EXILE | TOM RIDDLE

21. No Mourners, No Funerals

This chapter contains sexual content

Tom is already awake when my eyes flutter open the next day, his hand absentmindedly messing with my hair, like a cat might play with a spool of yarn. At first, I lean into the touch, relaxing as his fingers flow between my gentle curls, but shortly after, as my conscious grows, I frown. Only just last night he admitted to not loving me, and yet...he's playing with my hair?

"What are you doing?" I murmur against his chest, a chest I had not moved off of in my sleep, nor had he pushed me.

"Do you want me to stop?" He throws back a question of his own instead of a response, dipping his head to the side so he can meet my eye.

"No," I admit, and his grin expands with triumph. "But Madam Bailey will be home soon. You should leave, before she gets back. I do not wish to explain to her what happened."

"No need," he waves a hand, and a letter zooms from the bedside table and through the air, landing in between his fingers. "She wrote you earlier this morning. She won't be back until this evening. We have the day to do as we please."

"You read my personal letters?"

He shrugs, my head still on his shoulder as he does. "Was I not supposed to?"

"Of course not. They were addressed to me."

"I apologize for my curiosity. Though, I suppose that is a trait that belongs more to you, not me," his hand continues fiddling with my hair as he speaks, and I find myself leaning into his touch, heart racing. The part of me that was wounded by his admission to not loving me last night is nowhere to be found, tossed away the moment he touches me.

He does not need to love me, I decide. I am willing to settle for whatever this is, this sick parody of love that I determine is the best I will ever get.

At least he wants me, and that is better than nothing.

"What shampoo did you use last night?"

I blink, eyebrows lifting as I glance up at him in confusion. "I think it is cherry blossom scented."

"I like it. Use it more often," he commands.

I nod, positioning my head on his chest once again.

"Do you miss it?" He asks, after a long, passive silence passes between us.

"Miss what?"

"Where you came from."

I nod, my cheek moving his shirt about as I do. "I miss it all. I miss my mother, and my friends, and the rabbit that would always steal our food in the garden, but I loved him anyways. But...I think out of everything, I miss how simple everything was."

He stiffens against me, his fingers digging into my skin, buried beneath my thin nightgown. "You mean to say, you miss the life you had before I was involved in it."

"I did not say that."

"But you mean it either way."

"What is the point in meaning it? What is the point in fighting over such things? It changes nothing. It does not bring me home. It does not make me un-meet you."

"Would you? If you could? Would you not meet me, if you could decide how your fate went?"

"I do not know."

I feel his fingers tracing my spine, pausing at every crevice and causing my breath to catch in my throat, like a bird in a trap. "I think you do know, Rebekah."

"I..." I begin, though my focus is halted as his fingers stop, as though his very movements control my lips.

"You'd trade everything and more to be here, to meet me. You'd do it over and over again, let everything that has occurred between us happen again, because you love me."