Park-Bench Romeo
By spheeris1
Park-Bench Romeo
By spheeris1
{making love and breakin’ hearts,
It is a game for youth….but I’m not waitin’ on a lady
I’m just waiting on a friend} Rolling Stones
Like a tiny crack in a section of faded sidewalk, the division of beliefs was plainly visible upon my mind.
One side, grown up and adult and slightly reserved after all this time….this side merely thought all things ‘just happened’. No deep meanings. No hidden agendas.
The other side, still clinging to youth and mysteries and fancy….this side wanted to believe that all things had a broader purpose.
And I wondered to myself which side had the correct answer tonight.
Just any night really. Just me, doing what I do once the sun goes down….doing what millions of others do at this time.
You leave work. You get some food. Maybe you go have some fun, maybe you go to sleep early.
Sure, I could be doing something better…something important…something worthy of my name.
But I’m not.
I am not entirely sure why I am *not* doing something more worthwhile with my life.
Years and years fighting the dark, fighting the evil, fighting the ‘good fight’ left me feeling empty once it was all over.
Everyone else got to be happy.
I got to sit around and ponder the rest of my existence in a happy world, a world I helped create and defend…..
….and I couldn’t enjoy it….
If I was not being the hero, then who was left?
The same boy lurking inside, beneath the lighting-bolt scar that damned me…the same boy who felt alone and wounded and lost.
He stepped back up to the plate and took over again. I let him lead me away from the land of flying cars and broomsticks, returning to the world that knew nothing of magic.
People do not know my name here. My past is not legend.
But tonight I am forced to recall things and to remember things best forgotten I am quite sure.
Things like hatred and name-calling and useless competitions.
Things like hallway wand fights and icy glares.
Things like Draco Malfoy.
I did not want to go home, not yet…so I window-shopped past storefronts. I merged with the traffic of the concrete, aware enough not to brush against anyone….or so I thought.
My eyes glanced too long at a nice leather coat and the sharp jolt of contact caused my breath to catch painfully in my throat.
As always, apologies were exchanged without really looking at the other person.
I think we were both trying to move away quickly.
A flash of familiar blond made me pause, made my heart beat a little faster.
And I saw him look up slowly, as if this was some dream or a nightmare or something he didn’t truly comprehend. Neither did I.
It is the two sides, vying for superiority.
Is meeting him after ten years or more just coincidence?
Or is it really fate shoving us together once again?
“How long have you lived here?” He asks as we walk.
“….Five years…I think….” I answer, watching the ground move at my feet.
“I just got here a week ago. It seemed like a nice place….country and city, best of both worlds.”
Our eyes met briefly. We know about two worlds a little too well…..
I smile into the growing dusk. My head is spinning….this is so surreal to me.
I am walking and having a civil conversation with Draco Malfoy.
I have not even talked to Ron or Hermione in months….but I am doing this. I slide my vision in his direction, trying to see how much he has changed.
Or if he has changed at all.
Somewhat taller. The hair is less slicked-back. The eyes are calm.
Draco is handsome. Maybe he always was…I can’t remember, not really.
The two of us circled each other throughout Hogwarts like hell-bent vultures out for the same meal.
That did not leave time for any real observance.
But things are different now.
And I can think he is good-looking.
He stops by a bench and gestures to it with a small smile gracing his lips.
“Wanna talk for a bit?”
Facts are traded in a somewhat cursory manner.
‘All the stupid things people feel compelled to tell others about their life…as if it makes their life worth something…” He says with a grin directed at me.
And I grin back because I agree with him.
We drift in and out of words. A few small talks about small topics…then oddly comfortable silence.
The sound of crickets and owls and distant cars and the breeze.
I watch the bugs surround the lamplights.
Or I find myself watching Draco.
How his lips are slightly parted or how his legs are crossed at the knee or how his jaw curves beautifully to his ear…..
Little meanderings like this make a person take notice.
I have experienced sex. I have felt the stirrings of love and watched it crumble.
I can even say that I have seen beauty before and perhaps worshipped it from afar.
But nothing can prepare a mind for attraction to someone you’ve never thought of that way.
Maybe if Draco and I had not despised each other so much, we would have liked each other.
As friends, as lovers, as respected counterparts in the world.
“I can hear the wheels turning from here, Potter.” He said, his voice very close to my ear.
I laugh softly in return.
His grin grows into a full smile and I don’t stop myself from thinking he is gorgeous in this moment.
Even he can be shocked, I think with a self-satisfied smirk in the darkness.
Even *I* can be blinded by something like desire or lust or need.
I am no saint. I think I was once…but that was long ago.
As skin finds skin, silly images of the past fade away into bed sheets and mattresses.
The things I never imagined dredging up again disappear as quickly as they came…..we are replacing them tonight.
Replacing them with things like pleasure and playful demands.
Things like rapid breath and exclamations and sweat.
Warm lips against my neck and work to my temple, words trickling out like warm water….
“Woo me Romeo…..”
And I think I might just do that after tonight ends.