the girlfriend experience, james potter
𝒔𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓, 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟕

chapter twenty-three, BREAKUPS AND REVELATIONS

✧ ━━━ · ✦ · ━━━ ✧

     THE DAY HAD COME. MONDAY MORNING. A FRESH START. James was a new man. And by new, he meant, newly single from a relationship that was never real and prepared for the next relationship which will be real.

     "Can you just cooperate? Please?"

     "I'm sorry if I don't want to be painted as the bad guy in this breakup, Bronwyn."

     For a relationship that never technically happened, it was proving rather difficult for the pair to break up. Bronwyn wanted to cry and have a chance to slap him around the face (because she never usually got to do that) and James, with his lack of experience of break-ups, wanted a formal handshake and a salute.

     They had chosen a semi-public, semi-quiet location for their breakup in the courtyard during a free period because most students were in lessons but the weather wasn't terrible which brought some people outside. No one was close enough to hear their conversation but there were at least a few people that could see them visibly in dispute.

     "It's bad enough people think I dated you, and I let that happen. For you!" She was exasperated by how he didn't think she had the foreground here when he didn't have a leg to stand on. "So please at least let me slap you. The crying isn't necessary ─ I should technically be grateful we're no longer together."

     James' eyes narrowed into hers. "So, just so we're clear, I broke up with you?"

     "No. I broke up with you." Bronwyn felt like she had spelt this out to him numerous times.

     "But why?" James asked.

     "Because I figured out what an idiot you are?" Bronwyn knows her plan is flawed but she refuses to be the dumpee in this situation.

     "You can't paint me in a bad light because Lily won't want to go near me."

     There is nothing Bronwyn Ward hated more than admitting James Potter was right when she wasn't. "Fine. We both mutually agreed not to date anymore."

     James nodded solemnly in agreement, "It was just too complicated."

     "We're better off as friends."

     "We only wanted to please our parents."

     The both of them had become quite amused by this back and forth ─ something they could add to the very short list of times James and Bronwyn have agreed with each other.

     "So it's done then," James said after a pause that was a little too long for both of their likings.

     Bronwyn rocked back and forth on her heels. "Yup, all done." Bronwyn had done this part of The Girlfriend Experience week numerous times. The ending of it all was usually summed up in a quick handshake and a goodbye. This was often marked as the last time she spoke with any of her clients. It wasn't awkward because it was over in minutes.

     This was different. James was different. She would most definitely be speaking to him again and they had never had this awkward of an encounter before. It was a goodbye but it also wasn't.

     "I'm free," he chuckled. "Yay." Bronwyn detected nerves but she didn't know how to handle that so she decided to ignore it altogether.

     "No, I'm free," she corrected him. "I was the one who was tragically trapped in a fake relationship with one of my clients."

     James playfully shoved her shoulder. "You had fun, stop lying."

     Did Bronwyn maybe potentially, have a tiny bit (pretty much non-existent actually) of fun while spending an obscene amount of time with James Potter? Yes. Would she ever admit this to him? Of course not, you idiot.

     "Keep telling yourself that and maybe you'll find closure," she grinned brightly back at him.

     James mirrored her smile, "You're such a lovely soul, Bronwyn. I'm so glad we had this experience and I'm sad to see it end."

     Bronwyn gave James a pat on the back and slipped past him, "Never again, Potter," she said, before walking away and concluding their agreement. "Never again," she muttered once more.

✧

     DESPITE A SLIGHT WISTFUL FEELING SETTLING AROUND JAMES REGARDING THE CONCLUSION of his and Bronwyn's union, there was one person who was going to feel the exact opposite once he learned the news of the break-up.

     "Sirius," James said with a tug of his robes, his shoulders rising and falling, "you'll be pleased to know Bronwyn and I have parted ways. Please don't make it a big deal and please do not act any differently than you did before."

     James had barely announced his entrance into the common room and simply decided to be out with it because he assumed that was probably the best tactic if this were a real breakup.

     Sirius slowly turned to look at the new arrival but once the words sunk in, he was visibly elated. Sirius hopped off of the sofa, still managing to contain his excitement briefly as he asked, "You mean, I can be just as unfriendly as I was before you dated?"

     "You weren't particularly friendly while they dated," Remus pointed out. Remus had noticed how business-like James was acting as he delivered the news that he had broken up with his girlfriend, but opted not to say anything ─ it was a nice change to have James act so mature.

     "Remus is right," James said, "but yes, please don't act weirdly. I'm basically asking you to pretend it never happened." Which it never technically did.

     Sirius was grinning from ear to ear. "Done."

     Now that his closest friends were made aware of his tragic breakup, there was one other person who needed to know: Lily Evans. James figured it probably wasn't the best idea to throw himself straight into a relationship with Lily (which, considering the context, most likely wasn't possible anyway) because that would reflect badly on him and weaken the facade he and Bronwyn had created. But he was too eager, so maybe a sped-up relationship development was necessary.

     So after lunch, as the light thinned outside the castle on that melancholy Monday, James asked Lily if she wanted to go to the library together. It was just about the only place he felt was harmless and inoffensive for the two of them to go to together, without making it a big deal and with pretty much a one hundred percent success rate of Lily agreeing to go.

     After about ten minutes of pretending to be revising, when he was actually debating ways to naturally bring up the topic of his breakup in conversation, James concluded the only way he could get his point across was to just come straight out with it.

     "So Lily," he said. Her head was down, her eyes focused on the manic end of her quill. She didn't look up but simply hummed as an indication that she was listening. "I just thought I'd let you know that," he paused, questioning how sad he should play this. "Me and Bronwyn." Another pause as if buying himself time.

     However, the mention of his (ex and never) girlfriend sparked her interest enough for her to sit up and stare right at him, quill loosely hanging from her grip.

     "Yes?"

     "We broke up."

     It came out rather abrupt, but James didn't know how else to say it, or how else to bring it up any smoother. Lily had to know; it was vital she knew, and pointless if their fake dating never ended.

     "Oh," Lily said, a crinkle appearing between her brows, "I'm sorry to hear that, James."

     "Thanks," he said, contorting his mouth so that he was showing at least some semblance of emotion. After all, this was supposed to be a sad moment for someone who had just gone through a breakup. "I guess we both decided we'd be best off as friends."

     Bronwyn and James' break-up protocol was very brief and vague and so they hadn't really established the extent to which they would tell people when and how they broke up. He was going to have to improvise a lot of the details and confer with her incognito at a later date.

     "So it was mutual then?" Lily asked curiously.

     A mutual agreement to fake date which from the beginning was never going to be longer than a week? Yes. James nodded to indicate as much.

     "I never did think she was right for you," Lily said, turning back to her notes and, beginning to doodle in the corner, she laid her head to rest on her palm.

     Oh? Is that because Lily thought she was better for James than Bronwyn? Or because Lily genuinely believed that the conflicting personalities of the two in question were bad for the stability of a healthy relationship?

     James was going to go with the fact that Lily didn't want to see James with anyone else and ignore the inkling he got that Lily just did not, in fact, like Bronwyn, at all.

     "Why's that?" James asked, trying to casually cover up his concern by adjusting his seating position.

     Lily shrugged, "She just seems like she looks down on you, that's all."

     James knew this. Bronwyn often did that to everyone bar those she truly respected. James just saw it as her knowing her worth.

     "Right," he drawled, hoping Lily took that as her invite to carry on.

     "And her friends are dicks."

     Bronwyn doesn't class any of her teammates (the ones Lily was surely talking about) as her friends, but mere peers she would rather not be associated with. But whatever. "I guess."

     "And, I suppose, she does try to kill you on the Quidditch pitch," Lily chuckled like this was a joke.

     In Bronwyn's defence, James often tried to kill her too. In a competitive sense.

     "Yeah, maybe me and her weren't quite meant to be." They never were but this was a revelation for James indeed. Tied with Sirius' reaction earlier, did everyone hate the idea of the two of them as a couple? Lily did, Sirius did, Bronwyn's teammates did, even Bronwyn did.

     So why didn't he?

✧

     WHILE JAMES SHARED HIS SOLEMN NEWS WITH THOSE IMPORTANT TO HIM, Bronwyn didn't have anyone to tell. She was in and out of clients all the time. Andromeda was pretty much the only person she spoke to more than once a day because she went out of her way to do just that, and Andromeda knew all of her business inside and out. She was free from James Potter and had no one to celebrate with. It was a tragedy.

     However, it didn't play out like that when, on Monday afternoon, after classes had ended for the day, the Slytherin Quidditch team gathered together for a practice.

     "Word on the grapevine is that you and Potter have parted ways, is that right, Bronwyn?"

     Clearly, word spreads fast in Hogwarts but Bronwyn just assumed this was Sirius Black doing what he does best.

     Bronwyn had anticipated her teammates (those not so fond of James Potter) to question her breakup. She had not, however, expected to care so much about the way that Evan Rosier brought him up.

     "Hm yes, regrettably, the grapevine would be right." How was she going to redirect this conversation without making it weird?

     "Thank fuck for that then," Evan cackled, easily gaining his army of goons on his side.

     Regulus seemed to be the only one unamused by the train of insults now herding James' way and Bronwyn tried her best to focus on this. She went about setting up for their first practice of the week (an extra long one and a fact she was beginning to regret), trying to ignore the belittling and raucous laughter.

     "What a wanker."

     "I can't believe she ever stooped so low."

     "And she says she's one of us."

     Bronwyn doesn't know why but she didn't like her teammates talking bad about James. She was usually complacent in exactly that but something about it being behind James' back and almost unwarranted, made her slightly defensive of him. She didn't have a single urge to tell them that it was all fake so that they would think better of her.

     It was true that Slytherins had an undeserved bad rep but it was times like this that Bronwyn questioned how, as their captain, she should approach rude comments about the opposition. It was different in a competitive environment but nobody was here to hear what they had to say and it wasn't as though they were confronting anyone.

     She'd always call them out if they took it too far but previously, this wasn't one of those situations. She'd join in even; sometimes she'd give them childhood memories to fuel their jokes. If she called them out on it now they'd know something had changed between Bronwyn and James. Surely a breakup would mean she had even more negative feelings about him than before.

     But what had changed? What, now she felt sorry for him? Now she liked him enough to not like hearing bad things said about him? Whatever their relationship dynamic was now, one thing was true: jokes about James Potter being a wanker were once endorsed and even encouraged by Bronwyn. Now she didn't even like to hear them.

     "I'm still waiting for you to grow up, Rosier," Bronwyn sighed as Evan and half the team continued to act as though they didn't have other things to be getting on with.

     "Is that why you dumped James Potter?" Evan asked, sauntering over to her, his Quidditch robes flowing pretentiously behind him. His smirk put James' to shame. "Because he was too much of a child?"

     "Let's not get caught up on someone like James Potter now shall we?" Bronwyn asked sweetly as she bit down on the resentment that was bubbling up inside of her.

     "So what? You've gone soft now?" Mulciber scoffed.

     She could feel Rosier and Co. all slowly form a swarm around her, entrapping her in their taunts. "No, I just don't think we should waste time talking about him when we could be thinking up ways to beat him." Bronwyn kept reminding herself that she was their captain ─ she held the power here.

     "We can easily beat him," Avery snorted.

     "Not with that attitude you can't."

     This was sure to give her away. Bronwyn resolutely refused to give James any Quidditch credit. She was better than him ─ that's all that mattered. Their Quidditch rivalry had defined their relationship since they both made their respective teams in second year. And now she was admitting he was a threat to her winning streak?

     While Evan was originally smirking at their blatant arrogance, this slowly dwindled and he squared in on Bronwyn, so much so, that she could smell the vinegar on his breath from the crisps he was eating in the changing room. "Nice to know our captain has more faith in the enemy than in her own team."

     Bronwyn was momentarily astounded. She had never been criticised by her teammates. They had always thought she was a great captain and supported any decisions she made.

     Until she started dating a Gryffindor and she was suddenly scum in their eyes.

     This was simply further evidence that Bronwyn and James were best kept apart. Their friends didn't mix, their houses didn't make sense, and it apparently kept her captaincy at risk because her teammates were all arseholes.

     But she didn't align herself with such arse-holery, and Bronwyn would rather be dead than talked down to by Evan Rosier.

     "Maybe if you played a little better your captain wouldn't have any doubts."

     She had no doubt in how Evan played Quidditch. The problem was, disastrously, that she had established a newly found respect for James Potter.

     Later that night, Bronwyn couldn't sleep. She stared at the roof of her bed, serenaded by the raucous noise of Andromeda's snoring, and thought about her James-free life.

     It was going to be weird without James around, she thought. He had been, as the contract stated, forced to be with her all week. And now he wouldn't be.

     It was as though that, now everyone was under the impression that they had broken up, an even stiffer rod had been shoved between them, wrenching them apart. Previously, old childhood forced friends and Quidditch rivals, now exes, their hatred for each other appearing to be even more firey than before.

     Bronwyn thought about what would happen if their parents found out they "dated" and then subsequently broke up. It would crush their mothers' hearts even more if they knew all they ever wanted had happened and ceased all without them getting to enjoy it.

     But Bronwyn did also hope that everything worked out for James and Lily. He had gone to awfully long lengths to prove to this girl that he liked her and if anyone did that for Bronwyn, she wouldn't know how to say no. As much as she never thought she'd say it, James deserved someone who liked him just as much as he liked her.

     But maybe that wasn't Lily? She hadn't, after all, shown much interest in him until she found out he had a "girlfriend". Will that interest slowly fade over time?

     Bronwyn lay awake for what felt like the rest of the night. James got her in ways nobody else did. And now he wouldn't be around to bake with her and tell terrible jokes. Somehow, she knew she'd miss those stupid jokes.

     It all felt a little dramatic ─ denying herself sleep because James Potter wasn't going to be glued to her side anymore. It's not as though she's never going to see him again; they go to school together.

     But even then, they're in different realms. It was so strange how they could live and learn in the same castle, under the same roof, and yet be so far away from each other. Her teammates had proved it earlier ─ Gryffindor and Slytherin rivals just don't mesh together.

     So maybe Lily and James do.

     Some twisted part of Bronwyn hoped they wouldn't.

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