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Your head is spinning. The world comes to a halt. You are sure the ground has cracked beneath your feet and plunged you into the depths of the greatest hell the world has ever known. Your fingers dig onto the edge of the desk for support. Lips quivering, parted into a silent question. All because the man sitting before you, the man whom you love and adore unconditionally, has informed you he is getting married to another woman.
The tense seconds morph into minutes, all while you watch Tommy scribble down some documents, cigarette perched upon his lips, calm and collected as if he hadn’t just taken your heart and flung it from the top of the Clock of Westminster. You ache to find in his face any sign of regret, of pain, any clue that he is hurting as much as you are, but you are met only with emptiness
You cannot bear this any longer. A thousand questions pile upon your lips, striving to escape, but only one single word manages to emerge from the depths of your throat, raspy and shaky “Why?”
Tommy has his answer ready, of course. He is always ready, or he thinks he is. Foreshadowing everything that will happen, knowing exactly how those under or over him will behave. Time and experience clearly failed to teach him that not all variables can be predicted.
“It is the only way they will side with us. We need all the allies we can gather. And with their support we will have free access to commercialise opium all over Europe. America is a promising market but until we don’t have full control of it, we need to branch out”
His reply is so derisory a laugh escapes you. What do you care about opium deals or favourable deals? What is it to you about the wants of his potential business partners? All you see is the man who holds your heart casting you aside like a cigarette butt.
“An arranged marriage, Tommy? Are you listening to yourself? This is no 1875, love. It's the modern world. Arranged betrothals are for the princes and dukes and folks of the sort, not for people like you and me. Marrying whoever we want is one of the few freedoms we possess, and you are letting them take it away from you for what? More money? More power?”
Tommy’s greed remained a perennial tense spot in your relationship. He always wanted more; more money, more power, more recognition. And he continued to trade his happiness for that. Ambitions had nearly cost him his sister, and had lost him a brother as well.
Now he had traded the love of his life.
“It is all part of a plan for a greater purpose. I marry her to please her father, and once we have secured the markets and exploited their resources, I will have us annulled on grounds of non-consummation and forced marriage. My lawyer already looked into it. Once everything has calmed, we can get married you and I”
You want to laugh. Laugh at his audacity, at the nerve he must have to think you will stand to come in second place. Not in second to this other woman, whoever she is. In second place to his ambitions. Because right now you see, rolling before your very eyes like a cheap movie, what your life with him would be like. You would never be a priority, nor would be any children born from you. Always shadowed by the veritable breadth of Tommy’s ego.
You also want to cry. Cry out your frustrations, your anger, your immeasurable pain. The man sitting before you does not resemble the man you fell in love with. Not by one inch. They bear the same name but that’s where it ends. Because the Thomas you loved had eyes of a clear blue matching a gentle spring sky, not shards of the deepest ice sending shivers through your bones. The Tommy you love did not bear a perpetual scowl, the jaw always tense and the fists always tense.
The man you love used to smile.
“And where does my opinion lie within your plans? My feelings, my dignity? Are you sending me an invitation as well? Maybe I will catch her bouquet and reuse it for our own nuptials. Do you think I will sit back and watch you-”
“It already happened”
You hoped the surprises would be over, but this new bucket of ice pouring over your head felt like a low blow straight to the gut. Amidst your silence, Tommy pulls out a piece of paper from a folder and slides it over to you. You only read ‘Birmingham registry’ and ‘marriage certificate’. You don’t need to read more. Who knew a single sheet of paper could cause such anguish? Your vision is blurry, and you don’t know if your eyes have flooded with tears or if you are about to faint. You sway in your chair, and you actually have to hold onto the desk for balance. If Tommy had laid a gun and this certificate before you and asked you to choose, you would have chosen the gun. The pains of the flesh cannot be as bad as the agony you are submerged in.
The man before you, a man you don’t know, clears his throat and lights another cigarette “They worried I would back out, so I agreed to an immediate civil ceremony to appease them”
Your body moves against your will, because you no longer have a will. Your brain and your body are disconnected; if they were in tune, you would have stopped breathing long ago, for you no longer remember how to. Every inhale feels like molten lead clogging your lungs and weighing your body. You are clumsy; disoriented. Your heel catches on a board, making you stumble as you get up. In attempts to stabilise you, your hand knocks over an ink pot, spilling it over the document. You do not remember how or when you fastened your coat or grabbed your purse. Tommy calls your name, but he does not move from his seat to pursue you from your escape. The secretaries ask if you feel well, if you need something, but her voices are white noise in your ears. You think you pushed one away, or maybe not, you only felt the clattering of breaking porcelain and tea spilling on your shoes.
It’s raining. It is spring but it's raining. The cold beads slide into the neck of your coat and down your spine. Your driver awaits with an umbrella, his smile fading into a frown when you walk past him, past the car, past the office and everyone inside it. Your foot slips on the damp cobblestones and you crash your shoulder into the wall, your hand seeking grip on the rough bricks. People behind you call your name, or the name of the one you used to be. You are not the same woman who entered that office.
You feel a pair of hands on you. Fleeting hope flashes in your heart, but the weak ember dies as quickly as it came to life. It is your driver, holding your weight since he noticed your knees threatening to buckle. You don’t know how but now you are sitting in the back of the car, drenched to the bone. The driver keeps asking you where to go, but you have no answer. You want to say home, but home is no longer your home. The rain halted, there is no wind outside. You look down to your wrist watch and you notice you forgot to wind it. The hands froze at 6 pm, the second you set foot inside that man’s office.
The world has stopped.