Extra Ordinary (Riddle Era)

Chapter 23

Tom was fuming. Lucy knew it, too. Not that it was particularly difficult to see, at least in her estimation. He was quiet. His smiles were tight. His response measured, seemingly every word preceded by that blink Lucy had learned meant he was thinking his next words over. That blink that meant he didn't have them prepared. That blink that meant a moment ago, he had been distracted. And tonight, there were too many of them.

It wasn't like Tom to be distracted. Not that it really showed beyond those moments of ever so slight hesitation that anyone could easily have said were just the product of a polite boy choosing his words carefully lest they come off wrong. But Lucy had spent enough time around Tom of late to know better. Tom, she knew, did choose his words carefully. It just didn't usually take him very long at all. But tonight it was. And Lucy didn't have to look far for why. She'd caught the look he'd snapped her way when she'd spoken those words. She'd seen the fire there. The clench in his jaw. The way he had been oh so careful not to so much as glance at her since.

So yes, Lucy was perfectly aware that Tom was far from happy and, if she was any judge of it at all, he was very specifically not happy with her. What she was currently trying to decide was how much she cared.

On the one hand, she didn't like that she had made him angry. She didn't like making anyone angry, as a general rule. Not that it could always be avoided, of course, and sometimes it was for a cause, but that never stopped it from setting her on edge when it happened. She had seen her fair share of rather unpleasant anger in her life and preferred to avoid it entirely when she could.

But, of course, on the other hand, Lucy couldn't help but think that maybe this was one of those moments when it was for a cause. After all, she had said nothing that wasn't true. Nothing she didn't believe. Tom shouldn't have been laughing at the thought of Olive being ordinary. None of them should have been. Because none of them were truly different. None of them were truly extraordinary.

Well. Tom might have been, actually. But that was far from a compliment. Those moments when Tom seemed extraordinary were the moments when Lucy liked him least. When she felt something sick that tasted of pity and pain slither into her stomach. When she wondered if her mother might have been right.

But there had been fewer and fewer of those moments since break and Lucy had become more and more convinced that deep down, Tom Riddle was an ordinary boy, no matter how hard he tried to pretend otherwise. But God, he did try to pretend otherwise. Which was probably why he was annoyed with her. And also why she couldn't decide how much it bothered her.

Because however annoyed it made him, he had no one to blame for it but himself. He was the one pretending. He was the one convinced it was an insult. He was the one so painfully insecure that he bristled at the mere implication of his own ordinariness. And though Lucy pitied him for it, that pity didn't translate into guilt. And all the apologies she had mulled over in her head sounded rather far from sincere.

The problem, really, was that the only thing Lucy actually wanted to apologize for was for how she had said it. And when. Tom wasn't ready for this conversation, that much was clear. And Lucy hadn't needed to see his reaction to know it. So perhaps she should have bitten her tongue. Should have waited. Should have brought it up somewhere more secluded where he could bite her head off to his heart's content while she waited for him to exhaust all his excuses so she could make her point. At least then he would have had the option to face it head on instead of pretending. She had her doubts about whether or not he would have, but the choice, at least, would have been there. And Lucy was sorry she had not given it to him.

That apology was not, however, the one she knew Tom wanted. What he wanted, or at least, what she reasonably certain he wanted, was her on her hands and knees begging his forgiveness for daring to so much as suggest that he was anything like ordinary. And aside from the fact that Lucy wasn't going to get on her hands and knees and beg forgiveness from anyone, especially not for saying something she believed, she also wasn't going to pretend she hadn't meant everything she'd said. And everything it had implied. She could only hope, therefore, that Tom could find a way to live with that.