In The Bleak Midwinter | T Shelby

FORTY ONE - AN END AND A BEGINNING

The sun was setting as Kaia and Thomas headed out of the house together. The air was mild and there was a light breeze blowing the dried out leaves gently across the cobblestones that they walked on, an orange and pink horizon ahead of them as they headed out towards the fields.

After speaking to her father, Kaia had decided she needed to talk to Thomas properly. Her mind had become incredibly clouded all of a sudden, the arrival of him on her doorstep with a box full of the things that meant the most to her, along with the way she felt her world shift off it's axis when he held her had fogged up a space that had been clear for a while. Dark, but clear, nevertheless.

It was silent as they walked, neither of them daring to speak the first word. They both felt the tension, the unmistakable thickness as if there was a whole other person walking in between the two of them, it didn't feel right.

Kaia and Tommy's relationship was free of unwanted tension, it harvested the good in both their lives and made it great, allowing them to blossom into the person they were meant to be in their soul, not a shape of someone society wanted them to be. Their love was natural, the warm, tender kind of love, as gentle as a candle flame and as delicate as a flower, the total opposite to how the world viewed both of them.

They were used to passion, a glow in one another's eyes and a sparkle in every hidden smile, a stolen glance across a crowded room that they both knew meant something deeper than what it appeared to be. They weren't used to feeling rigid, forced conversations and prolonged silences when neither of them knew what direction to go in. It wasn't Tommy and Kaia's love.

Tommy cleared his throat as the approached the horse paddock, the same one they'd visited on Christmas Day. Only now, the ground wasn't covered in thick snow and the trees weren't completely bare of their leaves.

"What did you and your father talk about?" He eventually asked, breaking the heavy silence.

"I think you heard, didn't you." Kaia replied.

She was right, Tommy had heard everything. He'd been sat at the dining table staring out of the back window, holding his own breath for fear that his beating heart would be too loud for him to hear what they were saying above him.

The way Kaia had spoken to her father had warmed Tommy's heart. He had never heard her speak about anybody like that, part of him didn't think he ever would, but her kind words had made his heart swell, hearing just how much she loved her father.

It hadn't come as a surprise to Tommy to hear Aberama say that he'd never liked him, not many people in Small Heath did, but upon hearing him give Kaia his thoughts, he couldn't help but let his lips curve into a small smile.

Aberama's words were true. Tommy would gladly give his life for Kaia, all without giving it a second thought. His life since Kaia had walked out of it had been grey and dull, empty and aimless. Kaia gave him a sense of direction and purpose, a happiness that nothing else could ever give him. And for that, of course Thomas would give his own life.

"Yes," he inhaled deeply, "I did."

Tommy had half expected Kaia to say something else, but she just leant on the wooden fence surrounding the paddock, watching the white horse ride across the sunset.

"Look, Kaia. I didn't come to your house with this intention, I came to drop off your things. I was cleaning out my belongings for the move and-"

"You're moving?" She cut him off, looking up at him with wide eyes drenched in a coat of concern.

"Not far, only to the countryside. I wanted a new start, an empty shell to turn into a home, somewhere without any memories."

Kaia's heart settled when he reassured her that he wasn't going far. She'd often thought about moving away herself, once Bonnie and her father were better of course, but the pain she'd felt in her chest at Thomas telling her he was doing the same thing she'd considered was almost paralysing.