𝔹𝕠𝕣𝕟 𝕥𝕠 𝕃𝕠𝕤𝕖 | Tommy Shelby

𝕏𝕏𝕍. ʀᴏsᴇᴍᴀʀʏ, ᴛʜʏᴍᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ʟᴀᴠᴇɴᴅᴇʀ

N/A: Thank you so much for the lovely comments on the previous chapter. I really appreciate them 💜

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August 9th, 1931

I don't know where to start. It's been almost a month since my last entry and, certainly, I'm not proud of having left my chronicles aside because now I'm facing the odyssey of relating everything that has happened since July 13th, trusting that my memory won't discard anything, no matter how small it may be.

I'll begin by saying that today is Sunday afternoon and I have just arrived at Ada's house after spending four days in bed at Arrow House, Thomas's mansion. I know, my dear diary, that if you had any kind of conscience at all, you would be confused at this moment: how can it be that after what happened that distant July night on Small Heath, I can say without shame or embarrassment that until a little while ago I was at Thomas's house, receiving attentions from his servants as if I were suddenly his wife?

I know that what I'm writing makes no sense, but believe me you'll see things less clearly when I confess that I've come from Thomas's house because the weather forced us to go back there. If it were up to the two of us, we would still be on the run in the thick woods of Wales, in that caravan, carefree and happy, as we were for a whole week.

After July 13th, I spent seventeen days in which I heard absolutely nothing from Thomas and I cannot express in words the immense anguish that this generated in me.

I had opened my heart to this man's eyes, and all I received in response was the most icy distance I have ever experienced: he never showed up at the bookstore again, or at Ada's house. Nor did he call or ask for me from his sister. I firmly believed that I had lost him forever and even blamed myself for the brutality with which I exposed my love for him. I wondered many, many times, as I spent dead hours in the bookstore, if perhaps I should have been more careful, given what a troubled man Thomas is, and how insecure he has always been about his feelings for me.

"We have something", he had told me the first time we slept together, emphasizing the detail that he didn't quite know what that 'something' was. It wasn't simple lust, but it wasn't love either. I was sure it wasn't love, and yet, in an impulse that I couldn't control, I made him aware of how deep my affection was, perhaps causing him to perceive that he couldn't give me the same and decide to walk away. In any case, I knew he wasn't doing it maliciously: since our feelings were not equal, he must have thought that by cooling the relationship he would save me a lot of sadness.

Needless to say, it achieved the exact opposite.

I cried every night from the thirteenth of July onwards. I cried until the pillow was soaking wet and I had to turn it over. I cried until I fell asleep, exhausted from my own suffering. I cried and did nothing but cry. I did it silently and loudly when I was alone at home. I did it in bed and in the bathtub; on the couch, at the dining room table, in the bookshop when Millie was napping in the storage room. I regretted and blamed a million times but most of all, I felt like an idiot.

That's why I didn't write again. It wasn't because I had nothing to tell, but because my miseries made me very sad and remembering what I told myself a couple of entries ago made me feel intolerably ashamed.

"I love Thomas, it's true, but I must love myself more".

Things took a drastic turn on July 29th and it is at this point that I must clarify that, if I didn't write down my memories, it was because I didn't have the diary with me, nor did I have anything I could write in.