I know you're numb or whatever, but you can't keep doing this.
numb.
I clenched my fist, digging my nails into the palm of my hand. I felt the sting of my busted knuckles, the sting of my nails trying to break skin.
Not so numb after all.
I try to think of anything that makes me feel something. I try to remember the last time I wasn't filled with anger.
Italy with Theo.
That makes me angrier. How dare he take my happiest memories and make me hate them. I groaned and rolled over, away from Enzo.
"You alright?" He whispered in my ear. I shrugged.
"Hand hurts." I replied. He hummed.
"That's what you're going with?"
"It does." He didn't hear me. He fell back asleep. I sighed and gently climbed over him. I pulled on my socks and the nearest jacket and opened their window. I climbed out and sat on the roof, I stared at the stars.
I found the constellations I always could. Both Dippers, the Sirius and Regulus stars. I just stared up at the sky, looking for answers.
It's funny, my name means light, radiance, sun ray and old north. My parents named me because I was their north star in a hard time. I was the brightest thing they had. I was their sun. Lately, I felt like anything but the right thing. I wasn't bright. I was losing my shine. I was pure darkness, slipping further and further from the path I knew was right. I had a duty to fulfill. I was supposed to be Elenora Potter, fun loving, sparkling, rambunctious little girl, but lately I was Elenora Potter, the idiot who gets into fights, chops her hair off, and screams and cries behind closed doors.
I heard the window creak behind me, I didn't bother to turn around. A blanket was dropped around my shoulders.
"What're we looking for?" Matty's voice registered. I shrugged.
"Not sure."
"Will you know when you find it?"
"I hope so." He hummed in response and laid back beside me. I pulled the blanket tighter and laid back with him.
"You broke his jaw." He told me. I hummed.
"Good."
"I fixed it."
"Not like you." He chuckled.
"I could say the same, Elenora." I sighed.
"I don't want a lecture." I told him.
"I'm not offering one. If this is who you are now, great. I mean, a heads up would have been nice but I'm not gonna stop loving you because you're breaking people's faces and causing more trouble." He shrugged. "But if you feel like you have to be like this because, I don't know, us, or him, or your parents, or whoever or whatever the fuck is making you like this, you don't kid. If you need to break shit and scream and chop your hair off and wreak havoc on the whole damn school, I'll clean up your messes and help you along the way but if it's just a show knock it off." I looked over at him, he just shrugged again and lit a cigarette. I smiled as he handed me one and a matchbox.
"Thanks Matty."
He didn't need an explanation, he never did. Matty was always on my team and he never needed a reason to be. He never expected me to be happy, or sunny. He was content with whoever I was or wanted to be. He'd held my hand at my worst and cheered my on at my best. Matty always said he had no siblings, but as far as I was concerned he was my big brother.
🗡️🗡️🗡️
"You're leaving?" Matty asked as I shoved some more clothes in my trunk.
"I'm just going to aunt Marlene's for the weekend." I told him. He nodded.
"You'll be back Monday, right?" Enz asked. I nodded.
"I just need to get away." I replied.
"Marlene is the perfect person to do that with." Aunt Cas' voice rang. Her head poked through my dorm door.
"Yeah, maybe she'll have some answers." I said. Cas smiled.
"She always does." I slung my bag over my shoulder and looked up at Cas.
"Wait for her with me?" I asked. She nodded, beads and cuffs in her hair jingling as she did. I hugged both boys, blew a kiss to Pansy and headed downstairs. Aunt Marls appeared in the great hall a bit later. Her and Cas caught up before she wrapped me under her arm and lead me to the floo.
"What's with the hair?" She asked as I plopped down on her couch. I shrugged.
"Girl set it on fire, so I had to chop it." I replied as she poured me a glass of wine. She went wide eyes and poured the wine back in the bottle, popping a temporary lid on it. She walked over to her bar cart and grabbed a bottle of fire whiskey, flicking off the cap before handing it to me. I took a swig and chuckled.
"She set your hair on fire?"
"Mhm."
"Do your parents know?" I shook my head
"No fucking way." She shook her head with a low chuckle.
"Just like your mother." She told me as she grabbed for the bottle.
"I get that a lot." I kicked off my shoes and tucked them up under me.
"Why're you here, sunny?" She asked. I took a sharp breath. "Ooh, struck a nerve with that one. You too old for me to call you that?" I shook my head.
"No, that's just the whole problem. I feel like I'm not 'sunny' or anything you guys expect me to be anymore." I told her. She nodded and passed the bottle back. I took a swig before continuing. "I just feel numb, all the time Aunt Marls. No matter what I do it isn't good enough. I broke a kids jaw last week."
"That seems good enough to me." I let out an abrupt laugh.
"I just- ugh- I don't even know anymore."
"You're sixteen. You're not supposed to know." She told me with a shrug. I handed her the bottle back. "When I was sixteen I was best friends with the absolute worst person ever and broken up and Cas. I'd change everything I did when I was sixteen if I could."
I knew "the worst person ever" was Uncle Peter. That's the only way she would refer to him. I didn't know why she hated him, she never offered that answer. No one talked about him, just that he died for his loyalty in the war.
"Why do you hate him, aunt Marls?" She set the bottle down and gave me a sad smile.
"It's not so hard to hate him, once I remember he killed my family." Her eyes went wide as she scrambled to cover her mouth. "Shit."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"He killed your family?" She sighed, then nodded with a look of disbelief.
"Yeah, yeah he did." She took a deep pull of the whiskey. "This isn't for me to tell you, but promise me you'll give me tonight to warn your parents I told you?"
"It's your story." She sucked in a breath.
"It is, but we all promised not to tell you lot once we started having kids. Didn't want to reopen the wound, now I think we're going to have to start dressing wounds. Just let me talk to the actual parents first, okay kid?"
"I promise." She nodded and stood up. I called after her. "And you are a real parent, Cassie wouldn't make it without you." She smiled at me.
"I've got to call your parents, figure out this mess. Expect to see your cousins tomorrow."
