Moments of Silence

Most of the time, we all waste our lives chasing after people who aren’t worth it in the end. We waste these moments, oblivious to the singular person who can make everything okay. But we waste away our lives and we wear down the hearts of those who matter until they simply give up and move on. And since fate uses us for her own personal amusement, it is precisely at this moment when they give up, that we all get a clue. But it’s too late. Nothing can change.

For us, the timing was never right. It was as if we were constantly circling each other, waiting for the other to make a move. But we never did and so I gave up on him. We were best friends and would never be anything more. I gave up on the cycle. When I was free, he was taken. I was taken, he was free. We were always so close, yet too far away to grasp what we really wanted.

He was my best friend; he was the one I could always turn to except about boys, which usually meant that I prattled on about my crush on him. For boy talk, I talked to Cho, my other best friend, aside from Fred.

George didn’t know that I cared for him in any way that was more than a friend. He didn’t know that every time he put his arm around me, I wished he meant it in more than a friendly way. I wished he would hug me because we were dating and not because we were friends. And every time he had a girlfriend, I wished I had the courage to tell him how I felt.

I tried moving on. The all of two guys that I dated during my time at Hogwarts were amazing people. They were kind and polite but they couldn’t match his sense of humor or his courage.

First it was Oliver Wood. So maybe I’d hoped that by dating his team captain, George would notice me outside of the friend zone but it didn’t work out. I convinced myself I was in love to try to forget George. But when it ended, I was only left with hurt.

“What’s wrong, Kayla?” Fred asked as he hopped over the couch to sit next to me.

“Oliver and I broke up.”

“I’m sorry, Kay.” Fred said as he wrapped an arm around me comfortingly. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to have to see George with his girlfriend and pretend as though I didn’t love him. So I settled for a copy of George. Leaning up, I pressed my lips against Fred’s. Here was escape. Here was pretend. Closing my eyes, I could pretend someone else was kissing me.

I knew it wasn’t right, at first. I knew I should’ve just told George how I felt. But luckily, the one break I got in the situation was that I knew Fred would never fall for me. We were just snogging. And that’s all it was. We were a comfort, one that only occurred when we were both single.

Even though I had no reason to be, I felt guilty. I felt like I betrayed George and I knew I had to tell him.

One day after my break up with Oliver, I found George sitting alone in the common room. “Oliver and I broke up.” I said as I sat down next to him.

“That’s—”

“Fred and I kissed.” The twin stiffened next to me.

“So you and Fred…” George murmered. “You two uh dating…now?”

“No.” I replied, instantly shaking my head. “We’re just….”

“Snogging.” He supplied.

“Um…yeah.”

A moment. A singular moment in time that I let slip away.

I wished he would kiss me, tell me he didn’t want anyone but me. I would tell him I love him. But he didn’t, so I didn’t, and we passed another moment in silence.

George and I spoke often but sometimes there were these excoriating moments where either of us could say what we really needed to and neither of us did. These moments were what held us back.

The second boy I dated to forget George was Cedric Diggory. Halfway through my fifth year, Cedric asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him. When I first told George, he seemed annoyed; I didn’t understand why. But because my heart was elsewhere, Cedric and I broke up just before the Goblet announced him as a champion in my sixth year.

I turned to Fred for an escape and to George for comfort.

When the Yule Ball approached in our sixth year, I had hoped George would ask me. He did…because Alicia said no. I was the second option. The last choice, the one he relied on but didn’t ask first. We had fun but I was painfully aware the entire night that we were simply friends.

When Cedric died, George was there. I wasn’t in love with Cedric but it was so painful to know that my friend was dead.

In our seventh year, Umbridge arrived at Hogwarts. Her punishments were interesting.
With You-Know-Who’s return, there was panic among those who believed Harry.
As believers, Fred and I needed comfort, so we turned to one another. Sometimes though, we didn’t have the best choices in when or where we decided to comfort each other.

I pulled Fred closer to me as I pressed my lips against his.
Fred laid me down on his bed and held my face in his hands. Hovering above me, he chuckled and pushed some of my hair out of my face before kissing my neck.

Giggling, since he was tickling my neck. “Fred you’re going to give me a hickey.” I laughed.

“That’s the plan.” He murmured.

Wanting to kiss him again, I pulled his face back to mine and laced my fingers into his hair. Pulling his head down, I opened my lips to allow him entrance.

Our tongues were battling for dominance when suddenly his hands left my face and traveled down to the hem of my t-shirt. His fingers went under my shirt and gripped my sides tightly.

He was distracting me as he ran his cold fingers lightly over my stomach. He pulled away from me for a moment as he pulled his hands out from under my shirt and then pulled my shirt over my head.

Missing the contact, as soon he got my shirt off I pulled him back to me and kissed him again. All the while I was unbuttoning each button his shirt. When I finally undid all of the buttons, I ran my fingers along his ribs, feeling the bumps and ridges of his muscles and bones.

Suddenly the door opened and Fred jumped off of me.

“Damn Fred.” My heart dropped at the sound of his voice. “At least put a rubber band on the door knob if you’re going to—” But he stopped short as his eyes raked over me.

I could feel my face flushing as I sat on Fred’s bed in nothing but jeans and a lacy pink bra. Instantly, I crossed my arms in front of my chest to try to cover up.

Sensing my discomfort, Fred shoved off his unbuttoned shirt and handed it to me to put on. I did so awkwardly, all the while feeling George’s probing gaze.

Running my fingers through my messy, knotted hair I could only imagine what George was thinking.

He had walked into his room to see his brother snogging a shirtless girl only to find out that it was me. Then, he sees that Fred’s shirt’s unbuttoned. And now I was wearing Fred’s shirt, Fred was shirtless, my neck was turning red from Fred’s kisses and all George was doing was standing there.

“Unbelievable.” he muttered before turning his heel and slamming the door behind him.

Fred and I looked at each other in silence before I took off running after George, buttoning up Fred’s shirt as I went.

“George!” I yelled as I saw him quickly going down the stairs.
Grabbing his hand as I caught up to him in the middle of the crowded common room, I made him stop and face me.

“George, please—”

“What do you want Kayla? What could you possibly have to say?”

“I just want to explain—”

“Why are you wasting your time talking to me? Shouldn’t you be crying over Cedric, or writing to Oliver, or maybe you should just get back to snogging Fred?”

“George—”
“Merlin, Kayla! Will you just be with anyone but m—”

“Hey George!” Alicia called as she walked into the common room. “I wanted to talk to you…” She trailed off as she noticed the tense air between George and I. “But if now’s not a good time—”

“No, Ali, now’s good.” George said as he turned his back to me and began to follow Alicia out of the common room.

“George!” I called out in a strangled voice, but he didn’t turn around. He didn’t acknowledge me. He just left with Alicia.

After that, George and Alicia started hanging out a lot. Fred and I didn’t…comfort…each other anymore. I didn’t understand why George got so mad but I didn’t want to risk him walking in on us again, even if we weren’t talking.

George avoided me for a while until he couldn’t. Fred, George, and I all landed a detention together with Umbridge. I didn’t know I would have to be locked in the same room with them for hours.

“You three troublemakers are to write lines. You will write, ‘I will not cause trouble.’”

“How many?” I asked.

Smiling a bit wickedly, she simply said, “You will know when the message begins to sink in.”

Using the quills she gave us, Fred and George began writing. I heard their gasps but didn’t wonder why as I gazed at George.

Ever since that day when George walked in us, George wouldn’t talk to me. He barely even looked at me. He spent all of his time with Alicia and he wouldn’t even talk to Fred outside of Quidditch practice. Even now, at detention, George had purposely chosen a seat as far away from me and Fred as possible.

“Miss Sumner!” Umbridge snapped. “Get to work. Detention is a time for atonement, not staring at Mr. Weasley.”

“Of course she was staring at him.” George muttered under his breath. Umbridge glared at him but said nothing.

Putting the quill to paper, I began to write, “I will n—” I gasped, just as George and Fred had.

The ink was red…it was blood.

I stared at the ink, at my stinging hand where a faint “I will n” could be seen.
I looked at the words and then at George, the boy who I was so desperately in love with, the boy who’d already given up on me. He was the boy I kept waiting for.
Pulling my gaze from him, I put the quill to the paper and began to write.

An hour later, Umbridge stopped us and called us up to her desk.
Taking Fred’s hand, she examined it. “‘I will not cause trouble.’ Good. The message has dug deep.” She said sadistically. She said the same to George.

As both twins began to gathering their things to leave, she looked at my hand.

“I will never love anyone else.” Umbridge read aloud. I was vaguely aware of the classroom door shutting behind the twins. “That was not what you were to write, Miss Sumner.”

I said nothing and simply watched her teacher.

“Love doesn’t exist for you students.” The pink toad smiled too sweetly, “It’s called hormones.”

“You’re probably right.” I muttered.

“Come back tomorrow night.” She said in a tone that suggested that she was very disappointed in me.

Nodding at me to leave, I grabbed my bag and left the room.

Once I was in the corridor, I stopped short at the sight of a tall red head waiting for me.

“Hey.” I said quietly.
He looked up at me and my heart sank. It was Fred.

“Hey.” He said. Together we walked up to the empty common room.
Fred sat me down on a couch and left me there for a moment.

When he returned he had gauze in his hand. Taking my hand gently, he ran his fingers over the deep wound.

“It will hurt less, you know, when some time passes.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“You did what you could—” He muttered.

“No I didn’t. I was stupid Fred. I wasted all of this time dating other boys that weren’t him. I sunk as low as I could. I used you as a substitute for him—”

“I know.”

“I didn’t try everything. I waited and waited and waited for him to make a move when it should’ve been me. I should’ve just told him or done something and now he won’t even talk to me!”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to make a move.”

It had been a good plan, in theory. George and Alicia weren’t dating so George was still kind of single. So I figured if I just…asked him to go to Hogsmeade with me everything would be alright.

Knocking on the door to the boy seventh years’ room, I walked in without waiting for a response.

“Hey.” I said as my gaze met George’s. “Can I sit?” I asked, gesturing to his bed.
He shrugged, which I took as a yes.

“So…” I began awkwardly. “There’s a Hogsmeade trip tomorrow and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me.”

He didn’t say anything, only stared at me.

“Not as friends, I mean. Like on a…date.”

He didn’t say anything.

“So…what do you say?”

“No.” Well, I hadn’t been expecting that. “I can’t.”

“Okay.” I said nodding and standing up. “I’ll see you around.” I said quickly, now desperate to make a fast exit.

Rejection hurt, which was probably why I had ever avoided telling George how I felt about him in the first place.

“Kayla?” Fred asked as he found me sitting outside.

“I asked him to go to Hogsmeade with me. He said no.”

“Maybe he has other plans. He’s probably—”

“Going with Alicia. I’m too late.”

“Kayla, you don’t know that.”

“It’s alright, Fred. I’m okay with it.”

I didn’t know until it happened what George and Fred were actually doing the day of the Hogsmeade trip. It turned out that they were planning their escape. It turned out that George was in the common room that night after detention and he heard what I said. It turned out that all along George cared.

I stood in awe of the fireworks, the explosions, and the mass chaos that the boys were causing and then suddenly, he was before me with his hand outstretched. He was smiling at me and suddenly I knew. With a smile of my own, I grabbed his hand and he pulled me up onto his broom.

I was wrong. It wasn’t too late. Things could change. I only had to take a chance.