Because You're Mine (A Tom Hiddleston Fanfic) #Wattys2016 #pfcc2k16

Chapter Thirty-Five: Session Four.

                  

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?

******

"Do you ask that to all of your patients?" I say with a cringe to my friend sitting across the table. Her coffee is almost gone by now and so are the cinnamon rolls we ordered. She is propped on her elbows and her hands are intertwined with each other under her chin. Her green eyes are narrowed and fixated on mine until I look away, "Don't they hate you for that?"

A month ago, when I finally realized that if I kept going down the road I had taken recently, I was going to lose my mind and burn more bridges than necessary, I decided to give her a call and ask her to meet me for a coffee. We have been doing that every Wednesday for the last four weeks.

Her name is Margaret and she used to date Caleb, if that is the appropriate term for hooking up with him more than once a week.

I hadn't seen her in a while so I was a little nervous when we met for the first time, but she made sure I felt comfortable enough to keep me talking. And that's exactly what I have been doing throughout all of our coffee meetings until now. This is the first time she actually asks me a question instead of carefully listen to what I had to say and occasionally make a comment, here and there.

"Oh, darling! This is psychoanalysis 101 I'm doing here..." she says as she leans back on her chair, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She lets out a laugh of exaggerated pride, "All the fancy tricks I've spent the big bucks on back in college I save for the people who actually pay me. Nevertheless, it is still a perfectly good question... How did that make you feel?" she repeats her enquiry, slowly and perfectly articulating every word.

The truth is that, the reason why I hate this question is simply because I don't have the slightest clue as to how to answer it. Of course I know how watching him walk away from me made me feel. Of course I know exactly what happened inside of me when he called me ruthless. I am fully aware of those sentiments because I still experience all of them whenever I remember that moment, –which is all the damn time, like a dark cloud hanging over my head, following me everywhere I go– but I don't think that putting them into words is an easy thing to do, nor something I actually want to.

But I am talking to her and I am wasting her time and mind if I don't let her in, truly in. Babbling about a guy and an ex and a break-up under the snow in the streets of New York it is not precisely talking about my feelings. It is venting. And it needs to stop. I need to make something out of this and put my fucking mind in order.

"Fair enough..." I say after taking a deep breath. The smell of the roasted coffee beans that invades the entirety of the place puts me at ease and my brain begins to try and translate whatever my heart and soul are saying, "It made me feel bad... basically"

Amazing, beautiful... So deep.

"That's a given, Clem. Elaborate! Trust me, it'll help"

I instantly go back to that street. He's standing there and he just said the most hurtful, heartbreaking thing I have ever heard in my entire life.

He accused me of having no heart or any kind of regard for him, or us. He is looking away, avoiding my eyes which are desperately searching for something inside of his; a glimpse of what I used to see whenever he opened his eyes and stare straight into mine after we had been kissing for a while. That mixture of lust, love and undiluted amazement.

But there was none of that; just a blue, deep void.

That damn word is now echoing inside my ears, just like it did back then, almost physically hurting them like the sound of a gunshot inside a confined space. And I guess that what it was meant to be: A shot at close range.