VULNERABLE | thomas shelby

✞ E I G H T E E N ✞

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN; THE BIG QUESTION

TOMMY HAD TRIED nearly everything to get Bethany to talk to him. He had ran after her when she had stormed out of the Garrison and tried to beg her to stay with him but the most he got were angry glares as she stormed through Small Heath, her head high as she ignored him. The door to her home slammed behind her locking Tommy out and he had left his key to her house in Polly's so the best option was to bang on the door until the early hours of the morning, shouting up to her. The neighbours lights flicked on with the commotion but one glance at the Shelby who banged on the door and the lights were back off.

He eventually gave up and walked off in defeat. Ignoring his nagging family when he got in and going straight up to bed. He gave up. Just like everyone else had. They had moved on. Beth was on her own once again. Polly was busy trying to convince Ada and Karl out of the basement even if just to eat but Ada was having none of it. Polly had stopped by at Beth's twice. Beth was expecting a big hard lecture from Polly when she opened the door and Polly was ready to give it until she saw how broken Beth looked.

Her face looked skinnier and paler than usual and her hair was left down and wild as if she had just rose that morning, her usual dress was replaced with an oversized mans shirt and Polly feared to ask who it belonged to as if scared to trigger Bethany Clover more. John had visited too, but Beth wouldn't let him in. He didn't mind though and would sit outside the door talking through it. He thought he was talking to himself but the whole time Beth sat on the stairs covering her mouth as she cried.

Tommy had been sick of life. She was probably the one thing keeping him together and going and it was starting to show by the rays of stress and anger and even sometimes sadness that would rush from Tommy. John and Arthur would usually have to be the ones to pull him away from Beth's front door before he broke it off the hinges. Beth was dependant to not give in to him but as the days went by it was becoming harder and harder to be on her own. The thoughts that swallowed her of her brother. The thoughts of her mother and father. All she had was the Shelby's and now she had locked them out.

Tommy marched into Polly's home, a cigarette between his lips and his face drained of all life. Polly looked up from her newspaper shaking her head in disapproval at Tommy. "She's not going to give in Thomas. You've managed to make all the women in your life hate you at the moment. Two of them not bothering to leave their rooms to even look at you." Polly grinned deviously. Tommy slammed his hand down on the kitchen table angrily, his eyes clouded as he glared. "I fucking know Pol, thanks for the reminder."

John walked into the doorframe his eyes never leaving the ground as he debated his decision. "We'll go on John. What's the matter now, eh?" Tommy sighed, glancing over at his younger brother. "Tom, Beth is in the Garrison. I think you should go catch her before she runs back home." John mumbled, knowing his best friend would bound to be angry at his blabber mouth. Tommy's head shot up and he never bothered to give a spare a glance towards any one else before he ran out the door, John following close behind.

Beth hadn't ate in a week. Her head was aching and her body was thinner than normal. She had decided to make her way to the Garrison deciding to leave her house finally in hopes she wouldn't run into any Shelby. A slim chance but one she was willing to make. The walk was quiet and cold but Beth kept to herself. When the Garrison doors opened Beth made a bee line to the bar and slid into a chair at the counter and began to talk away to Harry as if she hadn't been missing the last week. "Haven't seen your in a while love and you look like shit, what happened?"