Chapter Twenty-Six Tom
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tom
All of it was true. He did have a job that day. He did have to get up early. It did make more sense for him to get the bus
to Euston at that time in the morning. Or, it made as much sense as taking the free taxi that Vogue had offered him, but no one needed to know that.
He’d left Sophie sleeping in his bed and he was grateful she was asleep so she didn’t pick up on his nervous energy as he
got ready to leave. He’d hardly slept at all, as all night he kept imagining how it would feel to step onto that bus again,
like old times.
Tom and Daisy still hadn’t spoken, and there was a chance she wouldn’t even be on the bus. That she took another job, or she
had a day off, or she’d won the lottery and took Ubers these days. Any number of reasons meant Tom was preparing himself for
the fact he might not see her, but his body wasn’t really getting on board with that. His body was buzzing with anticipation
at the notion of seeing her. Just as his friend. His friend who he missed. His friend who he’d got used to seeing every day
who had suddenly disappeared completely from his life, making him feel a bit empty.
Tom had felt a little like that ever since Christmas too—empty.
At first he put it down to Martha’s wish (why did she keep saying he was sad when he didn’t think he was?) to Sophie being so in awe of how he’d saved Daisy, the way he knew she would have been.
To easing himself into this new relationship with his ex-girlfriend, where everything was the same.
Same, but different. He had it on the edge of his tongue at all times.
How had she gone from being so certain he wasn’t right for her to so certain he was?
What had changed, and how sure was she it would stay that way?
As Tom saw the bus pulling up, he started kicking his feet against the ground. He didn’t dare look through the window to see
if he could see her. She wasn’t the only reason he was taking the bus, he had to keep assuring himself. Job. Early. Euston.
Bus easier.
It was annoyingly busy, and a few people pushed in front of Tom before he finally stepped on, using his card to pay. The queue
gathered ahead of him and Tom kept trying to lean around them to get a view down the aisle, tapping his foot as he waited.
Eventually the people dispersed and he scanned the heads, his pulse quickening as he caught sight of her. He was—what?—disheartened,
maybe, to see that she didn’t even look up. That she’d stopped checking for him. That she’d given up on him so easily. Instead
she was staring down at her phone, her eyes fixed on the screen as she bit down on the corner of her bottom lip. A smile broke
across Tom’s face as he noticed that actually, nothing much had changed at all, because she was still in one of her five rotating
outfits. His favorite. The black jacket and white T-shirt. Once he got closer, he knew she’d also be wearing the faded black
denim jeans that she paired it with. White trainers if it was slightly warmer. Black boots if it wasn’t.
Black boots, he noted, as he reached her.
“Hello, stranger,” he said, wondering too late if that was too creepy a first greeting after so long.
He watched her shoulders lift slightly as though he’d caught her by surprise.
Which, actually, he probably had. He put his heavy backpack down on the ground and watched as she turned to look at him, a smile breaking across her face so her dimples appeared and her eyes brightened.
A rush filled his body, making it hard to breathe for a second.
There she was. He hadn’t realized until now how familiar her face had become to him.
“Hello,” she said, and her voice wrapped around him like a hug. It had always lifted him to hear her speak but it seemed different,
somehow. A little more flat. She tapped the seat beside her and shifted across, closer to the window to make space for him.
Moving his backpack between the seats, he sat beside her. “Is it weird if I . . .” He reached an arm up and she smiled, leaning
into his hug and resting her hand on his back.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. “What are the chances?” He looked across at her then, grinning, and she rolled her eyes.
“Little old predictable Daisy is still riding the bus to work, so I’d say . . . high.” The bus let out a rumble as it pulled
away from its stop, as though it agreed with her.
“You’re far from predictable,” he said, and she tilted her head slightly to one side, watching him. He was trying to read
her. Was she happy to see him? Had it impacted her day in any way that he had got the bus today? From the way she hadn’t looked
up and how she’d casually moved toward the window to make space for him, he suspected not. He wasn’t expecting that.
Her phone lit up and he saw that she’d changed the picture from a sunset to a photo of her and Zack, faces pressed together.
“How are the wedding plans coming along?” he asked, pointing to her phone, as a man behind him started to hum along, more
loudly than was necessary, to whatever was playing in his headphones.
“Actually, good,” she said. “I think it might come together in time, which is a relief.”
Tom laughed. “You say that as if it was all out of your control.”
“It sort of felt like it was, but I don’t really know why.”
He forgot she did this, gave him such honest responses to any statement he made. It always made him feel like he owed her
the same in return.
“I know what you mean. It’s hard to remember that we’re responsible for our own lives. Sometimes it’s just easier to wait
for other people to tell us what to do, or to do it for us, or to make the decision so we don’t have to.” Tom didn’t even
know he felt like that until he said the words out loud. Daisy always did this to him. Got him to speak about the things he
was hiding, even from himself.
“Exactly,” Daisy said, turning to him, her eyes lighting up, but still more dull than he’d seen them in the past. “But actually
it’s quite liberating to do it for yourself. Terrifying, but liberating. I’m afraid the doves at the wedding are nonnegotiable
though, so good luck photographing those. Zack has a whole vision. Both of them flying in different directions, because apparently
you can control that. Me leaning back, staring at them in awe, Zack with delight on his face. Blue sky. Some snow . . .” Her
voice faded at the mention of snow and she looked away.
Tom saw a flash of her in his head, standing on Tottenham Court Road with the flake on the end of her nose. The one he’d reached
up to brush away.
“I’ll do my best,” he said, pushing the memory away. “You seem different,” he added, because it was all he could think about.
“It was an eventful Christmas. Dan came back.”
Tom broke into a grin. “That’s amazing.” He already didn’t want the journey to end. He had so much to say. So many questions.
“So he was okay?”
“He was . . .” She glanced down at her hands, seemingly searching for the words.
“Sort of okay. He’s getting there. Wait, but how are you?
More importantly, how are you and Sophie?
Sorry. That’s dismissive. You are important separate to you and Sophie, so you answer whichever of those you’d like to. ”
He laughed at her awareness of what she’d said, and was grateful for the separation she’d provided between the two. “I’m good,”
he said. “Work’s good. Sort of same old, but good. I got offered a job in South Korea, though I’m not sure if I’ll take it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s portraits of some of the survivors of the plane crash, to raise money for a charity there.”
“Why wouldn’t you take that?”
He frowned. He hadn’t taken it yet because Sophie had never mentioned it again, and suddenly that made no sense to him. It
wasn’t up to her.
“You’re right,” he said, smiling as the bus announced the stop for King’s Cross. “I should stop waiting for people to make
the decisions for me. It’s exactly the sort of work I want to be doing.”
“Well, quite.” She looked out the window, turning back suddenly. “I haven’t seen you since your exhibition. It was stunning,
Tom. It didn’t just please the eyes, it sort of soothed the soul as well. It was a gift, to be surrounded by joy like that.”
Her face flushed slightly, the way it seemed to when she gave a compliment, and Tom felt his heart swell at the sight of it.
He swallowed. “Thank you for saying that. It was so important to me that people felt that way.”
“Well, I did,” she said. “And you and Sophie?”
He thought of her now, asleep in his bed, the scent of Gucci Rush against his pillows. He thought about how irregularly he
was seeing her and whether he was okay with that. He remembered her words about his exhibition. “I loved it, especially the
one of me.” Then he remembered how much effort Daisy had put into helping him to get her back.
“We’re good,” he said. “I guess it’s taking a bit of adjusting, which I wasn’t expecting, but we’re good.”
She nodded. “That make sense. You got used to a life without her, pining daily on the bus aside.” She leaned toward him, shoving
him with her shoulder, and the action felt so familiar to him.
“Well it paid off, thanks to you.”
She shook her head. “Thanks to Orlando.”
“I thought you were all about doing things for yourself? That means owning the fact it was your help that did this.”
He thought he saw a wave of sadness cross her face, but if he did, she shrugged it away. “True. I’ll take it. Go me!” Was
that sarcasm in her voice? It sounded like it, but that didn’t make any sense.
“How’s work?” he asked, as someone stepped onto the bus, a hood pulled over their head, the bottom half of their face lit
up by the brightness of a phone screen. “Applied for a new job yet?”
Daisy flinched. “No. I’m just trying to do more investigative stuff in my current job, instead.”
“Right,” he said, not realizing how much he’d hoped for her to have made some sort of change since he last saw her. “Still
holding yourself back, I see?” He couldn’t help but sound a little frustrated. She was capable of so much more. Of everything
she put her mind to. He didn’t understand why she couldn’t see that about herself.
“It’s not the right—”
“Time,” he interrupted, unable to stop himself.
“So you keep saying, but I actually think that’s bullshit, Daisy.
I think there are way bigger reasons as to why you won’t put yourself forward.
Why you go home and make Zack talk you out of it so you can stay stuck in the life you don’t even want while letting it all be someone else’s fault.
” He realized now that he’d been worrying about her ever since he last saw her.
Worrying because for whatever reason he felt like he couldn’t reach out to her, and if he wasn’t going to encourage her to make the most of her brilliant life, it seemed no one else would either and that didn’t feel right.
That was such a waste of a person like her.
Why didn’t she have other people around, telling her how special she was?
“You’re the smartest, most talented person I know, and you can’t even see that.
Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to believe so wholeheartedly in someone who doesn’t believe in themselves?
” He reached up, pulling at his hair, before dropping his hand back down.
“There has to be a reason for it. A reason for why someone as incredible as you doesn’t think they can do this stuff, because you can.
You should. You deserve to.” He squeezed his fists together as he watched her take in his words.
Daisy shifted upward in her seat, shoulders high and face pinched. “I don’t blame Zack for any of this. This is my choice. My life. I get to choose when I’m ready, and I’m not yet. Not everyone’s like you, Tom. For some people it’s too hard. They’re not confident.
They’re not brave enough. Just because you get to do exactly what you want all the time, doesn’t mean everyone can.” Tears
filled her eyes and her bottom lip was wobbling. My God, what had he done?
“I’m sorry. I . . .” He looked around, noticing too late they were approaching Euston. This wasn’t the way he’d planned for
the journey to go. He’d missed her so much. He had ached with wanting to catch up with her and hear all her news and instead
he’d bulldozed her with advice when it wasn’t his place. He forgot how much she listened to him, how fixed she became on his
words. It normally made him so careful with what he said. It made him want to make everything count. That’s what he thought
he was doing. He’d got it all so wrong.
“Why do people keep saying that to me?” she said gently.
“Saying what?”
“That there must be a reason for why I am the way I am. You. Clara. Dan . . . They keep telling me I should get therapy. Speak to someone. Like there’s something wrong with me.”
He shook his head, standing up. “We’re all people who care about you, that’s why,” he said. “I’m sure Zack would encourage
it too if you gave him the chance. It only ever helps to talk, Daisy. And you do so much of it for other people, but rarely
for yourself.” He bent down to pick up his bag.
Euston Station.
He had to go, or he’d miss his train.
“This is me. I better . . . I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No,” she said coldly. “You shouldn’t have.”
He moved to the double doors as they opened and he waited for her to look at him, but her gaze remained fixed on the world
outside of the window.
“I guess I’ll . . . see you at the altar?” he shouted, allowing everyone else to leave first in case she acknowledged him,
but she didn’t. He jumped off the bus and carted his bag toward the station.