Chapter Twenty-Two Tom
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tom
Tom couldn’t quite believe how much his life had changed in just a few days. He’d had a sell-out exhibition, Sophie had come
back to him and he’d been offered a mountain of work from the editors who showed up at his private viewing. A newspaper wanted
to use his photo of Stormy for a piece they were running on homelessness in the capital, and one of the upcoming shoots he’d
been offered was a life-changing opportunity taking portrait photos of survivors of a recent plane crash in South Korea. Which
reminded him . . .
“Hey,” he said, when Sophie appeared from the shower, wrapped in a towel. “You can absolutely say no and I’m not even definite
that I’ll take it, but I’ve been offered a job in South Korea next year. Quite an incredible one actually . . . I was thinking
if I take it, maybe you could come too?”
“Why South Korea?” Sophie asked, wrinkling her nose in that way he used to love. Did love, still.
“It’s some portrait photos for a charity raising funds for survivors of the plane crash there.”
“Gosh, that sounds full-on,” Sophie said.
He was watching her face for a reaction. After everything he’d noticed in the photos he took of her, he was trying to read her a bit better, pick up on the things she was feeling that she maybe wasn’t saying.
“You don’t need to answer now,” he said. “Just a thought.”
“Okay,” she said, turning to walk back into the bathroom to get dressed. “Is that more the kind of work you think you’ll do
now, then?” she asked, turning back.
He nodded. “I think so. I might do the odd editorial bit, but stuff like that . . . it doesn’t change anything. It just makes
rich people richer. I’m not sure that’s what I’m about.”
She stared at him and he smiled, checking her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asked, frowning.
He didn’t want to tell her. If he told her she’d be too aware of it, and then he wouldn’t be able to keep reading her. Also,
he didn’t want to go into the details of everything he’d learned about them while they were apart. He didn’t really want to
mention them having been apart, at all.
“Just looking at you,” he said instead, and he watched her eyes light up. It was an answer she liked.
“Shall we go get some breakfast? I need coffee.” Tom fleetingly thought about the flaw of Sophie’s he’d listed to his dad when they weren’t together. The only one
he could think of.
“Definitely.” He pulled himself up so he was sitting. He had a funny feeling in his stomach, as though he were having to ask
Sophie for permission to take the job. As though he needed her approval. He’d got so used to making his own decisions that
it felt unfamiliar to him. But it would; it was early days.
“When did you want to go and get your stuff?” Tom asked, noting the free weekend they had ahead of them. He climbed out of
bed and grabbed his towel, walking toward the shower. When she didn’t answer, he turned back to look at her.
“I was thinking we could take it slow, maybe? Like . . . date again?” She scrunched her face up and he tried to rearrange his features so they didn’t display the confusion he was feeling. She’d made a mistake. She wanted him back, but she didn’t want to rush it?
“Sure,” he said, turning away.
They went to their favorite café just up from the cinema on Upper Street. Tom held open the door for Sophie and pulled out
the chair for her. He signaled for her to order first and he made it clear he’d be paying. It was normal, surely, for none
of this to feel quite right? They had completely separated their lives over months and had no contact and now, here they were,
back at it as though that break had never happened. As though in that time they hadn’t become slightly different people, people
who navigated the world in a different way because they no longer navigated it together.
“So what else has been going on for you?” Tom asked, trying to discover a bit more about his girlfriend of past and present.
He’d meant to ask her last night over dinner, but she’d ended up canceling because her rehearsal ran over.
“Not too much,” Sophie said, lifting a latte to her lips. She locked eyes with him and Tom felt nervous butterflies in his
stomach. He wasn’t sure if they were the good kind or not. “I guess I’ve just been trying to focus on myself a lot,” she continued.
“Figure out where I want to be. I’ve done loads of auditions, met up with friends I lost touch with. It’s been good for me,
I think. How about you?”
Tom scanned through what was appropriate to say.
Did he tell her that he was completely destroyed by their breakup?
That he couldn’t eat, or sleep? That in fact .
. . A flash of Daisy appeared in his head, knocking the breath out of him.
In fact, his life would probably have spiraled completely out of control if that bus hadn’t broken down, throwing him directly into Daisy’s path.
She had saved him. He hadn’t realized how true that was until this moment, but as he rewound through the last few months, every memory of how she’d helped him became crystal clear in his mind.
She shifted his focus. She pulled him out of his pit of despair and got him thinking about himself again.
Reminded him of how talented he was, and how much he was capable of.
Daisy appeared like some sort of fairy godmother and now, like the one in Cinderella, she had gone and he didn’t even get to thank her properly. To say goodbye.
“I saw your Instagram. You’re flying. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about what I had to say, what with everything you were
doing.”
She thought he was flying. He opened his mouth to correct her, but wasn’t the whole plan to make her think that? What if that was why she came back
to him? If she knew the truth, would she be here?
“It was a struggle,” Tom said, forcing a grin. “What with my flying and all, but I’m glad you said it.”
He reached across the table, stroking her hand that was wrapped around her mug.
“I’m glad too,” she said, smiling at him. He leaned a bit closer, to see if it reached her eyes. He wasn’t going to take any
chances.
Despite Tom thinking they had a whole weekend stretched out ahead of them, Sophie left after breakfast to go back and read
through her script. He was pleased for her, he thought, as he made his way to his dad’s house. This was a different version
of Sophie. She was lighter and happier and she had focus. It was what she’d wanted when they were together, and now that she
had it, maybe everything would be different. It would be the relationship she wanted, and she’d stay.
Tom couldn’t help thinking that way. He couldn’t help worrying that if something changed even slightly, she might want to
leave, and he wasn’t sure if he could handle that heartbreak twice. He wanted to relax into it and to trust how she felt,
but it was difficult. It would just take time, but she was worth it.
To distract himself, Tom turned up at his dad and Laura’s, having offered to hang out with Martha for the afternoon.
They’d replied with great enthusiasm and had met Tom at the door with Martha already bundled up in her biggest coat.
He didn’t really want to think about what they were so eager to get up to inside. Probably laundry, he assured himself.
“Please be careful with her,” Laura said. “She’s been needing her inhaler quite a lot recently, so we’ve been taking it quite
easy.”
“No problem,” Tom said, trying not to roll his eyes. “We’ll walk extra slow.”
Martha stepped out, joining Tom on the driveway.
“I’m guessing something happened with you and Sophie after your exhibition,” Laura said.
Tom nodded. “Yep. Turns out she isn’t too good for me, after all,” he replied. He couldn’t help it. He knew Laura probably
talked Sophie into breaking up with him on The Worst Day, otherwise why had she been at their flat? Why had she left, and
then Sophie ended things minutes later?
Laura frowned. “No one thought she was too good for you, Tom. Anyway,” she glanced down at Martha and back up. “Have fun.”
“We will,” Tom said and, before he could wonder if she had anything more to say, the door closed gently in his face. It seemed
so unfair that, of all the women his dad could have picked, he’d chosen Laura.
“Three options, pal,” Tom said to Martha as they started walking. “Park. Pub. Hot chocolate.”
“With marshmallows?”
“Always with marshmallows.”
“Park and hot chocolate?” Martha asked, jumping in the air and turning to look at him. He shrugged. He had no other plans for the day and she would definitely stop him thinking too much about things.
“Fine, but you’re paying,” he said and she turned to him with her mouth wide open.
“I don’t have any money,” she said. “But I do have these.” She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a handful of old dried flowers and some rocks.
“Perfect.”
There was something so calming about being with his sister. She lived in the moment. He was sure she must worry about things,
but it was as though she voiced them and they were gone. He watched her now, flying across the monkey bars and making friends
in the sandpit. The whole world was one big adventure to her. One big opportunity. He remembered a sign he saw on the wall
of a pub once. “There are no strangers, only friends we have not met.” Martha definitely lived by that rule.
“Watch this,” she shouted to Tom before leaping off the side of a pirate ship and into the sand. She looked back at him and
he did a double thumbs-up. If Laura had been there, she’d have stopped her or shouted at her. Told her to be careful. Tom
wanted to be the one to encourage the opposite.
“Go, girl!” he shouted, raising his hands to his mouth as a mum glanced across at him and smirked. She definitely thought
he was her dad.
“Okay,” Martha said eventually, approaching Tom at the picnic table. “I’m thirsty.” She gripped her throat and stuck her tongue
out. “And tired.”
“Hot chocolate it is.”
They walked to the café in the courtyard of Kenwood House and Martha ran to a table inside, right by the radiator. Tom ordered
a tea for himself and Martha’s hot chocolate supreme and sat down opposite her.
“So you and Sophie love each other again?” Martha asked, reaching onto the table and turning the bowl full of sugar sachets upside down so they spilled out onto the table.
Tom watched, not commenting. “That’s right,” he said instead, wondering if it was too soon to use love and whether it was weird to question that when they’d been in love for so long already.
“So she didn’t want time by herself anymore? She stopped being a snake?” Martha started stacking the sugar sachets on top
of each other, building some sort of saccharine tower, perhaps to make up for her vicious tongue.
Tom shrugged. “I’m not sure she was ever a snake, but yes, I guess so.”
“I thought Daisy loved you,” she said, kicking her legs under the chair and flinging them back so that the toe of one foot
landed right on Tom’s kneecap, enhancing the jolt he already felt at Martha’s words.
He paused, trying to process what she was saying. Martha thought Daisy loved him? Where had she got that from?
“No,” he said, correcting her. “We were just friends. Still are.” Were they? Nothing had happened that meant they weren’t,
so why did it feel like she was gone from his life for good, except for that one big date in the diary? He owed her that.
He owed her more than that.
“Oh.” She knocked the tower down and immediately started rebuilding it. “When I love someone he’ll be funny, he won’t fight
with me and he will never tell lies. And—” she looked over to the door and back “—he’ll love Pokémon.”
“I think that sounds like a winning combination for love,” Tom said. Had he ever asked himself the same question about what
he’d choose? How was Martha so much wiser at six years old?
“And it wouldn’t be hard to love him. No one should try hard to love someone,” Martha said, her eyes widening like saucers as the hot chocolate was placed in front of her. Tom had gone all out with whipped cream as well. Laura would kill him.
“Where on earth did you hear that?” Tom asked, frowning.
“Don’t know,” Martha said, squeezing her eyes closed as she thought about it. “I think maybeeee . . . Barbie Dreamhouse?”
Tom nodded, his expression serious. “Barbie knows her stuff,” he said, wondering what she meant by trying. Maybe he’d have to hunt down that episode and give it a watch.