As We Fall (Blaise Zabini Fanfiction)

Chapter 34

Zoe

***

"Don't try to trick me, Zoe. I know you - after all, I was the one who changed your diapers." He smiles. "Now, tell me what's bothering you. Is it something about Hogwarts?"

I stare at my soft yellow wall, internally torn. One part of me longs to tell my grandpa about everything that's happened to me at Hogwarts, and the other knows that if I do, it will hurt him greatly. Although I tried to keep everything a secret when I was owling him from the castle, it's much harder to do when he's right in front of me.

"Well, there is...one thing." I begin. "I met someone last term, and most of the times we just don't get along. Things were starting to get a little better with us, but then something happened that made everything worse again, and we haven't really talked since. I'm just nervous, I guess, to go back there and have to see him again. And I don't understand why I care about it so much."

Abraham looks at me quizically. "Why don't you two get along?"

I hesitate. "He's never been that nice to me and -- honestly, I don't know why."

My answer is truthful. I really don't know why Blaise and I have never gotten along, or why he's always been rude to me. 

"Well, Zoe, I've always taught you not to let anyone treat you unkindly. You deserve better than that." My grandpa says. "But you also know I believe that no one is born mean. People turn mean and cold because of  something - something they experienced, or something that happened to them."

I gaze down at my lap, my heart feeling both light and heavy at the same time. It seems as though my thoughts have been a puzzle the past few months, and my grandpa's words are the piece that completes them. I'm unsure of how I feel about that.

"Maybe you just haven't found out what his something is, yet."

--

The talk my grandpa and I had over winter break is replaying through my mind yet again. I've been thinking about that conversation a lot the past few days -- ever since Blaise opened up to me in the boys' lavatory a few nights ago. 

As usual, my grandpa had been right. 

Blaise wasn't born with the meanness and bitterness that he carries now, nor was he born with thick emotional walls that are almost impossible to tear down. He became that way because of something  that happened to him. 

It makes me sick to my stomach to think about what Blaise has been through. It makes me realize just how lucky I was to grow up with the guidance and care of an amazing man like Abraham -- even if I never did have a mother figure. It also helps me understand why it's so difficult for Blaise to trust me, or anyone for that matter. With the way his mother treats him, I doubt he's ever trusted anyone in his life.

I feel anger towards this woman that I've never met. How could she have done this to her own son? And how vain and merciless must she be to continue doing it today without ever having thought twice? What really scares me, though, is that I know Blaise still hasn't told me everything. There are likely many horrifying details that I still have yet to hear about. At this point, I'm not even sure if I want to hear them -- I don't know if I could handle it.

I try my best not to act concerned around Blaise now that I know what's been happening to him. If I did, it would probably piss him off, scare him away, or worse yet -- make him second-guess trusting me to know something so personal about him in the first place. 

This proves to be difficult, though, because every time he walks away from me in a corridor or goes up to his dorm for the night, I'm tormented by thoughts that he's going to leave the castle again and go back to that cruel woman. And every time we meet up again and I find out that he hasn't, I want to wrap my arms tight around him and never let go. But I can't do this, and I know that -- I must shove down my fear and worry and never let it reach the surface.