Lion and Lace [Tom Hiddleston]

Episode 30

I don't remember saying goodbye to Rachel, or leaving my apartment. God knows whether I bothered with fixing my hair or changing my clothes from the jeans and tshirt I was lounging in, and I suppose I must have taken a cab across town because it would be quicker.

The whole time between is a blur. Between the moment I realised I wasn't ready to let go of Tom, but I was ready to let go of my heart, and the moment I knocked on his door.

And waited. I waited impatiently, worrying that he's not here and I've wasted all that energy getting here for nothing. Worrying that I'd lose my nerve before he opened the door. Worrying that he might not open it even if he was home.

There he is, standing in front of me with a half glass of wine in his hand and a blue-grey tshirt tight across his chest. He runs a hand through his hair and looks surprised, leaning on the door as though he doesn't know whether he'll let me in.

"Becca. Hi." He leans in and plants a chaste kiss on my cheek. "Um..."

"I need to talk to you, Tom. Can I come in?"

"Actually-"

"What?" The wine, the shirt, the damp hair, the cologne. He has company. "Bad time?"

"Sort of. You know what, just come in."

I expect to find a couple of friends, a man or perhaps another couple. So when I see a beautiful woman with long honey hair sitting on Tom's couch as though she belongs there, with her shoes kicked off under her feet and a matching glass of wine in her hand, my heart doesn't just skip a beat.

It stops completely.

Everything stops.

I'm frozen to the spot and I really want to say something, but I can't. I just stand there with my mouth open like some sort of giant demented baby bird waiting for a morsel of food. Or a cyanide capsule.

I'm trying to find words but they're stuck somewhere around my nose on their journey from my brain to my voice box, travelling a loop around my head that makes me dizzy and incoherent.

I rush back out the door, my resolve and the words I wanted to say dissipating before my eyes. I can't go through that. I can't deal with that. I feel like humpty dumpty, broken and numb and cracked open with my insides seeping into the street. The perfect moment I imagined has been interrupted and I wonder if it's for the best, if the universe is trying to tell me I'd made the wrong choice.

I'm running now, tears blurring my vision. I need to be in the safety of my home and I wonder if Rachel might come back over after she pushed me out the door and told me to go talk to Tom. While I pull out my phone I step off the kerb onto the pedestrian crossing, realising too late that I didn't actually look both ways as I was always taught.

Look to the left and

look to the right

before you cross

the street.

Use your ears and

use your eyes

before you use

your feet.

Out of nowhere I'm hit and pushed sideways, sliding across the tarred street on my shoulder, arm and face. When I'm game to open my eyes I push up from the road and see a cyclist doing the same in front of me, his bicycle has come to rest on my legs.

"Shit! I'm sorry! I didn't see you. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, it was my fault." I hold up a hand. I must have bitten my tongue because it feels like lead in my mouth and all I taste is blood. "Are you ok?"