Black Raindrops by Periwinkle
Chapter Notes: Multiple thanks to my lovely beta, MusicOrTheMisery for looking over this!
She stares out the window at the rain spilling down it, the drops gliding smoothly off the glass. She stares at the gray clouds obscuring the usually blue sky, how they reform and move across the heavens. She stares at all this yet does not see it. She gazes at all the details that the storm creates, but she does not make out anything.
Her hand reaches up, tracing patterns on the window and her eyes blur over. Her hand falls back to her side, where it rests and stays motionless. She trembles, falling back on the chair resting next to the window. The view has altered; now she sees more of the sky, and less of the earth. The downpour does not cease; it carries on without a care in the world, ripping her apart.
She takes the weather outside as a sign and the raindrops battering her window as a signal. They symbolize so much, all her efforts that have gone to waste. She watches the sky crying and wants to do the same, but the tears will not come. They stay locked up behind her eyelids, always on the verge of falling, though they never do. She wants to sob; she knows that it will help her. But those droplets stay still. They will never cascade.
The rainfall increases, the noise of it pouring against the window almost tears her to shreds. Her arms hang uselessly, her unkempt hair lays in strands down her back, her eyes enlarge but she does not utter a sound. She sits staring out that forsaken window, watching the rain pour in rivulets down the glass and wonders if things will ever return to what they were before.
She cannot remember anything before this present moment, even if she tried. She keeps forgetting what she had thought or what people had told her to do. She wants to be alone and stare at the rain forever, not feeling anything. For she cannot feel. No, she cannot. She can stare, talk, and think but she cannot feel. She can hear, taste, and smell but she cannot feel. She wants to feel. She wants to feel pain or sadness or hurt, something other than her one emotion. She can only hate.
She hates him. She hates him for leaving her and pursuing whatever he thought he had to do. She hates him for telling her it was necessary. She hates him because she knows he spoke the truth. She hates him for dying and leaving her all alone, without hope.
She wants someone to be there for her -- someone who can explain everything and make her see. Someone who can put everything in perspective and make her understand. She wants an answer but she does not know where to look for it. So she sits because there is nothing else for her to do.
They all avoid her. They think she has gone beyond all hope and now no one can help her. She doesn't talk to them because she has nothing to say. They look at her, sometimes. She sees them out of the corner of her eye. They study her posture. Sometimes they make That Face. The eyebrows rise and their eyes soften while they tilt their head to one side. She moves away because she doesn't want to see That Face anymore.
She hadn't known that it would turn out this way. She had no idea. She thought she would get over him but it never happened. Her thoughts would often stray to him, but that's all they do. That's all she does. She does not speak of him nor does she seek him out. He is so far away from her...lost. He can never come back and she knows that. She cannot look into the future, because there is nothing waiting for her there. If she tries, she only sees darkness.
She turns her attention back to the rain outside. The sky has darkened and she can no longer make out the trees swaying slightly in the wind or the last rays of the sun. She likes to look at the sun. In the mornings, she goes out early to see it rise and something stirs in her chest. She watches the pink clouds and the faint twinkle of a star that is always seen near the sun until its glare swallows the star up. She likes to look at the sun during the day. She does not listen to their warnings about her eyes going blind. The sun can never hurt her; she seeks solace from it and solace it gives. She despises the sunset. It falls neatly behind the horizon and she has to wait until it comes out again. The red haze around the setting sun only reminds her of a color she once loved.
She loved red. She used to wear red all the time. But when he left her, she started to wear black. Black for his inky hair. Black for the darkness of his cloak. Black for the center of his eyes. Black for the lashes that surrounded those eyes she had loved to gaze into. Black for the sky at night where they had spent time together. Black for the relationship that had splintered and fallen apart.
Time has no meaning to her. It is all a big disarray. She doesn't understand time. There is no such thing as time to her. They tell her she is nineteen years old. They tell her it has been two years since she left Hogwarts. They tell her he died a year ago. It's all numbers. That is what she tells herself and she believes that. Time is nothing to her. Time can pass and it won't mean anything. Years will pass and she will never feel their burden.
She will forever stare out that window, looking at the sun and searching for him, hoping he will return and tell her it's all right again. She has nothing else to do.