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

Chapter 33

Let me glimpse inside your velvet bones

-Edgar Allan Poe

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At this point, Eden though glumly, I'm just delaying the inevitable. 

Faye, Luna, Theo and Pansy all knew--and Eden suspected more--though she had only outright told Luna. Francesca's head was in the clouds and perfectly ignorant of Eden and Draco's relationship, but it was Levi that Eden worried about. 

She wasn't entirely sure why she was treating the news that she and Draco were official as though it were some world-altering event. Well, I suppose it significantly altered my own world, was her attempts to justify it.

It was just that Levi was so.... Levi. Francesca, she'd have no problem telling. The only issue was that Francesca couldn't keep a secret, which meant the moment she found out--the whole school, including Levi, found out, too. It wasn't entirely Francesca's fault, she supposed. She just could never grasp the importance of keeping secrets. 

"Do you sometimes get upset with me when you remember I'm making you keep quiet about us?" Eden asked suddenly and Draco let out an exasperated sigh, pulling a cigarette from a small box that was tucked away in his pocket. Eden immediately snatched it up and tossed it into a pot plant beneath the balcony, glaring at it the whole way down until it landed with a little thud. "Eden." Draco ran a hand down his face in frustration. "I rolled that myself."

"You'll regret ever laying a finger on them when you're forty. If you make it to then." Eden eyed him. Draco didn't smoke very often. He had lessened the density of smoke in his lungs since meeting Eden. It had been for show before, but now it was just something he did for the sake of it--when he remembered cigarettes existed. 

"So that's what it is, then." Draco muttered, referring to her question from earlier. Eden had been simmering over the thought all day and Draco had been trying and trying to weasel it out of her. "It doesn't upset me, Eden. I understand. And besides, as much as I'd love to show my beautiful lover off to all of England--" He reached over to wrap an arm around her waist from behind as she leaned over the balcony--"I also know how Levi will take it, and it's better not to kick a man who's already down. Whether he's aware that he's on the ground, or not." He added bitterly. 

"Lover?" Eden raised a brow. "Someones been reading my romance novels." She teased and he pinched her side, earning a yelp of surprise. They had been sitting out on the balcony of Edens apartment for a couple of hours now, watching the snow land on the rooftops and pavement below--perfectly contempt in their gentle kisses and whispered conversation. 

It had been a sort of mind exercise for Eden. She hadn't been on since her fathers death, and had decided she wanted to move past her fear of them. She was taking it surprisingly well and had approached the edge after a short thirty minutes of eyeing it warily. No panic attacks, no playing with her hair. Nothing. She was overtaken with a strange sense of calmness. Clarity. 

Vivian, Edens mother, was inside cooking up a storm. 'Only the best for my love's love.' She had told them when Eden had asked why she was fretting so much over dinner. Though fret was something Vivian did so regularly it shouldn't have come as a surprise at all. 

In fact, much to Draco's confusion and delight, she had been fretting over him since he walked in the door this morning. A bouquet in one hand, a cookbook from Vivians favourite pastry chef in the other--thanks to Edens knowledge. He had expected to grovel a little and was more than relieved to have learned he'd already been forgiven. "I know it's got to happen eventually. We can't sneak through the castle walls forever, but--"