1/2
Nothing spoke peace to Trish more than seeing Ed properly look her in the eyes again. The past several days, had she been lucky enough to catch his gaze, it was almost always met with pain. She could tell he wasn’t doing well, and that in turn caused her to mimic his discomfort. It wasn’t a conscious choice really. Little did she think about it before, but whenever one of them felt something, the other one tended to reap the consequences of that feeling as well. If Trish was angry or upset, Ed was typically angry or upset. In this case, Ed was clearly struggling with something that caused him pain, and that realization caused her pain of her own. Most of that pain was accentuated in the fact she hadn’t been able to help him out before now. While Trish was certain nothing she’d said thus far had changed things, it still benefited her to believe maybe it was getting better. At least they were together again. She had faith the rest would eventually follow suit.
When Ed apologized to her, she could hear the struggle in his voice. It wasn’t his usual confident, secure tone of voice. It was rather broken and soft. Needless to say, it was cause for concern. In all the time they’d been friends, this wasn’t common for Ed. In fact, the only time she could recall him behaving in a similar fashion was back in fourth year when Aunt Muriel died. Considering this realization, Trish frowned slightly. She didn’t want to be the cause that warranted such a response from her best friend. Last time she’d been the one consoling him, now she was the reason it boiled down to this. She continued to rest against him, trying her best to sort through everything she’d heard, seen, and felt in that brief stint of time with Ed. Her thoughts, however, were interrupted when she felt the warmth of his arm around her and his face against the top of her head. That more natural, comfortable state provoked a little more peace within her as it was a return to normalcy for the two of them.
Although she couldn’t see his wince from the way she was positioned, Trish could feel Ed’s body tense slightly. After all was said and done, she felt somewhat guilty for provoking such a reaction from him, but Trish simply saw no way around telling him the extent of what she had been puzzling over the past several days. Well, truthfully this only scraped the surface of what she had to say, but it was a pretty nice place to start at least. It was at that point the silence took over temporarily, Trish allowing her eyes to close as she felt the rise and fall of Ed’s chest. As painful as the situation was, it was equally reassuring. Before that night she never would have believed it if someone told her she could feel both pain and pleasure at the same time. It certainly was a new experience, but one she’d gladly alter in a heartbeat. Trish wanted to go back to their carefree, reckless happiness. She hated that this had become their norm during their final year at Hogwarts.