a/n: i havent written fanfic in AGES so pls forgive me im trying my best over here i promise and please ignore any mistakes u see im still figuring out this whole thing again <33

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✧.* said i'm fine, but it wasn't true; i don't
wanna keep secrets just to keep you.✧.*

╰┈➤✧.* IN WHICH
Lily Evans has a very cruel summer indeed.

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The summer sun had long since set, leaving behind a soft warmth to the English July night. Sounds party blared into the sky. Inside this party there was what was to be expected from any party consisting of drunk teenagers which is sex and of course, sordid tension.

Lily Evans was sat on a couch, drink in her hand and best mates by her side as the summer air blew around her neck, and she should have been happy.

Summer before seventh year, she was finally of age and was at a party thrown by her friends and was surrounded by her friends, sipping on her favourite beverage, she should have been over the world.

But instead, she was contemplating every decision that had brought her to this moment with a frustrated sort of fury. 

Mosquitos made a feast of her skin and her fingers wrapped around her glass in a grip just short of shattering the poor thing as she watched James Potter twirl Carla Arnold in delirious circles on the dance floor.

This party was like a shiny toy with a price and unfortunately she bought it. Now it seemed that the price was a hefty sum to pay.

She had long since tuned out Sirius blathering over her shoulder to Remus while Peter struggled to be a part of the conversation. Her regretful choice of separating the three stooges by sitting in between them was never quite was apparent as now. 

She wished Marlene would come back from wherever she had gone to snog Dorcas and save her from her moral dilemma.

She wished Sirius, as much as she had grown to love the guy, would just shut the fuck up for half a second so she could think.

She wished the ice in her drink hadn't melted and she wished that Peter would stop leaning so far into Sirius that he started to lean into her, and most of all she wished that Carla Arnold would get her bloody sodding hands off from James Potter's torso.

It wasn't like the suffering was fatal to her system, but what didn't kill her only made her want him more. Maybe she could kill someone else.

Of course she had absolutely no right to be feeling any sort of jealousy in this situation, because she wasn't attracted to Carla and more importantly, she had turned James down on countless occasions.

All of which she was regretting now.

Lily felt livid as she watched the two of them dither around as though they were somewhere head up above the clouds in their own little dream world. Carla giggled obnoxiously at something and Lily's grip on the glass tightened.

It was wrong of Lily to dislike Carla. She seemed to be perfectly nice. In a low cut dress and red pouty lips that she was flashing at James- NO that is just the misogynistic side of jealousy, and Lily Evans would not stoop that low.

She wasn't deluding herself. She knew that she was jealous, okay, she knew. She knew that there was nothing more that she wanted than for James Potter to abandon Carla and come over to her right that instant and snog her senseless.

Naturally though, she would never admit that to anyone who asked. The idea that she was madly in love with Potter of all people was unfathomable, even to her.

But as most unexpected things, it was true.

"Oi, Evans, you alright?" said Sirius from next to her, tapping on her shoulder.

Snapping back into the present, she tightly nodded to him.

"Seemed pretty interested in Prongs and Arnold there," Sirius prodded with a smirk.

"Shove off, you toad. The only thing I'm interested in shoving your wand up your arse to prove a point."

"And what point would you be proving, Lily?" Remus asked with mock innocence.

"Not you too," she sighed. "There is no point. That's it. Go back to your nonsense. I'm going to get another drink."

She could hear the three of them chuckling behind her and she got up from the couch and made her way outside.

The back garden was large, and at the far end was a long since abandoned drinks table. The firewhiskey had sort of taken the pizzaz out of plain old spiked punch but all Lily wanted was the silence.

And the lack of Potter and Clara.

And maybe some ice for her warm drink.

Oh god, she was a certified loon. What even was she doing out here in this boring, big stupid garden anyway? She wasn't enjoying in the slightest so she might as well say goodbye to whoever cared and get on home.

She placed her glass on the white cloth of the table and pondered for a moment. She considered downing it just so she could do away with it, but she couldn't apparate while intoxicated, the lightweight that she was and she couldn't bear to be drunk in the back of a car.

And she probably would have cried like a baby coming home from the party because alcohol only served to heighten her emotions and she was having a lot of them. Stupid alcohol. Stupid Potter. Stupid imaginary car.

Actually no, what the FUCK was she on? Having a whole strung mental breakdown over a drink? Maybe she was already drunk or PMS or something else causing this fever dream high in the quiet of the night. 

Abandoning the glass on the table she made way toward the back so she could sneak out through the garden gate just to seal her fate.

Almost out of the now empty garden, she bumped into the last person she had wanted to see. And he spilled a drink on her.

"Fuck oh, no fuck Lily, dear god, I am so sorry! Good Merlin let me fetch you a towel or no like a wand, maybe I can wipe it off myself-"

"James," she said with more patience than she could have imagined. "Chill out."

That caused James to pause his worried rambling. "I am so-"

"I get it, you're sorry. It's okay I'm sure it's just-"

She stopped in her tracks as she looked down at her dress, aghast at the stain in front of her. Large. And red. Very very red.

"See, I knew it. It's horrible. Merlin's left tit, Lily I am so sorry,"

Lily shook her head. "No, James it's fine really. Nothing a good scourgify cant fix." she said, pulling out her wand and magicking the stain away. "Since when do you drink red wine anyway?"

"Oh," he replied, "I don't. Definitely sill loathe the shit. Clara wanted some though so I was just brining some for her."

Lily's mind turned cold. "Well in that case." she said, brushing off imaginary dirty from her skirt. "Have a nice evening."

And she marched off.

"What the hell?" muttered James, wondering how he could have possibly offended her. "Lily, wait!" he called running after her.

He whirled her around, grabbing her arm to pull her to him. "What's the matter with you?"

"Get off me. I just don't wanna talk. To anyone." she scowled, feeling increasingly as though this day was just her inner devils rolling the dice while all the angels could do was roll their eyes and she was tired, boy was she tired.

"No you're gonna talk," he insisted, ignoring her attempts at loosening his grip on her wrist. "You're not acting like yourself and you're going to at least try to explain why."

She knew what the matter was with her. She knew exactly why, but she also knew that if she told him he'd let go of her hand and never look her in the eye. 

So all she did was say "I'm fine," which she knew wasn't true, and she didn't want to keep secrets just to keep his friendship but the summer was a knife that was this close to making contact on her skin. 

Oh well, if she bled he'd be the last to know.

"No," insisted James. "You're bloody not, so out with it. Tell me. What's got you so pissed off."

"Absolutely not. I'm perfectly peachy. Wonderful really. Haven't you got a girl waiting on you? You've spilt her wine all over my new dress best to fetch her a new one and get on with it." She tried.

"Don't be like that. Carla can wait. This is more important. What's wrong?" He said, not relenting.

"I said, I don't wanna talk." Lily declared, trying to wrench her arm out of his grip. He refused to let go.

"Fuck it, because you're gonna."

"Oh my god can you quit it already?" she yelled out all of a sudden. Mercifully he let go of her hand, immediately making her miss the warmth. She closed her eyes, and screamed for whatever it's worth.

"I've had a horrible night and I just want to go home. My drink got hot, mosquitos ate my insides out, Sirius never stopped fucking talking and most of all, there was you, you prick, right there in front of me the whole god damn time and i'm just fucking tired."

She opened her eyes to James's shellshocked expression. "What the bloody hell did I do?"

She almost cried at how fucking stupid a person could possibly be. She didn't want to tell him more because she knew it would ruin everything, screw it up in these trying times.

But hell she wasn't trying.

"You really have not got a single clue as to what I could mean?" she asked.

"No, I really fucking don't, so tell me. I want to help you."

She sighed, refusing to let the tears pool into her eyes. "This is going to be such a cruel cruel summer."

James was still looking at her with a dumbfounded expression.

"You really are stupid." she said, with a humourless scoff. "I love you"

When she looked at him he wouldn't meet her eyes. "Ain't that the worst thing you ever heard. Well. I'm going to be heading home to my cat now. Goodbye, James."

As she made to leave, in a startling sense of deja vu he grabbed her arm once again. Still refusing to look at her, he asked, "why would it ever be the worst thing?"

Lily actually laughed at that. "Because. You're clearly over me. Whatever might've been there is now gone, and you're into Carla. And you're my friend and I really want you to be happy but I'm also madly in love with you and I've put you in a horrible place, and I just really, really wanna go home."

Continuing to stare at the floor, James began chuckling. Oh great he was laughing at her. "Are you done?" she asked, peevishly.

In a full blown giggle-fest, because now was the time for that apparently, while Lily had tears in her eyes, he looked up at her, grinning like the devil.

"What on Earth ever gave you the impression that I ever possibly got over you?"

"The fuc-"

"Lily its you! The shape of your body, the way your hair falls on your shoulders, the way your eyes sparkle, the way you smile, it's always been you. I feeling I get when I'm around you it's fucking incomparable."

"What?" Lily managed out from behind her shock.

"No rules in breakable heaven so I'll tell you right now I'm desperately and irrevocably in love with you Lily Evans, and there's no getting over that. Ever."

"Bu what about Carla-"

"Carla? Lily she's basically my cousin. I grew up with her, she's my mum's friends daughter. Platonic with a capital P because it's always been you."

Lily looked into James's eyes shining behind his glasses as he smiled at her under the moonlight and asked, "you really mean that?"

James grinned. "Like one hundred percent."

So then she grabbed his face with her free hand and smashed her lips into his as she felt him laugh next to her mouth and kiss her back.

It was a cruel summer indeed.

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a/n: honestly this started out as this super angsty super dramatic figment in my head bc i just had the main part and then when i started pairing it with a plot (a struggle at that bc i had like one dialogue to base it on) it became a lil less angsty and as it turns out i cant fit proper angsty of how i wanted it into a oneshot and i cant write a whole book this is kinda what i ended up with 

anyway regardless i'm suuuppperrrr happy with how it turned out this was so fun to write (HOW I MISSED THIS I CANT EVEN TELL YOU) and i hope u noticed the lyrics i dropped in (i wasnt being subtle im sure you did)

anyway i hope u enjoyed, make sure to listen to cruel summer by taylor swift if u havent alr (its a single off lover now!!) 

if u liked it make sure to drop a comment i love talking to people and yeah

love youuuuuu
ana <333