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

My Heart Is Open.

I can't spend another minute getting over loving you...

*****

All the progress I have made in the last couple of days - if I have, indeed, made any progress at all- inevitably went down the gutter the second she picked up the phone.

I knew it was her almost immediately, but something inside of me was hoping I was wrong. I wasn't even remotely ready to face all the feelings that came rushing over me with the sound of her hesitant voice at the other end of the line.

But as painful as it was, I can't deny that it was also exhilarating. Because every day that has gone by since that night and until today, I grew more and more numbly accustomed to the idea of never see or hear from her again; and it was bloody awful.

She was getting more and more unattainable and distant with each day I'd share with Madeleine, and when the time came for me to finally acknowledge that our battle was lost, she find her way back into my life. Willingly or not, but she did.

Even though I still feel scorned by her, now I can see that the distance was fairly worse.

I still don't understand why she would answer the phone when she must've known that I was the one calling. My name had to be plastered on the screen and she could've just made the choice of letting it ring until the voicemail would take over. But she chose to pick up. She chose to talk to me, and I'm not really sure what that means.

Maybe she wanted to talk? Maybe she needed to hear my voice as much as I needed to hear hers, despite of all of the torment that it now has brought upon me. Or maybe, she just picked up the call without even looking; perhaps thinking that it was her phone that was ringing.

After all, those damn phones look exactly alike to one another, and no one ever bothers to personalize the ringtone.

"Hey... Where are you?"

The contact with her body, though it's been a while, still strikes me as foreign as the first time. But nothing I can't actually live with. And as pathetic as it sounds, being alone is not the best option.

Being alone means silence, and that sort of silence always leads to thinking. And thinking, well, it is just not good for me.

Her arms wrap around my waist as I can feel her forehead pressing softly between my shoulder blades. She is a really sweet girl, and any other guy would be lucky to have her. And I know that if I let this thing go any further, all I will ever do is hurt her.

Even though I have been nothing but honest with her throughout our entire... whatever this is, I keep telling myself that I need to end this; that I have been taught better than to use the favors of a woman to forget about another, and this is not the way people should be treated.

But then again, there is that silence. And whenever I think about it, lurking in the shadows, waiting to get me alone so it can swallow me whole, I go back to her and the shield she has provided me with for the last couple of weeks.

"Hey!" she calls again. This time with a bit of urgency, "Is everything okay?" Her grip loosens, but just enough to allow me to spin around and come face to face with her. Her brown eyes look up at me, filled with questions, "You've been off since that phone call..."

When I said I have been honest with her, I meant it. She knows everything, in absolute detail, about the girl who stole my heart, made it grow three sizes with all the love she poured inside of it, and then, once she had it in the palm of her hand, made it burst within her tighten fist.

She knows all there is to know about Clementine; even the fact that she is far from being out of my head, and she insists on being fine with it. In her own words, she is just having fun with the famous guy and I just let her erase my memory temporarily every time we go at it.