28. Tom
Chapter twenty-eight
Tom
Two weeks later
H e’s gone.
He wouldn’t let us take him to the airport. Said he didn’t like awkward long goodbyes. So after we spent the night together last night at Cassidy’s place, he gave us both a hug and left to get his suitcase and his taxi to the train station.
That was ten minutes ago. Cassidy’s been crying since the door closed behind him. She did an amazing job of wishing Jack well and sounding enthusiastic for his adventures. And then, once the door closed behind him, she grabbed me in a hug and has been weeping ever since. I’m filled with that numbness again. The same feeling I had when Jack told us he was leaving. It glides over me like a blanket. I know that I’m hugging Cassidy back. I’m making soothing noises and rubbing her back. But I can’t cry. The tears aren’t there. Only emptiness. I do my best to comfort Cassidy and eventually her crying eases. She leaves my hug to get a tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
“Look at me. I’m a mess,” she tells me with a wry chuckle.
“A beautiful mess, Mac.”
I don’t stay too long after that. We talked yesterday, deciding it was best to crack back on with work and our normal daily stuff. We agreed that she’d come to the bar later though. But beyond that, we haven’t really made any solid plans.
I head off to work with a wave of gratitude that we have a big delivery coming. I try my best to keep my mind clear and focus on the physical exertion of unloading heavy barrels and moving them to the stockroom. I keep going for hours. Deep cleaning the bar and even getting down on my hands and knees to clean the floor. I have a cleaning crew that come in and do it regularly, but I know that what I need right now is physical hard work. I need to exhaust myself so that I can collapse into bed at the end of the night and fall asleep without thinking about Jack.
Abby finds me a while later when she arrives for her shift. I’m polishing the bar and the beer pumps; it’s probably sparkling more than the day it was installed.
“Wow, spring cleaning, boss?” she asks with a smile. I look over and see her face fall. “Jack left today, didn’t he?”
I nod and go back to my scrubbing. I get a shock a moment later when she appears next to me and grabs me in a tight hug. It doesn’t last long, but it tugs at my heart.
“Here to listen if you want to talk about it. Or to drink with you if you want to get drunk, Tom.” She never calls me by my name. It’s been ‘boss’ since her first day on the job.
“Thanks, Abby. I’m good though. I swear.”
She heads out to the back to put her belongings in a locker and make a cuppa before we open up.
A Week Later
I blearily open one eye when I hear my phone repeatedly buzzing. It’s been doing it for ages. I grab it from my bedside table to see Cassidy’s name and photo on the screen. This isn’t the first time she’s called. I don’t want her to worry, so I click ‘accept’ before holding the phone up to my ear.
“Hey, Mac,” I say in my husky, just woken up tone.
“Tom Mitchell, where the fuck have you been?” She sounds grumpy, but cute.
“Well, right now I’m in bed. Where I’ve been since I got home from the bar and dropping off the staff last night after we closed.”
“I thought you were coming back to mine?”
That had been the plan. She’d been in the bar with Mel for a few drinks and they were chatting with Abby when the crowds allowed. The three of them talking about starting a Thirst Trap Book Club. She’d left me with her spare key so I could let myself in.
“It was late. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
I feel like a dick. It’s been a week since Jack left. And whilst we’ve seen each other several times since then, it had all been Cassidy coming to me. Visiting the bar every couple of days. I appreciate seeing her smile and the quick hugs she gives me as she arrives and leaves. But with work, there isn’t much time for chatting. And I know I’ve been avoiding anything beyond that.
“Can I come over?” she asks.
I look around. Clothes everywhere, a messy kitchen. I’ve let my usually high tidy standards slip. I haven't been spending much time here lately and for the last week, I’ve worked a ridiculous amount of hours purely to avoid spending too much time by myself.
“How ‘bout I come to you? I can bring coffee.” I hope that will win her over. She agrees and we hang up.
I stop at the deli that does decent coffee on the way over and pick up a couple of cakes I know she likes, as well as the promised caffeine. Peace offerings. It’s not long before she’s letting me in and I take the lift up to her floor rather than risk spilling the coffees trying to get the doors open for the stairwell.
She’s waiting by the lift when it opens. I take a look at her and see that she, like me, looks really fucking tired.
I glance towards the door for Jack’s flat and realise that given the jolt it gives me, that it must be even harder for Cassidy to see it every time she leaves her flat.
He’s listed it on a short term letting app and we’ve been keeping an eye on it for him. He organised a cleaning crew, which I’m grateful for as it means we don’t have to spend much time there, other than a quick look round before each new arrival.
“Come on,” she says, grabbing a coffee and the bag with the cakes from me, and leading me into her flat. We sit on the couch and I Iet her pick a cake before shoving the other one into my mouth for a big bite. I’m chewing on the chocolate cupcake when she starts talking.
“I knew I was losing Jack. What I didn’t realise, Tom, is that it meant I would lose you, too.”
I swallow my mouthful, washing it down with a swig of coffee. My chest tightens and I know it’s not from the cake and coffee. I wanted to keep her safe from my heartache.
“Do you not want to make a go of this?”
I close my eyes on a sigh. When I open them, tears are filling her eyes, but she seems to be trying her best to stop them from spilling over. I place my cake and coffee down on the table, gesturing for her to come closer.
“Come here, Mac,” I say, pulling her into a hug. Her hands wrap around my middle as she gives me a squeeze.
“I’m sorry, Cassidy. I’m rubbish at this. I don’t know how to do it.”
“How to do what?”
“I don’t know how to work through hard stuff with anyone but myself. It’s always just been me, working through my own shit. I don’t know any other way. I know I’ve been keeping my distance, but it’s the only way I can get through it.” My voice sounds as rusty as I currently feel. Spilling my guts and my emotions doesn’t come easy to me. But I want to make this work.
She eases back to grip my face in her palms. “But I don’t think you are dealing with it, Tom. Abby says you’ve been working crazy hours. All you’re doing is working and sleeping. Every time I’ve seen you, you haven’t stopped. I know it hurts, baby,” she says as a sob breaks through her lips. “But we have to feel it. We can’t just ignore it. That won’t help. It’s okay to miss him.”
A tear slowly breaks free, slipping down her cheek. She continues talking. “I miss him so much. And now I miss you too. And it really fucking hurts.” She releases my face to grab a tissue from a box on the coffee table, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, looking agitated. “I was hoping to keep myself calm enough to have this conversation. But I actually think it might be helpful for you to see how sad I am. It’s okay to let the feelings out. Please let me be here for you. Please don’t shut me out.”
I swallow hard, gazing at her face, blotchy from the tears. “I’ll try Cassidy. I don’t want to lose you.”
She gives me a small smile. “Are you sure? Because it’s going to hurt like hell if you don’t want me without Jack. But I’d rather know now… than be strung along and forgotten about. I was kept in the dark throughout my marriage with Grant. I can’t live like that again.”
My heart squeezes as I feel her pain as if it’s my own.
“I just wanted to get myself sorted out, then I was planning to come back to you,” I try to explain myself.
“Tom, I want every single part of you. Just like I hope you want every single part of me. The broken parts, the crazy parts, the messy parts. All of it. I don’t want you to hide away when you feel bad. I want you to fucking share that with me. I want to be able to take just as good care of you as you do for me.”
Her tears are back, tracking down her cheeks. And I realise that these tears aren’t for Jack. They’re for me.
“For someone that is as shit hot at aftercare and taking care of people as you are, you’d think you’d be better at taking care of yourself.” She's yelling now. And I’m grateful she’s mad. That’s gotta be better than sad, right?
“I’ll be honest, Cassidy. It doesn’t come naturally to share this stuff. But I want to try. I want to give you everything you need. Even if what you want is me crying and sharing my feelings.” I faux-grimace, trying to lighten the mood a little and feel a warmth inside me when the corners of her mouth turn up in a tiny smile.
“Nice fucking try. But you still have to actually share your feelings. You can’t get out of this by making me laugh.”
I sigh, leaning my head back on the couch. Closing my eyes, I swallow hard. When I open them again and look at her, she gives a sharp intake of breath as I let her see my pain.
“I loved him. I still do. I loved him before you came along. And then you were there, and it made everything even more. I wasn’t sure how it would work with the three of us to begin with. I thought it was just fun and a way for Jack to ease back from my feelings.”
I take a breath and try to gather the rest of my thoughts.
“But you made it all even better, Mac. You made me realise I’d been keeping my heart small and trying to protect it. You made me want to give it some space. To actually contemplate the idea that I might be able to be happy and have this amazing relationship with not one, but two, amazing people.” Another deep breath.
“And then, after he opened up, and I thought we were getting somewhere, he fucking left. I saw how much that hurt you. I didn’t want to give myself a chance to feel that. So I did what I always do. I just worked myself into the ground. I’m fucking exhausted. Working all hours of every day. Trying to take care of everyone at work to keep myself busy. But I was struggling with you. I knew if I came too close, I would break at some point. And I didn’t think you needed to see that.” My shoulders drop with a sigh as the truth comes out.
“I do need to see that. I need to know that you feel comfortable—to completely be yourself with me. That's the way forward. Being in a healthy relationship doesn’t mean that we are shielded from pain and hard things. It means there’s someone there, going through it as well. We can help each other. Sometimes that looks like one of us being strong for the other one. But a lot of the time, it’s sitting here on the couch crying together and feeling sad. That’s valid too. We don’t always have to make it better. Sometimes we just sit with it together. You know?”
And I realise I get what she means. We don’t have to work through this alone. I have Cassidy. And Cassidy has me. We each understand what the other is going through and we can support each other through this.
“Thank you,” I say softly. “For not giving up on me. For coming by the bar and checking up on me. For not letting me hide away from you and my feelings. It fucking sucks feeling sad and heartbroken. But I’m glad that you’re here, Cassidy. I love you.”
“Oh, Tom. I love you too.”
I press a gentle kiss to her lips. She feels like home and, as her arms come tightly around me to gather me close, I feel her love pouring over me, replacing that numb feeling with warmth and comfort.