Jensen's and Hermione's relationship grew strained after that night at the club. When she arrived home from Draco Malfoy's house, she found him sitting on their red couch—they found it in a thrift shop and had decided that it suited their needs of being big, comfy, and red. It had to be red—staring at the wall. His knee was bouncing in a rapid manner, his hands wringing with each jolt of his body.

When Hermione shut the door behind her, Jensen stood up as if startled. He turned to face her, his entire body rigid as he looked at her. Was there a hint of disgust in his eyes?

"Where were you?" He asked. His voice was hoarse as if he had been crying all morning. It tugged on Hermione's heartstrings when she heard him speak.

Hermione wiped her sweating palms on her jeans before she dropped her purse to the floor. She opened her mouth to tell him that everything was okay, that she was at a friend's house that night, but no sound issued from her lips.

"Where were you?" Jensen asked again. He was angry, she could tell.

Hermione licked her lips before finally answering. "I saw Lisa, the girl I work with, so I left with her."

It was such a stupid lie and Jensen could tell right away. He growled and walked away. He didn't have time to talk to someone who lied to him. Even when it was the girl he loved.

She was so angry at Jensen that she forgot all about Draco. How could Jensen be mad at her when he had left somewhere last night as well? Her mouth screwed up as she followed her. "So where were you last night then?" Hermione asked angrily.

Jensen turned back to her. "I spent last night in a bar bathroom puking, hoping you would look for me and help me. And then when I went to find you, you were gone. So I came back here. How do you think that makes me feel Hermione? I'm sick, and you apparently leave with a friend? I know who Lisa is and she definitely wasn't at the bar last night. So where did you really go?" He asked even more angrily, hitting the dining room table with his hand.

Hermione stared at him. "You were puking? Oh so when you were talking to that girl at the bar, that was you puking?"

"I was asking if she saw a girl who looked like you!" Jensen yelled and knocked a plate off the table. Hermione jumped as it smashed on the ground. Her stomach dropped and the feeling of wanting to puke hit her.

"Jensen," She said quietly, holding her stomach. They had never fought like this before. "I'm sorry."

He looked at the plate, then up at her. Suddenly his eyes were blank. "Whatever," he began. "I'm going out."

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Jensen didn't come home that night. He didn't come home the rest of that week either. By the time he did come home, on a dreary Monday morning, Hermione was at work, just trying to make it through the day.

They weren't the same after that fight. Hermione began to look different. Her face was creased with worry, with the loss of a tightly bound love. Her hands fluttered uselessly at her side whenever Jensen walked through the door in the scrubs that she had once loved so much on him. Now they made him look foreign, not the same person.

Jensen never looked at her. When they spoke, however short the sentence was, he would stare at the spot above her head, not wanting to look at the object he once loved. He knew right away he would never love her again. The trust that was there every day of their life together had dwindled to a state that neither of them could find. He became lazy, she became quiet.

He went out at night and wouldn't come home until the morning, still drunk from the many drinks he had had the previous night. When he left for work Hermione cleaned his clothes. She found bright red lipstick on his collar.

There are a few things you can tell from red lipstick. The girl wearing the lipstick is usually out to find a man. They wouldn't care if the man is taken or not, they are the devils of women. They prowl the nightlife, their red lipstick bright and red upon their swollen lips, draping their eyes over an unsuspecting man.

Hermione's breath quickened at the sight of the lip mark, a large ethnic looking print upon a plain looking shirt. Her eyes widened frantically as she rummaged through his dirty clothes and brought up ten shirts with different shades of lipstick pressed against them. Burgundy, red, dark pink, all of them colours she did not own.

Her hands fell to her lap as she realized that they would never live as lovers again. Their relationship was over. She had finally experienced love and loss.

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Draco Malfoy's life was no longer filled with sustenance.

Ever since Helena had died, the one girl Draco had chosen that his parents approved upon, he would spend his nights getting smashed and hope to pick up a girl in the meantime. As they had drunken sex, he would imagine he was with Helena. He would run his hands through the girl's hair pretending it was her own silky brown hair. They eyes he looked into would suddenly turn blue. His body would be colliding with Helena again.

But of course she was dead.

When he woke up the day after Hermione Granger ended up in his bed, he felt awfully sick. It wasn't the flu, and it wasn't the slugivitis sickness. It was most definitely the sick feeling that you get after you sleep with someone and you feel awfully guilty. He didn't like Granger, so why would he feel guilty? Was it that she looked so familiar to him? With all the other girls he slept with, he would never see them again, he didn't know their life stories. He knew Granger's story.

The goody-good. The girl he always hated in school because not only was she smarter than him, but she was a mudblood who was smarter than him. Draco was very smart for his age, and his father had some pride in him for that, but when Lucius got word of the dirty Gryffindor beating his pure-blood son, he began to push Draco harder. It did no good. Hermione Granger was still smarter.

Malfoy pride hit his stomach like a brick. If his father or mother ever figured out that he had slept with Granger…there goes his inheritance.

Thank God he would never see her again.

His mind wandered back to a day four weeks ago while he turned his water glass around on Helena's hand painted table. It spilt a little so he wiped it up with his sleeve.

He remembered seeing Potter and Weasley walking together, their heads bent together like they were conspiring against someone. Interested, Malfoy followed close behind and subtly enlarged his ear to hear better.

"Neville saw Hermione the other day. She asked about us again," Ron said quietly. His lips twitched in irritation at the name. Harry sighed.

"I wish Neville would just tell her to not even bother. She knows full well that we don't want to see her."

Draco was shocked. Granger wasn't in the good books with Potter and Weasley? But they were certainly best friends! They were the Golden Trio! He twisted his ear again to hear why she was no longer speaking to them, but they had apparated from the spot.

Back to the present, he wondered whether that was why she was in the bar he had been habiting the past few months.

A small squeak brought his eyes up to a slim girl resting on side of the doorway to his bedroom. Her red lipstick made her lips look even more swollen than they were. With a small smile she beckoned to Draco. He couldn't resist, not when she was in the lacy underwear that muggles so often wore when they went out at night. With a smirk on his face, he followed her to his bedroom where he would do it all over again.