The next few days were, to put it simply, hell.
Liv had started vomiting every morning, and had become a walking zombie. She barely talked, and when she did it was quietly and briefly.
I was worried, but I couldn't think of anything I could do to make her get her shit together and confront both her parents and Louis, and decide what she was going to do with her life. The only thing I was good at, apparently, was being a large version of a handkerchief, as Liv cried every night, and used my pajamas to wipe her nose with.
Don't get me wrong, I was there for Liv, and she knew she always had my support, but seeing her be so out of control when she was normally the one who always knew what to do was stressing me out.
Also, my mom's death anniversary was nearing, and I needed to figure out how to sneak out to go visit her grave. Normally I would wait until a Hogsmeade weekend, but this year I felt like I needed to go exactly on the right day.
As if all that wasn't enough, James had spent all week pestering me about what was going on, and even though I tried to hide from him, he always managed to find me somehow. Plus, it's kind of difficult to hide from someone you sit next to in class.
So it was no wonder, really, that on that morning I was feeling quite stressed and short tempered as I finished a Charms essay I'd forgotten about during breakfast. And Liv playing with her food without eating any of it was only making me even more cranky.
I finally ended up pointing my quill threateningly at her and telling her to "eat the fucking omelet before I shoved it up her pregnant arse."
I swear a lot when I'm cranky. So I swear a lot always.
Liv rolled her eyes, but took a bite of the omelet anyways. I smirked at her grumbling, but it faded when I saw James walk towards us. I quickly started putting everything in my bag, but I wasn't fast enough. He stood in front of me, running his fingers through his hair.
"Hey, are you okay? I'm worr-"
"James, I can't talk right now, sorry" I interrupted, trying to be gentle, before shouldering my bag and briskly walking away.
-o0o-
I sighed in relief when I heard the bell ring. The last class of the day, Defense, was finally over. I practically ran out. Liv had had some sort of panic attack in the beginning of class, and the crappy teacher hadn't even let me go with her to the Hospital Wing. Plus, Louis and Potter had both seen it, and looked worried.
I pushed the doors open, and rushed to Liv's side. She was curled up in a ball, her hands holding the sheets loosely, and tear tracks still visible on her cheeks. She looked fast asleep, so I assumed that she had had a Calming Draught. Not seeing the nurse anywhere, I climbed into the bed beside her, and ran my fingers through her hair, slowly combing out the knots.
I was still doing this when I heard the door creak open, and I looked up to see Deer-boy, closely followed by James and Frodo.
All three of them looked uncharacteristically serious as they sat down beside the bed. Louis slowly reached over to wipe his thumb over Liv's cheek, and I instinctively looked away, feeling like that small gesture was too intimate to look at.
I locked eyes with James, who furrowed his eyebrows slightly, silently asking me what was going on.
I shook my head, and looked down at Liv's hair, as I started running my fingers through it again.
"So what's going on?" Frodo suddenly asked way to loudly. James hushed him, and I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Okay, okay" he whispered. "But what's going on?"
I looked down at my fingers in Liv's hair again, feeling three pairs of eyes on me. My eyes moved to Liv's face, and I suddenly could only feel raw anger, because she didn't deserve to go through this, not with everything that had already happened to her.
"You'll find out soon enough." I snapped at them as I climbed out of the bed and wiped imaginary dirt off my skirt, before picking up my bag and knocking on the nurse's office door.
"Hello, Miss Malfoy" She said tiredly when she saw me. I smiled politely at her, but I was still angry. So, so angry.
"I'm sorry to disturb you. Madam, I just wanted to know when Liv is going to wake up?"
"I gave her a pretty strong Sleeping Draught, so she probably won't wake up until early in the morning."
I nodded again and thanked her, before rushing out, leaving the three boys behind me.
As soon as the doors closed, I let out a short scream of frustration, and punched the wall beside me as hard as I could. And then I punched it again, and again.
The sight of blood on my knuckles made me snap back to reality, and I quickly walked away, head held high (as always) but shoulders slumped.
Of course, it was then, when I was in my worst moment that Anna Schmidt decided to tap my shoulder impatiently.
Anna Smith was one of Liv's many acquaintances. She was a Hufflepuff, and one of the most irritating, fake and frivolous girl to ever live. So I had a right to hate her, really. And I had a right to snap at her when she acted all concerned and worried as she asked me "how poor Liv was holding up".
"Oh please, Schmidt. Don't even act as if you care. We all know that the only thing you care about is the size of your boobs."
She gasped in outrage. Oops.
And then she slapped me and pulled at my hair. Ouch.
So I logically hexed her so that her hair turned into spaghettis.
I stormed away then, vaguely hearing her screams and shrieks behind me. Ah, sweet satisfaction. Of course, it hadn't been enough to get rid of my anger, but it had made me feel slightly better.
The feeling disappeared, however, when I felt yet another hand on my shoulder. Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!
I turned around to see Potter looking at me intently. I wanted to scream, but managed to contain myself and instead simply glare at him instead.
"Listen, Rebeckah. I just-" I could hear the concern interlaced in his voice, and it irritated me.
"Potter. I will say this one last time. Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone." I practically growled. "Do you understand me?"
He sighed, running his hand through his hair. "I just want to help you."
"I don't need your help, and I don't want your help, so go back to moping about your oh-so-sad life and how you're oh-so-painfully rich and famous and leave me alone." I knew as soon as I said it that it was an unnecessarily man thing to say, but I was annoyed, okay?
He took a step back, a flash of hurt in his eyes. "Fine. I'll leave you alone, since you're so completely incapable of trusting anyone."
"Good. Go tell your Daddy about how I don't trust you. Maybe he can buy you another friend?"
"Too bad that you can't do the same, because your Daddy left you."
Thing were getting ugly. And fast. All the deep, dark secrets we had learned about each other during our short friendship were pouring out. And like I said, it wasn't pretty. But, for some reason we weren't stopping.
"At least I show people who I really am, instead of faking everything just so people will like me."
"You're just jealous because I don't have your trust issues, and can actually open up to people."
"You just don't know what having real problems feels like, because YOU'VE ALWAYS HAD EVERYTHING YOU WANTED."
"WELL YOU ARE JUST AN INSECURE BITCH"
"WELL YOU'RE JUST A SCARED GIT"
"WELL YOU'RE JUST A FAT COW"
I recoiled suddenly, my eyes suddenly stinging with held back tears. Fat. Fat.
James had just called me fat, and it didn't matter that I had said all those horrible things before. It didn't matter that I had made him angry. It didn't matter that we were surrounded by people, who were hanging onto our every word. It didn't matter that he was standing there, completely frozen and mouth open in horror because of what he had done. What mattered was that I had trusted James, that I had opened up to him, and he had said I was fat. That meant that I was fat.
I ran. I ran before I broke.
AN: Heyyy, I'm finally back, I'm soo soo sorry for not uploading this earlier, I've just been very very busy. Thank you so much to Fionamoi for your review, I swear I started dancing when I when I read it.
Anyways, thanks for reading, darlings. You're beautiful and lovely and gorgeous and I hope you have a wonderful day.
Byee