Untreated Wounds | Sirius Black

Chapter 26

God, I wish I'd never lied to him that night at the Astronomy Tower – I wish I'd just told him that I loved him. I was just trying to protect him... I thought I'd be better off on my own. I mean, I'd been alone all my life, what made that moment any different? It didn't matter, only that I was wrong.

I was sick of being on my own. Sure, I didn't want to be held but I didn't want to be alone. No one had come downstairs yet and I knew that it was because I'd been mean and nasty – I was getting what I deserved – I was driving away people that only wanted to help me – of course, they were going to leave me down there alone.

Still, it hurt.

It was cold and dark and I was all alone in a living room that wasn't mine and I'd never felt so alone. So completely and utterly alone; I'd become nothing but a stranger to everyone I knew. 

After a while, I listened to Lily's light footsteps treading down the stairwell, "May I join you?" She whispered,

I nodded, chewing on the inside of my cheek as she took a seat beside me on the couch, "What happened, Lil?"

I was silent and I stared at my hands, I couldn't even look at her, "Am I hard to love?"

"Why would you ask that?" Lily asked me,

I shrugged, refusing to remove my eyes from my hands, "I don't know. I... I guess I just realized."

"Did Sirius say something?" She asked abruptly.

I finally looked over at her and nodded. "Said he was happy I never loved him back. That Mary was easy to love and I never was. I mean he's right. I love Mary, she is so easy to love. I don't know why I'm upset about it. I mean it's the truth. But I didn't think I was hard to love."

Lily was silent.

The silence told me a lot. The silence shattered my already breaking heart.

I wished I could've shaken it off. But it didn't. Because from eleven years old I realized my parents didn't love me as they should've. They didn't owl me and tell me they were proud. They didn't welcome me home nor did they tell me they loved me. It was then, at eleven years old I realized I was the problem. That I was the unloveable one and it wasn't that they didn't love me.

But Regulus made me feel loved. Like I always had someone to turn to. Someone I could run to. Someone who could make me smile. But it was Sirius who made me ignite. Who made me feel loved like something I'd never imagined. But maybe he forced himself to love me. Maybe that feeling I got when I was around him was only in my head. That he found it tiring to be around me. Because I was a hard person to love.

Maybe Elliot hit me because of my unlovability. Because it was too hard for him to actually love me so he instead took out his anger. If that made any sense. I thought I deserved to be hit. Because I thought he loved me. And sometimes I deserved it.

But when someone grows up without the love and affection deserved it fucks with their head. When Elliot hit me the first time he choked and shoved me. The stinging sensation stung tears in my eyes and I stood stunned. But he apologized. He said he was sorry. My father never apologized so I thought it was okay. He could hit me but he'd apologize afterward. Looking back I should've realized sooner. That I should've left. But I was a fool in love. I seemed to be a fool when it came to love.

Being hard to love was like some evil curse.

Being hard to love felt like a disease. Except you didn't know what disease and you didn't know what to do to cure it.

It leaves you questioning. It leaves you watching your every move because what if it made you harder to love? Why was I hard to love? How wasn't I hard to love?