Confessing my Sins (Samantha)

[Lyra Newbury]

Julian was too noble to sneak off before she awoke. They had a proper good-bye in which Lyra refused to allow any sort of emotion cross her face. If she were sorrowful, it would hurt him. And if she feigned happiness, that would hurt him too. She was stoic as she bid him farewell and shut the door behind him, but as soon as the door had latched she collapsed to the floor sobbing.

She cried to herself for more than an hour, hatefully shooing Mimsy away whenever the well meaning elf attempted to console her. Mimsy reminded her of Julian and in that moment she hated Mimsy. When she was thoroughly exhausted, Lyra picked herself up from the floor and stood in the shower for much longer than she had planned. She allowed the cold water to run over her and shake her out of the spiral she felt trapped in. Her clarity lasted only a few moments before Lyra carelessly dressed herself her mismatched clothing that was chosen strictly for their comfort. She moved into the kitchen, expecting to find a burnt mess from their abandoned dinner but Mimsy had taken care of that, too. She sighed, summoned Mimsy, and apologized. Then she sent Mimsy to fetch Samantha as Lyra opened the wine Julian had brought the night before, not caring that it was only eight in the morning, and drank straight from the bottle.

[Samantha Montgomery]

It was early, not that Samantha slept, but Lyra did, and it was early for Lyra. Figuring the summons had to do with the magazine Sam pushed back her schedule and left to see her friend.

She was proud of Lyra for what she had been doing at the magazine, and even the other editors had come around to accepting Lyra's opinions and valuing her input. Samantha was downright smug for the new addition to the workforce.

In contrast to Lyra's current state, Sam was immaculate as ever. She wore a dark suit, large Jackie O sunglasses, and her hair was pulled out of her face.

She knocked twice.

[Lyra Newbury]

Lyra didn't wait for Mimsy to answer the door. She jabbed her wand violently in the direction of the door, which burst open. Lyra sat on the sofa, a half emptied bottle of wine in her hand. To most people Lyra would look sloppy. To Sam, she almost certainly looked terrifying.

"I messed up," she wailed before Samantha had even stepped through the doorway. She took another large drink from the bottle and stared into it, no longer bothering to wipe the tears off her face. They just kept coming, what was the point of wiping them away?

[Samantha Montgomery]

Sam jumped when the door burst open. She hadn't been expecting such a welcome, but the sight that greeted her scared her more than the door.

Lyra was a mess. She appeared totally devastated. Sam had seen her friend like this only one other time and that was when Rystain had broke her heart. She knew what to do back then, she went to Julian, strangely that was her thought now.

Instead she shut the door calmly. Instructed Mimsy, who was busy fretting nervously in the corner, to make tea. She then went to Lyra and just held her letting her friend cry.

"We'll fix it." she promised, though she didn't know what it was.

[Lyra Newbury]

She didn't want tea, she wanted wine. Lots of wine. And anything else she could use to numb the pain. Thus far it wasn't working, but maybe if she had more... The pain she had felt for Rystain paled in comparison to the anguish that resided in her now. She wanted to rip herself apart to ease the pain.

"He won't let me fix it," she sobbed into Samantha's shoulder, as if that statement clarified the entire matter for her friend.

[Samantha Montgomery]

In some ways her answer did clarify things. That coupled with Mimsy cursing the "tall dark one" and "handsome mister who brought Mimsy to mistress", cleared things up quite well. Sam still had no clue that they had slept together. In her ignorance she pressed forward, "He's a stupid stubborn man. If he would just stop and think a moment he'd realize that you already have."

Sam surmised that Lyra had once again offered herself to Julian and the "noble" brute turned her down.

[Lyra Newbury]

Lyra pulled away from Samantha to take another large drink of wine, leaving a tear soaked puddle on Samantha's shirt. Lyra was too absorbed in her own drama to notice. "It was the alcohol! I wouldn't have done if I wasn't drinking!" The irony was completely lost on Lyra as she punctuated this statement by finishing off her bottle of wine. "Everything would be fine if I could have controlled myself!" Her words ran together, in only a way that someone who was drunk by 8am and sobbing could do.

[Samantha Montgomery]

"Lyra it will be fine. Julian adores you, and even if he turned you down today, he's only doing it out of some misguided attempt at nobility. He doesn't want to hurt you. But he cares for you, I know he does. He cares for you much more than he's willing to admit right now. Give him time."

Sam said while stroking her friend's hair back. She didn't know the full extent of the situation. Heaven help Julian when she figured it out.

[Lyra Newbury]

Lyra blinked at Sam, her expression momentarily vacant before distress fell over her face again and she wailed "we slept together. He came over-" she sobbed, "to make me dinner-" more sobbing, "and we were drinking-" Lyra lifted the empty wine bottle, realized it was empty and dropped it on the floor. 

"Mimsy, wine." The house elf seemed excessively nervous about fetching another bottle of wine. She offered tea instead and Lyra screamed. "I don't want any bloody tea, I want to rip my bloody heart out and short of that I want my bloody wine!"

[Samantha Montgomery]

Sam's eyes grew wide, "Mimsy get the wine." she said with complete authority.

It was just sinking in for Sam. Julian had come over the night before, they cooked dinner, drank too much, and slept together and then Julian left and he rejected Lyra afterward.

"That rat bastard. That selfish, stupid, brainless, self-pitying, whoreson!" she hissed angrily.

"I'm going to kill him. How dare he do this to you! I'm going to-" she stopped when she saw Lyra's face, and the look of despair made Sam want to cry. This was so much worse than Rystain.

[Lyra Newbury]

Lyra felt that none of Sam's colorful adjectives fit Julian. He hadn't done anything wrong but give her something she had wanted. Something she had asked for. It was Lyra who was to blame for her current predicament. She shook her head violently at Sam's words, a fresh wave of self-loathing slapping her in the face.

Lyra turned her head and flung her arms up onto the back of the sofa, sobbing harder. Mimsy returned with a fresh bottle of wine, placed it carefully on the table in front of them as if it might break if she made too much noise, and then scurried to the far corner where she wrung her hands and muttered curses at Julian. Lyra sniffled, composing herself long enough to turn and grab the bottle from the table and take another drink before hanging her head and letting the tears fall on her lap.

"It's all my fault," she bemoaned through her tears. "I pushed him- I wouldn't let it go, even when I bloody well knew he loves her." Lyra spat the word "her" as if Julian's dead fiancee had charged in the room and ripped him from Lyra's grasp. Lyra thought of Belle's portrait, painted with loving brushstrokes and hung with care in Julian's home. That woman's face would haunt Lyra so long as she her brain functioned properly, so Lyra would deaden it and any other feelings she had with wine.

[Samantha Montgomery]

Sam hurt for her friend, but she didn't agree with her. Julian was to blame for this mess. He knew better than to sleep with Lyra if he wasn't going to follow through, and Sam would have a lengthy conversation about it with him later, but now Lyra needed her.

"Shhh, shh love it's not your fault. You did nothing wrong." she assured her.

"He doesn't know what he wants Lyra, maybe he does, but he just can't accept it."

[Lyra Newbury]

Samantha's comforting words fell on deaf ears as Lyra continued to weep. "I never meant to hurt him," she carried on. "Oh Merlin, his face. He was so..." Lyra's heart shattered again as she saw clearly Julian's dejected expression in her mind's eye. It was the look she had dreaded seeing as soon as the deed was done, she had avoided it knowing it would kill her. But apparently a glutton for misery, Lyra had looked and the agony in his face broke her. 

[Samantha Montgomery]

Sam couldn't stand it. She sent an angry patronus to Julian while continuing to comfort her friend. Clearly nothing Sam could say would soothe Lyra, so she let the girl cry and rant while she mentally cursed Julian's name.

[Lyra Newbury]

It was a while longer before Lyra had once again exhausted her supply of tears and given herself a headache, although the nearly two bottles of wine may have aided in the latter's development. Samantha was a wonderful friend to sit with her through it all, Lyra knew she had more important things to attend to and found comfort in the fact that Sam shirked her other responsibilities for Lyra's sake.

"What's wrong with me?" she asked Sam, looking dolefully at her friend for a truthful answer.

[Samantha Montgomery]

Sam hurt for Lyra she truly did. Each tear, each sip of wine as Lyra attempted to drown her sorrows, Sam felt as a physical blow. Sam didn't have any female friends that weren't family that wasn't Lyra. She had acquaintances, people that she got along with, but not friends. Lyra was like a sister to Sam.

"There's nothing wrong with you Lyra...It's my fault. I shouldn't have encouraged you to go after him. And it's his fault for letting a ghost keep him from being happy."

[Lyra Newbury]

Lyra shook her head. This was hardly Julian's fault and it certainly wasn't Sam's! "No," she corrected. "You only said what I already knew. I just..." she sighed, drank some more, and continued. "I thought that if I ignored it, it would go away. And now I've hurt him so terribly." This was the crux of the matter. Lyra was saddened that Julian couldn't love her, but he had already made that clear to her. This was nothing new. The thing that ate at her soul was knowing that she had made Julian feel such guilt. Lyra was the reason he felt he had betrayed his dead fiancee.

[Samantha Montgomery]

"You hurt him!" Sam almost snorted, which was high incredulity indeed. Julian might be wearing a hole in his ancestral Persian rug, but he was not balling his eyes out drinking himself to death. He was guilty, and there was reason for him to be guilty the cad.

"Believe me Lyra, you are not the wrong party in this. Julian's a big boy, and years your senior. I've seen him play the white knight before and not all of those escapades were kept pg. If he's feeling guilt now it's because he has feelings for you, and he's too stubborn and afraid to follow those feelings. Well fine. Let him rot. There are plenty of men in the sea and you will catch the best one!"

[Lyra Newbury]

Lyra felt a twinge of jealousy as Samantha referenced Julian's former "escapades". Lyra cared for him and wanted to be with him. Any mention of someone else would understandably prick her heart. But the dagger was truly Belle. And she knew there was no surpassing Belle's place in his heart. The fact that he did have feelings for Lyra made it all the worse.

She didn't want to think about finding anyone else. She had spent nearly a year without the touch of a man, sans Julian. She imagined she could very well go the rest of her life with only the memory of their night together to keep her warm, so long as she purposefully ignored the horrible bits in the middle. But she needed to ease his pain somehow, to show him that their mistake had not ruined her as he worried it would. If she moved on, Julian would once again be free to love only Belle. And while Lyra wished at the very least that he could find someone living to give his heart to, it would make him happy enough to just love the dead woman. Lyra agreed to "catching" a new man, although she was quite certain she'd already released the best.

[Samantha Montgomery]

While the wheels in Sam's mind were spinning, she was able to escape her friend's pain. Sam saw things clearly between Lyra and Julian, and she knew the second Lyra started dating Julian was going to kick himself for being ten times the fool.

At the moment she wanted to crush Julian for doing this to Lyra, particularly when Sam, and just about anyone, could see how much he cared for the girl. Julian was too much of a man to stay in love with a ghost for the rest of his life.

"Come on love, today we'll cry, tomorrow we'll put on some mascara and turn some heads."