The City | GirlxGirl

seven ➳

What had happened that had made him so distant? Jude was starting to forget simple details about a man she slept beside every night.

The lump in her throat made it hard to swallow her breakfast. She wasn't very hungry anyway. She decided that if she could make something good out of what had happened between she and Thom last night, she would.

Jude stood in the mirror for a half hour, ensuring that the bruise was fully covered by several thick layers of foundation. Then, she grabbed her notebook off of the coffee table and left the apartment.

-

Jude made sure to be home before Thom was. She wanted to straighten up the house. Suddenly, the things that were normally scattered on every surface there was to possibly place something were tucked away in the drawer of her nightstand, or stacked neatly on top of their shared dresser. The kitchen was clean of any dishes, Thom's dress shirts were laundered and hung in their respective positions. A cup of warm tea was waiting on the kitchen table for him.

Jude couldn't shake her fear that he wasn't going to come home. That he'd head to a bar, a club-somewhere Thom would never go-and spend time without her. And not just without her. With another girl.

But that was ridiculous. Thom had always been honest with her. He told her everything she needed to know, and nothing more. He had his secrets, but so did Jude. The difference between them was that Jude felt guilty for not sharing hers with the man she loved. With the man she planned to spend the rest of her life with.

Keys in the door. Thom only carried a single one, so there was never any warning. When Jude came home, her chain of multiple keys that she really didn't need to carry around anymore created a symphony in the palm of her hand. The metal chimed and chimed as she struggled to find the small apartment key, and by then, if you didn't know that Jude was home, you must have been deaf.

But like everything about Thom, his key was quiet. In and out of the lock. The door open. The slipping off of leather shoes. All of it nearly silent. If Jude wasn't listening for it, she never would have known that Thom had arrived.

"Hi," said Jude. Tentative. Testing out the waters. "Tea."

Thom nodded at her, long hair falling in his eyes. He brushed the curls across his forehead in a single, swift motion, and took the tea from the table. Having cooled off already, he gulped it eagerly, and set the empty mug back on the table.

"Thank you," he said. No warmth, not like the boiling water Jude had boiled specifically for him. Instead his tone was cold. Like the chilled air that wrapped around your body the minute you stepped outside, threatening to hold you-to never let you go.

Jude cleared her throat.

She leaned against the counter, watching Thom scroll through his phone.

"How was work?" she asked.

And when he looked up at her, she searched his eyes for any sign of remorse. Or apology. Or guilt.

She found none.

But then again, Thom's eyes had started to look different ever since they had moved. Once affectionate and amiable, the emerald seemed evil. Bitter and rigid. Eyes of a snake that show no indication of regret as they move upon their prey...

Jude cleared her throat again. Any distraction to stop her swelling thoughts.

Does sleeping in the same bed each night make you a couple? Jude couldn't rid herself of replaying the past days' events of she and Thom dancing around each other throughout the apartment. They avoided conversation and eye contact at all costs. There was too much tension, and the only way around it was to directly discuss the bruise.