By my Side ~ Tom Felton fanfic

Chapter 49: Hate and Forgiveness

'And then it was just me and him, slowly going insane. He let out his anger on me, as he continued to drink heavily and even started to take drugs. But it didn't last for a long time. I think it hit him that mum had left, so he just shut himself in his room. I would sometimes hear him wailing and groaning and screaming and sounds of things breaking in his room... to be honest I would've much rather him just yelling at me, or even hitting me than to hear him suffering like that. He was a great dad, and I wanted his old self back.

'But one day all of them stopped. For a whole day. It was so eerily quiet, that I decided to open the door. But it was locked from the inside, so I kicked it open.' He then paused, closing his eyes and breathing deeply, as though trying to calm himself down. Kat squeezed his shoulder, drawing circles with her thumb. 'Then I saw him. Hanging from the ceiling.' He raised his gaze to give me a small, sad smile because I let out a small gasp and clapped my hand over my mouth. Tears were in my eyes too. 'I... I don't really remember what I did then. I think I called the police and stuff but... I was alone. I tried calling mum, but she changed her number. My grandparents' places were too far for me to go to them, so basically, I was left alone. An orphan, I could say.

'I... I didn't know what to do. The police offered me to find a place that I could stay, but I refused for some reason. I think I didn't want to leave home, where the memories of my parents were, especially dad's. But then school work started to get to me on top of the emotional weight I felt, the emptiness and loneliness and basically everything else. I started to feel stressed and it got so bad that one day, I decided to take a sip of dad's drinks. I know, it was the stupidest idea I could ever thought of, but I just couldn't think properly. It was only supposed to be a sip, but I couldn't stop myself after that. I drank after glass after glass... then they came up to me.'

Even though he didn't specifically say who, I knew exactly who he was talking about.

'We started talking more and more... about alcohol, mainly, and at time to time they would invite me over and talk crap about everything. The people at our school, people they knew, their parents, their lives... At first I knew that I shouldn't be there, I've got better things to do. But the more time I spent with them, the more I started to lose myself. That's when I... started being so horrible to you. And the things with Alicia...

'At first it was only alcohol, but, like you both know, we did start to do illegal things like... smoking and taking drugs. Now I think about it, we all had something tragic happen to us, whether it was huge or small. We just wanted to forget everything and get over it, but we obviously took a terribly wrong path. In my case I - I pushed you to the edge so much that I... made you think that you should cut yourself and even further that you...' he took a shaky breath. 'tried to kill yourself.'

I closed my eyes and slowly took deep breaths. Those memories were ones that I despite remembering. Underneath the table, I was gripping onto Tom's hand.

'When I read articles about that, it was the first time that I realised what I've done. But it was only faintly, I'll be honest. As time went by though, I started to gain back my - well - sanity. When you broke up with me that day, a part of me did feel empty. And then this news came to me, and it hit me like a truck. You don't understand the amount of weight I felt because I was the one to blame for all of that. You didn't deserve any of those at all and... honestly I won't be able to apologise enough for what I've done...

'But from the day I heard the news, I started to decrease the smoking and drugs slowly, and eventually alcohol. It wasn't easy, but I was getting scared of them for the first time. They made mum leave dad and I, and I lost the girl I loved and hurt her terribly... so I tried to quit. But then it made Alicia angry because - you know - she still wanted me to do those things. I know, I've changed her too and...' He paused and shook his head, biting his lip as though trying to keep in the tears that were welling up in his eyes already. 'We broke up at the end of 2007 and... I didn't know what to do for a few months.

'Though I did know, that I want to help and support people, young or old, who were struggling with depression or anxiety or having any emotional struggle. I didn't want more people go through what I went through, what you went through because of me.

'So I started to find a new school to start from Year 10 again. I - I had a fair amount of - you know - money and took scholarship tests for few schools and I got into our school.' I was quite surprised with this. 'Mr Greene gave me a load of support that I probably didn't even deserve. But he told me that I could jump to Year 11 from the test results, so I took that and managed to graduate two years ago. As the top three percent in England too... I eventually decided to go to UCLA, because I did get a scholarship there and also because it was overseas.

'I wanted to leave, leave home to a place where no one knew me. Put everything I've done behind. But about a month and a bit before I came here, I ran into Kat. Believe me, she let all her anger out about you to me that time but then she offered to listen to my story. I'd never told anyone the truth till that point.

'That's what triggered my feeling for her. I knew you were moving on with Tom and I was more than happy for you. You really deserve happiness and that's what you have with him. So I decided that I could move on too. When the time came, when I was ready, I had in mind to apologise to you but like I said, I can't apologise to you enough. I heard from Colin that you and Tom were living next to him, so I guessed that we were going to run into each other again, but I didn't expect it to be all so sudden and unexpectedly.' He laughed weakly and I so did I. 'But,' he looked at me right in the eyes. 'I really am - truly - so sorry for what I've done, Sakura. I won't blame you if you don't forgive me, but I just want you to know how much I regret everything, how much I want to apologise to you. Although,' he stood up and came around to our side, facing me. He held out his hand. 'It'll be great if - if we could be friends again, just like the old times.'

I stared at his hand with blurry eyes then up to his face and back to his hand. I quickly wiped my eyes and, smiling, I took it and we shook hands.

'Why didn't you tell me this back then...?'

'Sorry I - I didn't know how to. I mean - you had filming and all these other stuff to worry about...'

I just smiled at him. 'Thank you for explaining everything, though. But just one thing.' I said. 'If you ever hurt Kat in any way, you better run far away. This time I won't hesitate to punch you.'

'I'll keep that in mind at all times.' He nodded. 'But again, I really am sorry.'

I nodded. 'I'm just glad that you're back to normal.'

'I am too, honestly.' He laughed softly.

I laughed softly too and I smiled at Kat who returned the smile, looking relived.

I glanced over to Tom and saw him have a faint smile on his face.

Please take note, I haven't got the years and stuff exactly right as for now but when I complete this story, I'll go back and edit it. But hopefully you get the gist!

Thank you for reading!!