*TRANSPARENCY: This is being self-published as an original work. The story is entirely my own and contains pieces of my personal life in it. I wrote it so that all that needs be changed is names and descriptions of appearance. This story is completely nonmagical and takes place in America to a mixed Black woman. Because it is a depiction of my life.*
TRIGGER WARNING: Eating disorder content and medical discussion of weight, BMI, etc. If you are a medical official and notice any medical discrepancies in the care she receives, please let me know so it can be fixed in the book version! The ER doctor is a recurring character in the trilogy, and I'd like him to be accurate :)
Caged
Chapter Seventeen
O
". . . would like it to be clear that you understand how imperative it is . . ."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
An unfamiliar male voice, like a whisper or a murmur in the back of Hermione's head. She felt like she was trying to wade through a deep, dark lake of shadows. Her entire body ached as though it had been thrown into a ravine, tumbling against hard rocks on the way down. An incessant, familiar burning persisted in-between her thighs.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Her weight is concerning. Have you been . . ."
The voices kept cutting into the darkness, wrapping invisible fingers around her consciousness and pulling her into waking. Her eyes rolled beneath closed eyelids. The scent of antiseptic filled her nostrils, reminding her of the gynecologist's office she went to twice per year. The fuzziness in her ears cleared.
She was lying down on something soft.
"We've tried everything. We have dinner with her every night, we try to eat breakfast with her when we can," came her mother's voice, quivering with emotion. "But she just keeps getting smaller."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Her doctor had warned us that if she continued to lose weight, that she would be looking at alternative recommendations." That was her father. He sounded much calmer than Jean did, but a faint thread of concern wove its way through his tone. "So, she's underweight for her height?"
"Yes, at 106 pounds, for her height - that is a BMI of 18.2." The unfamiliar voice, sounding strained. "According to her medical charts, Dr. Pomfrey indicated that her weight was 120 at her June 2th appointment, and -"
"Well, she gained some weight after that appointment," Ikeobi said.
"All right, and at her appointment at her January 15th appointment, she was . . . It looks like 170 pounds? So that's a weight loss of 50 pounds in 6 months, and then a further 10. But you said that she gained some?"
"We made sure of it," Jean said.
"Hm. Well, in that case, her current weight is even more concerning, especially considering that you're saying she fell down the stairs," said the unfamiliar voice, which Hermione now had a good feeling belonged to a nurse or doctor. "This type of rapid weight loss is usually due to an underlying cause."
"Could she be sick?"
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Hermione's blood turned to ice. She recognized that voice. Memories flooded her mind.
The unfamiliar person said, "It's a possibility. We can run some tests."
"Tests? What tests? Like, bloodwork?"
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbee -
Adrian.
"Yes, we'll take her blood and run tests to check for imbalances."
"Can't you just put a tube down her throat to make sure she eats?"
A spluttering sound from Jean. "Adrian. That's a little rude, don't you think? I'm sure Dr. Lewis knows what he's doing."
"It's all right, Mrs. Okeke. To answer the question, a feeding tube is not necessary unless we find a medical necessity to use one. She is underweight for her height, however - oh! Looks like she's awake." The unfamiliar voice grew louder, drawing closer to Hermione's left side. "Hermione? Are you awake?"
Voices exploded on her right.
"Sweetheart, it's your momma. It's me. Come on and wake up."
"Nwa m nwanyị," Ikeobi said in a gentle voice, and she felt a hand on top of her curls. "It's all right to wake up now, my love."
"Baby?" Adrian's voice, laced with a sickly-sweet worry that told her her parents had no idea that he was the reason she was in this condition. "We're all here, waiting for you to wake up. You're safe now."
"I'm here." A quiet male tenor to her left, and not unfamiliar. It felt like a caress to her bruises. It sounded like music.
Her eyelids fluttered open and immediately glanced to the left.
Draco.
He was standing beside a light-skinned Black man in maroon scrubs. Apart from the stethoscope draped around his neck, he was holding onto a clipboard and a pen. The doctor had a fade on the sides of his hair, with an inch of curls at the top of his head, and his smile was kind as he looked down at her.
Hermione could see now that she was lying in a bed underneath dim fluorescent lights. Her bed was surrounded by yellow curtains, and the ceiling and walls beyond it were pale blue. Late afternoon sunlight bathed the bed, casting orange across the off-white blanket that was pulled up to her neck.
"Where am I?" she whispered, feeling confused.
"You're in the hospital," Draco said, his lips curving up into a smile. There was worry mingling with the tenderness in his eyes. "You're -"
"I came over to see you, and you'd fallen down the stairs."
Hermione's head rolled to the right. She saw her parents, Jean's eyes swimming with unshed tears and Ikeobi glowing with relief. Beside them was Adrian, and he'd just cut his brother off to speak.
"Hi there, Hermione." The doctor smiled again, and his voice was just as warm as his eyes. "My name is Dr. Rayshard Lewis, and I'm an Emergency Physician here at Restitue Medical Center. I'm the one who looked you over. How are you feeling?"
Hermione closed her eyes for a moment. She was in pain. A lot of pain. Each individual bruise throbbed to its own agonizing rhythm. It hurt to breathe, like someone had stabbed her repeatedly in the left side, right above the dip of her waist. Her face ached in several places, including her cheeks and eyes, and the wound on her forehead stung.
"I'm . . . Feeling," she said. "What happened to me?"
"Well, you were in a pretty tough condition when your boyfriend here brought you in." Hermione darted a glance towards Adrian. His face was calm, but she could see past it. He wanted her to keep her mouth shut. "You're all bruised up, two ribs on the left side of your ribcage are also bruised, and you have minor to moderate blunt force trauma in several places. Mostly around your head. So, unfortunately, you have a concussion. Which is why you're waking up feeling like someone's hammering on your head, no doubt."
The information felt like it was being fed into her brain after a slow delay. Dr. Lewis was still talking, discussing recovery time with her and going into detail about her injuries. By the time he'd stopped to ask Adrian how he knew she'd fallen down the stairs, she realized something with dawning horror.
Numbness settled over her like rainfall. She felt like she was melting into the bed.
They didn't know she hurt between her legs.
She supposed it didn't matter. After all, it wasn't the first time he'd had his way with her. This was just the first time she'd been unconscious.
"She told me to come over," Adrian said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, averting his eyes from Dr. Lewis as though he were trying to recall the events. "She told me to come over, but when I got there, she didn't answer my knocks. Since her parents were at work, I had a bad feeling that if she was hurt, no one would know. So I -"
"Did you break into our home?" Jean asked, sounding horrified.
"Uhh . . ." Adrian looked a bit pale. Hermione could see the gears turning in his eyes as he tried to dig his way out of the hole his lie had shoveled. "The door was unlocked, so I - I just walked in. She was lying at the foot of the stairs, and she was unconscious, so I just drove her to the emergency room."
Another lie.
"You just walked in," Draco said, his tone a flat, deadpan murmur. His eyes narrowed a fraction. "The door was unlocked."
"Yes," Adrian said. "That's what I just said, Draco."
"It's a good thing you did," Ikeobi said in an unreadable voice, his hand still petting the top of Hermione's head in affectionate gestures. "Otherwise, she would have been in much worse condition."
"Yes, that's true," Dr. Lewis said, and then he smiled at Hermione a third time. "Your concussion was mild, but it still knocked you out."
"Did I have surgery?" Hermione asked, her heart rate spiking again. The beeping, which she now knew came from the heart monitor, sped up a bit.
"No, and thank goodness for it," Jean said, leaning closer. "How did you fall, honey?"
Hermione met Adrian's eyes. His eyes continued to speak for him.
Lie.
"I fainted," she said. "It was hot, and I - I was dancing in my room. I got overheated."
Beep. Beep. Beepbeepbeep. Beep.
Dr. Lewis cleared his throat. "You say you fainted, and I don't doubt the reason, but . . . I noticed in your records that you've had a rapid weight loss since your last doctor's appointment. Is there anything that you believe could be causing that?"
Beepbeepbeepbeep.
She willed her heart to still before the monitor gave her away.
"I'm not sure," she lied. "I eat tons, so maybe it's just stress? I started a new job this Summer at a cheer gym, and I do tumbling there."
"Tumbling?" Dr. Lewis asked.
"Like . . . Cartwheels and front flips. Stuff like that."
Dr. Lewis nodded, looking down at the chart. He frowned, and she knew what he was about to ask her. When he lifted his head, he appeared troubled.
"How many calories do you intake per day?" he asked. "Do you know?"
"I don't know," Hermione said. "Maybe . . . Maybe 2000?"
Yet another lie.
Draco turned his face away, slipping his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.
Guilt filled Hermione, knowing what it must take for him to keep the truth a secret. He was the only person who had any inkling of the fact that she wasn't eating on purpose. The thought of even looking at her probably made him feel ill.
She deserved that.
She deserved a lot of bad things.
Dr. Lewis's frown deepened. "Then, if you're eating maintenance calories, and you're still losing weight this quickly? This could be an indicator of a serious underlying condition. Since you're going to be admitted for a while, I'm going to order some tests."
"What tests, doctor?" she asked, forcing herself with all of her might to remain as calm as possible.
He glanced at the chart again. "A blood test and an EKG, which is where we take a machine and use it to analyze your heart rate."
"An EKG?!" Jean cried, voice shrill. "Why would you need an EKG?!"
"There were some irregularities that I noticed when she was first brought in," Dr. Lewis explained. "Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Okeke, I assure you. We're going to get to the bottom of this."
Hermione severely hoped they didn't. She wasn't sure what was worse: finding out she had some sort of abnormality . . .
. . . Or the threat of being forced to eat more.
The threat of gaining weight.
Dr. Lewis said he was going to go back to the ER, but that he'd be handing his chart over to a nurse, who would administer the tests. He was thanked profusely by everyone in the room, including Draco, and then he took his leave.
Hermione allowed herself to panic for a smidgeon of a second.
What if the tests showed something that couldn't be hidden? What if the nurse recommended a diet, or some abhorrent regimen that included carbs and fats and oils and sugar? What if they made her stay in the hospital for weeks and weeks, and forced her to gain and gain and gain and -
There was a needle in her arm, connected to a tube, connected to a bag of fluid.
She nearly screamed.
The IV.
The IV was steadily dripping liquid calories into her system with every second that passed by. It didn't matter what the tests said.
She was already going to gain.
"Am I still in the ER?" Hermione asked her mother, her throat feeling raw and her chest aching.
"No, honey," Jean interjected. "This room is on one of the general floors."
"And you might as well get used to it," Ikeobi added. "You'll be here for a while longer if those tests come back with issues. You hear me?"
"Yes, nna," Hermione said.
They spent some time questioning both her and Adrian, until the nurse entered and asked them to clear the room for the night. She was going to administer the tests, and visiting hours were over.
Hermione accepted gentle kisses to the top of her head from both of her parents. They moved aside so Adrian could take their place, leaning down close to her.
"I love you so much," he said, his voice causing her skin to crawl with revulsion. "I'm so glad you're gonna be okay. Everything's gonna get better from here on out. I promise."
He leaned down to kiss her forehead. His mouth felt like an iron-hot brand upon her skin, marking her as his prisoner forever. Her heart clenched in pain - the sort of pain that reached deeper than a depression, and poisoned her.
She was his.
Averting her gaze to the left, her heart skipped a beat. It registered on the heart monitor, but no one acknowledged it.
Draco was glaring at them with the most venomous look she'd ever seen burning in the depths of his eyes.
Ikeobi eyed Adrian with the same look one would give a complicated equation.
"When you came to the door," he said, "it was unlocked?"
"Yes," Adrian replied, standing up and curling his fingers around the bed railing. Something clicked in his jaw, signaling to Hermione that he was either anxious or angry. "That's what I told Dr. Lewis."
"Did you leave it unlocked when you left?"
"Well, yes," Adrian said, audibly holding back his irritation. "I was carrying your daughter out to my car. I didn't have time to stop and lock the door when I don't have a key. Sir."
Ikeobi's gaze slid to meet Hermione's. "Hermione, do you have something you'd like to tell me?"
Hermione felt her panic levels rising higher than the top of her skull. She resisted the massive urge she had to look to Adrian for guidance for the lie.
"I don't know," she whispered. "No."
"Ikeobi, what's wrong?" Jean asked, looking concerned. She moved to the foot of Hermione's bed. "What haven't you told me?"
"I went home before my wife did," Ikeobi said as though she hadn't spoken, and his gaze snapped back to Adrian's. "I drove here in a separate car when you called my phone to tell me that you were taking her to the ER. Then, I called my wife and told her to come. But I went home first."
Hermione swallowed. "Dad, I -"
Ikeobi held up a hand for silence, remaining locked onto Adrian's face. "And I knew my daughter was supposed to be home. So I went up to her room, and found red stains all over her carpet and rug, clothes and things all over the floor, and her lamp knocked over."
In the silence, the only person who moved was Draco. He placed his hands on the railing on the other side of her bed and glowered directly at Adrian.
The tension was rising. Adrian couldn't seem to look anyone in the eye. His lie was unraveling.
For a moment, Hermione wanted to let it happen. She wanted to let him dig his own grave, so her father could rescue her and take her away from him forever.
She wanted him to suffer.
But then she thought about how ashamed she would be if her father knew that she'd been so weak as to let a man walk all over her. How hard that shame would press her down, if Ikeobi knew that she'd let Adrian beat her and rape her and reduce her to a shell of her former self.
How deeply he would frown.
"Someone broke in," Hermione blurted out, drawing every set of eyes in the room. "Someone broke in through my window and attacked me."
July 23rd, 2018
"Hermione?"
Hermione opened her eyes, her head swimming with fog and pain. She looked at the door, where she could see through blurred vision that her mother stood. And she wasn't standing there alone.
A police officer was behind her, towering over her with black hair and deep brown eyes. He wore the familiar black uniform she always saw officers wearing. He stepped past Jean and into the room, removing his hat as he did so.
"Good morning, Hermione," he said, his voice somewhat gruff. "My name is Officer Ramirez, and I wanted to ask you a few questions about what happened to you."
She tensed, feeling nervous. It wasn't just her father that had taught her not to trust the police. The news, history, and her own experiences with being profiled had pounded it into her head. Given the fact that she'd lied to her family to cover for Adrian because of her shame, she didn't want to lie to the police, too.
But her father had insisted they call. And so had her mother. Adrian had thrown in his verbal assent, as well, leaving only Draco to watch her like a beady-eyed hawk.
She hadn't looked at him, not even to say good-bye.
His disappointment was just as terrifying as Ikeobi's.
The nurse that had been at Hermione's side the night before walked into the room after Jean had. She'd had a difficult time getting Hermione's parents to leave after her alarming dropped bombshell, and so had to postpone the blood test and EKG until the current morning.
She spoke to Jean and Hermione. Now that the police officer was here, the tests would have to be pushed out again. They would be administered later in the afternoon.
Great, Hermione had thought, an overwhelming anxiety crashing upon her like a thunderous gust of wind. The longer I'm in here, the longer this IV stays inside my arm. The longer it stays in, the more I'm going to gain.
"Is that all right?" Officer Ramirez asked once the nurse had left, holding his hat in front of him in a gentlemanly manner. "May I speak with you?"
She looked at her mother, who gave her a nod of encouragement that caused her heart to sink deeper into her chest. God, when she found out that Hermione had lied, it was going to be a nightmare. Jean didn't get disappointed. She got angry, and then she got sad.
There was no way Hermione was going to be able to tell the police someone had broken in. They'd want a description of the man, and then they'd go out looking for someone who didn't exist.
And the real culprit would receive no punishment.
"I lied," she blurted out. "Again."
Officer Ramirez's heavy brows furrowed. "Excuse me?"
"Hermione, what are you talking about?" Jean said. "You said that someone broke in and attacked you. Your father is at work, worried sick over this. And you lied?"
Hermione's mind spun, trying to think up a lie to cover up for all of the others. One that would solve the problem of the second lie, by covering up the initial one.
Which better lie to use than Adrian's own?
She began to babble, staring up at the ceiling while fighting back tears of mortification. Her heart monitor was beeping over and over again, and she could feel it fluttering like wings in her chest.
"I did it to myself. I hurt myself - all the time. I'm always bruised because I hit myself, and I - I didn't want anyone to find out. And the - the stairs, I . . . Well, I threw myself down them. I've done it before."
Officer Ramirez's eyebrows shot up.
Jean's hands flew to her mouth. Horror grew in her eyes.
Hermione went on, stammering, "I was - was having a breakdown. I k-knew I was gonna hurt myself, so I told Adrian - my - my boyfriend - to come over. And then I threw myself down them."
The officer looked at her for a long second and then said, "Were you attempting to end your life, Hermione?"
Hermione started to nod, but then stopped herself.
If she had an IV now, what would they do if they thought she was a danger to herself and admitted her to a psychiatric ward?
"No," she said, sitting up in the bed. "
"Well, you know . . . This story vastly conflicts with your father's, and Adrian's. Because I spoke to both of them last evening," Officer Ramirez said.
"You did?"
"I did. The report was filed last night."
Hermione wanted to cry. Everything was so fucked up. She didn't know what to do. It was so twisted now that it was impossible to detangled the threads of falsehood that she'd woven.
"They were lying, too," she said, her voice small.
"Your father would never lie to the police!" Jean hissed. "Hermione. You know how he feels about the -" She hesitated. "Them."
"Were they filing a false report?" the officer asked, looking even more surprised.
"No, no!" Hermione said, her head beginning to pound. She massaged her temples. "No. What I meant was . . . They lied because I lied. The information they gave you was my lie. They don't know the truth."
"And what is the truth?"
"What I just told you!" she cried, throwing a hand up. "That I throw my - myself down stairs."
"Okay," the officer said, and he sounded irritated. He reached into the breast pocket of his uniform shirt and produced a small notepad from within. A pen was pulled from the same pocket, where it had been tucked. "I'll have to add this to the report. You understand that, right?"
"Yes."
"You understand that filing a false police report is a crime, don't you?"
Hermione's eyes filled with tears. She couldn't speak.
Jean stepped forward. "Please, Officer Ramirez. She's been through enough. She'd never lie intentionally. Dr. Lewis said that she has a concussion - I'm sure this behavior is related."
He pursed his lips, looking unconvinced as he wrote words down on the notepad.
"I'd like to speak to the physician, then," he said.
"Then, let's go find him," Jean said, tossing her long braid behind her. With one last disapproving look in Hermione's direction, she ushered Officer Ramirez out of the room.
When the door swung shut, Hermione allowed herself to weep.
Having her blood drawn made Hermione tired.
She slept through the entirety of visiting hours, missing her opportunity to be berated by not just her enraged mother, but her crestfallen father.
After Officer Ramirez came back to lecture the tearful Hermione about the importance of the police department's reporting system, he'd left her with a warning not to take advantage of the police department's time again.
Then, it was Jean's turn to talk to Hermione. She'd expressed to her how not only was she completely embarrassed, but Ikeobi was going to be humiliated. He was terrified of the police, and it had taken a massive amount of pride to walk into the precinct to file that report. Jean had then proceeded to weep, bemoaning Hermione for changing so much that she wasn't the daughter she knew and loved, and she'd promised to call Ikeobi and have him come back to the hospital when he was done working.
The nurse had then come in to administer the tests, so Jean left. A half-hour after the tests, the same nurse returned and switched out Hermione's empty IV bag with a new one.
When Hermione asked in a casual manner how many calories were inside of the bag, the nurse had given her a strange look.
"This is a special solution meant to rehydrate you," she explained. "It has 170 calories per bag."
Hermione felt her fingernails digging into her palm by her hip, where the nurse couldn't see. Her mother had already pressured her to eat a hospital breakfast. It didn't matter that Dr. Lewis had said she was underweight. It didn't matter that she'd gone from 110 to 106 in 5 days, whether it was just water weight or not. It didn't matter that she'd lost 60 pounds in 7 months.
This was Hermione's second bag. That meant that she'd already ingested 170 calories of liquid.
And she was about to ingest 170 more.
"What's in it?" Hermione had asked. Her heart monitor had sped up a bit, drawing the gaze of the nurse, who she thought she was being a little too curious.
"Electrolytes," the nurse said. "Like in Gatorade, but a bit stronger."
After she left, Hermione drifted into a nap after staring at the IV bag until her vision blurred.
She wanted to rip the needle out of her arm.
When she woke, Hermione felt frustration seeping into her bones.
The drip of the IV was loud, each droplet of solution traveling from the bag and down through the tube like a physical pain in her body. It hurt worse than her bruises.
She could feel them inside of her, coalescing in pockets under her skin.
Calories.
Groaning, she rolled onto her other side, pulling the blanket over her head in an attempt to shield herself from the dim-yet-constant fluorescence. It was a nightmare for her headache.
The lights were always on. Why were they always on?
Why would they leave lights that exacerbated headaches on in a hospital room that had a concussed patient? Why wouldn't they just -
She stilled, and her breath caught in her throat.
Draco was curled up in the one armchair the room had. He wore black joggers and a black hoodie, and the hood was up on his head. His bangs fell into his eyes, which were closed in slumber. His arms were crossed over his chest, his legs pulled up onto the seat with him.
In spite of their argument the previous day, he was here.
The shame, anxiety, and sorrow melted from inside of her in an instant. Sleep enveloped her once again.
He was awake when she opened her eyes.
Still curled up in the chair, Draco watched her with half-closed eyes. It was like he was tired, but didn't want to fall asleep without looking at her first. Like he thought she might disappear if he did.
"You're staring," Hermione said, her voice a throaty whisper.
He sat up. "You're awake?"
Hermione's lips quirked upward. "Yes, creeper."
"How are you?" he said, leaving the chair to come stand beside her bed. The fact that he didn't acknowledge her joke made her feel a bit embarrassed, but she stuffed it deep inside of her.
"I'm okay," she said. "Sore. Bruised. But okay."
He made a low humming sound, and then he placed a hand on her hairline, his fingers sinking into the fluffy parts of her curls. His gaze flickered all over her face and for a moment, she thought he might lean down to kiss her.
If he did, she'd let him.
"You threw yourself down the stairs, huh?"
Hermione averted her eyes from his.
She couldn't lie to Draco. Not anymore.
It was better to say nothing at all.
"Hermione, I'm here because I care about you," he said. "You know that, right?"
"Yes," she whispered, and something about his words tugged at the other dark things she'd stuffed inside of her. The things that she kept hidden, because if she didn't, she feared she would drown.
"Tell me the truth."
"There is no truth."
"Yes," he said as he leaned over her, "there is. And I need to hear you say it. Tell me the truth."
Her throat felt like someone was squeezing it, wrenching it out of her neck. Tears filled her eyes, overflowing and dripping down her cheeks. Draco wiped them away, and then he wiped away the ones she shed to replace them.
His touch hurt, too.
"I can't," she whispered, closing her eyes.
"You can, Pixie," he whispered, she felt him kissing her temple. His thumb caressed her forehead with tenderness.
She continued to cry silently.
There was nothing Draco could do to help her. There was nothing anyone could do to help. Adrian was willing to put her in the hospital to keep her from leaving him. He was willing to lie to the police.
What if Draco confronted him, and got hurt?
"Just tell me what really happened, and I can take care of it," he murmured, his voice promising something she'd only dreamed of. "Tell me the truth."
Like everything Draco said, she believed him. And because she was weak, exhausted, and tired of fighting, she let her walls tumble down.
"It was him," she said. "It was Adrian."
Draco's fingers twitched against her scalp, but his face never lost its calm, compassionate expression. "What did Adrian do?"
A heavy ball sat in her throat, but she forced herself to speak past it, pushing the damning words out and condemning her boyfriend to his brother. And once she managed to break through the barrier, the words just kept tumbling outward with the same zeal as she would at a cheer competition.
"He beats me. He's been beating me since a couple months after we got together. He gets angry and tells me that I'm a slut, or says racist things to me. He treats me like shit because he wants me to know how worthless he thinks I am, and he tells me that he's the only person who will ever want me or love me. He cut all of my hair off and told me that I reminded him of your guys' mother, and I just - I just don't understand what I did to make him hate me so much. What did I do? What did I do, Draco?"
"No, no," Draco said with a crestfallen face. "Shh-shh-shh. You didn't do anything wrong. You don't understand. Our family is - Nevermind. There's no excuse. You didn't do anything wrong. You are perfect."
Hermione continued to babble, her panic refusing to allow her to stop.
"He hits me and he sneaks into my window and he tells everyone lies about me. He punched me and he beats me with his fists while we're driving. He tells me everything is my fault - that I make him angry, and that if I stopped making him feel that way, then we could go back to the way it was before.
"I tried to break up with him in June, Draco. I fucking tried, and he came into my room and he - he - he hurt me, and beat me again. He told Ginny and Hannah that I was pregnant and had an abortion? An abortion, Draco! It's outta pocket. It's outta pocket. It's -"
"Shh," Draco urged, his fingernails scraping through her curls again. "Don't panic. Just take a deep breath."
She tried, the air stuttering on its way into her lungs.
"Was he there waiting when I drove off?"
"I think so," she said. "He said he was a few houses down."
"Why was he so angry?"
Hermione knew it was pointless to tell him the whole story. By the look in his eyes, she had a feeling he already knew what triggered Adrian's outburst.
"The video on your Instagram."
"Fuck." Draco turned his head, and she could see him shaking. "Fuck. I'm so fucking livid."
She laid there, weeping silent tears and feeling guilty for not fighting hard enough.
"Did he do anything else to you?" Draco's voice had taken on a sharp, growling edge.
She opened her mouth, prepared to tell him that yes, Adrian had been essentially forcing her to sleep with him for months, but the words felt like claws were holding them back. What if Draco heard the truth, and then felt disgusted by her? What if he felt disgusted by the fact that she'd allowed herself to be used that way?
The shame would be too much to bear.
"No," she lied.
And then she shattered.
Dissolving into mortifying sobs, Hermione could only lay there as the emotions swirled together and rendered her boneless. She only briefly registered shock as Draco got onto the bed beside her, lying down and wrapping her up in his arms with his hand cupping the back of her head. He whispered apologies into her hair while her tears soaked the neckline of his hoodie.
She'd never felt like this before.
She'd never felt like anyone cared.
"I'm gonna take care of it," Draco kept saying. "You've been so strong, but I'm gonna take care of it."
PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW
Want to subscribe to email updates from me about the trilogy?
honeysweetwriting dot com
Want to connect with me and talk to me?
Honeysweetwriting on Facebook