"I hate you, too." - Draco Malfoy Fanfic

Chapter 23

"We loved with a love that was more than love."

-Edgar Allan Poe.

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His dreams were slow and confusing and forced him into a bewildered state of consciousness each time he awoke during the night. He would reach for her--for that body that was not there. One night with her. One night and it was already so unbearable to sleep without her warmth beside him. How had sleep become so unnatural? How had his solitude become a thing of isolation and not comfort--when normally he was so content in his own company?

And so Draco climbed from the dark sheets of his bed and rummaged though his wardrobe for his stash of canvases and paint supplies. He pulled out the oily black shades of her lashes, the dark browns of her hair, the greens of her eyes and the pinks of her lips. Then he painted and painted and painted. Impulsive, reckless, audacious, greedy.

Those words had been engraved into his mind since the moment she had uttered them. The sweetness of her voice had caressed his ears into compulsion so that no other sound did not bring him back to that delicious memory. His mind was so filled with her that he feared he could no longer call it his own. 

Draco did not care for the paint that splattered onto his carpet. He did not care if his father would see it. He cared about nothing beyond the stroke of paint on his white canvas. He would not stop until it was so consumed by her--until he had poured her out of his head and could think of something, anything beyond her. 

He still felt the warmth of her velvety-black dress beneath his fingertips. He could still see that lovely brown hair that had been lifted to expose her sensual neck. She was so enticing he had barely controlled himself as she had spoken those words. Impulsive, reckless, audacious, greedy. 

But then she had slipped away from him, right before he had almost made the most foolish decision of his existence. Her eyes had flickered to a waiter holding a tray of gnocchi. Pasta, she had sounded so pleasantly surprised--and yet, Draco didn't need to see the way she pinched her hair, the way she twisted it between her fingers to know she had lied--to know she had planned to escape him in that moment. 

He knew the game that she played. He knew that she had been teasing him until she'd realised just how far they'd almost gone. Still, he was glad for it, even now. And yet, subconsciously he wished that maybe that moment had of gone in a different direction. That maybe this cat and mouse game could finally come its end. He'd done his best to avoid these thoughts, but it had grown increasingly more difficult. 

Especially as she spoke with so much intellect, so much grace. Especially when she was so cold, so cruel, so cunning and yet she was so filled with life and elegance. He'd thought a great deal on the image of her hands tangled in her hair, of her knees tucked against her chest, of the coffee she drank so regularly. 

How was it that she drank so much coffee and yet was unable to finish a simple glass of alcohol. Merlin, Draco hated her father. He remembered the displeasure on her face as Levi had poured her drink to the top. He had been watching her, even then. Draco knew as well as Eden did that Levi was unaware of her background and could not be blamed for pouring so much, but still Draco hated him in that moment for making Eden so uncomfortable. 

He remembered the way she kept picking it up and swirling it around, the way she kept sniffing it and setting it down. She'd wanted to drink it, but that fear of becoming like her father lurked within. So Draco had drank the rest of it for her--so that she could be free of that temptation. 

Impulsive, reckless, audacious, greedy. He could have sat there for hours and listened to her name every single word in the English language that he invoked in her. Then he could have sat there for even longer as she translated those words into other languages.