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21
Once the war ended, it became clear there was always going to be Draco Before, and Draco After. He had always been so expressive, so loud and impossible to miss even in the largest crowd. The Mark changed him, the war changed him, and there are moments when I want to get him back.
Before the war, Draco cared. His appearance, his grades, his friends ... He cared about all of it, but I do not think he cares about any of it now. He hasn’t touched a tub of Sleekeazy’s in months. He survived the trial though, and Draco is trying to get back on his feet. As his best friend, I want to help him but don’t know how. How can you look at someone, tell them the whole world hates him and promise in the same breath it will get better? I can’t lie, not to him.
Draco is hardly the first person to ignore me. Not ignore, I suppose, but they only see the parts of me he wants to see. Since I was not tortured, just stood by and watched as my friends were maimed or killed, had their families ripped from them ... Luna calls it invisible pain. She is an artist now, paints some of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen. I bought one, then another, then another ...
“Blaise?”
“BLAISE!”
I shake myself out of it and look over at Theo.
“You alright, mate?”
Perhaps this is Blaise After.
22
I spoke to Theo last week. He said it had been too long. Months, actually. I wondered how it could have been; it feels like minutes. I don't really know about time. Each month the landlord comes knocking on my door demanding payment so I shove twice as many Galleons into his hands. Seems to work well enough.
“Are you well?”
They all ask. Everyone asks and I don’t know which of them care, if any. None of them care enough to come back to my flat for a pint. A pint of anything: Firewhisky, butterbeer, wine, even milk for Merlin’s sake! They are busy with their own lives. Theo has his wife and twins, Draco is piecing himself back together, and Bastien is whoring his way across Europe seemingly one magical brothel at a time.
I never know how to respond. I know I am not well, but I’m not un well. Apathetic, perhaps, but that is not the sort of thing I can say aloud to make them feel better. So I shrug and pray they understand I just need something, someone to help me remember what life was like before all this. My mother died and they all thought I was fine, like I hadn’t been hoping for this for a whole decade. But her death made me realize I never had a family. Everyone else looks around at people they have to love and be loved by. Hell, I can’t even find a way to love myself.
So when they ask if I am well, I shrug it off every time. My silence is standard. Every conversation with my friends is the same stilted string of words that feels like I am retracing my footsteps again and again until I have worn down the ground.
23
I looked out my window yesterday and realized I am the Bastien now. Except, instead of travelling to different places, all my men come to me. The past few months I’ve had a string of them, most of which I could not remember. I just want someone to like me, to tell me it’s okay to be the way I am and feel the things I feel. For just a moment, I get to be truly intimate with another person and I am in control of it. For just a moment, someone looks at me and realizes I have not actually blended into the corner.
Luna Lovegood has an aura of contentment. She looks at the world and sees all the good through the bad; I could fall in love with someone like that. Not Luna, obviously, but someone like that. She knocks on my door every Wednesday for lunch, but today is different. She walks in with sandwiches and says,
“You have Wrackspurts all over! Are you well?”
But this question is different from the others because Luna sees and Luna cares. Beneath those hideous glasses and that bright pink robe, she is just a kind person wrapped in a string of crazy. So I tell her what I have been doing to find myself, to get people to see me.
“I have a voice but silence is a choice that has been made for me.”
“Is it?” she asks. Before I can respond she adds, “Because you talk to me. You can talk to someone else, too.”
24
I did, actually. Speak with someone else, I mean. A professional down in Italy who works with people who are as fucked-up as I am. I get to speak about all the bad things that happened in England, but relay them in Italian. It gives me distance, like Blaise Before keeps getting further and further away. My therapist says I get to control who Blaise After becomes as well. I like that.
But I realize now that I cannot go back and change a single moment of my life. Even with the most powerful Time-Turner, I would not make a change. This body, this mind is all my creation, with nothing but will and force and resilience. I have been exhausted, burned, angry, and everything in between. While I may be searching, at least I am looking. At least I hope for better. That’s something, isn’t it?
Today I spoke to Theo. His twins are four now. He saw me and said I look well. I thanked him, told him about my time in Italy and how much he means to me. How much his friendship gets me through. He is not Luna Lovegood, he has a different value. I speak to him about sex, about my mother, and now I can talk about what happened to me. How I was surrounded by so many people, and ended up alone.
25
I feel like I am behind in life. Like I must work to catch up to my friends. All of them have variations of the same photo; arm-in-arm with their love, dressed in nice robes looking into each other’s eyes like they couldn’t imagine life without this.
Bastards.
I hate them for it, and I know I shouldn’t. I know I should be happy for my friends when they end up happy and loved. But all I can think when I see them is how I do not have any of that. Not even the barest hope of it. Theo has Tracey, Bastien somehow landed Padma bloody Patil, and even Draco is working things out with Granger. Hermione Granger. If Draco Malfoy can convince her to give him a second chance, what does it mean that I don’t even know what love feels like?
And it is okay. I will be okay. This is not something I need in my life, I tell myself, over and over and over. A refrain I sing at every get-together where I only reserve one spot and every night spent alone at a bar three blocks down from my flat. But I will be okay.
26
Change has to come, doesn’t it? I constantly think about moving, making a new home in cities I have never been to with people who have no reason to judge me. But I cannot leave my friends, not Theo or Luna and especially Draco. Watching him rebuild his life gives me hope for my own.
Now, I live in the kitchen. In there I can pull together the chaos and the messy parts of my life and turn them into something enjoyable. Boredom? That is kale, celery, plain yogurt. The sweetness of mangoes or the bitterness of dark chocolate, I take anything I cannot control and make it into something else.
Then, once everything is done and I have carefully put each portion onto plates, all that steadiness becomes sadness. Is there anything more lonely than looking at two dinner plates, topped with freshly-cooked food, and realizing you only need one? I stare at the rising steam and realize there is. I don’t cry boxing up that second plate, but I could. I don’t regret my choices when I heat it up again at two in the morning, but perhaps I should.
27
I am tired of useless second plates, so I take one over to my neighbor. My incredibly cute neighbor. He answers the door in trackies and a t-shirt that reads, “West Ham United,” whatever the hell that means. But oh, he smiles at me like he sees me and I melt a little. He looks at the plate of food, looks back up at me, and tells me to come in.
His name is Dean Thomas and we have dinner on Thursdays. He is happy to try any food and in him I find a new friend. He has a boyfriend, Seamus Finnegan, whom I also meet. His smiles are stilted and his fingers tighten painfully around mine in every handshake, because he sees what Dean doesn’t. I like Dean Thomas enough that I would be willing to stay in his life however he wants me there. So I am his friend.
Some things, however, are grey. My fingers linger against the small of his back and he does not pull away. I catch him glancing at my lips or my ass but never mention it. He starts spending Sundays in my flat and looking at me the way I know I look at him.
But I know it cannot be, no matter how badly I wish it was.
28
Dean shows up at my door one evening in October. He is shaking and I put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Dean walks past me into the foyer, so I close the door and lean against it. He paces for a moment before turning to look at me.
“I left Seamus.”
“Why?”
“Because he asked me to move in and I couldn’t bear the thought.”
My heart is beating faster than I can ever remember as I ask, “Why?”
“Because it would mean leaving you. My heart is here, Blaise, with you and your fancy furniture and your messy kitchen.”
I nod and squeak out, “Okay.”
Then Dean’s hands are on my cheek and he’s kissing me. And he keeps kissing me until I melt into the door at my back. We wake up on the sofa, legs twined together, my smile mirrored on his face. I can feel his heart beat beneath my fingers. Maybe waking up together is the first step in being loved. Maybe. It was just snogging, shirtless snogging, but still ... There is the promise of more together and I want it all.
29
“I love you.”
Dean said it weeks before me. I never understood love so I had to be sure this is what it was. I asked Theo, Draco, Bastien, and I even asked Luna three times. She just smiled and rambled on about paint. But when I say it to him, I am sure. I know that I am loved and that I love him, I trust him, and want to be with him for as long as he will have me. But I am not afraid he will let me go, either. I trust him to keep loving me.
He still smiles at me like the first day I brought him food. I cook for him every day now, of course, and continue experimenting. However, I no longer live in the kitchen. I live in the bedroom, where Dean spends so many nights underneath me. I live in the living area, where I listen to Dean tell me about his day and his goals and whatever is troubling him. I live in the bathroom, where I splash water on my face while working up the courage to ask him to marry me.
He says yes.
It is September now and I am in love. I take Dean’s hand as we stroll along the street and watch leaves fall off branches in the wind. Our fingers are twined together and I cannot get the smile off my face.
Dean asks, “Where are we going?”
I shrug.
“I dunno, Dean. Let’s just keep going.”