WHO: Christian Entwhistle & Ingrid Catchlove
WHAT: A chance confrontation doesn't go as well as they had hoped. In fact, not well at all.
WHEN: Yesterday
WHERE: Diagon Alley
He growled in frustration. This was getting him absolutely nowhere. He was supposed to be coming up with a new advertisement logo for the paper, but these last few days all that'd been on his mind was Her. He just couldn't believe things had ended so bloody badly... and her, being the stubborn idiot that she was, hadn't even listened to a word he'd said when he'd tried to defend himself! He sighed and rubbed a palm over his face before bringing his attention back to the sketchbook laid out across his lap. Circles and random angles decorated the page, but nothing worth a paycheck. Nothing that had anything to do with an advertising campaign. Curling his lip, he tore the page from the book and tossed it angrily to the floor before rising moodily from his bed and stalking over to where his coat hung on the doorknob. He had to get out of his apartment. The mural he'd drawn of her on the wall, the smell on his pillowcase... it was all HER, and he couldn't take it anymore.
He made his way downstairs, giving his landlord's wife a weary grin as he passed her on the way to the door. He had to refuse her offer of tea three times before she reluctantly let him go... she could tell something was bothering him, but he really just didn't feel like being cooped up inside. He just needed to go for a walk, to clear his head.
The winter air stung his nostrils as he made his way to the Leaky Cauldron, which was conveniently located just a few blocks away. Blowing into his palms, he wound his way to the back and tapped the appropriate blocks in the brick wall that would grant him entry to Diagon Alley. What better place to lose yourself than in the hustle and bustle of one of the busiest markets in Wizarding London? He weaved his way through the crowds, hands shoved deep into his pockets, shoulders rolled up around his ears; he stopped briefly to help a little girl who had dropped and broken what looked to be a relatively new toy. Drawing his wand from the back waistband of his jeans, he quickly repaired the damages, and was in the process of offering the grateful kid a smile when something just over her shoulder caused the grin to melt clean off his face.
Ingrid.
You would have never thought it would be so difficult just to get some stupid school shopping done. It
hadn't been difficult, actually--go to the stores, pick up quills, inks, robes, try not to think of the way your life had turned itself upside down just days ago, go home. That was all it was... until she spotted
his face in the crowd.
For fuck's sake, what was this, some kind of divine punishment for something?
Ingrid's grip on the bag she had been carrying tightened as her eyes locked onto a familiar dark head of hair, and even tighter as that head raised up to bring a dismayed gaze up to meet hers. Had she been able to think, she would have tried to move, but even so her limbs were paralyzed, her feet stuck to the ground where she stood. Her heart pounded against her ribcage as she quickly tried to come up with a way to escape this situation that had just presented itself, but nothing would come. Nothing could possibly come now that she was staring straight at him like that, both of them painfully aware that the other recognzied who the other was.
She opened her mouth once to say something, but shut it again at finding that her words weren't there. What had happened to all the screaming, all the cursing, all the anger? She had been completely able to let the insults and rage fly when it had been Ashlyn that she was talking to, so why now was it different? Why was it that seeing him, she suddenly felt that the stab of pain in her heart could no longer be overriden by a good session of reaming him out? Fuck.
He rose slowly to his feet, his tongue nervously rolling across his bottom lip... his entire mouth felt dry. He took a hesitant step closer, then stopped himself, remembering how she had reacted last time he had tried that. He cleared his throat and realized that it would have to be him that finally broke the silence. "Hey," he said quietly, his intense stare focused solely on her eyes. But he seemed to realize almost immediately that such a lame greeting was hardly adequate, and, with a deep inhalation of breath, finally took another step towards her.
"Can we talk?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper; he was not the type of person who wanted to have it out with his girlfriend (or was she his ex now?) in front of an audience.
Truth be told, Ingrid was quite keen on the idea of telling him flat-out 'no.' In fact, she rather thought it would be a good idea, seeing as the last thing she'd told him before 'it's over' had been something like 'don't come near or
speak to me again', and after what he'd done, going back on words like those was the last thing she wanted to do. But it was something, be it being in the moment or that intense look in his eyes that wouldn't leave her own--she'd take the former rather than the latter at the moment--that had her nodding deftly.
Damn it, she inwardly cursed. Why was she agreeing to this? Why was she agreeing to anything he asked? He certainly didn't deserve it or anything else after what had happened--or at least that's what she'd told herself over and over to make her feel better about what she'd seen, and what she'd said. Oh yes, she was agreeing to this because it was
Christian, and Christian was simply too difficult to deny, at least when he was standing right there in front of her like that.
"Yeah, I... I guess so," she muttered in response, breaking their gaze to nod to a tiny coffee shop across the Alley. "There, maybe?"
"Sure," he replied with a nod, honestly surprised that she was agreeing to it at all. He had to remind himself not to take her hand as they made their way to the small cafe, jamming them instead back into the depths of his pockets lest they behave of their own accord. He held the door for her and followed her inside, where they were seated at a small table near the back window. He was grateful that there weren't a lot of people patroning the store at the moment... he wasn't sure how this conversation would go, especially given how Ingrid had refused to hear him out last time. He slipped into his seat and removed his jacket to reveal a faded old band teeshirt; he propped his elbows on the table and once again lifted his gaze to her face, his lips turning inwards as the waitress came over. He barely glanced at the menu before ordering some coffee, and patiently waited until Ingrid had placed her order and the waitress had walked away before shifting in his chair and leaning a bit towards her over the table.
"So... I..." he gnawed at the inside of his cheek until he almost tasted blood. He had to really weigh his words carefully. Taking a deep breath, he stared her dead in the eye and said, in a hushed, hoarse-sounding tone, "I wanted to explain to you what... what happened that night. I know I'm not very... articulate a lot of the time, and... and I really just want you to know the truth. Because I know, I know it looked bad. But it wasn't like that."
Ingrid forced herself to look away from him, staring down instead into the cup of tea the waitress had brought her. She watched the dark liquid spin around in its cup and bit her bottom lip, the look of stark concentration and unrest on her face making it evident that she was listening intently, even if she refused to look his way. The concentration wasn't really in order to make sure she understood each syllable of his words, though, but more to make sure that she didn't start up making a scene and crying or something again. It wouldn't have been a lie to say that a knot had formed in her throat the second he'd brought up the topic, no matter how she had known that it was coming.
Her hands gripped the porcelain a bit more firmly than was completely comfortable, and took a deep, slightly shuddering breath as she shook her head--it wasn't evident whether the gesture was aimed at him, at herself, or at something else entirely. "'Looked bad' would be a bit of an understament," she replied. Normally, that sentence might have accompanied a smile, a humorous note, but here it was deadly solemn, no hint of mirth to be found. "I... Maybe it was something else, Christian, but that really... I don't think anything's ever hurt more."
That confession made his blood run cold... he winced as though she had struck him, though he doubted that any physical pain could equal that of knowing he had hurt her that badly. He was tempted to reach out to her, to ease her fingers from where they were cluthing too tightly to the porcelain cup set between her palms... but he resisted. He didn't want to push any boundaries she might have set up. Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, he went on. "Nothing happened," he insisted. "She... she was really drunk, and she just appeared in my apartment, and before I knew it she was kissing me and that's... that's when you walked in. Ashlyn is... well, she was just my friend." He half-heartedly stirred his coffee, finally averting his gaze from her face. He couldn't stand to see that look on it anymore.
"You don't have to believe me, but... I just thought you should know."
Ingrid sighed and continued to watch the tea, finding that it was the only thing that could keep her from looking at him. She knew her own weaknesses enough to know that looking at him now was going to impair her judgement, make her forgive him right then and there. It wasn't that she didn't want to believe him--she wanted to believe him more than bloody
anything, but that was the problem. Wanting couldn't turn to believing or else she was just going to forgive him because it was him, and that wasn't right. She owed herself more than just telling him that it was alright and letting things back to good, without ever knowing if she actually believed that he had been telling the truth.
"I don't know if I believe you," she answered honestly. It wasn't a comment laced in bitterness, just truthful confession. "That's what Ashlyn tells me, too, but I know even less about believing her, so... do I just doubt you both, or do I accept this as truth from the both of you, and let myself walk blindfolded into an even more painful situation down the road, in the case that you were both lying? I just... I don't know what to trust."
He let the spoon fall out of his grasp, let it clatter loudly against the sides of his cup. This was incredibly frustrating. He turned his dark regard to watch the scenery outside the window without really seeing it, his thoughts whirring at a mile a minute. He was trying to sympathize with her plight, but... damnit, he hadn't done anything! When he turned back to her, his brows were lowered over the pleading gaze of his eyes. "So... that's it then. We're done?" It was a simple question, but it made him feel nauseous. "Because I don't know how else to prove it to you that I didn't do anything wrong."
"I want to believe you
so damn badly, Christian," she said suddenly, slightly louder. "I want to believe that I judged right in thinking you'd never do something like that--talking to you now, I still
do believe that you'd never do something like that, but at the end of the day what I saw was someone who I thought was my boyfriend kissing someone who I thought was my friend, and I'm
confused between what I think I know about you and what I witnessed."
She took a drink of the tea, eager for something to do, and when she set it back down on the table, finally raised her head up to look at him. "If you're giving up now, then I guess 'we're done' is an understatement, too," she told him. Suddenly, she felt that anger coming back, not in the degree it had been with Ashlyn, but still it was there when he spoke his last sentence. "Do you want to be the one to walk out the door this time, or should I go ahead and perfect my skill some more?"
She had to be one of the most infuriating people he'd ever met. He stared at her, mouth slightly agape, disbelief etched onto every feature. When he snapped himself out of his initial shock, he leaned towards her over the table, arms extended palm up on the wooden surface in a gesture of helplessness. "I don't know what the hell you want from me," he said suddenly, his annoyance audible even though he never raised his voice above a low murmer. "You keep on telling me how you're so confused... and I get that, Ing, I really do, even though I'm trying to tell you that I'm telling the truth. I've never done anything to make you not trust me... never. But I'm giving you the choice anyway. I asked you a question. Don't play games with me like some kid, alright, because like you said, you were the one who walked away the other night, not me."
Done with his tirade (he was pretty sure he hadn't said that many words at once in a very long time), he set his mouth into a thin line and braced himself for what he was sure was going to be an explosive reaction. Maybe Gryffindors and Ravenclaws really shouldn't date... they seemed about as compatable as Slytherins and Hufflepuffs.
"How the fuck dare you." Her voice came out in a seething whisper, any anger that she had been missing coming back in full force. She had to make herself release the cup, because now it was certain that she would break it with the force that she was gripping the fragile porcelain. "How the fuck dare you equate what I saw and my reaction to it to some
game a
kid plays. How the fuck dare you act like the fact that I hoped that if you gave as much of a shit as I thought, that you'd force me to see that I was wrong, that it wouldn't be just a half-assed 'I didn't do it, but oh, you're still skeptical, so that's that.'"
Her voice was kept low, but not as low as his--she didn't want to make a scene either, but controlling her anger wasn't exactly a strong point. "You want to know what I want from you? Nothing. I
wanted what I had hoped to God you thought I deserved--more of a fight out of you--but it's apparent that I was only getting my hopes up." She pushed back that knot that was coming back to her throat and perservered on, drawing on that newly re-opened well of anger to keep the tears and hurt off, just like she had been doing with Ashlyn. "Even when I'm leaning towards maybe taking a chance and believing that walking out on you was a mistake, you're ready to throw in the towel--so that's why I'm telling you it's over. You asked, and that's what I'm saying. That's not a game, Christian, that's fucking definitive."
He glanced nervously around the small cafe as her voice slowly began to rise in volume, lips turned inwards as he brought his smoldering gaze back to watch her. He was grateful that she had showed some restraint and not turned this into a screaming match, yet he couldn't help his own physical reaction to her retort; he smacked his palm down onto the table, causing the teacups to rattle in their saucers, digits immediately curling into a frustrated fist as he battled to contain himself once more. Leaning towards her over the table, his voice was a low whisper laced with hurt and anger. "So that's it? I'm supposed to just grovel at your bloody feet until you think it's fair time to forgive me?" He shook his head and snorted. "Forgive me for something I didn't even do, Ingrid? I'm sorry, but if that's what you're looking for, then you can go and find one of those Hogwarts boys you always said you were so fond of."
With that he stood abruptly, almost knocking his chair back with the swiftness of his actions. He seemed bewildered by his own actions, standing there clenching and unclenching his fists, so bloody tempted to just do what she wanted and crumble at her feet and beg her not to do this. But that's not what he did. He tossed the little money he had in his pockets on the table and looked at her once more only to say, "My treat" before turning and heading towards the door. It wasn't until he was outside that he let the unfamiliar torrent of emtoions within him expel itself when he whirled and angrily let his fist collide with the side of the building.
And then he was gone, apparated back home to nurse a popped knuckle and a broken hand.
