Page 156 of Collision
“It wasn’t what you think, I…” I look back up at him. “I didn’t know he was coming back today. He showed up here out of nowhere and I panicked.” I stretch my hands out on the table and entwine them with his, hoping that this will draw his focus back to me, but Thomas is just staring at the table, lost in who knows what spiraling thoughts. “Thomas, listen to me…”
“Did you tell him?” he interrupts, darting his eyes up at me.
For a moment I feel my heart pounding in my throat. I look away from him and shake my head. “No, not yet,” I admit.
Suddenly ashen, Thomas leans forward and pulls his hands away from mine. “And what the fuck were you doing the whole time? What, were you exchanging makeup tips?”
I cock an eyebrow. “Did you really think I was just going to tell him everything in the middle of the cafeteria, in front of all those people?”
He gives me a casual shrug. “I don’t see the problem.”
“The problem is that he deserves basic respect, Thomas, which I haven’t been showing him.” I let myself collapse against the back of the chair, exhausted.
“Let’s hear it then: When do you plan to tell him?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight?” I can feel his anger all the way down to my bones. I nod. “When exactly?”
“In a little while. In his room.” As the words come out of my mouth and I watch the expression on Thomas’s face grow increasingly grim, I realize that perhaps going to Logan’s room alone wasn’t the best idea…
“The answer is no,” he says after a few moments of silence. An extremely tense silence.
I frown. “Excuse me?”
“You will not go to his room,” he pronounces.
“I’m only going there to talk.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you go there to do.” He snuffs out his cigarette in the cup of water and, in one sharp movement, gets to his feet. “Don’t be alone with him.” Furiously, he throws the phone on the table and points at it. “Call him and tell him. Now.” I blanch, looking from him to the phone in shock.
“No,” I say resolutely.
“No?” He stares incredulously at me.
“Maybe you are used to acting this way, but I have no intention of breaking up with him over the phone,” I inform him resentfully. “Also, I must have missed the part where I asked you for your permission. You have no right to tell me what to do or what not to do. You are not my boyfriend, Thomas,” I say defiantly.
He narrows his eyes to two slits, his whole body tenses. He shakes his head and rests his palms on the table, bends forward to lock his eyes on mine. “I don’t want you to go see him.”
I lean forward as well and retort with the same audacity, “And I don’t want you to control my life like that. Whether you like it or not, I’m going to see Logan, and I don’t want to discuss it anymore.”
“Jesus Christ!” He pounds the table so hard the cup of water wobbles and I cringe in my seat. “Why the fuck do you have to make everything so difficult?”
I press a hand to my chest, shocked. “I make everything difficult? Do you realize that you’re the one making a huge deal out of nothing here?”
“Because I’m worried about you!”
“You have no reason to do that!”
Thomas hangs his head and breathes deeply. After a moment of silence, he begins speaking, this time in a calmer tone, as though he’s trying to soothe both of our tempers. He looks me steadily in the eye. “I don’t trust him, Ness.”
“But I do.”
He huffs. “You trust everyone.” He says it like it’s a damning condemnation, as if this is reason enough for him to look at me with pity in his eyes.
I frown. “That’s not true.”
“Right, you’re right. Apparently, the only person you don’t trust is me, or am I wrong?”
