Page 158 of Collision
I can’t hold back my moans, which escape in strangled gasps from my parted lips. Involuntarily, I tilt my head back to rest against his shoulder. Thomas wraps a hand around the back of my neck, kissing my skin with increasing passion. He’s lingering on one spot; my throat is on fire and tendrils of flame reach down to my stomach. But then something happens… With my one last glimmer of clarity, I realize what he is doing.
I turn away, outraged, and push him off my neck, sending him staggering backward just a little. “You gave me a hickey?” I accuse, bringing a hand to my damp skin, surely already turning purple.
He gives me a smug half smile and answers, “What do you think?”
I widen my eyes and my mouth drops open. “You…you deliberately gave me a hickey right when I’m on my way to meet Logan!” The evil grin that lights up his whole face makes me realize that this was his plan from the beginning. He wanted to brand me as if I were his property!
“See it as encouragement to end this whole thing quickly,” he says, shameless as ever.
“God. You are truly impossible, Thomas!”
But none of my outrage seems to faze him. He grabs my jaw with one hand and plants a searing kiss on my mouth. “You’re right, I am impossible. But you are mine. And you had better remember that while you’re dumping his ass.”
“Go to hell! I mean it, Thomas, you can go to hell!” I turn away, dazed and angry, and stomp out of the classroom, slamming the door hard behind me. Immediately, my phone vibrates in my pocket again. It’s a text from Logan telling me to meet him in the student union. As I turn the corner and walk up the stairs, I rapidly undo my braid and nervously try to hide the hickey with my hair.
Forty-Two
When I arrive in the student union, I find Logan chatting intently with a boy I recognize from Tiffany’s criminology course. Even with his back to me, I can still see the two pizza boxes he’s holding in his hands. I was very hungry before he showed up. Now my stomach is so tight that it will be a miracle to get water into it.
“Hey, I’m here.” Logan gives me a radiant smile, his eyes lighting up when he sees me. As though I don’t already feel guilty enough.
“You came!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “Vanessa, this is Mike, Mike, this is Vanessa,” Logan says, looking between me and his friend.
I extend my hand toward Mike to introduce myself and he does the same. He apologizes to me for needing Logan to leave, but I tell him it was no problem.
“Hey, what happened to the roses?” Logan asks, catching me unprepared.
“Y-your roses?” I echo. “Well, I-I wasn’t sure how long you would be and I didn’t want them to wilt, so I asked a friend to take them to her room and put them in a vase.”
“Oh.” He seems pretty confused. “Okay. Well, as you can see, it didn’t take me long. We can go pick them up if you want?”
“No! S-she’s not there right now, she’s out, she’ll give them to me tomorrow.” I want to slap myself for telling so many dumb lies. Luckily, Mike interrupts us, asking Logan something about his car and all talkof roses fades into the background. After a little more back-and-forth, Mike says goodbye and leaves us alone. Logan and I head for his room, which by some strange twist of fate is also located on the fourth floor, on the opposite side of the hallway from Thomas’s.
Inside, the two rooms are also furnished in the same way. Yet somehow it lacks the warm and cozy vibe I felt in Thomas’s room. Although the room is heated by radiators, I still feel cold somehow. Everything feels foreign here. And for some reason that I can’t quite name, I have the oddest feeling that I’m in the wrong place. With the wrong person. What is going on with me? I’m losing it.
I shake my head in an attempt to banish these thoughts. I’m not going to let Thomas’s ridiculous insinuations influence me.
“I didn’t know what toppings you liked, so I got two Margheritas,” he says, taking off his shoes and putting the pizza boxes down on the table.
“That’s fine, don’t worry about it.” I follow him in and smile. Logan goes to the kitchenette and takes some cutlery from the drawer. He returns to the table and cuts the pizzas into slices. I linger in the kitchenette, not really knowing what to do.
“Do you want to watch some TV?”
When I say yes, he takes the remote control and turns on the plasma TV. He grabs his pizza box and sits down on the carpet in front of the TV, where he invites me to join him. Sitting next to him at a safe distance, we watch a rerun ofAmerica’s Got Talentand eat our pizzas. Or rather, he eats, while I stare blankly at the TV, trying not to think about Thomas at that damn party, locked in a room with some girl. Or, even worse, with Shana herself. He always comes back.
“Aren’t you eating?” Logan asks after a while, giving me a concerned look.
“Oh, um.” I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, being very careful not to reveal Thomas’s hickey. “To tell you the truth, I’m not very hungry right now.”
“Do you not like it?”
“No, the pizza is fine, it’s just that…I don’t think I’m feeling very good.”
He frowns. “Are you sick? I can give you something.” He tries to stand up but I grab his hand and pull him back down.
“Don’t worry, that’s not necessary.” I don’t think there is a medication that treats this kind of sickness.
“Okay, do you want to tell me what’s going on with you? You’ve been weird since I got back. Have I screwed something up and not noticed it?” he asks, upset.
