Although she and Isabella had only known each other for a few months, Cecilia knew that the Slytherin probably did know better than to think something like this would ever happen. At least she would hope that her best friend would even have a glimmer of a thought that this couldn’t have actually happened. Did she really look like the type that would go for Trey of all damn people? Apparently. She tried to ignore the irritating voice saying that she had shagged him… bloody yesterday. But that had been a lapse of judgment, a bout of temporary insanity, really. Yes, he was attractive, she supposed—if he wasn’t bloody talking. But it still wouldn’t happen again, obviously. Cecilia watched Isabella out of the corner of her eye as she started and stopped speaking twice. Oh Merlin, was she really going to ask questions? It would just be a hell of a lot easier for both of them if she didn’t. Shrugging, she wondered how exactly she could say it did happen. Well, you see, sometimes a bloke comes up to you and knows something he shouldn’t and you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place and you choose the option that doesn’t involve your now ex-boyfriend hating you for having a Death Eater as a father, she thought, really bloody wishing that she could just say that. Minus the information about her father, clearly. “It’s the best way I can think to explain it,” she said instead, laughing under her breath. “I wasn’t drunk.” Cecilia added, hoping that Isabella wasn’t interested enough to ask further questions.

As awful as it was, she really did just want Isabella to simply believe the worst without asking much about it. She had honestly thought that this conversation would happen like that, really, and that the Slytherin would have already sulked off by now. She had ‘admitted’ that she cheated on Roman, which she knew had sounded believable even if she was having trouble repeating it in her mind. Whatever bit of respect her best friend had for her should be gone, and whatever loyalty she had for Roman was probably resurfacing. That was a silver lining, she mused, if them hating her somehow brought their friendship back together. It had been a hell of a stressful year with Roman acting like an arse to Isabella, and she hadn’t even known what to think when Roman hadn’t come to the funeral. And yet, maybe they could work through it with this situation reminding them about loyalty or something. But Isabella hadn’t walked out yet, which Cecilia frankly hadn’t been expecting. Roman had, thankfully, believed the worst almost insultingly fast; it had made it easier since she didn’t have to attempt to muddle through a break-up that she didn’t even want to happen. Isabella wanting to know more was not anything that Cecilia was prepared for, though she supposed there was no problem with further rubbing salt in her own wounds by continuing to detail this ridiculous made-up infidelity, or whatever it would be called.

She waited through Isabella saying that she didn’t know what to say, hoping that the yelling and the hexing would come soon, assuming it was. Cecilia glanced away from the Slytherin as she mentioned not understanding why she would do that to Roman—and she bloody wouldn’t, that was the damn problem. But luckily, although she didn’t understand the why, it didn’t seem that she was doubted that it had indeed happened. Scoffing lightly, she continued to look out at the grounds. “The entire Quidditch team? Impressive,” she stated, distractedly, as she tried to determine what to actually say next. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like this,” Cecilia replied, knowing that it was a shit answer for why she would do this to Roman, but nothing else really came to mind on what she should possibly be saying to that. Although this conversation was depressing her, something that she had been trying to avoid focusing on, she was also getting more irritated by Trey as the moments passed. If he hadn’t just up and kissed her at the damn ball, then she would have eventually gotten around to doing what he asked, and it wouldn’t have exploded into the mess it was now. If he had wanted to prove a point about doing what he said, he had annoyingly succeeded—not that she would ever admit that. “Yes. I mean, I love—d him; it’s not like I wanted to hurt him. And I just thought waiting was the smarter move,” she replied, finding herself almost forgetting the ever important past tense when talking about Roman. “I thought it would avoid anything like what happened at the ball from happening with no one around to stop it.” All of her reasons and excuses sounded pretty weak, she knew, but it really was to be expected when half of what she was saying wasn’t the truth anyhow. “Sounds pretty stupid now since it clearly didn’t prevent anything.”

Even if Isabella wasn’t friends with Roman at the moment, cheating on someone wasn’t alright. No bloke deserved that, clearly, and it wasn’t excusable. Isabella hadn’t expected the rumors to actually be true, but now that Cecilia was telling her that they were, Isabella was kind of in a shock. Now, she really didn’t even have a clue how to reply in the slightest. If someone had cheated on Cecilia, Isabella would have been upset and probably would have always thought that bloke to be a tool. If someone had cheated on Isabella, there was no way that she would forgive them as it wasn’t like forgiveness was something she did all that easily. If Isabella had cheated on Evan…well, she probably would never forgive herself for doing something like that, feeling like scum. No, this was all so wrong. The fact that this was her best friend…someone she cared about…who cheated on her old best friend…someone she still cared about…she honestly was at a complete loss of what to do. No, this was something she would have to talk with Evan about, or something, as apparently her brain was just not able to work through this on its own.

Isabella narrowed her eyes slightly as she heard Cecilia laughing under her breath. This was hardly a laughing matter in the slightest, though the laugh almost sounded forced. However, Isabella didn’t bloody know what to trust anymore. “Did you not,” she started, sighing, frustrated at her lack of forming proper questions. Cheating on someone was very clearly a lack of respect for that individual, though Isabella just didn’t understand that at all. What was so bloody difficult that she couldn’t have at least talked to Isabella earlier and Isabella would have helped her come to a decision? She would have told her to break up with Roman first, bloody obviously. This didn’t sound like something a person would lie about, though Isabella was still trying to believe it, not believing that Cecilia would actually lie to her.

“To happen like this? You shouldn’t have meant for this to happen at bloody all, Cecilila,” Isabella pointed out. There was so much damage that had been done for whatever bloody reason. And Trey, of all bloody people, really? “Love?” Isabella asked incredulously, giving her a look. “I just...have never been more speechless in my bloody life, apparently,” she scowled, frustrated. There was so much she wanted to say, but at the same time, nothing forming properly enough to voice. “That doesn’t even bloody make sense. The smarter move would have been to break up with Roman if you didn’t love him anymore, surely you know that. Do you even…regret what you did?” Isabella asked quietly, wondering the actual answer to the question. “I’m just…trying to understand from your perspective, but I got nothing, Cecilia. I don’t get it.”

It would have been easiest on all of them if Isabella could just accept the story that she was a slag, jumping from cousin to cousin without a care in the world. That was what it looked like, after all. Hell, that was what it was—and she was shagging, regardless of circumstances, so that really did make her a slag. Cecilia had no idea why that was such a hard concept for Isabella to grasp, though she wanted to think that her best friend… about to be former best friend, she corrected, knew her better than to think that she would act like this. But unfortunately, that couldn’t be the case. Isabella had to believe her; if she didn’t and got suspicious, and Cecilia caved and told her what was going on, then this entire situation would just go to shit. She would tell Roman, Roman would hate her even more, and she really was just able to accept how much he already hated her. Adding any more to that would just be far too much to deal with at the current time. Better to be a slag than a daughter of a Death Eater, that much was incredibly clear to her. This would all die down, eventually, and Trey would be bored of her and of irritating Roman with her by the end of the school year. Next year, she could just go back to not talking to anyone, because she really didn’t have it in her to go back to being a bitch. But blending into the background sounded like a hell of an idea, and she couldn’t bloody wait for that.

She raised an eyebrow as Isabella began to speak, before stopping. It was uncommon for the Slytherin to not know what to say, so that was certainly saying something as far as this conversation was concerned. This never would have happened if she had just broken up with Roman when Trey had told her to, and then there was the slight possibility that Isabella wouldn’t also hate her. This really never would have happened if she hadn’t given into this offer anyhow, but she still felt that it was the best thing to do in the circumstances. Cecilia could handle everyone talking about how much of a slag she was, because she didn’t listen much to what they were saying anyhow. Really, she had no idea what rumors were spreading, gladly deciding to avoid hearing the details. It wasn’t as though anyone was going to tell the subject of the rumors about them anyhow. Thank Merlin this had happened now, as she didn’t know what she would have done if Trey had came to her with this information sooner, making it possible to irritate Roman for a longer period of time. That did bring about the alarming thought that she continued to have, which was wondering just how long he had known about this, and why he had acted when he did. She really knew bloody nothing about how he got his information or anything else that he did, irritatingly enough.

“I’m just saying that it wasn’t like I went out looking for some other bloke to shag. It wasn’t planned. It just… happened,” she replied, wanting to get to the part of the conversation where Isabella gave up on her and left. The longer she sat here, the more tempted she was going to be to tell her the truth, and Cecilia knew that wasn’t an option. This needed to end before it got to that point, because then she would be in deep shit. Cecilia didn’t reply to the Slytherin’s comment, glancing away from her instead. She did bloody love him, that was the problem. When given two options that would cause him to hate her, she had to pick the one that was the lesser of two evils. It was the only route that made a bit of sense to her. Taking a breath at her question, Cecilia told herself that if she really wanted this conversation to end, she just needed to say that she didn’t regret it. She was too focused on making this believable but she just ‘cheated’ on a bloke that she’d been dating for over a year. Obviously, she was selfish, and uncaring, and couldn’t have loved him to begin with. If she just acted like that, this conversation would be over in a heartbeat. “No. I regret how it happened, that I lied, and how it came out. But I don’t regret that it happened.” Cecilia wanted to laugh at her friend’s next statement, finding it at least mildly, and darkly, amusing that Isabella didn’t get it. Of course she didn’t get it. It was something that Cecilia never would have done to begin with, she couldn’t blame the Slytherin failing to understand. “Well that’s because you’re a better person than I am.”

Drama was so aggravating and definitely not something that Isabella remotely had the patience of dealing with. She was tired of not truly knowing her best friends, apparently, finding herself rather frustrated that this was the second best friend she was losing because of…well, she really didn’t know what the hell was going on. Cheating was something Isabella truly couldn’t understand and she had honestly thought that Cecilia was happy with Roman, not that she understood why anyways since he had turned into such an arse in recent months. It was like she moved from one arse to an even larger arse, something that just…nothing even came to mind as she was contemplating it, her brain in overdrive trying to make connections that she failed to see. Isabella had been warned early on by Roman to avoid Trey, and that was something she quickly learned by herself anyways since she was on the same team. She had assumed that Roman would have told Cecilia to stay away from Trey as well, though apparently that didn’t work out too well. Trey was such a douche, Isabella thought to herself, irritated that he would do that to his cousin. To her, family was so important and to have him doing this to his blood was simply unfathomable.

“Self-control…heard of it?” Isabella asked, feeling herself growing slightly irritated now. “Respect of people…heard of that?” she continued, raising her eyebrow. “Honestly, Cecilia…you’re a bloody Gryffindor…aren’t you supposed to be bloody brave or something? Courageous or something ridiculous? And you were too selfish, too much of a coward to face Roman? Bloody hell, Ceci. Unbelievable,” she muttered, shaking her head as she stood from the bench, feeling her anger starting to come. She might not have been close to Roman now, but cheating on someone was still not okay, no matter what. No one seemed to have bloody self-control anymore. “That’s the problem. If you sit there and think that Rudolphi won’t cheat on you like you just cheated on his cousin, you’re damn wrong. He has no respect for you if he was willing to do that, even if you do sit there and say he gives a shit about you. You should bloody regret what you did because you just hurt someone that you once before cared about out of your damn carelessness. Never in a million years would I have thought this to be true until I’m hearing it from you. You should really be fucking ashamed of yourself, Cecilia,” she stated angrily, glaring at her old best friend. “I hope it was worth all of this for your sake,” she stated, shaking her head in disbelief, not wanting to be there anymore as she moved to leave, needing to find Evan to vent.

This conversation was easily one of the worst ones that she had ever had to take part in. it was on par with how bad she would have expected it to go if she’d had to break up with Roman as opposed to him just ending things with her at the ball. Of course, she should have known that she wouldn’t be able to avoid both of these conversations. It would have been easier if Isabella had just decided that she was a slag without having to discuss it with her first. But she really couldn’t blame anyone but herself for this. She had made her decision and she had to stick with it. The alternative was so much worse that she couldn’t even contemplate it. The truth about who her father was in her mind was the worst secret to keep. She absolutely didn’t want anyone finding out about that, and now she knew that they wouldn’t… so long as she kept Trey from telling Roman anyhow, which was a problem she should have thought of before this began. “Right. I deserve that,” she stated, nodding. Self-control was something that she actually doubted that she possessed. Although she hadn’t cheated on Roman, she still had made the ridiculous decision to shag Trey the other day and that was bloody ridiculous. The other one, she was less sure on; she liked to think she had respect of people, but maybe at the end of the day she bloody didn’t and was just as awful as she thought she was.

Cecilia sighed at Isabella’s next statement, not looking at her. “That about sums it up,” she agreed. She wasn’t about to deny anything that Isabella wanted to call her, when she obviously would deserve it. Although the situation was a bit different than Isabella knew, the words selfish and a coward still fit this one quite well. If she had been brave, she probably would have told Roman that she needed to end things when Trey told her to. Or, better yet, she wouldn’t have agreed to this ridiculous idea to begin. She would have been brave enough to tell him to fuck off and accept the consequences of Roman finding out about her father and hating her for it. If she had been less selfish, she wouldn’t have been too afraid to contemplate what would happen when he found out. It wasn’t like she was afraid of being alone, something that she was quite good at… she didn’t really know what she was afraid of—losing him, probably, but that had happened already and now Isabella would be right behind him. It was her ridiculous decisions that had led her here, and now she just had to finish it up so that she could just try to forget this conversation happened.

She bit her lip to stop herself from replying when Isabella mentioned Trey cheating on her. Of course he was going to shag other bints because this wasn’t a real relationship, but she couldn’t bring herself to outright deny that it would happen; and she also couldn’t outright say it would and that she didn’t care. Silence was the better option, obviously, and that continued to be true as her old best friend continued to speak. Oh I am, she thought, barely even able to stop herself from saying it out loud. Cecilia was really damn ashamed of this shit, though there was nothing that could be done about it. “I hope so too,” she muttered, surely not aloud enough for Isabella to hear her as she headed to the door. She let her head fall back against the stone behind her, glad that this conversation was coming to an end.

Isabella was confused by Cecilia’s reactions this entire meeting. The best friend that she had known for the past few months was certainly not the best friend that was revealing herself to her now. Something seemed off, but Isabella also had this issue when it had come to Roman prior to this. She had thought she had known Roman, as well, only to discover that she hadn’t known him all that well to begin with. It was so incredibly frustrating and really, Trey Rudolphi, of all bloody people? Sure, he was a sweet talker or whatever he claimed to be when he wanted to be, but really? He was no good for anyone, even cheaters. She would have to keep an eye on the relationship if only because she didn’t bloody hate Cecilia, even if she was bloody bonkers. Just like Isabella hadn’t hated Roman and still cared about him, she didn’t hate Cecilia and she would still care about her. That fact wouldn’t change no matter how much wrong either of them did that Isabella discovered. It was so irritatingly noble, Isabella thought to herself, wishing she could just get over it or something. The short responses that Cecilia was leaving was making Isabella irritated, wishing she was given something a bit more rather than the lame lack of explanation. Had Cecilia been lying to her all of this time? Was this the only thing that Cecilia had been lying about?

Isabella couldn’t even have words forming in her mind anymore, too…no emotions would even clarify themselves in her brain at the moment, feeling way too much at the same time. Remaining silent for only a moment longer, she shook her head before letting the door close behind her, wondering if that was the end of their friendship.

--End of Thread--