❛ wild thing, i think you move me. ❜
── Thomas Shelby had the same identical disgusted face, frowned in a intolerant expression, since when he came to know that Rosie Hughes was back in town. Arthur whispered it to him in the ear one night. The brea...
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twenty years ago, SMALL HEATH
«𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄?»
«I'm not sure of anything ever» she replied. Her voice was trembling a little bit. Though Small Heath was her safe place, where she was born, grown and where she learned all the tricks to survive, she had to leave. So much had happened in that small neighbourhood, that was everything less that an area to let children grow, that she was compelled to leave and search a new home, beyond the ocean. In her mind, America wasn't going to be something long-running but for the moment was the only option she had.
Rosie Hughes, twentythree years of pure beauty and sorrow, was left alone with two children and at least thirty debts to repay. Since she was a little young girl, with long and blonde braids, she had to take care of herself – it was the awful legacy of a drunken father and unaffective mother – and the Shelbys were the first real family she've ever had.
Often she found herself thinking about what could've been if she and Thomas got together.
He cared, and that was, somehow, enough. She never felt love. She never felt that deep emotion that makes you feel like nothing existed, that feeling that embrace the stomach like a warm hug or the passion intertwining in every little inch of her being. But with Thomas something was different. There was that tiny spark. Perhaps if her father didn't arranged a marriage with one of the usurer whom wanted money from him, everything could've been different.
Tommy was standing in front of her, his eyes were wandering from the tip of his shoes to the door of her old apartment. The pain of her unexpected departure made him feel like the world was coming to an end. Or at least, their world was coming to an end. The little kisses, the light touches, slight, imperceptible, hiding from the eyes of those who didn't believe in their potential love. Nothing couldn't be the same.
«They could grow up here, you know? Polly would take good care of them» he shot his last shoot, looking at Ernie's little blonde head running around.
«Don't» «Don't what?» «Don't try to make me stay, Tommy. You know I can't» Rosie lowered her head, ashamed of the guilt she felt, even if the mistakes that tormented her weren't hers but his husband's. «You could, though. I can buy the debts, Rosie. We could have an happy life here» «I don't want you to. I could've simply asked if i wanted to, eh? I can't make them grow up here. There's nothing here for them»
Saying those things to the person she loved the most was the worst thing she ever did. She couldn't even look at him and his watery eyes. Those eyes, those light blue eyes like the brighter sky. Some pale, shy, ray of sunshine found its way to show itself between one grey cloud and another, passing fast in the lightless sky, hitting Tommy's pupils.
