unhinged ↠ 𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞

ten

Whatever. Crying is overrated, anyways.

I finish climbing the stairs to the astronomy tower. It seems like it has been days, months, years I have been running. My legs ache, but I push the pain out of my mind and enter the Astronomy Tower's large, open room. The moving statue of saturn and various other planets sit in the middle of the room, spinning slowly with passing time.

Someone is on the other side of the room.

Dark brown hair, this time, not perfectly groomed.

Hazel eyes, this time, deep and empty.

Whiskey bottle, sitting next to a slouched posture.

"Tom," I whisper hoarsely.

"I knew you would find me here, some day or another," He mutters as I step closer. The bottle of whiskey looks half-empty, Tom looking the same. "Not my best moments."

I take a seat beside him, my legs dangling over the railing, just as his are. "You like heights, I presume?" I finally murmur.

He nods. "They help me think."

I glance at the whiskey bottle. "Drinking doesn't seem very productive."

"I've been thinking a lot, lately," He simply states, avoiding my comment, his expression simply...tired. "My hobbies, well, some of them have gotten, well, out of hand. Friends to enemies. Betrayals. That sort of life shit, you know?"

I stare at Tom straight in the face. He doesn't seem to be talking like himself in this moment. "You don't seem...right. I can't see you opening up about your problems to anyone, even if you were drunk."

He chuckles without any humor. "That's the thing, princess. I never do open up to anyone. But..." He trails off, eyeing the nearly-empty bottle, then shaking his head. "Do you wanna know how many times I've wanted to kill you? Just one simple curse and...boom, problem solved."

My heart almost stops.

It's not everyday someone comes up to you and says they want to murder you, or have wanted to in the past.

"Tom...are you ok? Like, mentally?"

He snorts. "Please, Hadlee, I've been asking myself the same question since I was seven." He sighs, picks up the bottle, stands up, and chucks it over the railing.

"Tom!" I hiss. "You could hit some poor first year in the head!"

He shrugs. "To bad for them."

I hit him lightly in the chest. "That's mea-" His hand reaches out and grabs my own, shoving me backwards into the brick columns of the tower. My head spins at the impact and I cry out in pain, but a hand goes over my mouth.

I thought we were joking around, please don't hurt me, don't look at me with those dangerously cold eyes. I'm afraid I'll freeze over and shatter.

I should have known not to provoke him while drunk. Idiot.

"Don't ever hit me again," He says lowly. His breath, surprisingly, does not smell of alcohol, but rather chocolate and forest pine. He slowly removes his hand from my mouth, as I am breathing heavily, the pain in my head making my breaths come in short gasps.