Chapter Three
“And it’s tough for me to shelf it, it’s you I see myself with.”
Tom paced the colorless, dull hallway of the hospital; he knew he should be in the room with Harrison but he couldn’t sit there and face the mess he made of things. He scanned his clothes, covered in his best friends blood and shook at the inescapable reality of what he had done. Tom debated just running out the double doors and not looking back, it was the only way he could clear his head and get away from the constant reminders everywhere he turned of his guilty conscience.
He started to make a break for it when the doors swung open and Y/N came barreling down the hallway in distress. She had her hair tied up in a messy bun and was still in her pajamas, he tried to shake the thought of how beautiful she appeared to him even when she had just gotten out of bed. He couldn’t think of her that way anymore, not after what had happened in the past 24 hours.
Then her eyes finally fell on Tom, and she stopped right in her tracks. He kept his gaze focused on the doors and pretended like he didn’t see her and kept moving past her.
She couldn’t believe he was still acting like she didn’t exist to him anymore. But, this time she wasn’t gonna let him walk away without another word.
“Hey!” she yelled as he strode past. Tom wasn’t stopping so she ran up alongside him and snatched his arm aggressively. He froze, but still kept his head up and refused to look down to meet her furious expression.
“Oh so now you’re too fucking good for me you don’t even have the decency to look at me and, I don’t know, realize I’m a person standing in front of you?” she sarcastically berated him.
Finally, he took a deep breath in and slightly tilted his chin downwards, and stared at her straight on. She was a little surprised to see such rage in his appearance; she didn’t think he had a right to still be angry after he almost beat Haz to a pulp.
“Fuck you. Honestly, just… Fuck. You. I don’t owe you shit, I never have. You’re absolutely nothing, and that’s what you mean to me,” he insulted as his eyes threw daggers she swore she could feel stabbing her through the chest. Tom thought all his pent-up anger had been released, but seeing her treat him like some heartless monster who beat up his friend for no apparent reason only poured gasoline into a roaring fire.
Nevertheless, at his extremely harsh words, she seemed to grow not only angrier but perplexed as well.
“Who are you, Tom? Do you see what you did to him? If I’m really absolutely nothing to you, then why did you do it? Was it to prove some point? No one can touch anything the great Tom Holland once had,” she jeered. He flinched and was hurt that she thought he was that low and insecure about himself. It was like neither of them even knew who each other was anymore.
“I can’t believe you actually just said that. Harrison is everything to me, he’s like another brother and I trust him more than anyone in my life. But then, you came along. You. How did you manage to turn the most trustworthy, loyal person in my life to a backstabbing traitor?” Tom retorted.
She was taken aback, but at this point used to him walking all over her. After all, she knew it was because he still cared because if he didn’t he wouldn’t be saying those things. She opened her mouth to speak again, but he continued to rant before she could get in a word.
“Don’t- don’t even dare say you’re sorry. After that morning he was done with you, he felt so guilty he probably never would have spoken to you again if that's what I wanted him to do with my girl. So, what did you do, get drunk and say you love him? Wouldn’t be the first ti-” he discredited her but didn’t get to finish. She slapped Tom forcefully across his upset face, not holding back at all. He maintained his detached yet cocky manner by smirking at her attempt to wound him.
“You- you don’t get to act like you don’t know me one day and the next call me your girl,” she spat, taking one last look at the man she had grown ashamed of before she walked away from him to go and comfort Harrison.
She quietly opened the door to his hospital room and took a deep breath in an effort to calm herself down before stepping in. Harrison glanced nervously at her; after all, she was the reason his whole body ached in pain. He noticed Tom observing from outside the long, glass window. They locked eyes, and Tom simply nodded once in approval. Tom’s head fell forward as he struggled to bite back tears, and he bolted out of the hospital.
Harrison knew Tom like the back of his hand; the nod may not have meant much to anyone looking in, but it did to him. It was his way of saying he was sorry, but also that he would have done it again. It meant that Tom was granting him permission to be with her, he didn’t know why but if he had to guess it was because Tom was ultimately letting go of Y/N.
She didn’t speak as she stepped closer to his bed. Her eyes said everything she needed to say. She was sorry, but she wasn’t going to apologize for what Tom did to him. Even after everything, Harrison still put her pain before his own. He had heard every cruel word that Tom had viciously thrown at her; he wished he could have done more than just sit and listen.
Her fingers quivered as she reached out to gently stroke the side of Haz’s face, still raw from the intensity of Tom’s fists. She set down a bouquet of flowers on his side table, pulled up a chair next to his bedside, and clasped his hand inside her own.
They didn’t speak to each other for the rest of the night- if they had, it would have been only empty promises and discussions about a future neither one could fulfill. But, in Harrison’s mind, her sole presence was comforting enough.
Y/N smiled at Tom sitting next to her in the car, and he reached for her hand in response. She looked quickly back and forth between the road and Tom’s mesmerizing coffee-colored eyes. He leaned in to press a sweet kiss on her cheek, and she closed her eyes for a brief moment.
It was like all time had stopped. She slammed on the brake and swerved the car as best as she could out of the lane she had drifted into, but it was too late. They were hit from the side, and Tom flew out of the windshield sending shards of glass everywhere in sight.
“TOMMY!” she woke up with a start, breathing heavily and sitting upright in her bed. She ran both hands through her hair coated in sweat. It had all felt so real that it couldn’t have been just a nightmare. She stretched across her bed to grab her phone from the nightstand. In less than a second, her finger hovered over Tom’s number.
It was 1:42 am. She knew she shouldn’t call him; that would be exactly what he was expecting her to do. Yet, she still had a horrible feeling in her gut, and she figured she’d rather suffer from a bruised ego than her anxiety at the moment.
She closed her eyes and shakily hit the dial button, praying he would pick up.
“Y/N,” Tom’s voice echoed through her ears and she let out a relieved sigh. He was aware of her sniffling on the other end and his heart felt like it broke into a million little pieces hearing her voice after weeks of not speaking to each other since their fight at the hospital.
“Are you… safe?” she managed to speak.
“Yeah, darling, I’m okay, I’m safe,” he reassured her, without question. She smiled at the word darling coming from his lips; that one word brought back a hundred memories all at once and with it the realization that she couldn’t deny her love for him. She knew she’d never stop loving him. He would always remain in her thoughts and she couldn’t live with that torment forever.
“Tommy…” she whispered. His heart swelled; nobody except her could call him that and she took advantage of that whenever she saw fit.
“I’m so, so sorry can we just start ov-” she offered, but stopped once she heard another woman’s voice in the background of their phone call, ‘Tom, are you coming back to bed?’
Tom instantly felt flustered and rushed out of his bedroom, glaring at the woman in his bed as he slammed the door shut.
“Y/N, I-”
“No, nevermind, you’re busy- it’s fine,” she blurted out, trying to cover up the sobs that were escaping her mouth. He felt terrible hearing her cry harder and tried to explain.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any right to call you or judge you after what I did, so I’ll just let you get back to… her. Goodbye, Tom,” she hung up just as he was about to ask her to wait.
He angrily chucked his phone across the room, yelling a stream of cuss words at himself for being so stupid. To make matters worse, the girl he slept with attempted to walk over to him.
“Please, can you just go? I-I need to be alone right now,” he begged, and it all hit him like a slap in the face when he realized she was a huge mistake he made to cover up his heartbreak.
Y/N curled up in her bed, the tears not stopping. The only positive she got out of their phone call was a bit more closure. If they weren’t meant to last, at least their final conversation wouldn’t be a fight in a hospital.
Her thoughts lingered to Harrison and their relationship since the fight. She hadn’t called him since he was released from the hospital. She wanted to give him space and if he wanted her, he would call her. But at the moment, she needed to be with him anyway, and against her better judgment she called him up.
“Hey, Haz how are you?” she questioned as soon as he picked up the phone.
“Y/N it’s 2 in the morning, is everything okay?” he worried.
“Yeah…”
To Harrison, that was probably the weakest and most unconvincing ‘yeah’ she had ever let slip.
“I’m coming over,” he commanded, and without waiting for her approval, he hung up the phone. He practically jumped out of bed and sprinted out the door to get to her.
In less than fifteen minutes, he pounded profusely at her door, desperately awaiting her response. She hurried to answer it, stumbling along the way with a nearly empty bottle of wine in one hand. She flung open the door; he was out of breath and dripping wet from the rain. He scanned her red, puffy eyes and swooped in to snatch the wine bottle only to set it down far from her reach. She was clearly a sobbing wreck and collapsed into him at the sight of him. Harrison looked at her with pity and stroked her hair while he walked her back to her bedroom. They slipped under the covers, and she didn’t hesitate to snuggle into his embrace and drink in his familiar minty scent. He smoothed her hair and slung his other arm protectively over her body, pulling her in tighter.
“I-I called him, I had a nightmare, and I needed to see if he was okay; he was probably more than okay because h-he wasn’t alone” she sniffled.
“Oh, Y/N…” he muttered as she looked up to him, her eyes glistening. Harrison felt a pang in his chest; it was all so complicated. He was smart enough to know that no matter what happened, no one would end up happy. All three of them cared for each other in some way. He knew that he should’ve given her more space, but he couldn’t let her drink herself to death because of the pain Tom inflicted on her.
“What do you want from me? Because I know you love Tom, and I don’t know if I can keep being your backup plan for whenever he hurts you. And he will keep hurting you. I’m sorry, but after tonight, I’m not coming back until you choose, because it’s just too painful for me,” he stated. She completely understood why he felt the way he did, and she hated how unfair she was treating him. But, she couldn’t just choose; how could she just choose? What if she chose Tom, and he decided he didn’t want her anymore? What if she chose Harrison, and he couldn’t commit because of his loyalty to his best friend?
She pushed those thoughts aside, nodded, and burrowed herself deeper into his chest. She wanted to enjoy the fragile moment before it all shatters when he would leave in the morning.
“Hey, Haz?” she whispered up into his ear, sending chills down his spine.
“Uh, yeah?” he nervously replied. She moved her hands down to the bottom of his shirt and she slowly began to move it up, signaling she wanted it off.
“Let’s make tonight count” she began to sit up and tried to take off her shirt, but her limbs felt numb and immovable. She giggled at him, and fell forwards onto him, and straddled him, pressing her lips to his neck. He helped her take off her sweatshirt and his jaw dropped at the sight of her lacy black bra. He sat up, her legs still around him, looked into her eyes… and saw pain. No matter how much she wanted him, she still wanted Tom too. Even if she cared for Harrison, she was still using him to deal with her sadness. She moved in to kiss him further, but he held up his hands to keep her from coming closer. She whined and flirtily smiled up at him, giving him a pouty frown, obviously wanting to continue.
“Y/N, you’re drunk, like last time. That was a great night but I’m sure you regretted it later,” he tried to talk her out of it.
“Yeah, except I won’t regret this and I know what I want,” she persisted. He examined her with his irresistible, deep blue eyes, and she threw her head back grinning; he leaned in closer.
“I want you all to myself; when you’re ready for that, but I can tell, right now, you definitely aren’t,” he killed her excitement.
“Fine, my head hurts anyway,” she snapped and turned away from him. He flipped her back over and smiled at her stubbornness.
“Then I’ll make us coffee,” Harrison refused to give up on her, and she loved that about him.
“Okay,” she bit back a smile as he got up. She pulled the sheets around her tighter, and before he left he quickly brushed a kiss on her forehead. A few minutes later, he came back with two steaming cups; however, she was already fast asleep.
Y/N awoke to feel an empty space beside her in bed. Confused, she turned her head and noticed a folded note on her bedside table. Smiling, she turned over to grab the note and sat up as she deciphered his sloppy handwriting.
‘Y/N, I’m willing to wait for you; I have all the time in the world :)’