Page 18 of Collision
Six
“You know, I’ve been thinking, ever since our fight yesterday morning, we haven’t really had a chance to spend any time alone. So, what if I stayed over at your place tonight?” asks Travis hopefully, as he pulls into the driveway. I feel a twinge of guilt in my stomach. Just a few minutes ago, I was alone in a parking lot with a guy Travis detests. And I honestly can’t say that being so close to Thomas has left me completely cold.
I take a deep breath before I respond, trying to come across as serene and unbothered. “Yeah, sure. That sounds great.” I really need to get a grip on this situation and get back to being the Vanessa I’ve always been, the one who doesn’t fall for the first halfway charming guy who comes along. The one who isn’t a liar.
When we walk in, I find a note on the stand in the entranceway:I’ll be back late—I’m having dinner again with Victor and colleagues. Kisses.I’m going to forget what my mother looks like if things keep going like this.
We quickly take off our shoes, and I turn on the heat. Barefoot, I walk across the Persian rugs that lie scattered between the hallway and the living room. Those rugs were the first major purchase my mom made when, twelve years ago, my father was hired as an accountant in a large multinational corporation, a job that was supposed to guarantee us a more affluent lifestyle. Twelve years of living, and these carpets look like they were just rolled out of the store yesterday.
Travis curls up in the recliner next to the sofa in the living room, while I go to the kitchen to see if there’s anything to make for dinner, but the refrigerator is empty. What the heck! Thanks for the consideration, Mom!
“I guess we’ll have to order in. There’s nothing here,” I shout to Travis from the kitchen.
“Okay, pizza or sushi?” he asks. If nothing else, he does know my tastes in takeout.
“They opened a Japanese restaurant nearby, and it looks like it’s really delicious,” I tell him, pulling the menu out from under a magnet on the refrigerator. I join him in the living room and sit on his lap.
“Japanese it is, then.”
“Want something to drink? Soda, beer, something like that?” I ask after placing my order online.
“A beer would be good; I don’t have to drive anymore today.”
“Did you know my mother always keeps one for you in the fridge? We may run out of food in this house, but there will always be a beer for Travis.”
“She loves me almost more than my own mother.” He chuckles complacently.
“Don’t kid yourself. It’s only because you remind her of my dad in the good old days. Only better.” I stick my tongue out at him and then go retrieve the bottle from the kitchen. I open it and hand it to him.
“Well, that’s a low bar to clear,” Travis adds, taking a drink.
It hurts a little, but he isn’t wrong. For years I believed that my dad was the perfect man, my undisputed hero, my safe haven. No one else would ever measure up. By the time I was in high school, Mom and Dad were fighting more and more often. My mother had always been dissatisfied with her life—our life—but, by the time I was a teenager it seemed like she resented Dad so much that she couldn’t even stand to hear the sound of his voice. I never really understood why. We weren’t fabulously wealthy, but Dad made sure we didn’t lack for anything. That wasn’t how Mom saw it, though. In the years that followed, things just got worse: the fights, the accusations, the separation, the threats, and finally the divorce.
I found myself tossed around in this tempest, used as a buffer, a pawn, and a scapegoat. Dad finally had enough and walked out. He left us the house and a bit of money. And he left me, even though I’d always been on his side. Dad and I had always had a special relationship; things with Mom were…harder. Watching her yell at Dad made me sick, and I told him it wasn’t his fault that she chose to be a stay-at-home mom rather than pursuing her career the way he had. But that was before I found out about Bethany.
Apparently, they had been together for years, in secret. She was younger than my mom and more accommodating. She was also well-established in her career. The only thing she was missing was a family, so I guess, she decided to take mine. Mom and Dad’s last big blowout had been over Bethany. Specifically, over the fact that my mother had found out through mutual friends that Bethany was pregnant. Very pregnant. My parents had just separated, and Dad was about to become a father again.
It was a blow to both of us. I felt betrayed, abandoned, wounded to my core. It was like my heart had shattered into uncountable splinters. But I was not ready to give up on my father completely. So I tried my best to accept my father’s new partner and their child. I stifled my pain and started visiting their house. Every time I walked through that door, my stomach would churn and toss, but that was something I was willing to tolerate if it meant I could still be with him. But I hadn’t counted on Bethany taking an instant dislike to me. “I don’t want her here,” were her exact words as I eavesdropped on their whispered discussion in the kitchen on my fifteenth birthday. She was convinced that I wanted to reconcile my parents and take Dad away from her.
I knew at that point that it was only a matter of time. I was terrified by the thought that, sooner or later, my father would have to choose between us, and I knew he would not choose me. I was his daughter, but she was his lover and the mother of his infant child, and she was with him all the time, working steadily to wear down any resolve he had.
Slowly, my father had begun to show up less often, call less frequently, until, one day, without me even realizing it, I saw him forthe last time. From that moment on, his new life without me had officially begun. My sixteenth birthday was the first that I spent without him. Without seeing his smiling face as I unwrapped my presents or blew out the candles, without hearing his off-key voice singing “Happy Birthday.” I missed him terribly. I missed the atmosphere of warmth and family that only he could create. The special attention he gave me to make me feel cherished. I haven’t heard from him since.
I spent the first year calling him every day and crying, blaming myself and hating myself because I had not been enough to keep him around. He didn’t love me enough because I wasn’t worth loving. But that phase of self-pity was followed swiftly by searing anger. I came to hate him completely. He had chosen another woman over my mother, another child over me, new memories over the home we had built together. He had stolen from me the chance to grow up with a loving father, all to indulge the whim of his mistress. The pain of it wore me down; I wasn’t myself. I was angry with the world. I felt tossed aside and overlooked. Then one morning I had simply woken up and stopped. I had stopped crying, stopped blaming myself, stopped hoping for his change of heart. I even stopped hating him. Because I had realized that if he was capable of abandoning his daughter, then I, too, must be capable of learning to live without him.
I banish those bad memories and allow my thoughts to drift to Travis. Our story began just a year after I cut ties with my father. Travis was the twin brother of my best friend, Tiffany. Tiff and I met in high school, during the first semester of our freshman year when we had to write a paper together. We were so different that, at first, I hated the idea of studying with her. Yet, it was those very differences that wound up uniting us so deeply, eventually blossoming into a solid and loyal friendship that has now lasted for more than four years.
With Travis, however, everything was different. The first time I saw him was the day I went to their imposing mansion to work on the joint assignment I had with his sister. I was immediately thunderstruck by his curly red hair and dazzling smile. He didn’t seem to notice me, though, and I was too shy to approach him, so I spent the next twoyears quietly fantasizing about my best friend’s aloof brother. It took a lot of help from Tiff and an evening at the amusement park for Cupid to take his shot.
I was down in the dumps that night, and Travis was there for me. He bought me cotton candy and gave me a stuffed animal he won at a shooting booth. Over the next few days, he invited me to dinner, then to the movies and a few of his basketball games. Those first months were incredible. All the attention, love, and care that my father no longer lavished on me, I found in Travis. I don’t know exactly when the magic ended, replaced by indifference and insensitivity, but I began to realize that having a girlfriend like me was more convenient for him than anything else. His parents liked me and he lived to please them, and I never made much trouble. No matter how much he neglected me or took me for granted, I hung in there. It’s been a year now that I’ve been asking myself the same question: How much longer do I intend to just hang around?
When the takeout arrives, I put aside the past and gorge myself on sashimi, tempura, and soba while we watch TV. Almost halfway through the movie, Travis wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me onto his lap. So close to him, I allow myself to be guided along, as he positions me to his liking. And then he is kissing me, touching me, undressing me. I reciprocate, but my mind is elsewhere, lost in the memory of a pair of arrogant green eyes, a cocksure smile, the sound of a low, rough voice—no! I suddenly break away from Travis, who looks at me puzzled, his eyes clouded with desire.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I bring two fingers to my lips and, incredulous and guilty, try to regulate my suddenly labored breathing. I have never experienced such a thing before. Thinking of another guy while making out with my boyfriend? That is not me, and I am not going to allow that tattooed jackass to get inside my head and ruin this moment.
“N-nothing. I-I thought I heard the sound of the keys in the lock.” I spit out the first plausible excuse I can think of and start kissing him again to allay his suspicions. Travis wastes no time with foreplay. Hegets up from the couch, taking me in his arms and carrying me upstairs to my room. We spend the rest of the night there, indulging in familiar, even mechanical sex that, I suddenly realize, stirs no particular feeling in me at all.
