BETWEEN REVENGE AND LOVE

09

Tuesday, 02/09/1995

Astoria.

I've been floating. All day long.

Beneath me: my thoughts, carrying me, soft and warm like fleecy clouds in sunlight.

I am floating. Right now, really, I really am.

So light I might get swept away, by some wind to some different, foreign place.

But that wouldn't matter, because I'd still have those thoughts, those dreams, those hopes.

Because I'd still been relieved from you.

Astoria, I can't describe to you how happy I am.

Now that I found someone, someone that might be able to fill the space inside of me. Where you were, that you left.

You are still in my head, it's undeniable. Your absence means my absence, I feel it in the depths of me. But it doesn't hurt as much lately, that you're gone.

Now that I found distraction, from you, from us.

Last night was strange, admittedly. I talked to Theo, you know who that is, right?

He told me that he liked me.

Theodore Notts' idea of love confessions is a little different than what you'd expect.

It doesn't include I like you's, or I love you's even. That truth he hid behind his words, indirectly, yet so clear to understand.

Call me stupid or naive or whatever you want, but I believe him.

I believe what he let me read in his words. I believe him that he likes me. I believe I like him too.

Perhaps just for the fun. Perhaps just for the sake of liking someone, for the sake of not being alone anymore.

Because l can't do it much longer, alone. I need a distraction from the mess you left me in.

Then there's Draco.

It feels strange to think about him; light, addicting.

Even though we, until now, only met once, on the train, talked for a minute and slept through the rest, I somehow can't stop thinking about him. In that way, he acts as a distraction too.

He's been great.

They've been great.

I don't know what this means and why I'm writing to you about it.

This page won't ever reach you anyway, but I guess I wanted to pretend to talk to you like this. I wanted to pretend I'd let you know that there is hope for me, that I see that now.

Advice is what I also kind of need, I suppose.

Because as happy as I am about them, as scared I am as well.

It scares me. They scare me.

Well, no, not them, but the hunch, that they individually might not be enough to make it all alright.

For Theo cannot replace you, not Draco either. No one can.

That is not their fault, it is mine.

And I am sorry for it, endlessly sorry for that unfairness.

What if I am delusional? What if they could never make me happy?

And even if it's real and true and what I feel between us grows, I know I couldn't have both of them.

I can't use both.

I couldn't use anyone, really.

But if it's necessary? To heal, to grow?

Together, I imagine, they'd fill the emptiness you left in me.

I'm scared that I'll hurt them, I'm sure I will. And I know I could never return what they'd give me. I could not make them happy. I wouldn't know how. Not one of them, not both.

So would the right thing not be to push them away? To save them the trouble, the pain?

I know it would.

But It might be too late, and I might be too selfish to let them go now.

Then there's also this idea I had, that I got stuck on. More of a realisation.

My sister is in love with Draco.

And that is great. Do you get why?

Because I could hurt her through him. I could make her jealous, I could make her heart break to pieces.

It's what she did to me, isn't it?

She broke my heart all over again when she kissed you, she hurt me, she made me jealous.

Revenge would be justified, would it?

Revenge would feel marvellous.

She deserves to ache as I do.

What could possibly stop me?

I already lost everything. I lost you.

There is nothing left to lose.