Wonderfully Random One Shots - A Bleaker Existence

Don't Run From Me - Tom Hiddleston Oneshot - Part 1

After a film related absence, Tom's new girlfriend, Mallory, doesn't think she fits in to his busy life very well. She tries to leave him one morning and this is what he says. Told from the Mallory's perspective.

-

I had decided to leave early in the morning a few days before Tom's arrival. I didn't want to see his face when I walked out the door, let alone argue with him about a choice that had already been made. He'd want me to stay, I knew he would. And I knew that as soon as I saw those clear blue-grey eyes I'd lose my resolve and turn right back around.

It had been a fairly emotional night, full of tears and regrets and what if's and a strong bottle of very cheap liquor. The first few hours after I decided to leave, I wandered aimlessly around Tom's flat, remembering. There was the place on the stairs where we'd first kissed. The time he gave me my own drawer in his dresser. There was that spot in the kitchen where he had nearly burnt the oven trying to bake my Valentine present. The bed I shared with him every night. The sofa he had slept on the first few nights I had stayed over, always the gentleman. It was the same sofa where we made love for the first time...

And when I was done torturing myself with wistful nostalgia, I immediately went to busying myself with what needed to be done. The place had to be spotless when I was gone. I kept telling myself that that would make it easier for him, for both of us. It could be like I was never with him to begin with. So I had made the bed and washed the sheets a few times, making sure no scent of me could have possibly have lingered. I cleaned out all the dirty dishes from the sink and dishwasher, careful to put them all in their original spots instead of the places I had been pretending they belonged for the past few months. I swept and vacuumed and combed every bit of the place for slivers of evidence of my existence until I was sure it that there was none. Then, I finally packed all my belongings into big black trash bags. I'd sold my two gorgeous antique travel bags that my mother had given me a few Christmas' ago to pay for the one-way ticket back to Boston.

Soon enough, there was nothing to do but sleep and wait til morning. I slept on the couch in Tom's study that night, not wanting to ruin any of my hard work upstairs or in the living room. As my eyelids began to drift closed, my brain, foggy with alcohol and an undefined loneliness, I found heartbroken tears eventually sliding down my cheeks.

God, I loved Tom so much. And I knew he loved me. But I didn't know if that was enough for us anymore. I was too scared. Scared of loving a man that was so loved by so many already that I wasn't sure I could fit into the picture anymore, at least not in the way I wanted to. Tom would never really belong to me, even if we did make it to our six month anniversary. Even if we got married and had been for a long time, he'd always belong to them. That was his job. And I just didn't fit. I played the role of the distraction, a restriction. Definitely not an asset. My relationship with Tom was meant to be this temporary, a fun little fling that he had wanted more from. And in the beginning I was too lovestruck to make him see reason, but the actual decision to leave him made me sick to my stomach now. I wasn't in the equation, I never was, and I didn't want to wait around for Tom to figure it out. Oh, no. God no, it was better for me to know this little truth before it did any real damage to the both of us.

Because even if it did hurt me to leave him, I was sure it would eventually start to hurt him even more if I stayed.

~

I knew something was wrong almost as soon as I opened my eyes. I thought maybe I'd overslept. My alarm on my phone never did ring and I was scared that I was about to miss my flight. For all I knew, my mother could be calling me right now, leaving tons of texts and voicemails. She was supposed to call and make sure I was up and awake since she was picking me up from the airport in Boston. With half closed eyes and a jerking hand, I reached out for my iPhone on the coffee table. But my phone wasn't on the table where I'd left it. I blinked and quickly sat up, confused. After drawing the conclusion that it was probably just somewhere near the living room where I'd placed my bags last night, I lept off the couch and went in search of the phone.