Another Paradise | T Shelby

THIRTY SEVEN - HOME AGAIN

Thomas waited day and night for Blair to come. He sat in his study in silence with no company apart from a glass of whiskey, staring at a photograph of the two of them he kept on his desk until midnight came.

He went upstairs to bed, then, only sleep didn't wash over him like it used to when she lay beside him. Emptiness enveloped him instead, cold, harsh, nothingness that toyed with his memories in the cruelest way.

It forced him to remember things he didn't want to remember, recall things he didn't want to recall. There was so much Thomas wished he'd been able to say to Blair while he could still call her his own, and so much he wished he hadn't said, too.

He believed in himself, that much was true, and it seemed like the rest of the world believed in him, too. Though the one thing that Tommy found strange was that every other obstacle he'd faced in his life, he'd been able to kick aside without a problem. When it came to Blair, however, she was like a habit he couldn't shake.

Every sight, every smell, every sound, every touch, everything in his world made him think of Blair. The colour yellow and white wine, the sunshine and hard rain ricocheting off window panes, freshly picked flowers and chocolate cupcakes, even his own son. Everything was her.

Tommy thought he'd die without laying eyes on the woman he felt eternally bound to again, and the fact that by some miracle, or perhaps fault, the two of them had been brought together again, made him begin to question everything.

His world was cold now, isolated and alone. Tommy and Charlie kept themselves to themselves. The two of them were happy and Thomas had made a promise to himself to be the father Blair knew he could be, for the sake of his son and for the sake of himself. He had a deep rooted hatred towards his own father that he'd never forgive himself if he'd instilled the same on his own son, vowing to raise him in a way he'd wished he'd been raised.

One month passed without hearing from Blair. Tommy didn't pick Charles up from school again, deciding that it was better for them to cross paths again on her terms, if they were supposed to at all.

It was a Friday evening and Charles had been in bed for a few hours by the time Tommy had drank half a bottle of whiskey. He was in his usual spot, staring at the framed photograph on his desk with a crystal glass in his hand.

The fire was burning beside him and rain was hammering down on the window, a strong gale howling outside the home, shaking the leaves from the trees and rattling fixtures on the bricks.

The photograph was of Thomas and Blair during their first love affair. They were young, carefree and untainted with a world of pain they'd yet to know. Tommy looked at the photograph, admiring the way he stared at the camera while Blair chose to stare at him instead. She seemed bewitched by him, completely besotted by his simple being.

It was telling, really, and now as Tommy looked at it, made him realise the two of them had never really changed. Thomas always looked towards the future, whereas Blair was always in the present. She saw him and he saw what could be, only now, it was him that was stuck clinging onto what once was, wishing so painfully that he could've turned his head to the side, paused in the moment and realised that everything he'd ever need, he already had.

A knock at the door forced Tommy to leave his desk, his footsteps echoing through a silent home as he made his way from the office to the hall, unlocking the door with a sigh and a questioned mind.

Soaked to the bone on the doorstep stood Blair. Rain fell so fiercely that Tommy couldn't see anything behind her, the world being completely blurred out by the heavy weather. She was shivering, just a trench coat covering her body while water fell from her lashes and brows, dripping from the tip of her nose and ends of her hair.