By the Way Chapter One

By the Way

By: Provocative Envy

OOO

CHAPTER ONE

Three Months Later

“—I just don’t think this is working anymore, and it’s not even you, not really, it’s me--”

Stop, please, just stop, I wanted to yell, my entire precept of reality fracturing: it couldn’t be happening, shouldn’t be happening.

“—and I know that if you would just consider, just for a second, what we’ve had together, you’d realize, like I have, that, really, we’re better off not being so intimate--”

Why is he still talking? I wondered, the sound of my heartbeat deafening in my private little sanctuary of pain: it felt so wonderful to let myself be the victim, so deliciously wonderful to allow myself a brief reprieve from perfection and wallow in well-deserved self-pity.

“—surely you know I’d never want to hurt you, that that’s the last thing I’d ever want, but I just don’t think this is making either of us happy anymore, Hermione--”

Oh? And how do you know what’s making me happy? I interjected inwardly, blinking back tears I hadn’t wanted to shed, hadn’t expected to shed; oh, but it shouldn’t have hurt so much, shouldn’t have been such a surprise: such an unwelcome, unwanted, utterly unnecessary surprise.

“—are you even listening to me? Hermione? Hello? God, here I was, worried about your feelings, and you can’t even bring yourself to listen to--”

Stay strong, stay fast, don’t cry, come on, it’ll be over in a moment, just a moment, stay strong, please please please, don’t collapse, don’t cry, choke it back, come on, make it stop, no, no, no, just a bit longer, just a bit, look, see, he’s stopping, he’s leaving, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry: a blizzard of hapless thoughts and demands flurried through my mind, seemingly endless, seemingly infinite.

But the sight of his disgusted, indignant face must have pulled the trigger for that waterfall of emotions I’d held back so staunchly, so rigidly, because right when he reached the doorway, right when he put his hand on the wooden frame, a sob, muffled and wet, emerged from my lips, so efficiently pressed together, but apparently not efficiently enough; because he looked back, startled, concerned, confused, his blue eyes narrowing, then widening, then fluttering shut in despair.

But by the time he realized he should be comforting me, offering me an embrace, an apology, something, I had squared my shoulders and pushed past him, my mind zeroing in on that one word in my mantra that had made any sense at all: collapse.

Collapse.

Collapse.

OOO

He’d said it was because he felt awkward.

As if whatever mild discomfiture he’d been enduring for the entirety of our relationship was worth the dismantling of my carefully constructed, carefully maintained world of rules and stability and logic. As if his feelings, insubstantial and fickle, were of greater import than my own.

As if I would let him get away with shoving me headfirst into the dizzy, exhilarating throes of happiness, of carelessness, only to be snatched back out with the cruelest, most meaningless excuse possible: it’s not you, really, it’s me.

Hours later, in bed, I could almost laugh at the cliché, at his near comical indifference; but one glance at the dried up, pressed bunch of mistletoe under my pillow quickly dispelled any hilarity I might have been able to find in the sorry mess that had become my picture-perfect, fairytale relationship.

We were so cute together, everyone had gushed; our personalities so compatible, even with our constant bickering. We finished each other’s sentences all the time, exchanged secretive smiles from across crowded rooms, and hadn’t Lavender assured me that those were signs of true love? Hadn’t she, on more than one occasion, sighed wistfully and wished out loud for someone to hold her like Ron had held me? Hadn’t that mean anything? Didn’t that meant anything?

And then, of course, there had been Malfoy’s snide comments in the hallways, remarks designed to fluster Ron, to enrage me; remarks about my hair, my teeth, my prissy outward demeanor; remarks about Ron’s family, Ron’s looks, Ron’s complete inability to do anything right in class.

Remarks about how we’d be breaking up, any day now, destroying any chance of the comfortable threesome me, Harry, and Ron had become of making it to the end of Seventh Year.

Galling, but true: Malfoy had been right, I’d been wrong.

So very, very wrong.

Awkward, I repeated to myself before succumbing to a fitful slumber, awkward.

And then, in the nanoseconds before my breathing finally turned normal, I felt a solitary tear, surely shimmering like the diamond it wasn’t, slide down my face.

My, what an awkward collapse, I thought bitterly.

Collapse.

Collapse.

I didn’t sleep well.

OOO

“Oh, look, it’s Granger. Careful, boys, she might start crying again,” Malfoy was snickering when I walked by him the next day, alone.

“Yes, since I’m just a veritable waterspout now,” I drawled sarcastically, steadfastly avoiding his probing, pitiless gray gaze.

“According to Weasley, yes,” he replied, then paused for a dramatic effect, letting his brief silence trickle like so much anxiety down my spine, less thrilling than frightening. “But maybe that’s only when he’s dumping you for Brown.”

And there it was.

That moment: that moment where everything awful and horrible and unexpected crashes together and you don’t even want to try and breathe for fear you won’t be able to, for fear that if you do, it’ll just prolong the agony, just compound your humiliation, your shame, your stultifying mortification so that nothing, nothing, nothing could possibly make it better, make it palatable; that moment where you know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it simply cannot get any worse, that you’ve plummeted to depths you never thought you’d reach, never thought you’d sink low enough to experience.

I’d thought that being dumped so callously by the boy I’d been in love with for the majority of my adolescence was punishment enough for whatever transgression I’d mistakenly committed: I’d never imagined that my confidence could be so completely shattered, broken, mangled beyond recognition.

I’d never imagined that Draco Malfoy, of all people, would be the one to witness it.

“Oh my God. Don’t tell me you didn’t know,” he gushed viciously, his excitement palpable in the narrow corridor.

“Oh, go jump in front of a train, Malfoy,” I returned disgustedly, hoping he couldn’t hear my voice quiver. “Of course I knew.”

The lie slipped easily from my tongue, and, for a fleeting few seconds, I believed it. But I knew Malfoy, the king of mistruths and mistrust, would see through it immediately, hone in on my obvious weakness, tear me to shreds with his scorn, his malice, his hatred of everything I was and everything I represented.

“No,” he countered slowly, “I really don’t think you did.”

He stared at me, assessing my bleak countenance, my too-bright eyes and my too-brittle voice.

And then he smirked.

“Poor little Granger. All lonely and sad. Careful you don’t catch them kissing: wouldn’t want you to collapse, would we?”

Too late, I thought.

Collapse.

Collapse.

OOO