Kind to the point of doormat. (primlyrose) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-10-14 21:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, character: mary-anne prewett, character: primrose dursley, location: godric's hollow, retired character: bethanie dunstan, retired character: caitlin carmichael |
WHO: Primrose Dursley, Caitlin Carmichael, Bethanie Dunstan, and Mary-Anne Prewett
WHEN: 14 October 2002, evening
WHERE: Potter Cottage, Godric's Hollow
WHAT: News & Desserts
RATING: Low/Medium--TBD
STATUS: Completed in Docs
Prim set the plate of brownies on her chest of drawers and settled into her window seat. She wore another of Lucas' shirts with her pyjama bottoms. At nearly twelve weeks, she was beginning to show. The bump wasn't that noticeable. If she wore a more fitted shirt, it would look as if she'd had a large meal. Soon, even her dresses and a-line skirts wouldn't hide her pregnancy. She would need to take Daisy up on her offer to go shopping.
Her friends had been in her room for about an hour. Prim was nervous, but she also enjoyed having them there with her, and she didn't want things to turn serious right away. She couldn't put it off any longer, though. She had kept so many secrets from her friends, and she was about to tell them everything. She was afraid they would feel betrayed because she hadn't told them about certain aspects of her life. She was afraid they would be upset with her for keeping part of herself from them.
Prim crossed her legs under her and smiled at her friends. "I have a couple of confessions and announcements to make. Two, really, and the confessions and the announcements are one in the same. Or they're very closely related to each other." She blew out a breath, trying to steady her nerves. "The first is that I secretly write romance novels. I haven't really told anyone about that because I, until recently, was unable to convince myself that I wasn't doing anything wrong. Nice girls don't think, write, or talk about sex." She shrugged, looking amongst them a little helplessly. "So I write--wrote in secret because of emotionally abusive lessons on how I should be."
She looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap, and continued. "I sent a manuscript to M.L. Drachen. I was not expecting it to be published. I was only hoping to sell the manuscript to increase what I have in savings. But I'm going to be published under a pen name." As she spoke, her eyes filled with tears, and she kept her head down until she reached the end. With another deep breath, she lifted her chin and regarded her friends. "The money is necessary because Lucas and I are going to be parents. I'm about twelve weeks along, which is just shy of my second trimester, and I am so sorry I didn't tell you till now. All the books say to wait." She looked between Mary-Anne and Caitlin. "I found out a couple of days after our last sleepover."
Prim stopped there and made herself breathe normally. She kept her tears at bay and simply waited for her friends' reactions and prayed they wouldn't leave.
--
They'd been catching up and talking for nearly an hour and Prim hadn't yet mentioned anything about her news, or if she had she had done so rather subtly. Though Mary-Anne was fairly sure that wasn't the case, if Prim said she had news she would be more direct about announcing it. It wasn't long after pondering this that Prim finally spoke up. She was surprised, though Mary-Anne could empathise with why prim kept it secret; even if in her experience it was a lack of experience rather than being taught it wasn't proper.
"That's great news, Prim," she said happily. Mary-Anne didn't recognise the name but given Prim's announcement it was obviously the name of an author who wrote similar books. She smiled happily, glad that something wonderful was happening for one of her best friends. Then the smile gave way to a stunned look at her friend's next announcement. It was definitely surprising news, to say the least. She was a bit unsure how she really and she didn't think she would be able to be entirely sure on that until the news had really sunk in. Though she knew right then that sowing support was important, and even though she wasn't sure how she felt about the news Mary-Anne knew she would most likely stick by Prim anyway.
Getting up from where she'd been sitting cross-legged Mary-Anne walked over to where Prim was sitting and embraced her friend in a big hug. "Are you happy?" she asked. "Because if you are then that's all that really matters to me."
--
Bethanie had wanted to interject when Prim mentioned that ‘nice girls’ didn’t talk about sex. She probably would have done, had Mary-Anne and Caitlin not been presented, and if she hadn’t felt like Prim wanted to get her announcements out without interruption. Bethanie had never had sex, nor even come close, but when she’d been made prefect she’d made sure she was educated on the subject in case younger students came to her with questions, and she’d never been shy of sharing that knowledge. She was disappointed in herself to discover she hadn’t helped Prim question her parents’ belief earlier.
The feeling was quickly swept away by Prim’s larger news. “Lucas?” she asked, as surprised by that as by any of it. She was friends with both Prim and Lucas, had kept in touch with both of them after school despite being older, and yet she’d had no idea the two were even together. Though, it occurred to her after a moment, perhaps they weren’t. It had been her first assumption that Prim wouldn’t have sex unless she were in a relationship, but Bethanie always tried to remember that assumptions weren’t necessarily true.
Fortunately, Mary-Anne had gotten up and asked what Bethanie supposed was really the important question to ask. If Prim was happy, that was what was important. The phrasing of Prim’s announcement didn’t leave a lot of doubt that she’d decided to keep the baby. While that wouldn’t have been Bethanie’s decision, she trusted she knew her friend well enough to know she would have thought it through.
Not knowing what the right thing to say was, if there even was a ‘right’ thing, Bethanie was relieved she could let Mary-Anne fuss over Prim while Bethanie did her best to fade into the background.
--
Caitlin would have also objected that nice girls thought about sex plenty — at least she did — but that comment went right out the window when Prim admitted that she was pregnant. Caitlin was surprised by the revelation, but she was more concerned with Prim than with her own thoughts on a pregnancy. She personally wouldn't have been ready to have a child this early in life, but not everyone got the choice to not have a child. The way that Prim had worded that she and Lucas were going to be parents left the big question unneeded. She obviously was planning to keep the baby.
Following Mary-Anne's lead, she moved to the other side of Prim and nodded. "Yes," she said. "All that matters is that you're happy. And that you know we're here for you." It mattered very little that she'd kept it to herself for a while. Caitlin thought it was a very big bit of news and that Prim was very much entitled to mull over it all before she started telling anyone.
--
Prim bit down hard on the inside of her lip to keep it from trembling. With Mary-Anne on one side and Caitlin on the other, she kept her eyes on Bethanie. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Lucas," she told her friend softly. "We slipped into it so naturally that I forgot it was a big deal." She hadn't meant to keep Bethanie out of the loop. She hated when Bethanie felt invisible, and she saw it happening, and she felt terrible, but she didn't know what to do to make it better.
"I'm terrified," she confessed. "Our families know, and we've been doing our research and making lists, but there's so much to do. The one thing we've truly agreed on is that this was an accident but not a mistake." Prim made herself relax her hands in her lap as she finally dropped her gaze from Bethanie's face.
"I am happy, especially since none of you stormed out." It was a very weak joke, and the sound that escaped her was more sigh than laugh. "But I'm scared we won't be ready, or that I'll somehow turn into my mother." She shrugged, a helpless movement that brought her shoulders up to her ears. "Everyone wants to help and do things for us, but they also want to make us do things for ourselves, and it's more than a little confusing."
She looked around at the three of them. "I am sorry for not telling you sooner. You are my best friends, and I wasn't being a good one to you."
--
Mary-Anne was pretty sure that she wouldn't have been ready for such a huge moment either if she was in a similar situation; she wasn't even sure she was ready to have sex for that matter, which wasn't surprising since she still couldn't bring herself to really talk about it.
"I don't think you'd turn into your mother, you're nicer than that and you have someone like Lucas by your side to support you," she commented. Mary-Anne had never actually met Prim's mother though what little she did know about her and what Prim was like… well, she was sure that her friend wouldn't turn into someone like that. "And you've got your family and… you've got us…"
It was pretty big news and she could understand Prim not telling them sooner. "You're not a terrible friend, Prim," she said, giving her friend a half-hug. "It's pretty big news, and it can't have been easy telling everyone."
--
“Don’t be silly,” Bethanie said immediately. “You don’t need to apologise.” If she was a little hurt at having been left out - by Lucas, as well as by Rosie - she only took that as evidence that her own expectations had been too high, and wondered if it was her own fault for not noticing, not asking after either of their romantic lives often enough to catch the change.
Despite having no experience with babies, not even a younger sibling, Bethanie still wanted to help Rosie see her way through this. During her years as a prefect she’d come to have some small amount of confidence in her own ability to look at a problem logically, and to help others who were caught up in all the emotions. Her speciality had been 6th years around the beginning of the Easter term who were suddenly convinced they’d picked all the wrong NEWT subjects and that their lives would be ruined. “They probably want you to do things for yourselves because that’s how you’ll learn,” she said. “But I’m sure that doesn’t mean they won’t be there if the time comes and you need them to help.”
Feeling awkward being the only one still sitting, Bethanie stood, hovering awkwardly on the edge of the group. “You won’t become your mother,” she said, quite certain of that fact. “Any more than everyone who’s bullied becomes a bully themselves.” Bethanie had always hated that particular adage - that bullies were just people who’d been bullied passing it along. She had been bullied, and it had only made her more determined (too determined, often) to be compassionate towards everyone.
--
Caitlin was of the same mind as Bethanie and Mary-Anne. "You're definitely not a terrible friend. And you really don't have to apologize for anything. We all understand," she was quick to assure Prim. The last thing that she wanted was for Prim to feel like she had done something wrong. It was quite obvious that she had a massive bit of news that she was just trying to understand on her own. Trying to keep everyone in the loop when she was busy dealing with accepting and coming to terms with it herself was likely a massive task to undergo.
The mention of turning into her mother got a shake of Caitlin's head. "No way," she agreed. "You are a wonderful person and you will be a wonderful mother. And I think I can speak for all of us in saying that we're all going to be here for you to help as much as we can. You definitely don't have to do it alone."
--
Primrose was so overcome with her friends' warmth and understanding that she couldn't speak. Her eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip trembled. Before she could start to cry fully, she stood and hugged Mary-Anne, Caitlin, and Bethanie in turn. She held each of her friends tightly for several moments before she moved to the next, ending with Bethanie, whom she stood beside, leaning against her shoulder, after their embrace. A few tears had slid down her cheeks, but she brushed them away with her fingers as she smiled at her friends. "Thank you. For understanding. For not being upset. For coming over tonight."
Exhaling with a huff that fluffed the hair on her brow, Prim calmed down and her smile stopped shaking. "There are brownies. I have ice cream in the freezer. We could make cocoa." She looked amongst them a little sheepishly. "I could show you some of the things I write? Anything you want!"
--
Mary-Anne managed not to get too emotional at seeing how emotional Prim was; the sleepover did not need more than one, preferably none at all, person being emotional. As she sat back down where she'd been Mary-Anne started thinking of what she could knit for the baby. It might be a little early to start pondering but she didn't know how busy she was going to get and figured it couldn't hurt to get a head start on things just in case something did come up.
"I wouldn't say no to one of the brownies and some ice cream," she responded with a sheepish smile. Trying not to chew on her lip Mary-Anne wondered whether to speak up to everyone how you told a guy, who you did like, that you may have met someone else that you're interested in; even if the other guy hadn't actually asked you out and you weren't sure he liked you that way. But she chose not to having decided the moment was about Prim for now. "Sure, if you don't mind sharing your writing..."
--
For a moment, Bethanie could feel Prim shaking as she leaned against her shoulder, but she didn’t know what to do or say to make it better. Fortunately, Prim soon recovered herself. “Oooh, cocoa,” Bethanie said. She smiled at Mary-Anne. “So chocolate is a must, then.” She glanced around the room for inspiration. “Cocoa, blankets, giggling over romance novels. It’ll be like Hufflepuff all over again.” Bethanie was sure Prim’s novels wouldn’t be (unintentionally) funny, but then the books she’d read as a teenager hadn’t really been either. “Maybe we’re all too mature now for giggling at exotic bedding ceremonies.” The age difference meant she hadn’t shared that particular experience with any of the girls present, but she was sure that if they’d read romance novels they’d have some idea what she was talking about.
“Still, blankets and books,” she reiterated. “Sound just about perfect. I’ve got Pollyanna Grows Up with me, if anyone wants to read it. I finished it yesterday.” For perhaps the 5th or 6th time, but that went without saying.
--
Caitlin was glad that Prim was smiling again, even through her tears. The hug was welcomed and she gave a good squeeze to her friend in the process of it. The mention of brownies and ice cream certainly weren't going to get a negative response, but the thought of seeing some of the things that Prim had written really caught her attention. Caitlin found that she was very curious about what Prim wrote. If it was being published, it was obviously quite good. "Of course I want to see some of the things that you've written. I may just become a fangirl," she grinned. It wasn't unlikely. She already was very much Mary-Anne's fangirl.
"I agree with Bethanie," Caitlin said, nodding. "Blankets, books, and cocoa. Oh, and ice cream!" Couldn't forget that.
--
"I love you all very much. I don't tell you that often enough, but I do. You're as much my family as my family is, and I am grateful for you." Prim sniffed one more time and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. "Right. Books, blankets, chocolate." She crawled under her bed and pried up the floorboard that hid her M.L. Drachen stories and writing. She piled several books and notebooks on the floor by her hip before she deemed it enough material for them to go through. "There are more if we make it through these," she said, her voice muffled as she backed out from under the bed.
Arms full of bound paper, Prim smiled at her friends. "To the kitchen," she said with a decisive nod. The hard part was over. They would spend the rest of the evening eating their weight in brownies and ice cream and cocoa and going over the love scenes. Prim was relieved, but more than that, she was full of love and warmth, and she knew how lucky she was to have these three wonderful women in her life.