Tainted Love

Letting Go

IRIS

There are worse things than feelings unreturned, but Iris felt like there might not be.

She had kept it together back at Draco's. It was not the first time she had confessed feelings for him. This time her confessions were worded more like commands. She was no longer begging to have him - she was telling him what he needed to do if he wanted to have her.

But she still felt like shit about it.

Things hit her at once when she returned to her apartment. All of this and she didn't have anyone anymore. Draco had never been hers and Theodore hadn't been hers for a long time. She sat down on her couch and stared at her wand on the table and wanted to cry.

The truth was that, as strong as she made herself out to be, Draco had seen her weak. She couldn't remember anything that happened after she left the bathroom at the Leaky Cauldron. She definitely wasn't walking right, she was probably slurring her words.

It upset Iris that Draco had been allowed to see her like that. He had to hold her up. They were in the shower together. She told him that things with Theodore were fake and that all she had wanted in the end was him.

She had tried to kiss him, but he didn't let her. She supposed she should be glad of the fact that he hadn't kissed her when she was blacked out, but all she could think about was how she must have felt in that moment.

Iris didn't remember it now but she could almost picture it. She had probably been so confused. She wanted to cry on behalf of that version of herself, slightly younger and twice as naive. Drunk and tired and surrounded by Draco, who had taken her apart so many times before and was inexplicably trying to put her back together now.

What had he said to her? What was he telling her between her confessions? Iris wouldn't have told him so much if he hadn't said a word to her, if he had been cruel to her.

She ended up in his bed. Not touching him at all. His black blanket draped over her body. He smelled so good, like nighttime. She wondered how his smell could be so comforting for her when it usually constituted anger, lust, passion.

He still had the wash of morning on him when they argued. He looked so fucking perfect all the time. His hair was sort of messy. He had his chin tilted down slightly so that he had to look through a few loose strands to meet her eyes. His eyelashes cut his irises off. He clenched his jaw when she spoke sometimes, or angled his face away from her.

His hand on her arm. Cold skin even after sleep. He didn't have his rings on - they were piled on one of the bedside tables.

She knew by looking at him, by hearing him, that things had changed. Her feelings weren't unrequited. She realized that now and knew that he did too.

But they might as well be. He'd never do anything about them.

Iris didn't end up crying. She brought her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them and closed her eyes. She felt very small and pitiful, like a child. She didn't want to look at herself in the mirror because she didn't want to see herself the way Draco had seen her.

Work came on Monday and Iris wondered if he would speak to her. They had been speaking lately, just to exchange notes. If Iris hadn't forced him to, they wouldn't be speaking at all.

She hadn't forced him to, though. She had just suggested it.

Draco would never ask Iris to speak, even if he wanted to. He couldn't stand the possibility of being rejected by her. Iris supposed she had learned how to be rejected by Draco by now. She was conditioned to it.