Tom had that look on his face again.
The one he got when he was proud but didn’t wanna seem like it — like he was too cool to admit he was nervous.
They stood in the corner booth of a Berlin studio. The lights were dim, the speakers buzzed softly, and the only thing louder than the anticipation was Isadora’s heartbeat.
“You ready?” he asked.
She nodded, arms crossed tight over her hoodie.
Tom pressed play.
The track started soft — a moody riff she knew was his. It bled into a slow, gritty melody, layered with distortion and melancholy. Then the vocals kicked in — not his voice, but Bill’s, raw and emotional, singing lyrics that felt like reading a page from her own diary.
> She walks like thunder / breaks like rain /
I held her name between my teeth and tasted pain
And still, I’d do it all again…
Isadora’s breath caught.
She turned to look at him.
“You wrote this?”
He didn’t look at her — just kept staring at the console.
“Yeah.”
“It’s about me.”
“Yeah.”
Silence.
And then, very softly, she said, “It’s beautiful.”
Tom drove her home in his beat-up black Audi, but when they passed the turn to her street, she didn’t say anything.
Neither did he.
Ten minutes later, they were in his room. Posters of Aerosmith, N.W.A., and some chaotic hand-drawn anime character wallpapered his walls. A lava lamp glowed in one corner. His bed wasn’t made. There was an empty Red Bull can on his amp.
It was perfect.
He handed her a hoodie (it smelled like cologne and stage smoke) and told her to sit on his bed while he searched for a blank CD.
“I wanna burn you that track,” he said. “Before the label gets weird about it.”
Isadora sat, knees pulled up to her chest, watching him with soft eyes. “I didn’t know you could write like that.”
Tom shrugged. “I didn’t either. Not until I met you.”
They ended up sprawled on his bed — a movie playing on mute, some late-night music channel looping weird indie videos in the background. She was wearing his hoodie, hair a mess, legs tangled with his.
At some point, her eyes got heavier. His shoulder was warm. The room was quiet. And the world outside didn’t matter.
“Izzy,” he whispered. “You asleep?”
She didn’t answer.
But her breathing slowed.
Tom reached over and gently pulled the blanket over her shoulders, brushing a piece of hair from her cheek.
Then he turned the TV off, laid back beside her, and whispered into the dark:
“I’m gonna fall so hard for you.”
---
YOU ARE READING
"Strings Between Us
Romance2004. Germany. Tom Kaulitz is used to getting what he wants - the stage, the crowd, the girls. As Tokio Hotel begins to rise, so does his ego... until she shows up. She's the Brazilian guitarist in a rival band - quiet, sharp-tongued, and completely...
