slide away {lorenzo berkshire}

77. all the things she said

"I long for our soul to be so deeply intertwined, that death himself would weep when faced with the thought of separating us."
- unknown
~~~~~~~

Cassie Avery

I didn't remember deciding to move.

One moment I was standing outside the common room door, lungs refusing to work, the air thick and unbreathable. The next, my body lurched forward on instinct, as if something inside me had snapped and set me loose.

I walked fast.

Aimless.

Like the castle might swallow me whole if I didn't outrun my own thoughts.

The corridors were empty at this hour, the torches throwing long, warped shadows across the floor. Hogwarts felt different tonight - older, heavier. Like it was awake and watching, listening to every unsteady breath I dragged in.

I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I needed out. Away from Lorenzo. Away from the look on his face when he said... that.

I love you.

The words ricocheted inside my skull, echoing, refusing to soften. It kept repeating. Over and over. Like the castle itself was mocking me, whispering it through the walls.

I should've gone back. A normal person would've gone back. Said something. Anything.

But my feet wouldn't turn around.

Lorenzo was wrong. He had to be wrong.

Because even if he meant it, even if it was real, I'd destroy it eventually. I always did.

My mother had taught me that.

She used to say I was a mistake she couldn't undo. Said it when she was angry, when she'd had too much firewhisky, when I was too loud or too much like my father. She'd grip my chin so tight my teeth ached and tell me I had his eyes - like that was a sin I'd committed on purpose.

The worst part wasn't the shouting. It was the silence that came after. The way she'd go days without looking at me, like I'd stopped existing. Like she could just... erase me if she wanted to. I learned quickly that silence could bruise worse than a slap, that being unseen could hollow you out from the inside.

That kind of thing stays with you. It seeps in, settles in your bones, rewires you. Until you start to believe it - that you're defective. Dangerous. Something people should regret caring about. That if anyone saw you - really saw you - they'd walk away.

That's what love was, for me.

Sharp edges. Cold hands. Vanishing acts.

So I taught myself not to need it. Not to want it. I learned that needing anything from anyone was just begging to be disappointed. I learned to make people laugh, how to keep them just close enough that they wouldn't notice what was missing underneath.

But Lorenzo...

He saw too much. He always had.

And now he'd gone and said it - out loud, like it was something simple. Like it was something I deserved or something I could give back.

So when he said he wanted that life with me - that quiet one, a normal one, a future - God, that was the part that hurt the most.

Because I wanted it, too - in some deep, buried place I never let myself look at. But all I could see was how I'd ruin it. How I'd ruin him. How, even if I didn't, he would change his mind anyway.

Because that's what people did, wasn't it?

They disappeared.

Sometimes slowly, fading at the edges.