A/N: yes, this is marked complete. yes, sometimes i decide to add stuff to it.
Hermione's POV
This chapter is painful so like, proceed with caution ya know?
"Draco?" Hermione whispered into the darkness as he lay next to her in her small bed, in her small flat, in her small life.
"Mmm," he murmured, fringe falling across his face where he lay on his stomach, one arm thrown across her torso.
Hermione could hear the pulse in her ears as she thought over the last month. The last year. She swallowed, staring at the ceiling and drawing upon the deepest reserves of dignity to force the words through her teeth. "I can't do this anymore."
She felt him stiffen next to her. "Hermione—" he began, the panic lacing through every syllable.
"No." She couldn't let him finish; she barely had the strength to start. "I thought when things ended with Astoria, everything would get better."
"But they did!" He sat up, turning to face her with his eyes blown wide in fear, but it was too late. "Hermione, it's all above board now. Everyone knows about you."
"Not your mother."
He winced. They'd had this fight before.
Hermione sighed. "I told you last month that this...thing you have with Pansy...that it was going to hurt us."
Draco's face turned red. "That's not fair. We agreed to be non-monogamous. We always have been."
"It doesn't change the fact that you hurt me for a year!" Her temper was rising with his, and with every word she could feel him slipping through her fingers. But she knew she had to stop holding on so tight. "I told you that the idea of you already adding other people into the mix was going to hurt me. I understand why you wanted to do it. I understand that you think I shouldn't feel hurt—"
His lips pursed. "I did everything you asked for. I made sure she knew about us, I told you about it upfront, I didn't leave you, Hermione—"
"I begged you to wait, Draco. I told you how it made me feel, how it felt like I was tearing myself apart just because you felt like maybe you wanted to have her in your life too. I told you I felt—"
"Your feelings are not the only ones that matter! Pansy had expectations, I—I had expectations."
Hermione closed her eyes slowly and let the tears fall. He wasn't wrong. He hadn't signed up for this, and he and Hermione had agreed that if they wanted to see another partner, they just needed to be honest about it. Hermione didn't like that she imploded at the first test of it. She didn't like feeling insecure. She didn't like wondering if he had lied to her, done more than they'd agreed to. And she didn't really believe that he had. She trusted him, and she didn't. She felt safe with him, and she didn't. The cognitive dissonance was nauseating and every second that she wasn't crying she was processing how actually things had felt quite okay and she didn't mind him seeing Pansy, right before she was back to bending over the toilet bowl with anxiety. She wanted this for them, she wanted them to be able to live the lifestyle they wanted and not be in pain. She wanted to be the logical one. She wanted him. She always wanted him.
You deserve this. You deserve this for what you did to Astoria.
She didn't know if it was true, but it certainly felt that way.
Hermione breathed in. "It was an entire year, Draco. A year. A year of broken trust and broken agreements and broken expectations, and I begged you to give us a fighting chance. To let us heal and work on us. We'd barely had any time at all for things to feel normal and then you..." she trailed off. "I told you I was in pain. I told you that I didn't feel secure. I wasn't asking you to wait forever, I just...wanted a second to breathe without having to process even more people."
He looked like he was trying to swallow his anger. "That's not fair. We made a compromise, you can't hold this against me."
She shrugged, a sad smile pulling against the need to cry. "None of this has been fair. I'm not blaming you for where we are. It's my fault too. But I told you this might happen. I didn't do it on purpose, and I'd change it if I could...but I can't." She took another breath. "I can't do this anymore."
"But—"
"I'm tired of crying when you're not around," she hurried on, wincing as her voice broke over the last word. "I'm tired of my heart hurting. I feel so stupid because I felt so happy for the first time in ages. I really loved getting to spend that time with you the last few months. But I'm tired. I'm tired. I have always settled for accepting whatever you can give, but nothing more, but I can't do that anymore. I needed you to fix us, and you couldn't see past your own desires. You couldn't understand my pain."
He had scrambled into a kneeling position next to her, chest heaving with each breath. "Granger, please. I…I love you."
Hermione closed her eyes again as the tears fell fast and hard from the corners down the sides of her face. "Did you know you only say that to me when you think I might leave?" She opened her eyes and tried not to let her voice crack. "I love you so much, Draco, and I wanted something with you here. But," she bit her lip, not wanting to hurt him, but the damage was done. He'd seen to that. "But this is broken, and it's breaking me with it."
Her lip trembled as she lifted her hand to cup his cheek, but he flinched away from her. She watched the Occlumency shields fall into place and knew he was truly lost to her now. All of the moments they'd shared—even amongst the pain—every good memory came flooding back to her and her throat tightened. She didn't want to let him go. She wanted him to choose her, to choose them. But she couldn't save them alone.
She sighed, and it was the painful sigh of resignation. Hermione stood and grabbed her robe, slowly moving towards the bathroom. She knew when she returned, he would be gone.
