Autumn (A Tom Odell FanFiction)

iv

Tom.

Grey light flooded through the window, perfectly framing her face as she lay, peacefully sleeping on my sofa. I'd been woken up by her cold feet and her hair tickling my neck. I'd pulled the blanket over her feet in an attempt to warm them but they stayed as cold as ice, eventually forcing me to get up.
As the kettle boiled I took the time to properly look at her, and despite her loudness and her beauty she was tiny. Her arms and legs looked like twigs, her face worn and drawn. She looked tired, exhausted even. As I turned around to make coffee I heard her groan then the light thud of her feet touching the floor,
"Morning," I said as her footsteps drew closer,
"Morning Tom," She replied and I felt her hand place itself down on my shoulder before she appeared to the right of me a inquisitive look on her face,
"Is it hard to write songs?" I smirked,
"It's hard when your hearts not broken."
"And is your heart broken?"
"No, it's not for once."

That night as I sat in bed it came to me, lyrics fresh and new and bright, something which pulled me out of my cigarette smoke haze and onto a clean white page. I scribbled down the idea, my head whirring at the sudden hit of inspiration, like having a cigarette after a month without one.

I can feel you breathing,
With your hair on my skin,
As we lie here within the night.

I'll pull the sheets
when it's cold on your feet,
'couse you'll fall back to sleep everytime.

Autumn.

I lay on my sofa staying up at the ceiling, a cigarette balancing precariously between my lips. I was cold, not cold because my hearing was off but because of the lack of something, something that I needed. I inhaled the smoke and exhaled watching the smoke dance through the air, twisting and turning freely before disappearing. I let my mind wander back to Tom's house and the warmth of his presence. I am falling hard, fuck. I chuckled at the idea, impossible. Completely and utterly impossible. I stubbed my cigarette out into my mug and let my eyes drift to a close, hoping for a better life.

My boss called me in and I had never been so scared. She sat me down in her office, a serious expression on her face, her cheap red fake nails drumming in her desk and with a glint in her eye she spoke,
"Autumn, I've been speaking to the higher ups and as you know we're having to make a few cuts, and I'm sorry but we're having to let you go. We're giving you a months paycheck to help you out but that's it." She held out the cheque to me and I took it, blinking back the tears then left.
I cashed my cheque in then got onto the bus home. The bus was full of people, bustling around, chatting, smiling. And in that moment I had never felt so alone, or so afraid, and the tears ran freely down my face.
For once the screaming of the couple above my flat helped, it helped drown out my sobs. I held tightly onto a pillow and just cried, trying to find some release for my fear. And, in a moment of blindness I called Tom. By some miracle he picked up.
"Hey," I heard him say,
"Hi Tom,"
"Are you alright Autumn?"
"No- can you come over?"
"Yeah sure, what's your address?"
I relayed my address for him and thanked him before hanging up and laying back down on my sofa and waiting.
The knock came exactly forty minutes later and I rushed over and opened the door and was quickly pulled into a hug, long arms wrapping around me and whispers of 'calm down, I'm here, it's okay" into my hair as I cried into his shoulder.
He sat next to me on my sofa, a worried expression on his face,
"What happened?"
"I got fired and I don't know what to do." I replied trying to control my breathing, he just wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his shoulder,
"Just find something else, something to get you by, anything." I nodded and looked up at him,
"Thank you,"
"No problem."