There's a moment, a sweet fleeting moment, when Thea doesn't think of anything at all.
Silence washes over everything that usually keeps her on edge. It dampens the flames that burn away at the inside of her skull, leaving only curling smoke against her poor scorched bone, and drowns every thought that keeps her awake at night. It's deafening, in a way, to hear nothing at all.
But it's only a moment.
And, the thing about fleeting moments, is that they disappear as quickly as they arrive.
She wishes, not for the first time, that her brain didn't work this way. That, instead of rejecting the warm hand resting so comfortably in her own, it could just enjoy something for what it was. Something good. Something kind.
But she can't. She never can. Not even when it's everything she could possibly want.
Jamie pushes the hair out of her face, a slightly dazed look in his eyes, and she knows that if she says anything then it'll be over. It always ends when she starts talking about the things going on in her head. People sigh and edge away. They start fishing keys out of their pockets and asking if she needs a taxi. Whispering insults that she's not supposed to hear.
So, she doesn't say anything.
She just stays in that moment and pretends that her hands are shaking from excitement. Jamie isn't a bad man. She knows that. He won't be like the rest of them. But, that's the problem, isn't it? She hadn't thought any of them were bad men at the start.
"Thea," he whispers.
She doesn't say anything.
"Hey," his voice is so soft that it might tear under the weight of her. "What's happening?"
She still doesn't say anything.
She knows that they'll never recover if she does.
Jamie steps away from her and she feels the distance like a pilot feels the ground. But he's still holding her hand. Gripping gently, his skin warm against hers. So she takes a breath, a long breath, and smiles weakly.
"I'm sorry," he starts.
"You don't have to be," she says. "It's not-" she runs her thumb against the backs of his fingers. "I think there's just something about me that-" her eyes are watering but she laughs and hopes he can't tell. "I just can't..."
Thea doesn't know if it's a case of her being born broken or having been broken over the years.
But she knows what happens next.
It's what always happens after someone gets this far. Touching Thea is like touching radium. Everything is fine until it isn't. One minute they're lying next to each other and the next she's begging for just a single reason for why they're leaving her. Offering every part of her soul for another second where things are good. Knowing that they'll take it and leave anyway.
The first boy that she'd ever let touch her had told her the next morning that they'd be better as friends and then didn't call for a year. When he finally did reach out, it was to ask her for tickets for his new girlfriend.
The last man she'd let touch her, the one whose fingerprints eroded Thea's body like the statue he'd always seen her as, was still doing photo shoots with the wife that he'd promised he wasn't with anymore. The first in a long list of promises he'd never meant. That she was special. That he'd never met anyone like her. That a gap of twenty-five years didn't matter because it would all work out in the end.
She wants to blame them.
But she never quite can.
In the present, a place she never quite manages to be, Thea realises that he's still holding her hand. The look on his face, a mix of confusion and concern, still hasn't been taken over by anger or hate. It's the opposite. He looks like he'd figure out time travel for just the chance to fix every moment that had ever made her feel like this.
And he's everything she wants. Truly. But that doesn't change the rest of it. Doesn't change the limitations built into her soul. Doesn't change how unfair this is to both of them.
"I'm never going to be what you want me to be," she whispers.
He laughs and it's an exasperated sound, "but what do you want?"
"I-"
She wants to tell him to forget the last hour.
She wants to tell him to kiss her again and then never stop.
She wants more than she can even put into words.
"I want us to go home," she says. "Can we do that?"
He smiles softly, "of course."
And maybe she is crashing, but if his voice carries on being so gentle, she might just survive the landing.
YOU ARE READING
i don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you (Ted Lasso)
Fanfiction(Fic has been retitled! Used to be called 'from the same dirt') "After spending three years hiding from the public eye, the last thing Thea Wallis wants to do is get involved with someone like Jamie Tartt. But there he is, sitting on her living-room...
