Boundless

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐖𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐨𝐟 (𝟗)

Olivia

The weather outside had turned colder, and the walls of my dorm room seemed to close in around me as I sat by the window, the flickering candlelight casting long shadows across the room. My journal lay open in front of me, its worn leather cover creased and stained from years of use. I hadn't touched it in months—perhaps even longer. But today, for reasons I couldn't explain, I felt the urge to open it, to dive back into the pages that held fragments of a life I had tried so desperately to leave behind.

The pages were filled with me—my thoughts, my struggles, my secrets—and more than anything, they were filled with him.

I flipped through the years, the familiar scent of parchment and ink filling the air as I went back to the first entries, when everything had been so simple. I barely recognised the girl who had written those words. But there she was, in every syllable, lost in the obsession of him.

Mattheo.

It didn't take long to find the first mention of him. He had been in my life long before it had ever been complicated, before we had become something we weren't supposed to be. I had written about him like he was a ghost, an uninvited presence that had somehow managed to sink into every part of my existence. In the beginning, it was almost innocent—the kind of crush you might have on someone from a distance. But that feeling had changed so quickly, so deeply.

I ran my fingers along the edges of the paper, reading my younger self's words, her excitement, her confusion. My heart ached. "Mattheo made me feel like I was the only person who mattered, like everything around us didn't exist when we were together. He makes me feel seen, like I'm not just another Malfoy."

I winced. The words were too raw, too real, too much like how I had felt back then.

I kept reading, the words becoming more charged with each entry. I had written about the way he would touch me, the way his presence would burn in my chest, a fire I couldn't control. It had never been a simple relationship. No, it had been more than that—more dangerous, more consuming. There had been moments of laughter, of warmth, of feeling like we were invincible together. And then there were the darker moments—the times he pushed too far, when I felt like I was drowning in him, losing myself.

"He's always too much," I had written once, almost angrily. "He pulls me in, makes me feel like I'm everything to him, and then leaves me with nothing when he's gone. And I hate him for it. But I hate myself for letting him do it."

It was true. I had hated him for pushing me, for making me feel things I didn't understand. He would always get too close, too intense, like he was trying to carve his way into my soul. I had resented him for it, for not knowing when to stop. For not caring enough to see the toll it took on me.

And yet, I had always come back. Again and again. I was a fool, a masochist, caught in his orbit, unable to escape.

I turned the pages, remembering how everything had come crashing down when he was expelled. The letters from my family, the whispers in the halls, the rumours that spread faster than fire. I had been lost without him, or maybe more accurately, I had been angry. Angry at him for leaving, angry at myself for falling for someone so reckless, someone who could never stay long enough to make any of it last.

"He didn't even try to fight for me," I had written on the darkest day. "He just left, like it was nothing. And I hated him for that. I hate him for making me feel so much and then ripping it all away."

My heart twisted as I read my own words. The anger had consumed me. It had been easier to hate him, to blame him for everything that had gone wrong, for everything that had fallen apart. I had told myself that I was better off without him, that I didn't need someone like him in my life. But deep down, I knew the truth. I had needed him. Desperately.