Broken Glass | D.M.

fifteen

It feels as if Christmas has ended almost as quickly as it started. I wake up on the 26th sad that I'll have to wait a whole entire year before Christmas comes again.

"Thisbe, dear, an owl has arrived from your parents," I hear Narcissa call me from downstairs.

I head to the living room and open the letter.

Dearest Thisbe,

We regret to tell you that we will not be able to see you this break, as we're super busy with work.

Much love,
Your parents

Oh. I should have expected this. My parents don't care enough about me to even see me after they haven't seen me since the summer holidays. Typical. But nevertheless, I'm still disappointed. I bet they do have time off for the holidays but just don't want to see me

"Well, what's it say?" Draco asks me.

Too upset to tell him, I hand him the letter.

"Oh, I'm sorry. You're welcome to stay here for the rest of the break, of course," he responds.

"Thanks," I mumble as I begin to head back to my room.

I lay in bed, the letter replaying in my mind over and over again.

They don't want to see you because you're a dumb, fat loser. Maybe if you were smarter or skinnier or prettier they'd make time for you.

My brain comes up with thousands of reasons as to why my parents dislike me so much until I finally drift off to sleep.

———
I'm seven years old.
Mother has just shamed me for eating a slice of cake that I had baked. Father isn't home.
Mother throws out the remaining cake and smashes the glass cake stand all over the floor. She makes me clean it up, piece by piece, using only my hands. My hands and knees are covered in blood and a small piece of glass gets stuck in the bottom of my foot.
After I clean every piece up, mother locks me in my room for the rest of the day.
She tells me it's not like I need to eat dinner anyways; I could afford to skip a meal or two.
———

I wake up covered in cold sweat suddenly due to a loud noise coming from outside.

I look out my bedroom window and see Lucious's hand wrapped around Draco's neck, almost strangling him. A moment later, Lucius lets go and I see Draco attempt to stumble away, but not much after Lucius's cane hits him in the stomach. Hard. One, two, three, four, five times. I see Draco doubled over in pain. Lucious walks away.

I want to go outside to help him, but as soon as I begin to walk away from the window, I see him limp towards the mansion, clutching his stomach.

A minute later, I hear his door slam shut. I immediately go to his room.

"Draco?"
"Go away," he tells me. I see a single tear fall down his cheek. I've never seen him cry before.
"Draco..."
"I said GO AWAY!" He yells at me. The aggression in his voice scares me to a point where I almost leave. But I don't.
"No, I'm not leaving!"
He doesn't respond.
"Look, I saw what happened with your father. Let me help you," I tell him.
"No, it's nothing that hasn't happened before. I'm fine Thisbe."
"You think that because it hasn't happened before that means it's okay?! That makes it even worse Draco!"
"It's really not that big of a deal, okay? Just drop it."
"I can't! I saw him strangle you and beat you, and you want me to ignore that? He hurt you. Badly. You can't just sit around and do nothing about this!"
"Look, Thisbe. I've been dealing with this all my life so just let me handle it, okay?"

I'm so angry with him that I storm out of the room to collect myself.

I pace around my room, gathering my thoughts. God, how could he just let his father do this to him? How often does this happen?

I look at the scar on my finger that resulted from when my mother forced me to clean up the broken glass when I was seven. I then come to a realization.

I go back to Draco's room and knock on his door.

"What do you want?" He responds.

I walk into the room.

"Draco, I'm sorry. I get it, wanting to ignore what your father did to you as if it didn't happen. It just hurts me to see you in pain."

I really do understand it, because I do the same thing with my mother. The only problem is that it comes back to haunt me during really inconvenient times. For example, when I'm trying to sleep.

"No, Thisbe, you don't get it. You never will. How could you?"
"I do understand, okay? You may not believe that, but I do."