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There's some long parts, but hopefully you'll enjoy!!
After answering the questions that Colin gave me and handing that to the lady at the front office, we went to Tom's car to head home.
But when he lifted me up into the passenger seat, I noticed that he still had that hard expression.
He almost slammed the car door after he climbed in and reversed out of the parking in a rough manner.
'Tom...' I said quietly when he was drumming his fingers on the wheel furiously, staring at the road with cold eyes.
Because we got to a red light, I leaned across and kissed his cheek for a long moment. But even when I pulled away, his expression hadn't changed.
The car was silent except for Tom's music for the entire ride home.
Once he parked, he lifted me back into my wheelchair and pushed me into the house. He was about to leave the room after he lowered me down onto the bed in the guest room until I called his name again, more clearly this time.
'Tom.' He didn't turn around, but he stopped at the doorway. 'Come here.'
It looked as though he hesitated for a second, but he turned around and put himself inside my arms, his own around me and his head resting on top of my chest.
I didn't say anything but instead I put my right hand on his head, stroking his hair.
'Do you want to let it out...?' I quietly asked him.
'What were you talking about?' He said at an instant.
'About my leg, uni and... he said a short apology for now.'
'A short one? A short apology?'
'I said "for now". I'm sure he'll say something more soon -'
'Well he better. Which uni is he at?'
'UCLA.'
He lifted his head up, creases appearing between his eyebrows.
'How did he get in? And why does he have to be at the one you're going to?'
'I don't know Tom, honestly. I want to know.'
'And Katrina, why was she there? She's supposed to be your friend, why's she with him?'
'Tom, like I said, I don't know. She wanted to tell us everything, remember?'
'Yeah I remember, but why's she doing all the talking?' He said in a hard tone, sitting up. 'She's not the one who screwed everything up. He should've asked. He should've made the effort to apologise to you but all he did was to pull you away from me and have a good little chat with you like nothing ever happened? What a joke.
'Plus, I'm going away soon and I don't want to leave you by yourself knowing that he's around you.'
'He seemed to be himself again. He wouldn't do anything -'
'See, that's what's pissing me off too! You're too forgiving! You trust people too easily! He doesn't deserve your forgiveness, no matter how much he apologised!'
We were silent for a moment while Tom took deep, heavy breaths.
'What's good about hating someone?' I said quietly. 'I'd rather get over it, forgive them and feel happy. Not feel the anger as much -'
'You don't understand, you haven't been in love with someone for so long!' He started to raise his voice. 'And why is it that as soon as you see him, your stress just goes away? It just looks like you're starting to have a thing for him again!'
Something inside me broke; I stared at him.
'Is that what you think?' I managed to say, my voice trembling. 'You think I'm not stressed anymore because I saw him? You know how I am with sports, you know how I've never missed training for two days in a row! And what do you mean, it looks like I've got a thing for him again? Do you think my love towards you is that shallow? But guess what, just because I haven't liked you for the seven years before we started dating, it doesn't mean that I'll give whatever it takes to stay with you!'
I took his hand and gripped it.
'Please, Tom. Don't let hatred blind you. You have my heart, and his belongs to Kat and I'm just simply happy for them. I don't know what happened after Ed and I broke up, but they're willing to tell me, to tell us, so I'm going to take it. I don't know if you want t come with me, but I just want to know the truth. Why he did that, why they're together. But seriously Tom, just because I saw him it doesn't mean that I'm in love with him again. Sure, I'm wondering why he's here in LA and yes, I'm glad that he's back to his normal self but it doesn't mean a single greeting would change my love I have for you, okay?'
I leaned forwards and kissed him. At first he was extremely tense and didn't kiss back. But the longer I lingered, the more he relaxed his shoulders and he eventually kissed me back.
'I'm sorry...' he murmured when we parted. 'I - yeah. I was a bit... jealous and annoyed and stuff.'
I smiled slightly, stroking his hair again. 'I could tell.'
Sighing once, he slipped his arms around my waist and rested his head above my chest again.
'I love you.' He said.
'I love you too.'
***
Friday evening eventually came, and I nervously knocked on their door at half past five. Their house was in Santa Monica and was a two storey house which the back faced the Pacific.
A moment later the door opened and Kat smiled at us.
'Hey! How're you both?'
'Alright, I guess.' I laughed weakly.
'Yeah, fair enough.' She let out a weak laugh too. 'He's back there, a little nervous.' She nodded behind her. 'But please, come in.'
We saw him sitting down on one of the chairs at the dining table, facing us. He gave Tom and I a nervous/weak smile.
I returned a smile but I don't know about Tom. Seeing Ed relaxing slightly, I guess Tom nodded or greeted in some way.
Tom pushed my wheelchair under the desk opposite Edward a bit hesitantly. Once Kat joined us with drinks, she turned to Ed and said, 'When you're ready.'
He looked nervous as he ran his hand through his hair and scratched his head. Then, taking a deep breath, he began.
'About a year and a bit since we, like us, started dating, things between my parents got bad. And I mean, bad bad. Dad... his business almost failed really badly, and during those times he was worried sick that he... started drinking. Both mum and I thought that it was going to be a short term thing. Once the job was back to their normal state - because it was miraculously recovering - we thought that he'll stop his drinking. But he didn't. He was too scared to go back to work. We tried to convince him to go back, because he did own that place, but that backfired onto us. He started yelling and hitting us time to time. Then mum and dad got into a huge fight. It probably lasted months, until mum left.
'And then it was just me and him, slowly going insane. He let out his anger on me, as he continued to drink heavily and even started to take drugs. But it didn't last for a long time. I think it hit him that mum had left, so he just shut himself in his room. I would sometimes hear him wailing and groaning and screaming and sounds of things breaking in his room... to be honest I would've much rather him just yelling at me, or even hitting me than to hear him suffering like that. He was a great dad, and I wanted his old self back.
'But one day all of them stopped. For a whole day. It was so eerily quiet, that I decided to open the door. But it was locked from the inside, so I kicked it open.' He then paused, closing his eyes and breathing deeply, as though trying to calm himself down. Kat squeezed his shoulder, drawing circles with her thumb. 'Then I saw him. Hanging from the ceiling.' He raised his gaze to give me a small, sad smile because I let out a small gasp and clapped my hand over my mouth. Tears were in my eyes too. 'I... I don't really remember what I did then. I think I called the police and stuff but... I was alone. I tried calling mum, but she changed her number. My grandparents' places were too far for me to go to them, so basically, I was left alone. An orphan, I could say.
'I... I didn't know what to do. The police offered me to find a place that I could stay, but I refused for some reason. I think I didn't want to leave home, where the memories of my parents were, especially dad's. But then school work started to get to me on top of the emotional weight I felt, the emptiness and loneliness and basically everything else. I started to feel stressed and it got so bad that one day, I decided to take a sip of dad's drinks. I know, it was the stupidest idea I could ever thought of, but I just couldn't think properly. It was only supposed to be a sip, but I couldn't stop myself after that. I drank after glass after glass... then they came up to me.'
Even though he didn't specifically say who, I knew exactly who he was talking about.
'We started talking more and more... about alcohol, mainly, and at time to time they would invite me over and talk crap about everything. The people at our school, people they knew, their parents, their lives... At first I knew that I shouldn't be there, I've got better things to do. But the more time I spent with them, the more I started to lose myself. That's when I... started being so horrible to you. And the things with Alicia...
'At first it was only alcohol, but, like you both know, we did start to do illegal things like... smoking and taking drugs. Now I think about it, we all had something tragic happen to us, whether it was huge or small. We just wanted to forget everything and get over it, but we obviously took a terribly wrong path. In my case I - I pushed you to the edge so much that I... made you think that you should cut yourself and even further that you...' he took a shaky breath. 'tried to kill yourself.'
I closed my eyes and slowly took deep breaths. Those memories were ones that I despite remembering. Underneath the table, I was gripping onto Tom's hand.
'When I read articles about that, it was the first time that I realised what I've done. But it was only faintly, I'll be honest. As time went by though, I started to gain back my - well - sanity. When you broke up with me that day, a part of me did feel empty. And then this news came to me, and it hit me like a truck. You don't understand the amount of weight I felt because I was the one to blame for all of that. You didn't deserve any of those at all and... honestly I won't be able to apologise enough for what I've done...
'But from the day I heard the news, I started to decrease the smoking and drugs slowly, and eventually alcohol. It wasn't easy, but I was getting scared of them for the first time. They made mum leave dad and I, and I lost the girl I loved and hurt her terribly... so I tried to quit. But then it made Alicia angry because - you know - she still wanted me to do those things. I know, I've changed her too and...' He paused and shook his head, biting his lip as though trying to keep in the tears that were welling up in his eyes already. 'We broke up at the end of 2007 and... I didn't know what to do for a few months.
'Though I did know, that I want to help and support people, young or old, who were struggling with depression or anxiety or having any emotional struggle. I didn't want more people go through what I went through, what you went through because of me.
'So I started to find a new school to start from Year 10 again. I - I had a fair amount of - you know - money and took scholarship tests for few schools and I got into our school.' I was quite surprised with this. 'Mr Greene gave me a load of support that I probably didn't even deserve. But he told me that I could jump to Year 11 from the test results, so I took that and managed to graduate two years ago. As the top three percent in England too... I eventually decided to go to UCLA, because I did get a scholarship there and also because it was overseas.
'I wanted to leave, leave home to a place where no one knew me. Put everything I've done behind. But about a month and a bit before I came here, I ran into Kat. Believe me, she let all her anger out about you to me that time but then she offered to listen to my story. I'd never told anyone the truth till that point.
'That's what triggered my feeling for her. I knew you were moving on with Tom and I was more than happy for you. You really deserve happiness and that's what you have with him. So I decided that I could move on too. When the time came, when I was ready, I had in mind to apologise to you but like I said, I can't apologise to you enough. I heard from Colin that you and Tom were living next to him, so I guessed that we were going to run into each other again, but I didn't expect it to be all so sudden and unexpectedly.' He laughed weakly and I so did I. 'But,' he looked at me right in the eyes. 'I really am - truly - so sorry for what I've done, Sakura. I won't blame you if you don't forgive me, but I just want you to know how much I regret everything, how much I want to apologise to you. Although,' he stood up and came around to our side, facing me. He held out his hand. 'It'll be great if - if we could be friends again, just like the old times.'
I stared at his hand with blurry eyes then up to his face and back to his hand. I quickly wiped my eyes and, smiling, I took it and we shook hands.
'Why didn't you tell me this back then...?'
'Sorry I - I didn't know how to. I mean - you had filming and all these other stuff to worry about...'
I just smiled at him. 'Thank you for explaining everything, though. But just one thing.' I said. 'If you ever hurt Kat in any way, you better run far away. This time I won't hesitate to punch you.'
'I'll keep that in mind at all times.' He nodded. 'But again, I really am sorry.'
I nodded. 'I'm just glad that you're back to normal.'
'I am too, honestly.' He laughed softly.
I laughed softly too and I smiled at Kat who returned the smile, looking relived.
I glanced over to Tom and saw him have a faint smile on his face.
Please take note, I haven't got the years and stuff exactly right as for now but when I complete this story, I'll go back and edit it. But hopefully you get the gist!
Thank you for reading!!