so luckily, the few people here looked rather scared. ‘Why, oh, why did they not run up to their dorms?’ I thought, trying to move them with my eyes, when I realised why they looked so nervous.

The stairs were blocked by Ron and Lavender, the latter was screaming her head off while Ron was looking around sheepishly.

I sort of wished he would catch my eye, so we could both roll our eyes together about our girlfriends screaming at us, but then I quickly remembered that, since Ginny was Ron’s little sister, and he didn’t like the idea of her going out with anyone, he was highly unlikely to sympathise with me. Guess I was just going to have to do this on my own. Joy.

‘Dean?’ said Ginny, now sounding thoroughly pissed. ‘Did you even listen to anything I just said?’

‘Huh?’ I replied stupidly. There wasn’t much I could do; I was pretty sure this was it. As in the end. It just had that feeling. And all I could say was ‘huh.’ This wasn’t going to be good.

Ginny, it seemed, was thinking among similar lines

‘Huh.’ All he could say was ‘huh.’ That was truly pathetic.

‘Do you even care about me at all?’ I asked, quieter for a second; it was a slight non sequitur, but, with any luck, he wouldn’t notice.

‘Umm... Ginny, I reckon we should probably move here. Nobody can get out, and I don’t think they want to listen to us fight,’

That was the limit. I doubt he had any idea what I had just said. All he cared about was his non-existent image.

‘You have actually got to be kidding me. All you can say in response to a question about whether or not you care about me is that we should move.’ I looked up at him as I said these words.

‘That’s what you asked?’ he said quietly, ‘I didn’t hear, sorry. Of course I care about you!’

‘So he hadn’t been listening,’ I thought. But part of me was also starting to feel rather guilty. Apart from the not hearing/ not listening thing, that was the kind of cheesy thing I had always wanted someone to say to me. I was also pretty sure that he meant it; he cared more than me. This sent another wave of guilt through me.

‘Okay, let’s move.’ I said, quite calmly. ‘We need to talk.’ He cared more than I did. I wouldn’t ever really care. Not for him, and probably not for anyone else, except for the one boy I had fancied since I was ten. It wasn’t fair on Dean. I had to end things.