Closed Running Finished

As her despair ran down her cheeks and trickled out, anger boiled up in her like a geyser after a rain storm. All of a sudden, EmmaLee bolted up and pounded her fists on the pedestal with a yell, "NO!" A round shock wave of magic came out of her fists as they made contact with the stone and the small girl jumped back a little in shock as the armor around her rattled.

Her anger was tempered with the shock for only a moment though as the suits shivered and stilled. Once the hall was silent again, EmmaLee's anger flared back up like a caged animal provoked by the stillness.

"I refuse to feel this way!" She snapped, restraining the urge to pound the pedestal again and standing up instead. She finally wiped her face with the heels of her hands and then the end of her long navy nightgown when that didn't suffice to dry her face. "Get a grip!" She continued, pulling her hair around, combing her fingers through it, throwing the long, white locks into a quick braid, and shoving the access bangs out of her face.

EmmaLee looked around her, not sure if the corridor she was in was unfamiliar because she'd never been in this part of the castle or because the castle as a whole looked so different in the middle of the night.

"This is so stupid!" She scolded herself, flipping around and heading in the direction she thought she had come from. Why was she so irrational about all of this? Why was she letting the LeDames women dictate any of her feelings and what she should do with them? Why was she letting them define her relationship with anyone and tell her what she was or wasn't feeling? She had been fine before they showed up, unannounced, in her living room! They didn't know anything about her! Why was she letting them and their stupid traditions and rules get her wound up about this?

She was being utterly childish to let her feelings run rampant like this, running out of the common room like a hysterical first year and now she was lost. EmmaLee ran the heel of her hand across her cheek in frustration as she turned a corner and tried to find a way outside. If she could see the stairs, she could figure out which part of the castle she was in.

It didn't matter what Mylene and the LeDames women wanted her to do with her love life and it didn't even matter that Stephen clearly just wanted to be friends and was ignoring that anything happened between them that night. Maybe they were both caught up in being two silly teenagers and the atmosphere of the lights and the lake was too much to resist. Maybe, he was just embarrassed that he had gotten lost in the moment and kissed her in the first place and wanted to forget the whole thing and didn't know how to tell her that. Why did she have to blow it up like it was the end of the world?

Finally, after a few turns, EmmaLee found herself on a balcony of one of the abandoned classrooms on the northwest side of the castle. Somehow she had run all the way to the other side of the castle from the Hufflepuff common room and up three stories. What a walk of shame this was going to be, especially if she came across a prefect on the way.

EmmaLee's anger at herself, and a little at Mylene, was abating as she walked back to the Hufflepuff common room. She was still upset that she had let her emotions swirl quite that bad and was heavily embarrassed at the display she had put on. She had totally lost herself in whatever this star-crossed-lovers trope was that she had found herself in like some nitwit in a Spanish soap opera. While she really couldn't deny anymore that Stephen really was more than just a friend to her, she still refrained from using the word love because it made the hopelessness of the feeling more real, there just wasn't a lot she could do about it. She had the feelings she had and he had the feeling he had and she needed to stop letting Mylene make it all into some tragic story where she had to stop talking to him or her life was doomed.

They'd had a good time at the spring ball as friends again. Although Stephen had implied that his new studies might keep him from camp, he had made it clear that he would be there this year. So they would have a good time at camp together again. Things didn't need to be romantic between them. She could reign in these feelings and move on and they could be friends. She could definitely reign in this panic, and be rational about it instead of flying off the handle at the first rejection of her life.

EmmaLee groaned in embarrassment again as she finally turned the corner and saw the doors of the entrance hall. She frowned as she remembered watching him leave that night they spent in the Astronomy tower. Maybe it was that night that had lit the spark and led to their moment of losing themselves. She'd felt giddy as she watched him turn back one last time to look at her before slipping out the door and into the night. It'd been around this time, too.

EmmaLee turned with a sigh and walked down the stairs to enter the Hufflepuff common room once more and make her way back to her dorm room, hoping against hope that no one had seen her run out and no one was seeing her return.

When she got to her dorm room, she saw the letter she had written Mylene, picked it up without reading it, tore it into tiny pieces, threw it into her trash bin, and flopped onto her bed before wriggling under her covers and burying her face in her pillow, feeling utterly stupid and sad and irritated all around. She'd write Mylene back tomorrow and put this whole subject to an end.

And then she'd figure out how to forget that she loved Stephen, without completely ruining their friendship or making everyone think she was crazy in the process.