Broken Cats (Arwen)

Ughhhh.... What was the pounding in her head?? Ari stood up too fast and instantly wished she hadn't. She blinked her eyes a few times and was suddenly scared. She didn't know were she was. She felt down and was in somebody else's clothes. And for the first time in her life Ari thought, "Fuck." What did she do last night? She was alone. Which she always was these days so that was no surprise. And now her throat was dry. It took her three tries before she could actually stand up and go to the bathroom to wash her face and get some water. She was in a boys dorm that much she knew for sure. She got to the sink and looked at her reflection. And holy shit. She barley remembered looking at herself the night before and didn't remember it being THAT bad.

Her heart was pounding. She hated not remembering what had happened. She grabbed her clothes, and ran down the stairs and dashed to her own dorm. Since it was Sunday, she changed into a simple pair of jeans and t-shirt. She didn't care what she looked like she just wanted to know WHAT HAD HAPPENED. She stopped on the staircase as she had a mini flashback of talking to Arwen. She was with Arwen yesterday. She had to find Arwen! She had debated waiting for her outside the Ravenclaw common room, but was too desperate to know. She was terrified something terrible had happened, or she said something to make herself look stupid.

She looked at the giant clock and saw that it was around lunch time. So there would most likely be people eating in the Great Hall. She ran there, hoping to not run into anybody else. She then realized that only Matthew would've given her clean clothes and a bed to sleep in. The thought comforted her a little bit as she realized that that was a big possibility, but then she also wanted to know the events that led up to her ending up in Matthew's bed. She finally saw the bushy haired girl and vaguely remembered calling it a cat. She facepalmed herself and hoped Arwen wouldn't be too mad at her. She went up and sat down not caring that it was the Ravencalw table.

She said, "Arwen, I need to know what happened yesterday." She hoped the mortified look she gave Arwen was enough to show her that this was important. She needed to know the damage she needed to fix if she said anything to anyone in particular Matthew that could jeopardize everything. But even if she had said something, which she had a feeling it was going to be bad, she wondered if she should let nature take it's course and see what happened with it, or should she just ignore everything and forget Matthew ever existed? The second option would be easier, but the first would be more fun. And that's what she was afraid of.

The previous day had been eventful to say the least. The match had ended with Ravenclaw winning, which had resulted in some rather inappropriate words from Matthew and even more inappropriate words from the drunk Ariadne, even though at that point, she'd been slightly more subdued. Nowhere near sober, but more subdued. She'd had a good time with the Ravenclaws Sinead and Humphrey, and she was happy she might've gotten some new acquaintances. She needed them. After all, if Matthew and Ariadne were her only ones, she might be in for a whole bunch of drama, and though drama could be interesting enough, Arwen had no intentions of ever becoming such an embarrassment to herself.

The good thing about the previous day was that she'd completely forgotten to eat and she was starving when she woke up. She had almost slept all the way to lunch, and she took her time with a shower, trying and -as always- failing miserably at taming her hair more than shining curls. Her glasses would simply have to work to keep the hair from falling into her eyes. She was happy to see that she had no huge zits that morning. Or afternoon. She dashed down to the Great Hall and sat down at her table, getting some toast and bacon and scrambled eggs. The best kind. After having salted it just the appropriate amount, she took a happy bite out of it.

... And choked on it when Ariadne sat down next to her so quickly it had scared Arwen to inhale the food in her mouth. After coughing real bad and drinking some pumpkin juice, she looked to the older Slytherin and saw the panicked look on her face. "You don't remember?" Arwen asked silently. Thinking about how drunk she was, this wasn't much of a surprise, really, but Arwen had no experience with alcohol. But she sighed and drank some more from the juice to stall a bit. "Well... Y-you were pretty drunk," she started, even though this was quite possibly the only thing that Ariadne had been able to put together. Arwen bit her lip and looked at her food, then back at Ariadne.

Where should she even begin? So she started by explaining the entrance Ariadne had made. "You were singing a s-song about letting g-go, and that's how we, meaning m-me and Matthew saw you," she said. She stopped, not sure what more to say. She was already telling the girl that she'd been screaming a song at a tribune full of people, and that she was obviously drunk to all those who had noticed her. Luckily she'd come early enough to not be spotted singularly by the professors. "You were pretty upset," Arwen finally said, her voice low, looking down at her hands lying in her lap.

Ari was more mortified now than she was before. Ari asked Arwen, "I was upset? What did I say?" She had a vague idea of what she said and who it concerned. Matthew had left her and she was pissed at him, which had caused her to drink. It was all coming back to her now in a flood of memories. It hit her like a giant school bus. But Memories where all fuzzy. She looked at Arwen and said, "I was pissed because Matthew deserted me at the dance. He left me on the steps all by myself and then avoided me for an entire week. I felt so alone."

She realized she could've gone to Arwen, but Arwen wouldn't understand. She didn't know what it was like to be left with nobody who cared about you. She didn't understand the pain Ari had to go threw everyday because her parents didn't love her. Arwen didn't understand that Ari hadn't talked to her own mother in almost a year because she was busy with work and didn't have time. Ari let a little tear slide down her cheek. She said, "I screwed things up. There's probably no fixing it. Please tell me I didn't tell him that..." She wanted to say that she hope she didn't tell Matthew that she liked him. But, she knew she probably did. She shook her head in disbelief. She was really embarrassed with herself.

Maybe she should go back to not speaking. That seemed to work better for her than when she was talking and drunk. Ari looked at Arwen and said, "Listen. Never drink ok. You saw what happened." In a way she wanted to laugh about it, but it certainly wasn't funny if it ruined your friendships in the process. Ari was really embarrassed about the whole situation. She could admit that much to herself. She said, "Arwen, I'm sorry if I said anything to you. Please tell me I didn't?" At that moment, she had recollections of petting her and calling her a cat. She put her head on the table and shook her head in dismay. She really was a terrible friend.

Arwen really didn't know how to go on. How was she supposed to tell her that she'd embarrassed herself in front of the guy she obviously liked? And when Arwen said obviously, she just meant obvious to herself; being a wallflower meant she noticed things most people didn't. "W-well... You said some serious stuff about Matthew, I tried to not pay too much attention, because I w-wanted you to be able to talk to him yourself." Arwen knew Ariadne might take this the bad way, and she tried to rectify it by saying something nice, but she didn't quite know what. She'd just told her Ari had outed her feelings for Matthew, but in turn, Arwen also knew that it seemed like Matthew felt mostly the same for her. She then frowned. Matthew had told her what'd happened that made Ari so angry with him, but when she mentioned feeling alone, Arwen sat a bit straighter. "Y-you could've come to m-me," she said softly, which was a big step for Arwen. Normally, she'd never say anything like that, because she was rarely in the position of comforting anyone else. It was always the other way around. Somehow it made her feel alienated and strong at the same time. "I'd have tried to help," she added.

Arwen sighed and turned more towards Ariadne. There was no denying this point, it was time to be honest. It was time to just get Ari to understand what had happened, and why it was so important. "You k-kind of said that you liked h-him?" The statement sounded more like a question, and Arwen knew it wouldn't be good enough. "I think you kind of misunderstood something he s-said, and you retorted pretty loudly with you liking him too. But It's really not that bad! I swear!" she said hastily, looking at Ari's face. "I think he'd like to talk to you about some of the things you said, and in the good way talking. I think you both are on the same page really, it's just h-hard to understand."

Ari was apologizing to her, and Arwen really wanted her to stop; why would she apologize, really? There was no need for her to do so, Arwen hadn't been offended by her the last evening. She'd not particularly enjoyed sitting next to the intoxicated girl, but not because of the behaviour, but because of the possibility that the professors might find out. Ari really hadn't been hurtful to her. And then it hit her. A small smile spread on her lips, because this was the funny part of the story. "Oh, and you petted m-my hair as if it was an animal," she added for good measure, hoping this would make Ariadne feel better and not worse!

At that moment, Ari felt like a terrible person, and a terrible friend. She knew that Arwen would never understand her the way Matthew did. And that was sad, being the only "girlfriend" that Ari actually had, Ari should've went to Arwen when she was feeling the way she did. And when Arwen said that Ari had actually TOLD MATTHEW. She said, "Fuck..." Ari really had made a mess of things. And not just with Matthew, with Arwen too. She knew how insecure Arwen was, and Drunk Ari probably made it ten times worse. Ari said, "I guess there's no point in lying about it now...But I do like him, and I was going to tell him...eventually. I just hate that it was in that way." Ari starred into space. She hated how big of a mess things were. And yes, she was probably over exaggerating like usual, and Matthew would be the great friend he was and tell her it was no big deal, and avoid the thing that she wanted to talk to him about most.That's how most of their conversations went.

This time, she wanted it to be different. This time, she didn't want him to calm her down when she was telling her guts to him. She wanted him to listen, and listen to everything she had to say. As Ari listened to Arwen, the memories started coming back to her. She visually remembered telling Matthew that she liked him. She remembered making a giant fool of herself. And suddenly, she was aware of the stares she was getting. People where snickering at her and she never felt more embarrassed. She looked down and never felt like less than a Slytherin than she did now. She looked at Arwen as she continued telling Ari about her adventures. But when Arwen mentioned that Matthew and Ari where on the same page about there feelings, her eyes lit up with hope. She no longer cared about everyone who was pointing and laughing about the funny girl at the Quidditch game. It was mainly Sinead anyways, and who cared about what Sinead thought?

Ari asked, "Really?! He's said something to you!? Arwen we need to hang out more, and you need to tell me these things!" Ari wasn't sure how to feel in that moment. Even though it might not be true, there was still that one glimmer of hope that it was. That everything she had hid and worked for was about to happen. That maybe this time it could be different. She wasn't so young and naive about these things as she was back then, because now she had Aunt Evelyn to talk to. She didn't feel so alone, because she had Arwen. Ari was at the place in her life to where the rainbow had formed and everything was clear and beautiful once again. She knew that the storm had passed, but now she was just waiting for another one to appear. And waiting was the hard part. She knew that life couldn't be so perfect. That it wasn't just a walk in the park.

Ari looked at Arwen sympathetically. She tried not to so much because she knew that Arwen might be used to that look. Ari said, "I'm so sorry about that...I don't know what came over me..." Ari laughed. The alcohol had came over her. She said, "Never mind, I do, it was the alcohol." Ari realized that the light was shining threw that dark tunnel, and it was all thanks to Arwen. She was happy because if things went wrong with Matthew, she would always have Arwen as a friend to cheer her up. She said, "I'm glad I have you as a BEST friend. You are one of the best. I hope you know." She was sure to emphasize the word best because it was 100% true. Arwen was not her top best friend, that was obviously Matthew, but she was up there. And that made Ari extremely happy!

Arwen could easily see how upset Ari was by the fact that she’d been so drunk, and it made Arwen feel really sorry for the Slytherin. It made Arwen wonder if she should’ve been a better friend to Ari. She’d often felt unimportant, but maybe the reason she felt that way was because she never put herself out there to support her friends and stand up for them. She’d felt important at the Quidditch match, because even if Ari had been petting her hair, Arwen had interpreted that as a way of Ari showing that she did care about Arwen as well. She might be completely off track, and it was these thoughts that had always made Arwen feel so insecure. «Don’t be upset, Ari,» Arwen said, trying to be comforting, but she wasn’t sure how she could be; she’d never been in that kind of a situation.

Arwen noticed how Ari’s own self-esteem changed, and it sparked something in Arwen that she didn’t know she had. The sniggers from some nearby people had Arwen’s mood turning and she glared at them with eyes burning fire; no one made her friends feel the way she felt every day. That was not okay. It did shut some of the people from her own house up, because they knew her to be incredibly shy, but there were still people staring at Ari and talking together from the other houses, and -unfortunately- Arwen didn’t know what to do about them. However, she couldn’t believe they’d be so rude as to snigger and talk hushed amongst themselves; it wasn’t exactly hard to understand who they were talking about. Arwen turned back to Ari and gave a timid smile. «Don’t think about them, they’re just assholes,» she said sharply, not even realizing she’d said a bad word to Ari. She never called people names. But she’d apparently do it for Ari if it came down to it. At that realization, she decided it was time to be a better friend.

Her mood changed again when Ari suddenly started bombarding her with questions. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything? After all, Matthew was her friend as well. Not anywhere near as good as Ari, but that was just because she’d met Ari even before Hogwarts, and the fact that for someone as shy as Arwen, Ari was definitely easier to relate to than a boy. The idea of hanging out with Ari more often was very tempting, though, even though it almost sounded as if Ari said it just so Arwen could tell her what she’d talked to Matthew about. «I-I’d like that,» she mumbled softly, suddenly feeling all shy and uncomfortable again. She supposed shit like that was what happened when she was confessing the things she would like. Damned emotions.

As Ari started to apologize, Arwen looked up confused, and was about to tell her that she hadn’t offended her, when Ari laughed. At the comment, Arwen had to laugh too, even if it was a shy kind of laugh, a silent one. But then, Arwen started to shake her head. «But don’t apologize, I wasn’t offended, really. I’ll admit, it w-was kinda weird, but I w-wasn’t offended,» she said, a small smile on her lips. When Ari started speaking again, Arwen blinked and suddenly felt very bothered, and had to look down at her hands, her thumbs twinning. It made her very happy to know that Ari thought of her as one of her very best friends. Arwen thought of Ari as hers, because who else could she really confide in with her sister graduated? She wasn’t very good at stuff like confiding in people, but the fact that Ari did think of her as a best friend, did mean she had someone, right? «You’re my best friend,» she muttered, her face probably beet red. Arwen knew she was scared of her own emotions, so it wasn’t much of a shock to her that this was the case here as well, but she was surprised that she didn’t stutter at all when she said that.