You are a hardworking young actor that catches a big break, resulting in you attending your first big awards show. Among the famous faces you see that night: Tom Hiddleston. You only ever intended to admire him from afar, but he has different plans...
[A special half-chapter presenting Tom's POV in all it's painful glory.]
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The words, here in black and white before him, would have made him stumble had he not already been sitting down. In the same disbelieving breath they rile something in him, and he feels a flush growing up his neck.
Honesty! The truth stripped away for the world, but not for him?! He asked! It had been all he had asked of her! And here, here she, she allows it to... everyone.
He tries to shake himself loose, free of the heart, of the tightening in his chest. What is the point of indulging this pain, frustration, and anger? To what end?
He bats it away, swatting at it as though it were a bug buzzing at the edge of his awareness. It remains despite his efforts. The best he can hope for is that it will eventually become part of the white noise enveloping him, part of the fuel he burns through to get through the day.
Tom rearranges himself, shifting his hand so that his palm covers the glossy pages of the magazine. It does nothing to wipe the words from existence. It's too late for that. They're printed. Recorded. Spoken.
Spoken.
He closes his eyes, her face immediately greeting him within his subconscious. She doesn't appear to him as he'd last seen her – eyes rimmed in red, pain hollowing out her features. She's not warm and laughing, either. She's solemn.
The room fills in, innocuous details that don't matter but he can't help imagining. The pattern on the rug at her feet. The arrangement of the chairs, carefully situated for the meeting. The bright light emanating from behind the one conducting the interview, aimed and at a wattage that washes out her complexion, just enough to erase those freckles that dot across her cheeks.
Why had she agreed to this? Why!! Why could she do this, but not speak to him?
He shouts it at her, his single word question, but she doesn't turn. It's a figment of his imagination and should be able to make her do as he pleases, but she refuses to look him in the eye, refuses to acknowledge him. Even in his head, she's so damned stubborn!
I can't speak to that.
His heart does a flip, her voice seeming less an echo and more like they're sharing the same space. He should force himself out of this, blink himself back into reality, peel the pages of the magazine from his sweaty palm and putter around his house.... But he doesn't.
Instead he watches as the words on the page spring from her lips. They didn't transcribe her natural pauses, but he knows her, knows exactly how she would have delivered the phrases.
I – don't know it's my place, and it's certainly...
A frown ripples over her features before she gains control again, a light wave of her hand all the motion she allows herself. Refusing to fidget. Only allowing herself three places to swivel her focus between: a spot on the table, a corner of the room – presumably where Mark sits watching – and the interviewer. She starts again, and Tom leans forward, as though that would make her voice stronger and less likely to warble.
I was wondering, the other day, I guess maybe this is as close an answer as I can offer? About love, and resilience.
There, she blinks away from the interviewer seated before her for all of an instant, and looks in his direction. Her gaze strikes right through him. It takes Tom a second to remember he isn't really there, or rather, she isn't really here.
How many times can you give away pieces of your heart? Before there's nothing left, I mean. We offer up – we offer all these pieces of ourselves to those we love. And I can't help but think about the damage we do in the process. Not to ourselves. That's, that's not what I mean. What I mean is – I finally stopped focusing on all that I'd offered up. I looked into my hands and finally saw how many pieces of himself he'd given in return and how much harm I'd caused. I just couldn't...
Tom's anger tips him out of his imagination, tossing him back to the quiet of his home with his heartbeat roaring in his ears and feeling as though he'd been caught tilting his chair backwards too far and lost his balance. Words, so many words that revealed so much more than anyone had a right to hear. Anyone save him, anyways.
Why. Why now? What was different now than when he had asked it of her?
The magazine is wrinkled, pages creased from the moisture from his palm and the intensity of his grip on the thing. He heaves a sigh and sets about smoothing it out. Still, the words call to him. He can't help but read the next bit aloud, his voice hitching and breaking.
Love isn't supposed to be so destructive, you know? We aren't supposed to end up so bloody.
Bloody. She'd opened the door with a single word and they'd pounced.
Thanksgiving. What happened to the couple that left LAX intertwined and smiling?
What happened – if I can just put it all to rest – is on me. All of it. It cost me. Well, it cost me a lot. And I'm doing my best to learn from my mistakes. It was a mistake to go, to think that being there with my step-siblings could end any way other than how it did.
Tom lifts his hand to touch the tip of his middle finger to the place on his lip, now healed over. The bruises to his person might have faded but those suffered to his ego remain.
Not only had she spoken so freely of things that only existed between the pair of them, or had, but also answered point-damned-blank questions posed about her family. About what happened at Thanksgiving!
The columns of black text keep him captive. He wants to just stand up and walk away, leave the magazine in a heap on the floor. His focus jumps across the article, once again pulled to the position of his name, bolded, taunting him. Will he ever get to read the article in its entirety from start to finish? Does he even want to? He grits his teeth, tightening the muscles of his jaw as he rails against all of it – the whole damned situation. Why can't private matters be private?
