first attempt. failed hard. oh so hard. fuck.
tom brady/peyton manning. gisele bundchen/tom brady. 2,388 words.
gisele suspects, knows, and observes.
There were these summer days when Gisele was growing up, these hot summer days where the sun baked the ground so it scorched the bare bottoms of dirt-caked feet and her fingers always tasted like the ice cream that melted as quickly as it could be scooped. She misses those days, especially during winter, when New York City turns this kind of cold she hasn't felt before and never gets used to and Tom's hand, yeah, it's warm where his fingers hold to hers but he's not there. He's never there. There's a detachment in his eyes that rings of a nature deeper than she knows he's capable of so Gisele's confused. Headache confused and when she says his name it takes him three times to look away from a crumpled piece of newspaper (another piece in an endless stretch of city litter) and he smiles this empty smile that does little to ease those thoughts.
Those niggling, never go away thoughts. Tom's with her but he's never with her and it leaves this unsettled, jittery feeling somewhere between the pit of her stomach and the parts of her brain that process exactly what's going on. Gisele's been cheated on before. She's had the men who want every piece of ass they can get their hands on. She knows those signs, the ones that tell her there's another girl, another handful of girls, but with Tom it's not like that.
There's someone else, yeah, but it's... different. Like there's an edge to it that she couldn't put her finger on even if she tried and Gisele's never been exceptionally bright but she's not dumb to the fact that her face to him isn't her face at all. Tom's looking at her now -- looking through her -- and she wonders what face he sees.
"Are you alright?" she asks, tentative, fingernails maybe cutting a little harder into the calloused skin of his palm.
He grins. Tom always grins with wolf white teeth and it's chilling in a way so different from the biting flakes of white that catch in his hair. He says, "never better," and that's when she notices the subtle way his fingers fit to his phone.
He's waiting.
****
It's hard not to be nosey when his phone is just sitting there, innocent in its planes of silver and black. Innocent, at least, until Gisele grabs it with fingers acting on involuntary impulse and, really, she was just acting the way Cosmo and Redbook said she should. The slighted girlfriend checking to see who was moving in on her territory, edging past the razor wire and brick of Tom's defenses and she knows text messages are always the best bet.
Men -- men like Tom -- never remembered to clear away all pieces of evidence, no matter how hard they tried, and so she checks. Checks for unfamiliar numbers, unfamiliar female names, and finds a single text from a single initial.
P.
who cares because i do too
If it's one thing Gisele hates it's confusion. The underwater drowning feeling that settles in waves and leaves her floundering for an excuse. An answer.
She doesn't get it, or even have time to analyze, because the door opens with that familiar creaking catch and she hears the familiar shifting of takeout bags and his phone makes an all too loud thump when it hits the bar top.
Tom rounds the corner, holds up a bag filled with food that will taste like ash in her mouth, and Gisele wants to know what he does.
****
It's a little body numbing when she finds out because there are things Gisele's prepared for and then things that hit out of left field, striking like a coiled snake she didn't see until it was too late and she was already standing over it, major arties exposed for venom soaked teeth.
P.
They think they're hidden -- and they are, at least from people who weren't looking specifically for the red of Tom's shirt -- and Gisele feels the only thing worse than the drowning of confusion.
The derailment of understanding. The knee shaking, stomach turning, head pounding sense of finally getting it.
P is Peyton and Tom's kissing him in a way that she thought was impossible, in this single-minded, all encompassing way. It's written in the way his palms rest against the column of his throat, the way his fingers are moving in a slow, almost too subtle to be noticed, drag against his skin and the way his lips move against Peyton's... she's never been kissed like that. Not by Tom, not by anyone. It's slow and focused and every so often he moves back, just long enough for a half second glance at the face just inches from his, before his eyes are slipping closed and he's easing back in for the second, third, fourth kiss. Gisele doesn't know how long they've been there. All she knows is that her foundation is rocked and that part of her realizes that, if she were anyone else, if they were two different people, she would find this beautiful.
But even in the earthquake aftermath of realization Gisele has to take a moment to find a sort of incredulous amusement in the fact that she isn't pissed. That she's only annoyed because, really, they're exposed. Hidden away behind a dumpster behind a busy hotel, kissing like there's nobody else in the world amid the greasy air of garbage, like they're infallible and no one could wonder back at any moment and send reality crashing around them in a way neither of them would be ready for.
She's betrayed, she's her heart at her feet on the pavement, but she's not a bitch and she still loves him. Gisele's foot catches the blue metal edge, sends a bang ringing that escalates over the sounds of a busy street behind them, and Tom scrambles away until his back is smacking against the rough edge of the building.
Light on her feet, heels kept away from clicking on the pavement, she slips away unnoticed.
****
After that it's just easier to notice things. Little things she would have missed before, oblivious and blind; but now, it's almost like Tom's trying to shove them in her face. Gisele knows that's ridiculous, a line of thought conjured by the tidal wave of emotions that wall with each other. Anger and betrayal fighting with acceptance and understanding fighting with the need to be vindictive fighting with the want to help him hide something she knows is real to him.
For now she takes no action. She says nothing. She just... watches. It's almost something to be proud of, the way she's started picking up on things about their relationship when she's only an outsider and only privy to the view from one side. Gisele has always known, from the time she was thirteen and her legs stretched endless and her face drew attention without the makeup most girls wore, that she was always going to be known as a pretty face. Beauty over brains but, she thinks, watching him now, watching the way his fingers jitter nervous over his cell phone, waiting for the vibrating buzz of another text, she's not a fucking idiot.
She gets it. Finally.
Like now she knows something's up. Something's brewing beneath the surface, a fight maybe, and she knows by the set of Tom's jaw and the puppy dog look in his eyes, that it's his fault. He's said or done something stupid -- like he's wont to do -- and she wonders what it was. Wonders what Peyton's saying to make Tom wince, an almost imperceptible grimace when he reads tiny black words on a tiny glowing screen. Gisele can't ask, no matter how much she wants to, so she watches. She imagines a hundred ways that Tom could have fucked things up. She thinks he might have insulted him somehow, the way he had accidentally insulted her a hundred times before (though she never remembers him looking that guilty). She thinks he might have forgotten a phone call. She thinks, she thinks, and she thinks until her head is swimming with all these scenarios, so lost in her thinking world that she doesn't realize he's left the room, talking to someone in hushed tones.
Gisele thinks about following, but instead she turns up the TV and finds it almost pathetic that she, the unjustly treated lover, is trying to offer her betrayer a little bit of privacy.
****
They're in another shapeless, boring hotel, picking through boxes of Chinese food that stains her fingers and leaves her lips feeling disgusting and slick. Gisele knows she'll pay for this later but, in the crunching flourish of her teeth through her second egg roll, she decides she doesn't really care because there's so much else to care about. Like the fact that Tom, with his wet hair leaving dark stains on the neck of an old gray shirt, is sitting on the edge of the bed, more into a game than he's been in awhile, and she smiles a bitter smile because it's Peyton and he's doing something right in a way she doesn't understand because Gisele's never really gotten football.
Maybe that's something else he has over her head, something else to add to the list of things she's already come up with. Peyton and Tom, they're two different people, but they share so much more than she could with Tom. Football, that's enough to make her understand why Tom would need him, or someone like him. She will never be able to understand the strain, the mental anguish and the physical aches. But Peyton can. Peyton does.
Gisele pours a heavy amount of dripping soy sauce onto a too tall pile of rice and she looks up to see Tom offering her a smile she only half returns.
For a second she thinks about asking him about the first sign she ever noticed of P. The infamous text message that has confounded her for months, especially the ones that followed finding out exactly who P was. There was something Tom did -- does -- that draws agreement and she wants to know. Was it something as simple as agreeing on a preference for something? Was it Tom asking him what his feelings were about piling pineapple and ham on top of pizza already covered with sausage and pepperoni? Or was it something else. Something that just thinking about leaves her with the too loud echo of a fast beating heart.
Was it I miss you?
Was it I love you?
He looks at her again and she thinks about asking him, thinks she might enjoy watching his face fall when he realizes that she knows, but instead she grins in an all too fake way she's used to and says, "I love you" because she wants his reaction.
She gets it in another barely perceptible flinch and when Tom's grin widens she knows it's fake. When he says, "Yeah, I love you too," Gisele closes her teeth around the already gnawed end of her straw and bites harder.
****
It's been eight months and she hasn't caught them together again. Maybe it's because they've gotten better at hiding it, had common sense scared into them by the sound of her heel banging against the dumpster. Or maybe it's because she isn't looking anymore, maybe it's because her open wounds have calloused and Gisele's turned her back on what is. It's still hurts. She would be a lying bitch if she denied that, if she denied still considering springing her knowledge on him, if she denied there were times when he did things that made her want to run to ESPN with her juicy tidbits.
Times when they're in the same city, Peyton and Tom, and he comes back to the hotel late without an excuse
Times when he ignores her to focus on the vibrations of his phone.
Times when they're fucking and he's turned away from her, eyes closed, as if that's going to stop her from seeing the way his mouth shapes a name that isn't hers.
But Gisele remembers this one time, back in the heat of a Brazilian summer, when she lost something stupid, some petty competition, and held the hate with her for days, hate that burned brighter and hotter than the sun that rose early and set late. She remembers the way her grandmother smacked her palm and told her the quickest way to misery was to hold a grudge. Not even the ghost smack of her grandmother's fingers can breeze away all the feelings, the bad ones that twist red with the ones that understand.
The ones that almost envy Tom for finding something so real.
He's not back yet and that's why she's maybe thinking too much, half-watching a mind numbing sitcom, chewing on already brittle nails. She wonders what he's doing. What they're doing. Talking, fighting, laughing, fucking. An endless stretch of things. Gisele looks at her nails, at the chipped red of her nail polish, and gnaws on her cheeks until she tastes blood and feels the sting of torn skin.
Two months ago she realized Peyton was around before her.
Three days ago she started wondering if maybe he didn't pre-date Bridget, too.
The door opens and brings with it a breeze from an overly air conditioned hallway. Tom's smiling -- and she smiles her own sad (pathetic, she thinks) smile because she knows it's not because of her -- and there's a ruffled look to his hair that wasn't caused by wind alone. His lips are swollen, slick, in a way she might have found gorgeous once upon a time.
Now... now Gisele realizes that even if he holds her hand in public, kisses her at night before they go to bed, he isn't hers to find gorgeous.
Tom says, "hey you," and lets the door slam shut behind him.
Gisele still smiles that sad smile and floods the room in silence when she turns off the TV, throwing the remote aside to bump as it lands against the carpet. A million and one things she could say and Gisele settles on, "you look happy."