James, too, was attempting to simply forget their disputes over the year. It hardly mattered now, anyway. They were both still here. She was choosing to spend this last train ride in the same compartment with him. That alone spoke volumes. There were times in life, he had discovered, when it was better to simply let things go. This was one of those times. But for him, it was hard. He wasn’t the sort of person to forgive and forget. He didn’t like having regrets, but at the same, he tried very hard not to forget how he made mistakes and worked hard to learn from them. So forgetting everything that had happened between the two of them these past few months was should have been proving difficult.
But it wasn’t. Not really. He was quite ready to just sit back and talk with her, tease and banter for the rest of the train ride as if nothing negative had ever affected their relationship. Not that he was going to sit back and analyze why that was. He might run into something he didn’t want to think about there.
James smiled for a few seconds at her comment, but it slowly melted off his face. Absently, he ran a hand through his hair, effectively spiking it up a bit. “Yeah. Yeah, I am,” he said after a minute, suddenly sounding very serious. She was right of course. He was still grieving. He was sure it all stemmed from the fact that no one had ever told him that it was okay to grieve. That it was okay to hurt and to miss him. He’d gone two weeks directly after not knowing how to react and consequently spent those two days as isolated as he could, with only a bottle of firewhisky for company. It had been Ophelia finally, who had gotten him to take a look at what he was feeling.
Yes, James really did need his friends, and far more than he’d ever admit to anyone. Her next words pulled him out of his thoughts, and a small smile touched his lips again. Yeah. Right again. He never had really gotten a good hold on that whole letter writing business. At the subject of telephones, James still looked a bit sceptical about her ability with the muggle device. But he’d give her a chance on it. Maybe. Not that he’d really be available for telephone communication this summer.
“I’m going to France with Bastien,” he answered, shifting in his seat to find a more comfortable position. “Get out of England for a little while and see what some of the rest of Europe has to offer. Or at least, you know, France.” He smirked and wondered just exactly how he was going to do in France. All right, he supposed. Part of him knew it was time for a change of scenery. And it kept him out of his father’s house for the summer. That was always a plus.