Paras
Me

The holey heart of it all.

Spiraling Again | Lee 

He’d let her in. 

Stupid, stupid… He couldn’t even think the words at this point. He’d allowed his walls to fall if not for just a second, and he’d let her in, and now… How could she just…

After watching the note shrivel and burn on the floor, he snuffed out the embers with the sole of his shoe and twisted his foot over it, breathing rather hard through his nose. He still hadn’t opened his mouth since he came up to the room, mostly in fear that if he did, he would wind up screaming.

He wanted to scream.

More than almost anything, he wanted to just scream.

Tossing his wand on his bed, he reached up a hand and shagged his fingers through his hair, completely ruining the stupid slicked-back style he’d fussed over, no longer caring if it covered his no-ear. No longer caring if he looked good enough. There was no one he needed to impress.

He’d honestly just wanted to impress her. Just a little bit, as petty as it was.

No point. He clearly wasn’t good enough, regardless. He wasn’t good enough for her to bother staying the whole night, tell him in person, explain it in a way that wouldn’t rip whatever was left of his heart straight past the brittle bones that encased it. He wasn’t worth at least an explanation… 

He crouched down and opened the trunk at the foot of his bed, single handed, as the other was still clutching the pointed fox charm, the chain swinging from between his fingers. He’d come up to this room for a purpose, and that purpose be damned. 

He dug around for the bottles he’d decided to retrieve, with the original intent to mingle them with the punch bowl in the Great Hall, and the newfound desire to simply down them himself. 

She would tell him not to do it. Lee would tell him not to. Everyone he could think of would tell him to take a step back and relax, but he didn’t care. Reason was lost, and the knowledge that she’d decided to just… leave. She lied. She lied, and then sprung this on him out of nowhere, she…She said she was just going to the bathroom, she’d be back soon, back at the ball that he didn’t even want to go to, that he only went to because of her—

He grabbed onto the neck of one of the bottles and held it between his chest and his forearm, using his free hand to wrench the cork out of the top. The first time he’d bothered to open his mouth was to bring the bottle to his lips and tip it back.