Happily Ever After

I think, she used to say on those summer days, I think it takes a long time to grow up.

And he would look very still and say so quietly: it only takes a full moon.

~

Those days, those summer days. They both would sit on the low wall around the garden with chocolate-covered raisins, the ones that Lily loved so much. The sun would flame around her hair and he would look at her, just look at her, and she would turn her head just so. I don't think that there are Happily Ever Afters, she would say. And Remus would smile at her and say I think this is Happily Ever After.

Maybe, she would say, and laugh and laugh. She thought that a laugh made the world better. She thought a laugh could fix...well, everything.

Don't you know, Remus? I can fix everything...

~

They could tell you about summer. They knew summer better than anyone else in the world, they loved summer, they lived for summer. Lily loved the hot muggy sunny days when she would lie on her back in the hammock, her hair wildly curly, drinking lemonade in shorts and a tank top. Remus loved the thick fat thunderclouds, the excitable powerful flashes of lightning, running, languing into the pouring rain.

He thinks he loved Lily best of all.

~

He sat by her in the hammock, on those days when she would lay with her fire hair around her like a halo, limbs askew, green eyes in the sky. She was his angel in the hammock, beautiful so beautiful and so unearthly. He watched her and sat by her and lived Happily Ever After.

For the summer. Only for the summer.

~

Is this our secret? she asked once, still twelve, so naieve, so beautiful.

Yes, he said. Forever.

Forever was a long time to her, so small with the short red hair and the big emerald-green eyes. But it was even longer to Remus, Remus who was so young and yet so old with the streaks of silver in his light hair.

Every full moon is a year.

He can barely remember what happiness tastes like.

~

"Do...do you mind if I kiss you?"

"Kiss me?"

"You're so happy, Lily. I want to know what happiness tastes like."

"...and you're so old, Remus. So sad, so sweet."

"Will you kiss me, Lily?"

"Only if you kiss me first."

Watermelon, sweet sugar, cherry-flavored lip gloss, soft and tender and gentle. Happiness.

When they broke, he was smiling and she had tears in her eyes.

~

She thought love lasted forever.

He knows better by now.

~

It's so hard to be happy, she said once. Sixteen, so old, so young. It shouldn't be this hard.

It's not that it's really hard, he would tell her. It's just so much easier to be sad.

You used to be so sad, she whispers.

That was before I found my Happily Ever After.

~

You can never grow up, Lily.

Why not?

Because you are innocent. You need to be Lily.

I...I think I won't grow up for a long time, Remus.

I think it takes a long time to grow up.

Notes: Inspired by Letters to You by Liebling. What would I do without you!? I don't know. This is for you and by you, girl.