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She didn’t know why she did it. Usually, she avoided any mention of him, it was easier that way. But this one time, she did and it still hurt to see those gorgeous blue eyes looking back at her. He had become far more distinguished and bespoke, not the floppy-haired goof she fell in love with. She flicked through the words, the names of many beautiful and famous women and pictures to boot sprawled on the page in front of her, there was even two or three names of people that were not famous, his long arm around them, both canoodling together. She looked as the dates went back to the mid-2000s, then stopped. No mention of her. She never thought there would be and would not like to be known to the world, but it hurt too. She had existed, she was part of his life, for three and a half years, they were together, happy and in love, now, she was nothing. Biting her lips together, she looked at the box on her wardrobe. Getting up from her seat, she walked over and got out the decently sized container and opened it. It was covered in dust. She put it on there when she moved in four years previously and never put anything on it, so dust settled over time, something there was a slight irony in. She brought it to the bed and wiped off the dust before gently opening it.
The contents were just as she had left them. Their years of not being used or touched meant they were in good condition. In part, she was glad it was before the more computerised era, when photographs still were more popular. She smiled at the fuzziness of a lot of the pictures, taken by drunk students on college nights out, some at family events, two even were attempts at selfies before they were even called such but there was one common theme to them. They were of her and Tom.
They met in Cambridge on a quiz night. She and her friends had arranged it to pay for a society trip. It was in the closest bar off-campus and a lot of other students went for something to do. Cambridge had a lot of students wanting to show their knowledge over a pint, it meant everyone and everyone was there. She was in charge of collecting the answers between rounds. There were guys everywhere, from sports teams to the quieter societies. She was collecting the answer sheets when her fingers touched those of the guy handing her the page. There was a spark before she ever looked at him through their touch. She had been already looking to the next table in hopes of getting them to ready their sheet, but the tingle up her hand made her turn to see the most gorgeous blue eyes she ever bore witness to. His auburn curls bounced as his head moved and his smile was beaming. It startled her. ‘Oi, Hiddles, let the lady get on with her job, she won’t like you if you tease her too much’ one of his friends, Mark, she would later learn had jested. Tom let go of the card with a soft sorry before looking, less than subtly at her, his eyes showing his approval of what he was looking at. For the rest of the night, the pair eyed one another any time they were within view of one another, their friends urging them both to talk to the other. When he approached her at the end of the quiz, chosen from his table to collect their second prize, his friends urging him to do so.
“Your prize.” She handed him the £50 voucher for the local off-licence.
“Thank…” He read the voucher. “That’s an interesting prize.”
“We’re students. The only thing more valuable than booze is books.” She joked back, unable to stop herself blushing as his voice made her feel more lightheaded than she would care to emit.
“I...well, that’s true yes.” He chuckled. His laugh was different but she liked it. “I can hardly argue that when I am half sloshed. Listen, I don’t mean to sound rude and you can tell me to toss off if I am being a twat but…” He watched as she added another piece of paper to his voucher before walking off.
From their vantage point, her friends informed her that the guy she had been oogling all night had taken her number smiling.
It was not long before the texts started, Tom Hiddleston, commonly called ‘Hiddles’ by his friends. Studying classics, Eton educated, sweet, a bookworm and an avid lover of theatre. It was no surprise he was on the DramSoc team. They met, not for drinks, which startled her slightly, but for lunch. He stated he wanted to get to speak with her more and the college bar was loud and busy. He also wanted to be sober, to not make a twat of himself, he later informed her.
Before long, they were officially dating. He spent considerable time in her apartment and her in his. Their friends, though two different groups, got used to seeing them together. They rarely got home at weekends, but when they got home for Easter holidays, they spent so much time texting and talking, it was clear to their families they were smitten. She was Tom’s first. First girlfriend, first time, not his first kiss though, but at nineteen, that was hardly surprising.
Summer came and they forewent going back to their families and went and found an apartment that they shared with Mark, his girlfriend and Sam, another girl from her course. They juggled shifts in different small jobs to pay to stay there, their parents helping with the rent. For the rest of their time in college, they always were seen together outside of college-related activities. When she needed to go to France for six weeks for her course, they missed each other no end. After four weeks, the loneliness became too much and he surprised her by coming over. She remembered him walking up behind her in the street and terrifying her. Sam told him where they were staying and where they would so he could surprise her. That, Sam told her, was revealed years later by Tom in an interview. He never mentioned her name but he did mention it was his first girlfriend. She didn’t know what to think about that.
After college, they moved into a small dingy apartment together in London. It was tiny and less than perfect but it was their first place that was just theirs. They spent most of their time there but also wandered into the countryside for some time in silence and calm. There they lay on blankets and looked at the night’s sky, stars glistening above them.
When Tom applied to RADA, he sat looking at his computer, wondering if it was the right thing to do. She told him it was right for him, she pushed him to follow his dream to go on stage and help him to prepare to speak to his stoic father on his less than approved choice of further education. She did everything she could to help him all through it. The night before he was due to start college, he got in late from his waiting shift and cursed that the barbers were closed when he finished. She took his hair and cut his curls a little just to neaten them. Tom was topless, a slice of toast in his mouth as she did it with a pair of scissors entirely unsuited to the task. When he turned his head for a moment at the sound of a bang from a neighbouring apartment, he caused her to snip a long curl too short. For a moment, the pair stared silently at the curl before they both erupted in giggles. It was not possible to see the short strands in the mess of curls. In jest, she took the snipped curl and placed it in a small plastic bag that housed a spare button in one of her jackets. Tom, who had a polaroid camera as a result of a joke present, took a snap of the two of them. She taped the hair and the date to the back of the photo. ‘Wait and see, this will be worth a fortune someday. You are going to be as big as Branagh or Stewart, I know it.’ She meant it fully. She knew he was something special, that was why she pushed him so much. Tom brought her to him and kissed her. For the rest of the night, they were in one another’s arms, small whispers of love and copious kisses swapped between them.
But life started to show them that perhaps they were not meant for the same things. Tom got a few small parts in productions. He was starting to get attention from other girls. She knew she could trust him but she also knew that it hurt her more than she could admit to see him pretend to be close to other women. It started to play on her slightly. When the auditions started, she pushed him to go, then secretly wished he would not get certain ones. Looking at herself in the mirror one day, she realised it was hurting too much. There was never a chance she would ask Tom not to continue to pursue his dream. Her problem was hers. It took another week but she finally spoke to Tom. She knew she had to ensure he never thought he was at fault. Seeing his eyes show his emotion as she spoke the words she wished she did not have to say broke her heart all the more. They both cried that night. He begged her to not leave but she knew she had to. He pleaded with her to tell him what he could do to change it but she said more and more that it wasn’t him, it was her. She tried to break down her hangups, but she couldn’t. Tom asked that they just spend one last weekend as a couple. They did. In one another’s arms, she swore it was not him, that she wanted him to wow the world with his talent.
Moving out her things crushed her. Tom was busy with college so he was not there for the worst of it. Some of her favourite moments they shared, she put carefully into a box to bring her. The box she was looking into sadly at that moment. The polaroid in her hand. On the back, the curl still there.
She tried to find happiness through time after. She dated multiple men but 99% of them never got past the first date. No one could fault her for trying, but the longest lasted only four months. No one mentioned it anymore. She had tried but no man ever made her feel like Tom did. Her career was good, she spent her life going around the world, translating for all sorts of things. She had seen everywhere she ever wanted to see, though some places came with a pang of sadness having previously been there or planned to go there with Tom. She wished sometimes that they had stayed in touch but she needed the clean break. She wanted to show him the places she went but she didn’t have the means to contact him again. She regretted that now.
Placing the box back on the wardrobe, she knew the day would come that she would need to get rid of that box but she couldn’t, not yet. Maybe someday. She looked at the article again. The extensive dating history of Tom Hiddleston, from confirmed girlfriends to rumoured flings and hookups, all of them listed, many worthy of a photograph. But nothing of her.
She glanced over the words of the article, all filled with an adoration of this English Gentleman, polite, respectful, handsome. This wasn’t news to her, she knew it from the start. The hoards of adoring fans who loved him without falter were mentioned.
But she loved him first.