The Truth Finally Reaching Out

[Leah Mustard]

Leah breathed in, and breathed out. Breathed in, and breathed out. There was no clock here in the entrance hall... there should be, she thought vaguely. She was usually such a patient person, but today... Leah felt like she'd been waiting far too long, like if she had to wait any longer she would burst. Or lose her nerve - which she absolutely couldn't do. Matthew wasn't even late yet, she was just being... was this what Rory felt like all the time? Leah imagined it was, her mind once again meandering away on a slight tangent before she forced it to snap back to what she was supposed to be doing. Guarding the Floo like this was slightly weird, perhaps, and she wondered if it was strange of her to have asked Matthew to travel directly from where he was staying into her house. Not even her house. Her grandparent's house; who were certainly ensconced out in the garden somewhere, pottering around. Experiencing her mind scrambling like this was... disconcerting for Leah, and she realised she must be extremely nervous if her thoughts couldn't pick even one thing to focus on. It made sense that she was nervous, of course, but... she wished it would calm down a bit.

Unfortunately, with the sudden appearance of green flames in the grate it seemed that wasn't going to happen anytime soon - Matthew was here. Leah breathed in a little more sharply than she had intended. As he folded himself out of the fireplace, she was reminded how tall he was... seeing him in pictures was never any match for seeing him in person, particularly as he preferred to send non-moving Muggle photographs. Watching him smiling at her now was... exhilarating and terrifying all at once. "Matthew, you're here," she started, smiling widely. She couldn't help it - it was just so good to see him. "I've missed you so much." Leah wanted to hug him as she said it, even wanted to reach out a hand and brush off the little bit of soot still sitting on his shoulder. "Come through to the sitting room, it'll be more comfortable in there." She also wouldn't have to keep trying to ignore the very spot in the entrance hall where he had kissed her almost two years ago... it was a distracting memory.

Settling herself on the one end of the couch, Leah turned her body diagonally towards Matthew, hoping he would sit at the other end. "How are you?" It might usually be considered a polite conversation-starter, but she truly did want to know the answer; wanted him to be well and happy, and to cheer him up if he wasn't. She hoped that wasn't the case though - it definitely wouldn't be time to tell him about the depth of her feelings for him if that was the case. "Um... well, we don't have to talk about this yet, and that's totally fine, I understand if you just want to... have a non-serious chat first, but... I have something important to tell you, Matthew. And the longer it takes to tell you, the worse I feel about it. I had to wait all this time to be able to tell you in person." Clasping her hands tightly against each other enough that each of her knuckles turned white, Leah looked him straight in the eye and tried desperately not to look as panicked as she felt. "I'm... I've..." she stopped, drew in a deep breath, started again. "Matthew I've... I've been lying to you."

 

[Matthew Harper]

Matthew's entire body felt like it was on fire, and he hadn't even seen Leah yet. The whole idea of getting to spend time with her again for the first time in two years was as incredible as it was terrifying. His feelings for Leah hadn't lessened at all over the years apart, and he really wasn't sure what he would do once they were face to face. Most likely, he would make a fool of himself. Luckily, Leah would be used to that. The thing that was mostly on his mind was what she had written him about, how she had told him she had to tell him something important. Ever since he had read those lines in her letter, he had been pondering what it could possibly mean. The most common thought he had about it was that it was a boyfriend she wanted to tell him about, someone she had met at Ilvermorny and was now spending all her time with while he was at the other side of the world. He had once tried to confess his feelings to her, around a year ago, but she had tactfully ignored his rambles. He had been certain it was her polite way of rejecting him, but it would explain why she was being so mysterious about this secret boyfriend. After all, she wouldn't want to hurt his feelings, but she also wouldn't want to lie to him. He knew he would be supportive, and had even practiced his 'supportive and totally not heartbroken' smile in front of a mirror.

Before throwing the floo powder in, he took a deep breath to steel himself. As he stepped into the emerald flames, he vowed to stay cool. As soon as he stepped out of the flames again and saw her face, he knew that wouldn't last. Just the sight of her was enough to make a goofy smile appear on his face that he couldn't fight off. He wondered if she would hug him and felt al little disappointed when she didn't. He cleared his throat, dusted off his clothes and smiled at her. "The one and only." He said quietly. "I missed you too, Ketchup." He wanted to reach over and muss her hair like he might have done a few years ago, but didn't. Instead he followed her into the sitting room. He was glad he didn't see any of her family members around. He still remembered the humiliation when they had discovered them kissing two years ago. It was a memory made only more embarrassing by the conversation they'd had immediately after. For the first time, he worried if this history would stand in the way of their friendship. Things already felt different, and he didn't want that. Why couldn't he just get rid of his feelings and be her best friend? Just like he was supposed to be?

Taking a seat on the couch with her, he looked at her with the same smile in place. "I'm pretty good, better now that I see you again." He said, the words slipping out. "I mean, it's good to see you. You look even more serious than you used to. Clearly, my influence is needed." He said, trying to turn it into a joke. He didn't really want to bring up his loneliness right out of the gate, or the fear of graduation. Nor would his strained relationship with his sisters be a good direction to go in, so he was kind of stuck. But before he could think of what else to talk about, Leah took control of the conversation. Her words made his stomach feel like ice. Here it was. The secret boyfriend was about to be brought into this conversation. Hopefully not literally, but Matthew couldn't help a quick glance around the room for any likely hiding places he could jump out of. Leah looked so nervous that he wanted to comfort her, but instead he just let her talk. When she said she had been lying to him, the ice clump that had been his stomach also turned to lead. "What?" he asked, confused. This sounded more serious than a boyfriend. What had she been lying about? He tried to remember what they had been talking about in their letters, but all of it seemed fairly mundane. He forced himself to laugh, though it came out somewhat awkwardly. "What are you talking about?"

 

[Leah Mustard]

Though she had a genuine warmth beginning to fill her from being in Matthew's presence, listening to his usual joking patterns of speech was as much a torture as it was a comfort. What if this all went away once she had confessed? She knew things would be slightly different after he finished letting her down gently, but if it ruined their friendship that much she would never forgive herself for developing the feelings that had led to that point. "I..." Leah opened and closed her mouth. Once she had decided it was time, it had been very easy to convince herself to tell Matthew that she liked him as more than a friend - and now all of a sudden she suddenly remembered that this was usually considered a rather hard thing to do. She had worried him, she could see that, especially with the admission that she was coming clean about a lie. Matthew hated lies, it was the predominant reason she had decided to take this step in the first place. Just stuttering about it wasn't going to make the situation any clearer for him though, so Leah gathered her breath and (less successfully) her thoughts to try and set about explaining.

"Well... it um, it sort of started when you left Ilvermorny, and came here," Leah began, twisting her hands together in her lap. "And I missed you, and I thought, well, that's normal isn't it? Between friends? And so I didn't... didn't really think about how I missed you, I just sort of took it for granted. And then, the next Christmas when you came here..." she gestured a hand at the surrounding living room. "I couldn't really believe it. I was so happy to see you, and you were here in my grandparent's home, talking to all my... well, crazy family members - they're crazy, Matthew, I was so embarrassed the whole time, especially when Rory... oh, Merlin, Rory." Leah paused for a moment, her cheeks pinking under what she was sure was Matthew's stunned gaze at her rambling. She didn't actually dare look. "When you were here for Christmas, I didn't know then. And I didn't, figure it out, not until..." She floundered again, trying to look at Matthew and yet unable to keep her gaze flicking away again. She was making such a mess of this, and yet she was as pulled together as she was physically able. "When we... when you kissed me because of the mistletoe, I... I liked it. And it wasn't just that, it was... seeing you again had been so wonderful. I felt like, like things were different and I thought it was because we had spent a while apart, and yet everything seemed so much the same... it was comforting. And I was... I was disappointed it was only because of the mistletoe. Because I thought about it later, and about how I felt when I read one of your letters, and how often I wondered how you were and what you were doing, and I thought..." She trailed off, feeling the confession on the tip of her tongue, but wanting to say more, to give Matthew the explanation he deserved about why she considered it all a lie of omission.

Gulping, she forged on. "It just kept getting stronger, until one day I had to... had to admit that you didn't mean the same to me as a friend should. You meant more - a lot more." Leah didn't know why, but at that moment her body finally let her look up into Matthew's eyes, and the contact was sort of terrifying, electrifying her gaze in that one direction. "You mean so much to me, Matthew, and I could never tell you how much because... because you regretted kissing me that Christmas, and that... I was upset, but after that I thought, how could I push those feelings on you when... when you had already said..." She could feel her eyes welling up now, to her horror. If her frantic babbling hadn't already made him the most uncomfortable he'd ever been, this was sure to do it. "I'm sorry. It's fine, really, I can... I'm sure I can... I just didn't want to lie to you anymore. Realising that I was doing that to you, it hurt more than... than this." Leah buried her face in her hands hopelessly, all of her previous momentum suddenly disappearing into nothing. "I'm so sorry I never told you before now," she finished quietly, trying to hold whatever was left of herself together. She hadn't given Matthew a chance to interject before now, and anticipating what he would say - her chest physically hurt as she waited for the words that would be so gentle and yet so, so painful.

 

[Matthew Harper]

it was clear to Matthew that his best friend in the world was incredibly scared and nervous to tell him this ...secret. This thing she had apparently lied about. A part of him wanted nothing more than to reassure her, but he couldn't stop her even if he wanted to. He needed to hear what she had been hiding for all this time, even if it would change things between them permanently. He would let her speak, he decided, and would do his best not to interrupt her. His heart nearly broke when she started and stopped herself. It was clear that this was difficult for her. But then she started to speak.

Her first sentence made him sure that he had been right. It started when he left Ilvermorny, and she had found a boyfriend. Another boy she spent all her time with that replaced him in every way and more. But before he could panic, he tried his best to actually listen to what she was trying to say. It wasn't to the point, which he really should have expected. The rambling nature of her speech was as familiar to him as anything else about her, and a fond smile made its way onto her lips even as he was nervous about what she was actually saying. The smile fell away as she talked about Rory and the kiss. It was a shock to him to hear that she had liked the kiss, as that hadn't been the impression he'd gotten from that situation at all. He stared at her in befuddlement, wishing she would meet his gaze so he could confirm what he was hearing. She had liked the kiss, what did that mean? As she kept talking it slowly dawned on him what she meant, though infuriatingly she didn't actually seem to get to the point and put it in plain words. And eventually she did. Sort of. His heart was pounding and seemed to skip several beats as she met his eyes. His mouth opened slightly in surprise. She liked him. Just like he liked her. How had they both been carrying the same secret? For what seemed like the same amount of time. It was a ridiculous situation, and a small laugh escaped him as she apologized for saying exactly what he had hoped for deep in his heart. He clapped his hand over his mouth as he realized how that sounded, but he couldn't help it. Quickly, he moved closer to her on the couch. "Leah, sorry." He said quickly. "I didn't mean to laugh. It's just..." He sighed softly, gently taking her hands away from her face. "I have been feeling the same thing. Exactly the same. Listening to this was like you were putting my feelings into words. I was so surprised." He said softly, blushing slightly as he laid his feelings bare in order to comfort her. The last thing he wanted was to have her think he had been laughing at her or mocking her. "Leah, I tried telling you I liked you last year. When we met up." He blurted out. "I thought you were rejecting me." Maybe she had been? But after this confession of hers he felt a lot less sure of that. "I'm... confused. Happy! But confused." He realized he was still holding her hands, and rather than letting go of them, he softly squeezed them in his own. "You're... sure?" He asked, as he was still quite unable to believe it. "There's no secret boyfriend waiting under the couch?" It didn't occur to him how strange a sentence that was without the context of his own fears, and he hardly stopped to think about what he was saying. This entire moment felt surreal, and he half expected to wake up from a dream or hallucination or whatever this was.

 

[Leah Mustard]

Matthew had given her space to try and babble through her explanation of her feelings for him, but what Leah hadn't expected to hear was... laughter. It had only been brief, but her heart sank immediately, followed by the confused thought of 'but Matthew's never been so cruel, so why would he...?' Regardless, she felt mortified by the whole situation and the sudden feeling of him moving towards her along the couch only made her more nervous - but it wasn't his following apology for laughing that calmed her fears. As Matthew took her hands in his and pulled them gently from her face, Leah shifted to look up at him, blinking in confusion as she listened to the rest of what he had to say. Much like he had had probably been when she had explained, she was stunned into silence by what he was telling her and her eyes grew wider and wider with each new admission he offered. Matthew... had been feeling the same as she did? He liked her? It was almost too much to believe, she couldn't think why he would - he had tried to tell her? Leah didn't remember anything like that at all, which made her feel awful. She felt all mixed up inside - shocked, confused, and just was a small sense of... happiness trying to break through, if it could only get past the fact that her confession hadn't gone at all the way she'd prepared for it to.

Strangely, the one thing she could make sense of enough to begin speaking again were Matthew's last words, which really didn't make any sense at all. "Secret... boyfriend? What are you talking about? I've never..." Her brow furrowed as she came back to what was perhaps the most confusing aspect of all he had said. "After you apologised for kissing me, you said we could still be friends. I thought... it sounded like you regretted it because that's... that's all you wanted us to be." Even as she spoke, the significance of their conversation had truly begun to dawn on Leah. "But you... like me? The same way I like you?" She had been looking at Matthew this whole time, but now she felt like she was truly searching his face for... she didn't know. He wouldn't lie to her, and yet... Having her thoughts halted for a moment she suddenly became aware that he was still holding her hands, and she couldn't think how she had forgotten. They were warm, and larger than her own, and she felt... safe. Comforted. The reality of the touch let her know that she couldn't be dreaming. "I can't believe how silly I've been," she murmured to herself. She might have stood by her decisions at the time, but in light of now knowing how Matthew felt... why hadn't she tried to clarify this sooner instead of building up so much agony within herself - and Matthew. She felt terrible that she'd never realised the burden she'd been costing him.

 

[Matthew Harper]

Now that the confusion was clearing up between them, Matthew was starting to feel the first sparks of joy and hope. Maybe, just maybe, things were looking up. Maybe they could date, be together. They both only had one semester of school left, after all. He laughed again at her confusion at his comment about a secret boyfriend. Of course she was confused, he had been stupid. "I thought you were going to tell me you were dating someone." He explained, his face betraying his relief that it wasn't the case. "I was working really hard on my happy-for-you face." He squeezed her hand. He tried to think back to the day they had kissed. Had he apologized? "I assumed... you hadn't wanted me to. I think you looked pretty startled." He said nervously. "It came out of nowhere for me back then, sort of a spontaneous action. I was pretty startled myself." It wasn't easy to remember how he had felt back then, had he really not known before that moment? His feelings for Leah were such a permanent fixture in his mind now that it was hard to remember a time before. "I didn't regret it. I just thought you did." He said, looking at her with a small smile. When she asked him if he liked her he simply nodded, knowing that she had to get used to the idea. His smile grew as she said how silly she had been, and he moved a little closer to her. "We've both been silly." He said quietly. He was very aware that he was still holding her hands, but didn't want to let them go. Maybe never. His heart was racing, but a part of him also felt a strange calm. Things were out in the open now, and they were completely on the same page. "Can I kiss you now? Without apologizing after, I promise." He said as he leaned in. Even after the revelations, he wasn't confident enough to kiss her without at least some sort of warning. He had learned his lesson. "Unless I'm super bad at it, then I will." He added, unable to stop the nervous babble from coming out.

 

[Leah Mustard]

Once Matthew had explained his strange remark, Leah could actually feel her cheeks heating up in response and her gaze shifted down to their clasped hands for a moment. "Well... I'm not sure where you got that idea. I'm hardly being... chased after, or anything like that." But she raised her eyes to look at him again, smiling as she did so. "I don't think it would have mattered anyway. Once I realised I liked you that way... I didn't really take notice of anyone else." Leah was sure she was blushing again at the admission, but perhaps her face was permanently a little pink for now while she continued to sort through her emotions and the... possibilities that had suddenly arisen, she thought slightly bewilderedly. It was a shock to think that... that there was somewhere to go with these feelings for Matthew now. But even while her brain whirled over these thoughts, she was conscious of the conversation that was still going on and felt the need to try and explain her previous rambling in reassurance. "Oh, no, I really was startled then - at Christmas. It was just so... sudden, and when we were interrupted, you told Rory it was... just because of the mistletoe. Or, that's how I remember it, at least." It had been so long ago - about two whole years now, actually. "And it was later that you apologised, when I came to see you during my summer break."

Leah paused briefly, contemplating, and huffing a small laugh at he included himself in her statement of silliness. "But all of that doesn't really matter now, does it? I like you Matthew, and I have for a long time." She looked him directly in the eyes, her smile growing ever wider. "I'm so glad I don't have to hide it from you anymore." She didn't know if she'd ever been so happy before - she could feel the area beneath her chest straining with how much emotion it was trying to contain. And there wasn't to be a rest from it yet. Perhaps in the context of all she had just said she should have been more prepared for Matthew's question, but as it was she was still slightly surprised by it. Kissing was... one of those possibilities. Something she thought she'd never get to do again. And now it seemed it would be happening in the very - very - near future. Leah felt a tingle run through her skin, and she could feel her eyelids lowering as she tracked the sight of Matthew's mouth coming closer. "Yes, you could... do that." He'd been using his nervous voice, the babbling after his question had given that away, so even after verbally agreeing Leah thought it was best to take action and just put him out of his misery. Perhaps she was so confident because she deliriously happy now, but leaning the rest of the way in to bring her lips against Matthew's felt... like the easiest thing in the world somehow. Knowing that he cared about her, knowing that he wanted this... it meant she didn't have to worry about being bad at it this time, or what he might think once the moment was over. Tightening her grip on his hands slightly to ground herself in the kiss, all she wanted to do was... be here, right now. With Matthew.

 

[Matthew Harper]

Matthew shrugged and smiled shyly. "I mostly got that idea because I think you're the prettiest girl I know, so why wouldn't other guys?" He asked her, wiggling his eyebrows slightly. "Would you even notice if they were chasing after you?" He joked lightly. "You didn't notice me." When Matthew was nervous, he talked a lot. He was finding out it was very much the same when he was relieved. Her explanation of her side of what happened at Christmas made a lot of sense, though he felt the need to defend his own side. "I mostly meant the mistletoe excuse for Rory, so she wouldn't embarrass us." He said with a shrug. "I mean, it was in vain, but I tried..." He sighed. "Then you never mentioned it again so I assumed you wanted to forget about it, which is why I apologized."

But even as he said it, he knew it wasn't important anymore. Just like Leah said, it didn't matter now. They liked each other, and that was incredible. His heart was hammering in his chest and he had the impulse to ramble more, to fill the silence. But thankfully, Leah closed the distance and kissed him. Whenever he had read about a 'spark' while kissing someone, he had dismissed it as people being unnecessarily poetic. But now that he was kissing Leah, he thought it was at least somewhat true. It wasn't exactly electric, but there was something magical about the moment. Something he couldn't name. It was like time slowed down, and the feel of her lips against his made everything else in the world come to a stop. Her hands felt like they belonged in his, and he didn't think he wanted to ever let go. Leah's entire family could walk in and he probably wouldn't even notice. That thought was enough to break the magic, at least for a moment. Matthew broke he kiss with some regret and glanced around. "No cousins nearby?" He asked in a low voice.