Chapter 13
She hears from Roxy who heard from Lisette who heard from Merriam who was there that night that Scorpius went to the bathroom with Nicolette and they didn't come out for nearly twenty minutes. And Nicolette couldn't wipe the grin from her face afterwards, even though Scorpius ignored her the rest of the party.
"Don't say I told you, but you need to ask him about it. If it's true, you've got to ditch him. Immediately," Roxy urges.
Rose refuses to believe it—until he stops returning her owls and Fone calls. When she really thinks about it, he'd started acting strangely after he visited with her. She couldn't figure out if he'd somehow been offended by something someone in her family had said or done. There was nothing that stood out. Wasn't he laughing with everyone and blending in? She remembered him looking sad once, maybe twice, after they'd returned to her home, but she couldn't remember anything happening to make him feel that way.
With some careful investigating, she learns another shocking fact. He and his mother are staying at Kensington Palace, for Gods sake. How long has he been there? And he never breathed a word of it to her! She waits until it's beyond obvious he's being a coward about the whole bloody thing, and three days before the second semester starts, Rose catches the train to the building.
Scorpius is just coming down the steps as she's walking up to the entrance. He stops dead when he sees her.
She doesn't give him a chance to say anything. "Why haven't you called? Or owled me?" Rose explodes angrily. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," he says.
"Nothing? Then why are you here? Why aren't you home?" Rose demands.
He sighs rudely. "If you must know, my parents split. I've been testifying in court the past few days, making my father out to be the biggest arse in London because that's the only way my mother will get full custody of me. And then Mum and I have to find another place to live. Any other questions?" he asks. She can't believe all that he's telling her, but what scares her more is the coldness coming from his eyes.
Snowflakes begin to fall. They land on her eyelashes and she can see them on his too, her beautiful boy, the one she can feel she's losing with every passing moment. She blinks the gentle snow away, taking a step closer to him. "You could've told me, Scorpius. I'm here for you, I'm always here for you—"
"Here for me to do what? What could you possibly say to make it right? That you love me? That you need me? D'you think that would heal everything, make it all better?" he says sharply. "Well, it doesn't. Your feelings don't make my life any less fucked up or yours any more perfect."
How could he say such a thing?
"But…it's all I have, is my love for you," she says, choking on her words. "It was good enough before!"
He shakes his head dismissively. "I don't give a fuck anymore," he says angrily. "About anything."
"What are you saying?"
"You're so bloody brilliant, so you should understand perfectly what's going on here."
Oh, gods...how could he do this? Why?
She lifts her chin, trying to stop the tears but they come, to fast to catch. She feels them rolling down her face, so cold against her skin she can feel it going down, down, down just like her heart and soul. "Is it true about you and Nicolette? Were you going to tell me?"
He doesn't answer and her heart breaks right there. She gasps in shock, head dropping in her understanding, the finality of what is, what cannot be changed. "I'm not what you want after all," she whispers. She can taste the salt of her sorrow. "I've tried to be there for you, the gods know I have. I've given my all to you…for you. And I—I can't anymore. You don't care about me. You don't care about us, and you know what? I can't keep letting you hurt me. You won't say the words but your actions speak for what you won't tell me."
He nods, lighting a still, says nothing, not even looking at her. She watches him inhale, blow smoke out.
Please tell me I'm wrong, please just tell me you need a day or two, but you want to work it out. Please.
He remains silent.
A flood of tears, an entire river of them pool her eyes as she says softly, "I love you."
She can feel the darkness in her heart, so she goes to him before it takes over completely, hugs him quickly, kisses him on the cheek.
"I'll never forget you," she breathes, as she takes a step away from him, the first of many. "Or us."
The first few weeks back at Hogwarts are difficult for Rose, to say the least.
"Shh, darling. Shh, it'll be alright," Roxy coos to her, arms around her while she sobs herself to sleep every night. Every single night.
She can't concentrate in classes because all she can think about is him. Her teachers speak and her ears turn the words into mindless buzzing. Bzzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzzz. They call on her and she swallows before asking, "Sorry?" She has no classes with him in their final semester of Hogwarts, but in a way that makes it worse, because she conjures up in a frantic mind what he's doing and who he's doing it with every moment of the day. She loses weight because she can't eat. Food tastes of paper, especially when it's lunch or dinner time in the hall and she sees him at the Slytherin table, playing around, talking and laughing as if he hasn't a care in the world. As if she never meant shit.
"Don't give him the satisfaction. Don't stare at him, don't let him see you cry. He's acting as if he could care less. You do the same!" Roxy whispers, clutching her hand tightly at the table.
Rose's clothes have started to sag on her body when Hugo meets her one day after classes.
"I'm telling Mum," he warns, looking around to make sure they have privacy.
"Telling her what?" Rose mumbles.
"That you're not eating and you're starting to resemble a dang bloody skeleton!"
She stares blankly at him, lifting her arm up to inspect her now baggy sweater sleeve. "Oh," she says. Coughs. She's cold, so cold these days...
Hugo sets his mouth in a firm line for a moment, looking very much like their father, before he leans closer to her. "Look, you shouldn't let him do it to you. He's not worth it. You're my sister. I'll fight for you if I have to, so fuck him. He's a twat. You don't need him, you oughtn't think of him anymore. Who cares if he's loaded and popular? So are you. If it's a bloke's love you want...well, you've got me and dad. That can be enough, for now anyway. Don't let Scorpius do this to you anymore, Rose."
She blinks, and something in her heart holds on to that shred of advice for dear life. She grabs him, hugging him tight.
"Thank you," she whispers. "I love you."
"I love you, too. If you waste away because of him...I'll...I'll kill you!"
And she's able to eat again at dinner that evening, if only a few bites.
Winter melts into the beginning of spring and the temperatures start to rise. Rose has allowed her friends to give her a makeover, and her hair is shorter now, to her shoulders instead of hanging by her waist. Her friends help her set it in big rollers in the mornings so that it shines and bounces with every step. It's different, but she likes it. She needs different.
"It's pretty. But I'd think that if you had no hair at all," Daniel says to her. He reaches out, touches her hair gently, twirling it around his finger, and she lets him. It thrills her to see that Scorpius has just passed them and he must have witnessed Daniel flirting with her, though he doesn't turn to make sure.
She's not sure why Daniel still likes her, but it's obvious he does, so when he asks to escort her to the semester field trip to Hogsmeade, she accepts.
"It'll be fun, you'll see. Make it a day to remember," her friends tell her.
Daniel holds her hand the entire time and she tries to feel something, honest to the gods she does. In the back of her mind, she's hoping to see Scorpius or some of his friends, otherwise what's the point, and when she doesn't, it depresses her.
"I know you've had a bit of a rough breakup," Daniel tells her before he drops her off at her dorm. "But I can wait until you're ready. I like you, Rose."
She nods. Daniel is kind and she likes him, too, but it's not the same.
Scorpius is haughty, confident. His smiles come and go so quickly you had to catch them when you could, but when he laughed, his dimples made him look angelic.
Daniel doesn't have dimples.
With Scorpius, the chemistry between them existed on another level entirely, another realm. She gave; he received. Whether they sat together or apart in class or the library or in the dining hall, he always knew when she wanted his attention, and he turned to meet her eyes. I love you, he would say without words. I need you.
Rose is never sure what Daniel is thinking, and sometimes he doesn't get her at all. Scorpius understood everything about her. They were two hearts with one mind.
The next weekend, Rose and Daniel are kissing on his bed, all alone in his Prefect room. He won't go further than sliding a hand up her jumper, and she has to place his hand on her breast to let him know it's okay to touch her. Scorpius was always aggressive when they fooled around, but in a way she loved. He loved to tongue kiss Rose, and it was always a sure turn on for her, but Daniel doesn't use his tongue at all. When she and Scorpius lay together, he whispered dirty little things to her, which she absorbed like desert sand in rain. He moaned when they made out against the deserted corridors of Hogwarts, cried out when their bodies were pressed together under sheets. He kissed her with his eyes partially opened, hands on her hips in those precious moments before they parted ways for the evening.
Daniel does none of these things. He's always quiet, even on the night she decides to be intimate with him. They have sex but it's meaningless to her. She lays there and lets herself go numb. He asks her to go steady and she agrees though her heart is not in it. He holds her hand in public, kisses her goodbye when he drops her off to class and when she passes Scorpius in the halls at school, her heart crumbles up and blows away a little more as he pretends not to know her at all.