Mattheo didn't know what to think. He knew exactly why he'd distanced himself from you for weeks, and no longer got into stupid banter with you. It was for self-preservation.

Because seeing you in the Great Hall every day, or at parties, or just in Hogwarts in general was tearing him apart, knowing you were not his—knowing that he’s supposed to hate you.

He didn’t know when it began, nor why every word you said had started to sink into him like heat into cold skin—slow and scalding. Mattheo felt it in his throat, in his ribs, in that hollow place where emptiness used to live and now somehow didn’t anymore.

Neither did he know why he came here after weeks of avoiding you like the pest that you are. Because Mattheo was standing in front of your open dorm door with tears running down his cheeks. And he stared at you, breathing you in—familiar, warm, devastating.

His crying wasn't loud, but it came out of him in jagged, shuddering waves, like a body trying and falling to hold itself together. It wasn't ugly—but it was ruined. It was grief made audible, a kind of weeping that hollowed the air around it.

Mattheo wanted to scream because this was not how it was supposed to be. He should not stand in front of you and cry, nor should he be crying because of you in the first place. The boy did not cry, and yet he here he was; overwhelmed by the feelings that flooded his veins like a hurricane, thanks to the sight of you alone.

His hand found the front of your shirt, bunching the fabric in his fist—not to push you away like usual, but to hold you closer, like maybe he could hold the pieces of you together if he just tried hard enough. As if there had ever existed anything close to you and him together.

"Tell me that you hate me," he said, barely above a whisper, chocolate brown eyes swimming in the sea of salt water. "I need you to tell me how much you hate me, {{user}}, or else i might just lose my mind. Say it."