Page 127 of Collision
“Nothing makes sense without you.” And he sounds so desperate that it’s hard to believe this is the same Travis with whom I spent two years of my life.
“I’m sorry you’re suffering, but you should have thought about that before. Things aren’t going to change.”
He looks at me for a few moments before shouting, “Don’t you think about how humiliating your attitude is for me? Every day I’m forced to deal with the piece of shit you fell in love with! Don’t you ever think about how that makes me feel? Why, Vanessa? Just tell me why him of all people? I need to know.” My heart skips a beat when he says “in love.”
“I’m not going to talk about this with you.” I try to push past him, but he doesn’t move.
“I need to know why!”
“Travis, let me go!” I push him again, harder this time, but he resists.
“Tell me!” he yells in my face, making me wince.
“Do you really want to know why him? Because he’s a breath of fresh air. Because he’s showed me sides of myself that I didn’t even know I had. Because he doesn’t pretend to be someone he isn’t. And because, from the first moment he looked at me, I felt…alive.” Travis shakes his head, as if trying to fend off my words. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Now you know.”
I pull away from him, and he finally lets me. He is staring blankly at nothing and, absurd as it is, it hurts me to see him like that. “I’m sorry, Travis, I really am sorry.” The words bubble up from the bottom of my heart. They are true and they hurt. “But you and I…our chapter is closed now.”
Before I can turn the corner and leave him behind, Travis grabs my arm violently. He slams me hard against the wall. Pain from the impact explodes inside me. He rams his mouth against mine, and I freeze for a moment before I’m finally able to react and push him away.
“Travis! What the hell is wrong with you!” I scrub my lips with the back of one hand, while gingerly touching my injured shoulder with the other.
Then, everything becomes a confusing whirl. I hear a dull thud. Unclear images cloud my mind. I am helpless, unable to move a single muscle. My ears are ringing. My body tingles. It burns. It shivers. One moment, Travis is in front of me, the next moment, he is lying on the ground. Thomas is on top of him, hitting him repeatedly in the face.
“Should’ve. Put. You. Down. Last. Time.” There’s a punch for each word, an angry punctuation. “But I’ll be happy to do it today.” Travis groans and writhes under Thomas’s uncontrolled and unstoppable blows. He tries to wriggle free, but the blind fury of his opponent prevents him from doing so.
“Stop, Thomas! You’ll kill him!” I scream as loud as I can.
My heart beats uncontrollably at the sight of blood spilling out onto the grass. Hands in my hair, I am begging for him to stop, but Thomas is consumed by feral rage. He doesn’t even seem to hear my screams.
Alex and one of his classmates find us. They grab Thomas by the shoulders, and finally pull him off Travis. The latter, his face hugely swollen, tries to sit up. He looks at me, dazed from the many hits he’s taken.
“Vanessa, please forgive me. I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I-I lost control,” he stammers in shock, as tears, mixed with blood, flow down his face.
Looking at him disgusts me. My body trembles. My temples throb. It feels as though my heart is going to explode, it’s beating so rapidly. “Come near me again, and I’ll go straight to the police.”
I turn to Thomas, whose eyes are still on fire, his muscles tense, and his breathing irregular. Without a second thought, I take his face into my hands and force him to look into my eyes. “Thomas, you need to calm down. Please.”
“Calm down?” Thomas takes my wrist, slowly, and touches the marks that Travis left on me. “He put his hands on you, and you ask me to calm down?”
“You did what to her?” Alex shouts, suddenly also beside himself.
“Alex, please, not now,” I beg him because I know it’s much easier to convince him to leave than Thomas. Then I return to Thomas. I try to gently take his hand, but he doesn’t let me touch him and continues to stare hatefully at Travis. “Please, let’s go.” I grasp his face in my hands again. “I need to leave.” If I want to get us both out of here without making anything worse, I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell him about the excruciating pain I feel in my back from where Travis shoved me against the wall. “I’m okay, but I need to leave.” Only then, after lingering for a long time on both me and Travis, does Thomas allow me to drag him away.
Thirty-One
“Fuck you!” Thomas kicks the front tire of his car, and I gasp in fright. He turns on his heel to face me and grabs my wrists, examining them for the third time. My eyes land on his swollen knuckles and I shiver. I take his hands and, when I touch the raw places, I notice a small grimace of pain cross his face.
“You have to stop losing control like this,” I murmur, filled with fear.
“You should be grateful that prick is still breathing,” he answers with a clenched jaw and short, heavy breaths. “Has this happened before?” His eyes are full of concern as he looks at me, lifting my chin with two fingers.
My eyes widen. “No. Absolutely not!” I cover my face with both hands and take a deep breath, trying to stem the tide of agitation. I’m shaken up; I want to leave this place as soon as possible. Hole up under the warm blankets of my soft bed and forget about everything. “Can we—can we get out of here, please?” I half-whisper in a trembling voice.
Thomas looks carefully at me, inspecting every inch of my body, lingering on my wrists and my shoulders. Then he nods. He guides me to the car, opens the door, and with a nod invites me to get in; we fasten our seat belts and go.
He remains silent for the entire ride, one hand on the steering wheeland the other on the gearshift. He busts all the speed limits and stares grimly at the road while I twist my fingers in my lap. I would like to talk to him. I would like him to reassure me. I would like to know that he is at least thinking about me. I need it, desperately. I need him, but Thomas is closed off in his own world, inaccessible to me. All I can do is curl up, resigned, with my back to him. I squeeze my hands between my crossed legs, in an attempt to stop the trembling in my body. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him reach an arm behind the seat to retrieve a black sweatshirt. He throws it over my legs without looking at me. I catch it and turn slightly toward him.
“Put it on. You’re shaking,” he orders impassively. I’d thank him, except that I can’t figure out why he’s so surly with me. I slip on the sweatshirt and am immediately overwhelmed by the unmistakable scent of vetiver and tobacco. I breathe it in automatically. Thomas looks at me furtively, with the expression of a person who has just caught someone in flagrante delicto. I feel my cheeks heat up. I immediately turn toward the window to keep him from seeing. I tug the sleeves of the sweatshirt over my fingertips and rest my forehead on the glass.
