Malignant ••• George Weasley

Chapter 23 - Bad Day

A single, silent tear slid down Juna's downcast face. She remained on the floor from when her knees had buckled beneath her. It wasn't even 9:30am and this was shaping up to be one of the shittest days of her life. First her father had struck her harder than she could ever recall, splitting her lip badly and blackening her eye so severely her eye was beginning to swell shut. Then the one person she felt she could count on, the one person she had opened up to and was vulnerable with, the person she was falling for... She saw him with another woman.

She felt stupid. Stupid for being so trusting with her feelings, but also stupid for being so upset. They weren't together, they weren't exclusive. George had every right to see other people, even still - there was no evidence they were anything but friends. His hand was only on her knee, that didn't necessarily mean anything. But it made her mind go blank and she saw nothing but red, she had never had the life experience to handle something like this. She didn't know how to deal with it, or George, healthily and like a proper reasonable adult.

This feeling in her chest was new to her. It was a type of pain she hadn't experienced before, not when Audrey died, not when her mother died, not when she thought about how her own father hated her, not being injured - none of it. It was a squeezing ache that made her breathless, it was a sense of worthlessness and nothingness. It was heartbreak. The kind only felt after being hurt by a lover, and this was the first time Juna had ever felt it. It overwhelmed her and made her want to wail and punch something simultaneously.
Heartbreak may make most people irrational, assume the worst and not listen to reason, turns out Juna happened to be one of those people.

Between the narrowing vision caused by the swelling and the brimming of tears threatening to splash to the ground, she could hardly see a thing, but she could hear. She could hear a faint pop - the tell tale sign that someone had just apparated into the vicinity. It came from her bedroom.

"If you dare show me your face, I will curse you." Her voice was steady and low, but loud enough for anyone in this flat to hear.

"Juna, please let me explain-" George's desperate voice came from the room down the hall.

Juna rose shakily from the ground and pulled her wand from the waistband of her leggings, holding it out in front of her. George hadn't shown himself yet, clearly too nervous and frightened.

"Who the fuck do you think you are apparating into my home?" She growled.

"I know you're upset, but she's no one, I promise she's no one!" His voice shook, almost making her feel pity for him. Almost.

"It hasn't even been 10 hours since you were on a date with me, since you were kissing me, since you were fucking me, and you're already slutting around with someone else? What kind of asshole are you!?"

Silence followed her words for a few moments, only solidifying to Juna that her suspicions were right making her feel dangerous - it was beyond reason.
George slowly popped his head around her bedroom door frame with his hands raised as a white flag, his face was pale and his red hair ruffled.

"Juna, if you can let me explain, I never meant to hurt you. I'm telling the truth, she's nobody!"

"Get out."

"What?"

"Get. Out." She snarled, raising her wand ready to strike.

She had plenty of practice pushing away feelings and cocooning herself in her own mind when she was ordered to attack and hurt people for work. She could do it now too, she was trained to be a shell, a machine, a tool for the MIU. She hated it but perhaps that's all she was or ever could be.
George had broken all that down briefly, she had dropped her guard, but she needed to get back to that.