better off | d.m.

18.kitchen

Looking in the mirror was once so easy, but now, when washing off her make-up, she can't bear to look at herself. A frown graces her face for the last couple of days, dark circles lining her eyes and her already light skin has paled further.

Its nothing dramatic, but one notices such changes more than others. She feels not okay, but she should.

She is better off without him.

It's a mantra she repeats on the daily. And it's so fucking exhausting to remind herself why she would—should be better off without him.

After grimacing one last time at herself, Sage heads straight to her bed in hopes of getting more than two hours of sleep. The day itself was exhausting with being on her feet all day and talking to so many people.

Well, she doesn't get sleep that much.

Her mind is racing. It is getting hard to believe her own words, because she enjoyed dancing with Draco. His company, his touch, his voice is all sending her under a spell that feels so much better than being sober of him.

You are no exception.

She can't unsee his face. The hurt, as if she has ripped his heart right out of his chest.

You are no exception.

What a bullshit fucking lie. He is the definition of exception in her life. Point proven by the fact, that she feels bad about telling him that. For all the years she knows him, Draco always proves to be the very thing she feels different about.

Now laying on her bed she wants to be somewhere else than a house, where she is incarcerated with him. But then again, she wouldn't want be away from him.

"You know why you are so afraid? Because this is real, this is true and this is good. It is so good, in fact, that you won't allow yourself to have it."

Sage groans out loud, hiding her face in her hands. She is sick of her mind. She is sick of her twisted soul. She is sick of herself. Of self-sabotaging.

Why does she always have to make things complicated? Why cant she think like a normal person? Why? Why? Whyyyyy?

It hurts now, only for them to thrive after. They thrived before all this and now all they do is be miserable.

But it will stop someday.

They will be alright after.

They will.

Right?

—

The next morning breakfast was calm in contrary to last night. The guests left late, not that Sage would have known, and left are now only Narcissa and Nalani at the table, along with the only five left in the house.

It was eerily quiet, to be honest.

Narcissa and Nalani made small talk, nothing too elaborate for the other four slightly hungover kids. Sage gave a quick glance around them and sure as hell they look like shit, except Draco.

He didn't look at Sage, not once, just down.

Physically and mentally.

It makes her stomach churn with raw guilt. With anyone else, she wouldn't even bat an eye.

Theo leans into Sage to talk in a lower tone, be a little more private than given at the table. His ordinary smell of muskieness and firewood is mixed with a stench of alcohol. "Where were you last night?"

"I was sleeping," Sage lies. Barely closed an eye and that is evident by her eyebags. When she didn't sleep because of all her trauma with Willow, Sage didn't even look half as bad as she does now.