Bulla Aurea Puerorum

What Went Wrong

What Went Wrong

Disclaimer: This chapter contains the brief mention of eating disorders (bulimia nervosa)
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Two weeks earlier, the night of the return to Hogwarts. 

Lucy knew something was off with Eddie the moment he laid eyes on Ophelia. She hadn't expected it to be easy but he'd done so well for the past few days.

One thing she had learned about Eddie during her time staying with his family, was that he'd struggled with an eating disorder since he was 13. His mother had told her late one evening, about how worried she was that it was coming back. His recovery had never been perfect, as no recovery ever is, but it'd been months since he'd purged. Months since he refused to eat more than a meal a day.
Lucy helped, she had said. Eddie lit up in her presence. "Soulmate" she had said. Lucy smiled nervously at that.

When Lucy had asked him about it, he ended up telling her much more than she thought. He'd never felt love for himself. He ruined almost every relationship with everyone he'd ever met, he felt unworthy of love, afraid of it. He felt out of control. And that's what started his disordered eating. It gave him something he could control. A way to cope with the whirlpool inside of him. 

Lucy saw the whirlpool in his eyes when he saw Ophelia for the first time since the incident. 

The entire train ride Lucy had replayed the last few days in her head like a mantra.

"Thank you. I don't know how I would've done this without you."

The smile he had given her. The way he'd looked into her eyes as he rested his palm gently on her cheek. How he'd closed his eyes and sighed as he rested his forehead against hers.

"I think I've always loved you, Luce. Loved your heart and how deeply it loves and even that anger that escapes sometimes." He chuckled. "I'm sorry it took me so long. I'm at home with you. I think it took Ophelia for me to realize what I had and what I was feeling."

Her heart hadn't stopped skipping since the words had left his mouth.

But she knew what was coming before he pulled her out of her dorm that night. Knew that something was off. 
It didn't make it hurt any less when the words came out of his mouth.

"You need to let me go, Luce."

She had stood there, frozen to the floor. Her ears rang.

"What?"

He wouldn't look her in the eyes. 

"You make me happy. You're good for me."

"Then why?"

"Because I don't deserve that. Or you." He looked her dead in the eyes. Lucy recoiled when she saw the darkness in them. "I'm not good for you."

"You are!" Panic rising in her throat. "Eddie, you are. That's ridiculous."

"We both know I'm right, Luce. I think I make you feel bad. I'm too fucked up and you don't deserve that."

"You don't make me feel bad Eddie!" She practically yelled. She was getting desperate now and tears began to run down her face. "I don't need someone deciding who I can and cannot have in my life. I'm a big girl, Eddie, I can decide that for myself."

He pulled her to the couch and made her sit. He looked her in the eyes.

"I was really happy. I was doing really good, the best in months, and I like you more than anyone, Luce. But everything I've recovered from came crashing back down in November and I feel like shit. I'm not eating, I'm not sleeping. You know that," He took a deep breath.
"I wish, I wish, I didn’t hate me so much. But I can't change it no matter how hard I try. I’m hurting. I'm sorry, Luce."

"I know you're hurting, Eddie, but I wish you'd let me help, and realize that I want to help you!" Lucy exclaimed, panic clawing at her throat.

"But I don't want you to help me."

She felt her heart completely shatter at those eight words.

"Then why did you waste my time.
Why did you make me think that I finally had someone that made me happy, and who I made happy. Why, Eddie, if you knew that this was how you felt." Traitor tears flowing over her cheeks. 

"Do you think I planned this, Lucy?" He snapped, using her full name for the first time in years.

"No! But I don't believe half of what you're saying. This isn't you not deserving whoever the hell I am, this is you being afraid of someone genuinely caring about you!" Her voice was raw in desperation, cracking but powerful. 

"I need you, Lucy. But not in the way you want. I don't care any less for you, this is just what you deserve. I'm doing this for you. You deserve everything I'm not and can't give you."

Lucy just looked at him. How could she make this idiot understand that all he ever did was enough. Him existing was enough. And if he didn't deserve love, Lucy wasn't sure who did. 

She pushed his hand off her thigh and stood up, slapping away the hand that tried to stop her from leaving.

 "I can't be what you want me to be, Eddie." She choked out. "Not while you're still-" She had tried to say "Not while you're still trying to pushing me away" but a sob ripped through her body, clawing at her throat and in that moment all she wanted to do was melt into the floor. To let her face go slack and muscles to loosen and let the grief completely overwhelm her. She needed him to help her live, and she knew that he needed her too. Even if he couldn't see it. 

She would use everything she had to make him see that no one deserved anyone more than Eddie deserved his Lucy.