Page 155 of Collision
Was he already there when Logan kissed me? Was he there when Shana poured her juice all over me? I want to believe he wasn’t. I feel like he definitely would have done something if he had been there. He would have defended me, right? But would he have? Even if it meant going against the girl that “he always comes back to.” Yes, he would have defended me. I know it. I can feel it.
A few quick strides and Thomas is standing before me in all his glory. I don’t need to hear him speak to know that he is beside himself with rage. “What the fuck were you doing with him?” He demands through clenched teeth.
“Thomas…” I say his name weakly, in a pathetic attempt to calm him down.
“What were you doing with him?” he repeats, enunciating each word carefully.
I look around uneasily. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?” He stares into my eyes for a few seconds without uttering a word, then he contemptuously snatches the bouquet of roses from my hands and heads for the exit. I hurry after him. I realize what he’s planning to dotoo late because, by the time I reach him, the roses are already in the garbage. Part of me would like to scold him, but the other part knows perfectly well that if I did, we would just end up fighting. And that’s not what I want.
I follow him down the hallway, begging him to stop. He doesn’t pay me the slightest bit of attention. At the end of the hall, he takes a right, and I follow him. We go down a flight of stairs until we find ourselves in a small classroom, usually used by students to work on group projects. There are no windows in here, the whole room is lit by one dim overhead light. To my right is a small vending machine and a water cooler; there’s a round table in the center of the room and a little bookcase against the back wall.
Thomas fills a cup from the water cooler but does not drink. He sets it down on the table instead. Then he slumps in his chair while I remain standing on threshold, psychologically preparing myself for what awaits me. He takes a pack of cigarettes out from the pocket of his jeans, pulls one out and brings it to his lips.
“You can’t smoke in here,” I point out to him wearily.
“I smoke wherever I want,” he pronounces with an autocratic air.
“You’ll impregnate the room with cigarette smoke and might give someone an asthma attack. If you have to smoke, you can do it outside,” I snap, irritated by his shameless attitude.
“You’re wet,” he says, lighting his cigarette while staring at me challengingly.
I blink in confusion. “What?”
His gaze drops to the damp patch on my jeans. “You’re wet,” he repeats with an eerie calm. “And it’s cold outside.”
I lower my head and stare at the wet fabric. “Oh yeah. That.” Awkwardly, I rub the tip of my nose with my index finger. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m curious to hear it.” He billows out cigarette smoke. Cold eyes. Voice low and intimidating.
“I don’t feel like talking about it.” The bitter smile that twists his lips hides a certain disappointment. But I don’t have the courage to tellhim about everything that happened with Shana; it was too humiliating and I would feel pathetic all over again recounting it. Especially because I just let her do that to me, without even trying to defend myself.
Thomas takes another drag on his cigarette and, shrugging his shoulders, says “Then tell me why you were in the cafeteria with Fallon and not at the Marsy serving customers.”
Here we go.
Sighing, I close the door behind me and sit in the chair across from him. “Two hours ago Derek called me and changed my shift tonight to a double on Saturday,” I explain.
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I didn’t think I needed to tell you about that kind of thing. Besides, you were at practice, and I didn’t want to bother you.”
Thomas doesn’t respond. He keeps his eyes fixed on his right hand, clenched into a fist on the table. His knee is bouncing nervously. “How long had you been standing there?” I ask finally, hesitantly.
“For a while,” he says shortly.
“What did you see?”
“Enough.”
“Define ‘enough.’”
He knocks the ash off his cigarette into the small paper cup in the middle of the table and rubs the back of his neck, looking at me. “The other night you asked me to count to ten. I told you that was too much but that, for you, I would make the effort to get to three. For you. Only for you.” I can hear the frustration in his voice, and my heart aches. “Wanna know how far I’ve gotten?”
“Thomas, I…”
“I started counting after practice was over, when I heard that you were in the cafeteria with him and that he had kissed you.” He continues, not allowing me to get a word in edgewise. “I kept counting in the locker room. On the stairs. In the hallway, until I got to the cafeteria and I saw him sitting at the table, with his gelled hair and that fucking golf sweater of his. I was about to go over to him, but I saw that you weren’t there. So I thought that it was all just a misunderstanding and Istopped…for you. Because if it was up to me, I would have at least had a little fun with him.” His mouth curls up into a skin-crawling smirk and his eyes shine with wickedness. “But then, a little later, I saw you come in. I saw you go to him, I saw you look at him and smile at him. I saw you let him touch you and kiss you.”
I close my eyes, disheartened. He misunderstood everything, but I can’t blame him, I probably would have done the same thing in his place. I bow my head, dismayed.
