entanglements | d.m.

26.confessions

November '98 | H I M

"What do you mean you thought we only kissed?" Devyn presses.

Draco merely stares at her.

He needs to tell her.

He is going to.

"Malfoy."

He huffs exasperatedly at the last name.

A pillow hits him square in the chest and plops to the ground. Pure terror is coloring her face, foreboding clouding her eyes. "How would you know that we kissed? Did Tarquin tell you?"

Draco shakes his head, pacing once more as his fingers link behind his neck. "No. No, he didn't tell me."

"Then—"

"I was there," he comes out with, throwing his arms out, "that day. And I saw."

She takes a staggering breath. "How...?"

"With my feet, Wood," he snaps curtly. "I traveled to see you but I didn't even need to unhook the fence because I saw plain as fucking day that you were kissing that loser."

"But I didn't have to," she accuses, voice shaken. It is a binding torture, the betrayal in her eyes. "Because you could have knocked at my door and I would have thrown myself at your neck instead."

"You wouldn't have."

"Maybe I would have!" Her bottom lip quivers. It's rare to see her break but this might be the point, and because it's so rare, it aches that much more. "But you never gave me the chance the find out. Do you have any idea how miserable I have been to not hear a single word from you? Like I never even existed to you?"

His chest—something is breaking in there, he's certain. That she doesn't try to hide it, to play strong... "Dev—"

"No. I get it." Biting her bottom lip, she hugs herself as though putting up a shield. "I'm the stupid girl who hoped endlessly the asshole will come back. Who clung to something she shouldn't have. I'm not blaming you having a change of heart but fuck you for making me feel like I meant shit to you."

"Devyn." Fucking hell, he really blew it with her. When he thought he was doing her a favor, he ruined it. "I see you kiss another fucking guy weeks after we last saw each other and you expect me to go and knock on your door? To me, it seemed you were well over us. Well enough to go and fuck him."

Another pillow smacks in the chest, but she doesn't argue with him on it, seeing his point for once.

"Why did you come?" she asks, brows knitted in clear trepidation. She's still having trouble fathoming he was there, in reach. About to make a change in both their lives that never came to fruition. "What were you going to do had you knocked at my door?"

Fact is, he doesn't know. He had no plan. No goal. Only a strong lapse of judgement, as it turned out.

He wasn't doing well himself. Besides healing his arm and dealing with the trail and a strenuous home situation, he was dealing with the worst heartbreak he had ever felt. Speaking days on end in bed with curtains drawn but hardly sleeping, missing more meals than his body could recover from for a while. A dozen broken mirrors and double as much interventions from his friends.

It was pure coincidence the day he decided he couldn't take being apart any longer—damn the solid reasoning—that Devyn put her lips on another person.

And he wondered, did that happen before?

What did she do the year we haven't seen each other?