For the '10 drabble, 10 topics' challenge on HPFC.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Drabble #5 Character Exploration: Cho Chang
Cope
by padfoot
...
She just wants to be happy. That's all, really. Happy.
And yet, it always seems so complicated. Complicated because of Cedric, because of Harry, because of her friends and her family and because of the people who still stare at her when she walks down the hall. Stare at her like there's something wrong with her.
Their eyes are asking questions, interrogating her, all but salivating with greed for answers she can't give. Why are you crying? Why are you sad? Why do you look as if the world has fallen apart?
Why don't they understand that nothing is as it should be anymore?
She wants to be anonymous. To be no one. Another face in the crowd. One that blends in, one of a person who hasn't gone through too much, too soon, but thinks it's too little, too late to count.
She wants to be loved. Again. Loved for who she is now, not who she was then. Before-
But to be loved for being a wreck? Loved for being broken and hurt and sad, sad, sad? She knows it's impossible. Impossible for someone to love this.
She wants to be alive again. To laugh and cry and have it mean something. She thinks that this new normal isn't right - crying, class, crying, meals, crying, sleep and nightmares - but doesn't know how to escape. It's as if she's forgotten how to live. Now all she does is endure and try to cope with it all.
She just wants to be happy, really. That's all. Happy.