It's been six months.
Six months since Newt left New York.
Back then, everything seemed so perfect.
Our farewell was so warm, so gentle, both of our futures lay so bright ahead of us.
I guess I'll always remember every single detail about this day,
the smell of boats, salty ocean water and his aftershave, the sound of seagulls, excited people and his heartbeat… our awkward behavior, like two teenagers, him touching my hair so gentle and me turning bright red in the face, heart racing and about to jump out of my chest.. His dreamy eyes and his promise to return to New York and to me.
It's been six months since he spoke so highly of me, that I was actually allowed to return to my former position as an Auror! And, quite contrary to how I was treated before the … incident with Newt's beasts, I was now pretty well respected.
Not to be bragging, but I worked quite hard, probably harder than I ever had in my entire life and quickly managed to become one of the best Aurors at the MACUSA.
My colleagues highly valued my opinions and, even though I was still fairly young and new to the department, they often came for advice, President Picquery always trusted me with her most sensitive cases and never failed to acknowledge my successes.
Having climbed the career ladder so quickly, people thought of me as some sort of a natural talent when it came to dealing with the 'bad guys'. Oh yes, everything seemed so perfect.
The job in fact was quite literally a full time job, early in the morning I left for work, returning late in the night, for a short nap before I went off to work again. I was hardly at home, the job kept me busy. Which, to be honest, quite suited me.
Because it has also been six months, since Credence was murdered.
A sweet, innocent child, raised in a cruel world, brutally killed by adults that should have known better.
In silent moments I heard him whimpering in fear, every piece of black dust I saw reminded me of him.
His screams of terror and pain kept ringing in my ears like church bells, his frightened face still haunted me every night in my sleep.
The fact of knowing I could have done more, knowing I could have prevented his death, knowing it was basically all my fault kept circling in my head. During the days I kept myself busy, working harder and longer than anybody else in order to avoid going home, to avoid having time for myself, to avoid having time to think, feel or exist.
But late at night, when I wasn't buzzing around anymore, when I finally couldn't keep myself occupied any longer, the waves of guilt hit me in the face like a brick, leading me to having a total mental breakdown. Sometimes I lay on the floor for hours, crying and punching the ground as every single one of my mistakes came floating back, sometimes I just sat there, staring blankly into a wall, not moving, not speaking, not thinking. Just drowning in my emotions, not able to do anything else.
Yes, the nights were the worst.
I was haunted by nightmares.
They were different every time, yet scarily alike: The dreams were all about Credence and Newt.
I was repeatedly forced to watched Credence die, the boy I promised to protect, I saw myself, just standing there, doing nothing. Utterly useless as I was. And I saw Newt. My Newt. The man I so secretly fell in love with.
In some dreams he died, trying to protect the boy from my mistakes, sometimes he survived, but was arrested and later on sentenced to death for whatever stupid reasons my brain could make up. And sometimes, he yelled at me, told me everything I actually subconsciously thought about myself, saying I'd be such a failure, not being able to keep my promises to a boy who trusted me, having nobody but my sister because I was so horrible nobody could stand being around me for too long… and several other horrible things that hurt me more than weapons and curses ever could.
Nearly every night I woke up from nightmares, drenched in sweat, sometimes screaming, sometimes crying.
It's been six months and nothing got better.
In the first few months, Queenie, being a natural Legilimens, saw my dreams and of course tried to calm me, tried to help me through this hard time. She always made some cocoa, grabbed a blanket and tried to get me to talk about it, but I never did. I just couldn't.
I was too scared of letting her know what a monster her sister was, so I shut her out completely. Me being the total opposite of my sister (being the socially awkward, ugly, boyish part) also meant me being a natural Occlumens, so I had no problems keeping her out of my mind.
Yes, it did hurt her, though. Since we were kids and discovered our fairly unnatural talents, I never shut her out, never for once even thought about it. She was my sister after all, the person I trusted most in this entire world!
But now, everything had changed.
Weeks passed and months passed in which I managed to isolate myself even more from everybody, including my sister.
After me having declined too many times, my coworkers stopped asking if I wanted to go to the pub with them after a long case, I always smiled and told them stories about paper work or spending time with my sister, which made it for me impossible to go this evening, but maybe I'd go the next… which of course I never did. They greeted me, when they saw me at the office or down the street, held small talk, but secretly had given up on getting to know me on a private basis long ago.
Queenie got closer to Jacob again, though the No-Maj couldn't remember a thing from their adventures, he remembered his deep, affectionate love for the red haired witch, which of course resulted in them being together most of the time.
After one of our countless fights about my nightmare induced screams having woken her and me refusing to talk to her about it, completely blocking her out, Queenie even went that far as moving in with him in his apartment above his bakery.
Which left me finally all alone.
No friends, no family left, it was only me and my demons haunting me in every single moment of my waking time.
Queenie of course never really left me, she came by every other day with cakes or bread or her famous cocoa, but I kept pushing her away. I didn't want to drag her down with me when the darkness would finally consume me.
I knew I was sliding deeper and deeper in a void I wouldn't be able to escape on my own, but I couldn't help it.
I couldn't run from my feelings any longer, I was a prisoner in my own head, unable to break free. And to be honest, I didn't even see a reason to fight the demons any longer. After all, it was me who was to blame for all this, so I quite welcomed the pain.
I started this bad habit a while ago, cutting helped me escape from my life for a moment, the sight of blood was a sweet relieve from the usual guilt I felt. I remember the first cut, so fragile, so careful, barely a scratch, but now..
It only helped so far. After moments of calmness the darkness returned, I needed more and I needed worse cuts, always worse and worse and worse. Careful to never cut where my secrets could have been discovered, nearly my entire body was now covered in angry, red, screaming lines.
Secretly, all I wanted was somebody to be with me, to hold me, hug me and tell me everything was going to be ok, but I knew I had to act like the invincible person I always seemed to be. I had to be strong. I wasn't allowed to let anyone in.
Today was a Sunday, which actually meant the day off for me, but I had volunteered to stay at the office in case some cases came floating in.
But today, nothing happened. Literally nothing, so they decided to send me home in the afternoon.
Bugged by the question on what to do next, I went shopping, buying everything you need in a fully functioning household. Perfectly well knowing, I'd throw most of it out again for I was neither fully functioning nor a real household at all.
I was just too tired to do much of a cooking or cleaning the house in the No-Maj way.
Keeping myself busy with comparing two dishwashing liquids (one was blue, the other yellow, that was about the only difference I could find) I waited until the shops closed and finally made my way back home to my apartment.
It would be a long evening, I thought exasperated, it was barely nine pm.
I turned on the radio, barely listening to what the radio witch was saying, quickly getting lost in my own thoughts again
Sitting alone in the darkness of my room again, I soon fell into a loneliness I couldn't describe. I fell and couldn't get a hold of anything that could have caught me. My mind slowly began circling again. First slow and then faster and faster it went. Memories came flying from out of nowhere, just to drag me down, scratch at my soul and then to disappear again, I heard their voices and suddenly…
I didn't feel anything at all anymore. Everything was quiet, my mind lay still, only my heartbeat interrupted the silence, a hollow thumping that reminded me of the fact that this lifeless shell was still alive.
I sat there the rest of the evening, blindly staring into nothingness as I kindly embraced the numbness that kept washing over me.
A soft knock at the door yanked me out of my thoughts.
Fully out of my trance again I looked alarmed at the clock: 11pm. Who in the right mind would think about visiting somebody this late in the evening?
I drew my wand and carefully walked towards the door. One last, steady breath and I threw the door open, wand aiming at the late intruder.
However, facing me wasn't some creepy murderer,
facing me was a pair of gentle, green eyes, halfway covered by wild wisps of untidy, red hair. I gasped a second later, still unable to fully grasp what or better whom I saw. "Newt?!"