The Only One He Ever Loved

It was unclear how long she had been like this, but Myrtle simply could not tear her eyes away from the gaping hole in the wall. That boy had come in and asked her how she had died, and she had spoken out loud about the day of her death for the first time in fifty years. And then, that boy, the one who looked so very much like him, had disappeared into the pipe. The very same pipe that he had emerged from fifty years before.

Something had clicked in Myrtle’s head at that moment. As the words tumbled from her mouth, something seemed utterly foreign about them. She had relived her last living day so many times in her head, but only when she voiced it out loud did it suddenly seem wrong. Random pieces of long-forgotten memories were colliding inside her head in their rush for her to examine them as she slowly recalled what she had spent fifty years in blissful ignorance of. Olive Hornby had teased her, yes, but she was only one of the many that day, and Myrtle’s flight to the girls’ toilet had nothing to do with glasses.

All day the rumors had been flying. That power-hungry Slytherin? He could never love a Mudblood like her…Did you hear? It can’t be, he could have any girl he wants…It would never work, no one would love her…I heard it’s all some lie she made up to get him to go out with her... The whispering had followed her everywhere that day, seeping through the walls and dancing on the wind across the grounds so that she could not escape. Myrtle?, Olive Hornby laughed to her friends, that girl isn’t even worth a second of his life. Exploding into sobs, Myrtle ran for the second floor.

Locked in a stall, Myrtle collapsed on the floor. She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth silently until her breathing calmed. Those girls didn’t know what they were talking about. Tom Riddle loved her, and she loved him. He had picked her out of the crowd and noticed her for who she really was. He had sacrificed his very reputation, for they both knew their secret relationship could one day be exposed. He was a tall, handsome, cunning Slytherin…and she, just a plain Hufflepuff who only lit up when he was around. He had told her he would never leave her, and she had believed him. She still did.

Myrtle’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a harsh grating sound. It was followed by a sort of hissing and spluttering—it sounded like someone was trying to speak, but couldn’t. A second later she realized it was a boy’s voice. Wiping her cheeks briefly and pushing her hair out of her face, Myrtle stood up and opened the stall door. She opened her mouth to tell the boy to go use his own toilet, when her heart faltered. It was Tom. Her eyes locked on his for a brief moment before hiding from the intensity of his shocked gaze and drifting toward the ground…and suddenly focusing on a pair of bright yellow eyes shining out of the wall.

All time seemed to freeze. Suddenly, a million thoughts burst into Myrtle’s head in what was, in actuality, only a fraction of a second. He had betrayed her. He had never loved her. He had told her that he disagreed with the Dark Arts in which his friends were so engrossed, yet here he was, controlling a giant beast. She wasn’t stupid, she knew what it was; this had to be the monster that was attacking the school. The very monster that had put her only true friend in a state of unalterable unconsciousness! The monster that was attacking those like she, the Muggle-borns. And he was behind it all. Her Tom was responsible for the tragedy sweeping the school. A wave of anger so passionate that it threatened to consume her crashed through her blood and poured out of her eyes -- before dying just as quickly as it had started.

Despite the strength of his betrayal, Myrtle couldn’t help herself. She still loved him. She always would. And for that, she hated herself. How had she allowed herself to buy into his lies? How could she have fallen so hard for him that she could not see the truth even now when it was right in front of her eyes?

Myrtle was falling backward in slow motion. Sometime before she hit the ground, her brain shut down. Her heart, however, was not finished. Entirely absorbed in her self-contempt, she could not physically contain the raw emotion. And so as Myrtle’s body crashed onto the cold stone floor, the room was momentarily ablaze with a staggering flash of white light brighter than anything Tom had ever seen before. Propelled by the magnitude of her own self-loathing, Myrtle’s soul exploded out of her body with enough power to survive. For now, her soul was floating on the edge of life and death, but no one could maintain that level of emotion for long. In due time, she would return to the world as a ghost until she could set her feelings straight.

Tom Riddle stood frozen in the girls’ toilet. Blinking rapidly, he tried to push the image out of his mind. But it remained. Her body was still there, cold and prone on the floor. Hardly aware of his actions, Tom collapsed on his knees at her side and reached out to touch her face. He could still feel the warmth of her cheeks. Brushing her hair aside, Tom let the recently-fallen teardrops slide like silk under his fingers. Forgetting everything for a moment, he bent to kiss them away. But when he saw her eyes, he scrambled backward and lurched to his feet as though physically repelled by their emptiness. He did not deserve to touch her. How could he have let this happen? The only person to whom he had ever revealed his true self was dead, and it was all his fault. She had believed in his innocence, his purity. And he had betrayed her. Myrtle, the only one he had ever loved. Love…Tom’s face contorted in pain. What was the point in loving, if only to have it taken away from you?

It was clear what he had to do. Turning away from the girl who was once the love of his life, Tom forced aside his frustration with himself and focused fully on his new-found determination. If this was what love meant, he would have to take it upon himself to destroy love before someone else suffered at its expense. No one would ever have to feel the way he did now.









A/N: I got the idea for this one-shot fanfic while reading The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in English class. Chapter 2 of the novel discusses a relationship between Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson...thus, an idea was born.