CHAPTER XXXVII:
this is fine

( September 1995 )

      GINGER TRUDGED HER FEET DOWN THE CORRIDORS HEARING ONLY HER HEELS CLICKING ON THE COLD TILE. The blood continued to seep from her nose and mouth onto her clean white uniform button-up staining it with the metallic tasting liquid. Hot and furious tears threatened to pour from her golden eyes but she refused to let even a drop fall.

She stepped up the spiral stairs to her dorm slamming the door shut and throwing her things on her bed. Her head seemed to be splitting in two as she went over to her vanity.

      Planting her hands in front of her to stable herself, she stood in front of the mirror looking at herself. What was wrong with her? She had no reason to be acting this way or feeling this way. People had high expectations for her to meet, it was important she met them or else what else was there to her? So much self-doubt spilt over in the girl that she seemed to make everyone think she was so self-assured. Cedric made her feel self-assured. Content. Intelligent. Safe. And now he was dead, buried six feet underground rotting away as Ginger, who had always been younger than him, and now she was beginning to grow older than him as his birthday was approaching.

      The steamy tears that prickled in her eyes on the way to her room were not free-falling down the freckles of her cheeks while she held no particular expression. A blank stare held herself in a daze while staring at her tainted reflection. Why was seventeen treating her so badly? Sixteen had done her wonders, and fifteen, and fourteen. She had never felt so much pent up anger in herself until seventeen had come around and ruined everything.

      "Stop, you're acting like a child," she shakily spoke to herself viciously wiping her salty tears that seemed endless. But the more she tore at the tears, the more she seemed to succumb to the feelings that came with them. Her knees felt weak, hands shaky, heart beating like a symphony. When would this feeling go away?

      "This is pathetic." Her eyes landed on her fragile frame that seemed to be crumbling with the notion that she in fact wasn't okay after the events of June, no matter how much she wanted to ignore everything that followed the twenty-fourth of that dreaded month. "You're fine, stop acting like a child," Her words beat her down worse than Umbridge had. Picking up tissues on the wooden vanity, she desperately wiped the blood from her face as an attempt to return her face as it had been that morning before her eventful class. But she only seemed to be doing more damage than help as she felt more and more pain while trying to remove the scarlet liquid.

      Ginger eventually gave up, her arms weakly falling to the vanity where they were before. She glared at herself in the mirror. Hot tears continued to fall as the blood had begun to dry and become darker with the oxygen it inhaled. And then she straightened her posture putting on a small smile that was less real than the promise of having her own planetarium in her room.

      "You're fine," she preached. "This is fine. You're going to get the best grades you've ever gotten in your entire life so your parents can be proud as ever and come home," the smile on her pearled teeth grew as she made promises to herself that were bound to be broken. "You're going to pack this all away, nothing is wrong, this is just a bad day, you're fine, stop acting like a child having a temper tantrum." She wiped the tears that had begun to come to a slow with the back of her hands.

      Her lies were a comfort to only herself as she cleaned herself up and changed into her pajamas, no matter it was a little early to do so. Ginger was bound to get worse by her nineteenth birthday before she got better. Her health had plummeted greatly over the course of just a few months and there was no telling if she would leave the memory of Cedric's body ever. But her lies guaranteed success and happiness so that's all she cared about. That's all she needed to care about. Nothing else. What could go wrong with that ideology?

NOTE. i have bo clue how many times ive updated today 🧍🏽‍♀️
but look at miss moon having her own black swan/itonya/cassie moment in the mirror 😋 SO PROUD

QOTC. how much worse do you think her mental health is gonna get by the end of deathly hallows?/how many breakdowns do you think shes gonna have by that time?

my answer: giggling rn