those damn wheat biscuits

chapter 4: quiet

the first time i met tom's mother was at a police station.

the brightness of my phone pinched at my eyes as i squinted. it was 1:17 that night and i couldn't sleep. 

"tom it's so quiet in my flat, i can hear the sound of people walking outside on the main road" i texted him. 

he didn't respond and so i wrote again: "truthfully i fear my own conscience more than a demon in my room" 

he wrote back the next morning: "your conscience should come over for breakfast" 

the kettle was steaming when i entered his apartment, boxes still piled over one another. the water was running in the bathroom and i assumed he'd hopped in for a shower. 

we didn't talk much that morning, i settled the food on the table while he tied his tie, eating in silence as rain fell onto his windows, fogging up the glass. 

"haifa," he held his blazer in this hand, the other hand clutching the strap on his briefcase, "let's go to the beach tomorrow." 

"it'll be cold." 

"we'll stay in the car, i just want to spend tomorrow with you." 

he gave me a kiss on the lips and one on my left cheek, before heading out the door and out of my life. i stood there for a while, on the spot he left me. a numbing ache in my thundering heart. i was so bewitched by him and his words. his scent, the feeling of his arms and the roughness of his skin on mine. 

i shouldn't have loved him so much, he wasn't mine and so the universe had to take him from me. 

i ran the dishwasher and left, expecting him to come back and put them back on his own. maybe i should've done it myself, he might have come back. 

at 3:24 pm that afternoon he sent me a text: "silly bird flew into office window just now" 

"haha wow is it ok?" i replied. 

"not sure. you free for lunch?" 

"sorry. behind on some important reading" 

at 8:56 pm that evening he sent me a text: "will be home late tonight. might just come over to your's if that's okay?" 

"that's fine. i'll save you dinner." 

"thanks." 

a few minutes past and he said: "i really appreciate you." 

"and i you." 

it was left on delivered. 

i sat on my couch till 1 am, waiting for him but he never came. at first, i assumed he came back tired out of his mind and went back to his flat to call it a day but his lights were out -- i never saw his door open. 

the next morning i gazed out my window, watching ada, daniyal and the rest. everyone bustled around their flats doing what they did best, alive as ever while tom's flat sat cold. kettle off and the dishwasher's light flashing, ready to unload. 

"you take the tube to work yeah?" sara had asked as we sat on a bench close to campus. stacks of paper in our laps, cups of coffee gone cold. 

"yeah it's mad," i laughed. 

"you tell me. there's an accident last night there, close to where you live."

"oh gosh," 

"a young man jumped in front of an incoming train, tragic stuff." 

my stomach lurched, "any news on the man?" 

"no they can't identify the remains, it's so sad." 

though i nodded at sara, that same evening i found myself staring at tom's silent flat that sat dark and empty. usually, around this time he would be laying on his couch, feet on his coffee table as he read is pretentious self-help books, but he wasn't there. he wasn't picking up my calls either.

"my friend tom, i haven't heard from him since last night i think something might've gone wrong," i stood at the police station, tom's bomber jacket on my back.

"ma'am we can only file a missing person's report 24 hours after the time of disappearance"

"it has been 24 hours, he said he would come over but he never did," my hands clenched, "he used to take the tube." 

the lady behind the desk nodded, a thoughtful look in her eyes before she picked up the phone to call someone. before i knew it, i was being led to the back.

"ma'am does this briefcase look familiar to you? ma'am? ma'am can you please answer my question." 

huge ziplock bags were laid on a steel table, some smudged with blood others stuffed with items like a wallet and a phone. seeing that i wasn't answering him, the officer pulled out a photograph from the file beside him, "ma'am i'm about to show you a picture of a pair of shoes, can you please identify them." 

leather oxfords, creases where the foot bent when tom walked. 

my hand clutched my mouth, bile pushing up my throat. there was a cold burn that spread from the top of my head and down to my shoulders. without knowing i shook my head, eyes closing shut. 

"ma'am? do you recognise these shoes?" 

my shoulders shook violently as my legs tingled, slowly losing the earth behind them. 

"ma'am i need you to tell me if you know who the--" 

"they're his," i sniffled, "tom wright, he was my friend." 

suicide. 

it's what they stated when they closed the case, tom had jumped willingly since his shoes were laid neatly on the platform. his briefcase placed next to his oxfords, a note in the front pocket. 

a seven hundred word note saying goodbye to everyone in his life, his mother, his friends, his little sister even his nanny -- everyone. 

everyone but me. 

to be fair i never got to read the note, an officer had told me about it but never read it to me nor handed it over. i wasn't family and i assumed there was nothing about me in the letter. 

i was a ghost in tom's life. 

tom's mother had driven down from the countryside with a footman. grey hair dishevelled, bright blue eyes rimmed with red -- bloodshot. even in great distress, she looked intimidatingly elegant in her branded coat which she wore over her pyjama set. 

she asked me how i knew him and i told her i was a friend from the building we lived at. she looked me up and down before moving along. i was clearly not important to her and in her head nor was i important to tom or she would've known my name. 

somewhere in the night, i waddled home.

an ice-cold sensation would run down my back everytime i'd pass by a tube stops but i knew tragedy had yet to settled down in my body. i had yet to process all of this and i knew i would find it hard to recover. it could come anytime, in a week, in a month, maybe two months or perhaps tomorrow. 

i knew i would break down at some point and possibly at the most inconvenient time possible. 

i thought back to the work i had piled up at home, tom's dinner was still in the fridge. what about the things he left at my apartment? should i return them or keep them for my own selfish wishes? i wanted to keep tom with me, whatever he had left behind and whatever i could get my hands on but a huge part of me knew i had no right. 

tom, his things and his memory did not belong to me. 

. 

hi hiii hope you liked it -- could've been better but o well 

vote and comment! 

-- 9/11/21