more than i know | tom holland

Part Ten

The next day you woke up around 10am with dried tears on your face. You reached for your phone and saw that you had several missed calls from Tom, as well as a bunch of messages. You couldn't bring yourself to read them. You unlocked the phone to make the notifications go away but you were greeted by your home screen. It was one of the pictures you had taken with Tom and Tessa the day you had dinner with your parents. His lips were on your cheek as you leaned into him with one arm around Tessa as she looked into the camera. You quickly locked your phone again, throwing it to the other end of the bed. This was so stupid. How could you grieve about something that was never really a thing?

The repetitive vibration of your phone made you pick it up again. Tom was calling. You couldn't talk to him. You were sure he was only going to make excuses. You had been at this point before. You were not going to give a guy that power over you anymore. You had learned from your mistakes. So after you let the call go to voicemail you blocked Tom's number, his instagram, everything you could.

***

You knew you had to get groceries at some point. You had spent the whole weekend in bed. On Monday you finally took a shower and got dressed. Life around you didn't stop. You had obligations. After work, you dragged yourself to Tesco closest to your flat to quickly get the things you needed so you could get back home. You purposefully avoided the aisle with all the magazines. While you would've had a look at them a week ago, just to see what the yellow press was saying, you tried to keep anything that reminded you of Tom as far away from you as possible now. But that was easier said than done. There weren't a lot of things that didn't remind you of him. If something didn't make Tom's face appear in your mind immediately, it made you think of something else that would.

What made things even worse was that you couldn't go anywhere without seeing his face. Well, it wasn't always his face but the red and blue Spider-Man suit was equally as torturous. Every store seemed to be selling Spider-Man: Homecomingand you couldn't even do your weekly groceries without coming across the DVD or any type of merchandise at least five times.

***

You kind of locked yourself away in your flat, only leaving it when it was absolutely necessary. After you had declined your sister's invitation for dinner at her and Daniel's place for the third time she knew that something was off. She knew that you were hiding away and she was worried. So one Thursday evening she showed up at your door unannounced.

"Kate, what are you doing here?" You questioned her as she squeezed past you into your flat.

"Something is obviously wrong, and I'm here to let you talk about it." You walked into the living room to snuggle back up into your blanket. Kate followed you and eyed you with a worried look on her face. "Don't bottle up all your feelings. It's just going to hurt even more. So are you going to tell me what's going on?"

You tried. You really tried to keep your tears at bay but they just spilt out of your eyes.

"Oh, babes. C'mere." She sat down next to you and pulled you into her embrace rubbing your back comfortingly. She could only assume that your current state had something to do with Tom. She was sure that had it been anything else he would be here. But she didn't want to bring him up herself in case that would make you shut down again. So she just sat there comforting you. Waiting for you to calm down and tell her what happened.

When your tears finally subsided, you lifted your head to look at her.

"Tom and I kinda...Well, we broke up." You knew you'd have to tell her eventually. You'd known from the start. But when you made the deal with Tom you didn't expect to be in tears when you did so. You had envisioned telling your family in a calm and collected manner that it just didn't work out between the two of you. Joke's on you.