Chapter Text
James Potter knows that he’s a lot. He’s loud, abrasive, sometimes mean, and occasionally very pessimistic. He’s good in small doses, but the second anyone spends too much time with him, he starts to feel irritation seep into the time they spend together. The irritation grows and grows until they get sick of it and leave him. James Potter loves with all of himself. He destroys himself for anyone who he thinks might be ‘the one.’
James has a lot of ‘friends.’ People he’ll occasionally eat lunch with, people he waves at in the halls, people who come to him for advice. James would say he could probably list 40 of those people off the top of his head. James would also say that he really only likes maybe 8 of them. They all like him of course. They get him in small doses. They get the best of him. The only people who get the bad sides and still love him are his parents. It’s depressing, he knows. Well, technically he also has his best friend, Remus Lupin. But he doesn’t see Remus much anymore. They were in the same school from 4th grade to 8th grade, but high school changed that. They’re still best friends, and every time James sees him, it’s like nothing has changed, but still. James misses seeing him every day.
So, James doesn’t have many people in his life who he really loves. And that used to be totally ok with him. He has everyone he needs but recently, there were some changes. For one thing, he’s (mostly) no longer in love with Lily Evans. This is odd. He’s been in love with Lily for ages. About 5 years now actually. But she had a bit of a revelation while they were dating. Ok... not a ‘bit’ of a revelation. A huge, life-changing revelation. She happened to figure out that she, in fact, didn’t just not like James, she didn’t like men at all. Hard pill to swallow about the girl you’ve been in love with since 6th grade.
The other shift was him feeling that now familiar slow seep of irritation in one of the people he loved. It was distinctly and clearly towards him. It was certainly painful. Alice Fortesque had been a good friend since 9th grade. Almost 3 years now. It was October of 11th grade, and James could feel Alice pulling away.
James had been a pain recently. He was stressed out about his history work, and about a big photography assignment that was due that night, plus on top of all that, he was sick. He had been missing a lot of school in favor of sleep and Alice had been stuck helping him play catch up.
They were sitting together in math and James was bitching about how he didn’t give a fuck about getting some dumb question wrong. Alice was clearly frustrated, and they had been pretty short with him all day.
“Alice?” He murmured so that Fabian (who was working with them) didn’t hear. Clearly, he was too quiet, and Alice didn’t respond. “Alice, I’m sorry if I’m being a pain.” Nothing. “Alice?” They looked up. “Hm?” They asked, focused on the math. “I’m sorry if I’m being a pain.” James repeated. They just nodded. “Yeah.” James was a little shocked. He had expected them to at least confirm or deny. Just ‘yeah’? That was it??? What the fuck. James felt a bubble of hot rage rise in his chest, but he pushed it down. He had done all he could. He hoped that the weekend would sooth whatever issue Alice had with him and that they could be back to holding hands down the halls and gossiping about everyone and everything.