After fleeing the dock, Sloane had managed to stem the tears long enough to run up to her dorm and grab her broom. Nobody would question her if she was gone to the quidditch pitch for a couple hours and didn't turn up for dinner. It wasn't the first time it had happened and she was a scatterbrain normally. Nothing out of the ordinary. The perfect cover.

As soon as her feet hit the grass of the pitch she was in the air, the familiar weightlessness of flight at least gave her something to focus on. It felt like everything around her was crumbling. Things she thought she would have been able to count on for her entire life were slipping away and she didn't know what to do about it. She'd tried to fix it, tried to be rational and give people space, tried talking to them. When one thing seemed to be resolved, something else fell apart. Sisse; then Alice; Calla had picked up on the tension too. Ned and Lester weren't stupid, they knew something was up. Now she and Cam were in limbo too and that pained her the most. Everything boiled down to her and she hated it.

She flew for hours, around and around the pitch until her hands and cheeks were numb. It wasn't quite the escape she was looking for. When she finally came down, she landed hard, legs tired and shaky, so she collapsed right where she was. The tears started again almost immediately. This was stupid, she was not this person. She didn't cry over drama. Sloane had spent most of her life being one of the boys so she could avoid shit like this.

The sun was sinking over the stands, she had certainly missed dinner, but she had no intention of going inside anytime soon. Curling up in her cloak, she drew he knees up to her chest and bawled into the fabric of her (Cam's) scarf.