Draco L. Malfoy

I knew it long before she left. I knew it even before the arguments started to hurt more than the silence—I was dragging her down. Every time I got lost in my own demons, she tried to reach me, to save me. And I... I only knew how to push her further down. Because I didn't know how to love without hurting.

She deserved light. And I was a storm with no way out. She had faith in things I'd already killed inside me. And yet she stayed. She looked at me like she could still redeem me. Like she didn't know that some scars don't heal... they just hide under new lies.

So I pushed her away. Cold, sarcastic, cruel. I never told her the truth. That every hurtful word was a cowardly way of telling her: go away. Not for lack of love, but because I couldn't bear to see her destroyed by mine.

I wasn't brave enough to explain. I was just cowardly enough to let her go before I ruined her completely. And now she's out there, without me. Whole. Alive. And I... I'm still here, knowing I lost her for protecting her from the only thing she asked for: to stay. I couldn't forget her sweet lips. I couldn't erase from my mind her fragile hands cupping my cheeks that last night, our last night.

—Who were you with?—

Mattheo's eyes seemed to hold something, something that perhaps wasn't good at all

—Draco, you have to understand that...—

—Just talk already, dammit! — I interrupted him abruptly, his stupid attempts to calm me down only made me tired

—Nott—

My heart beat violently upon hearing that last name, I remembered his eyes on her multiple times, something I tried to ignore so as not to look like a crazy person, it wasn't the fact that he looked at her, but with the desire with which he did it, the way his eyes scanned her body

—Okay, leave me alone—

Mattheo left without another word. I only heard the door close, and that cursed silence ate away at my bones. I felt the thick air...