Things Change

Chapter Four

It had been a week since Harry's visit and he hadn't seen him since, which was how Ron preferred it. It was great to see Harry again, but Ron still wanted to remain anonymous, he continued to want to be shut out from his family. Harry was wrong. His family wouldn't understand. Not what he did. Seven years, Ron suffered through the nightmares of that evening, the pain he suffered when he realized that it was his father he killed. The pain of that evening hurt him so much, that several times he had a large knife up to his wrists, slicing through the skin deeply. Slicing his skin made him feel better. It didn't hurt. It felt good. So he continued to do it. Sometimes when he cut himself, he would lay on his bed, planning to bleed to death. It would serve him right for doing that terrible thing. But part of him didn't want to die, so he would always get up right after he lay down, and run his cut under cold water, washing the blood away and bandaging his wrists up. He had to wear long sleeve shirts that covered his wrists so his family and friends wouldn't know what he was doing, and since that was summer time, it was hell wearing those shirts. He continued cutting himself until the day he ran away, two weeks after his father's death. He hadn't cut himself in nearly seven years, but he still had the scars on his wrists, which was a reminder of that dreadful evening.

Ron sighed. He was sitting in the office counting the money that lay in his till. It was the start of another work morning. He usually liked to work, even though he didn't like his job that much. Working, no matter what kind of work it is, gets his mind off of things. But today...he just didn't want to do anything. He woke up this morning, after having a nightmare, in a sweat and crying. All he wanted to do was stay home and mope. But, he had to work. He only had one day off this week, and that wasn't until Friday. He was also trying to "change his attitude" as Frank had said because he did want the promotion, but he didn't think it was working.

Ron had finished counting the money and got up from the desk, till in hand, and made his way out of the office and into the store. As he headed up towards his register, he noticed Frank talking to a girl Ron had never seen before. Ron thought she was pretty cute. Not beautiful, but cute. She had shoulder-length straight brown hair, nice, small glasses that covered her brown eyes and she was a bit on the chubby side. Ron noticed that she wore the store uniform, which are khaki pants and a navy blue polo shirt with the initials "SVVC" (South Vale Video Centre) embroidered on the upper right.

Ron silently opened his register and placed the till inside. "Ron!" He heard Frank say cheerfully. "Come here and meet our new employee"

Ron walked over to where Frank was standing with this new girl. Frank smiled at both of them and began the introductions. "Ron, this is Christy Richards. Christy, this is Ron Weasley, one of my best employees"

Christy smiled at him "Hi Ron!" she said holding out her hand.

Ron took her hand and shook it. "Hi Christy, welcome"

"Ron?" Frank asked. "Could you please train her? I've got a few things to do in the office. Go ahead and show her around the store before we open up. Then once we're open you can help her with the register"

Ron nodded. "Sure" he said.

Frank disappeared into the office. Ron looked at Christy, who was looking back at him, smiling, seemingly waiting for him to begin the tour of the store. He was a bit nervous as he's never trained anyone before. So, he just did what Frank told him to do. He showed her around the store, explaining a few things. He was just showing her how to straighten up the videos, which Ron always thought was weird, but Frank liked them straightened a ceratin way. He was reaching up, straigtening up some videos, which were a bit messy, explaining it to her when she asked "Ron? What happened to your wrists?" She sounded a bit concerned.

Ron flinched at her question. These damn polo shirts he had to wear to work had short sleeves, so he couldn't hide the scars. But he also didn't want to explain his problems to a complete stranger. He just met this girl and while she seems nice enough, he didn't know her well enough to trust her yet. Plus, why would she care about his problems?

"Oh, umm" Ron said. "An accident I had a while back. Never got rid of the scars"

Christy nodded. "I'm studying psychology at college. I've been studying mental behaviors. Those look suspiciously like knife wounds"

"Yeah, it was a knife that did it" Ron said.

"And you seem a bit.....sad" Christy told him. "Did you do that to yourself?"

Ron closed his eyes for a bit, then re-opened them and continued explaining things to Christy, ignoring her questions. Ron thought that it was really none of her business and he didn't think he needed to explain anything to her.

Ron looked at his watch and noticed it was 10am. "Time to open up" He told Christy and walked to the front doors to unlock them. She followed behind and touched him on the shoulder. He flinched again at her touch. "I'm sorry" she said. "I didn't mean to upset you"

Ron just nodded. "It's okay" he said, moving away from the door as a customer walked in.

"No, it's not" Christy went on. "I shouldn't have bothered you like that. It's just that I see those kinds of wounds and I get worried. When I finish college, I want to help people with their problems, especially if they have suicidal tendencies, and when I saw your wounds...." she trailed off. "Anyway, I'm sorry if I brought up a touchy subject"

"I said it was okay" Ron told her.

The customer obviously found what she was looking for awful quickly because she was waiting to be waited on in front of Ron's till.

The subject was dropped as Ron waited on the customer, showing Christy what to do.

For the rest of the day, no other mention of Ron's scars were said, and Ron was happy about that. He just wanted to forget about them.

Chapter Five up soon