Page 60 of Collision
“Alex, it wasn’t like that…” I put my hand on my friend’s shoulder to calm him down. If there is anyone to blame for last night, it’s me.
“Don’t defend him, Vanessa!” Alex exclaims, turning to me. “We all know what kind of guy he is.”
“I didn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do,” Thomas replies through gritted teeth, anger glimmering in his eyes.
“Guys, can you give us a couple of minutes alone, please?” I ask, looking from Tiffany to Alex.
“No,” Alex snaps, never taking his eyes off Thomas.
“Alex, it didn’t go the way you’re thinking, believe me. Thomas didn’t do anything wrong. Really.”
“Come on, let’s give them a minute,” Tiffany urges him. I owe her a huge thank you. Alex takes a deep breath as they walk away. I walk in the direction of an isolated tree while Thomas, beside me, seems to have calmed down.
“What do you want?”
He shoots me a worried look. “I want to make sure that the shit that idiot said didn’t stick in your paranoid little brain and convince you that he’s right.”
I hesitate for a few seconds, but then I have to admit it. “Of course he’s right.”
He shakes his head in resignation. “What we did last night does not make you somehow in the wrong.”
“Are you sure?” I dump my bag at the foot of the tree. “Can you really say that all the girls you slept with weren’t subsequently labeled ‘easy’ solely because they had been with you?” His prolonged silence is telling. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
“It doesn’t matter what other people say. All that matters is what you think!”
I almost envy him; he is so sure of himself and he doesn’t fear the judgment of others. I, on the other hand, have to struggle with my own harsh self-assessment every day before I even try to face the outside world.
“The thing is, Thomas, ‘what I think’ is not that different! And Iknow that it’s hard for someone like you to understand. You change girls as often as you change your underwear, but for me it’s not that simple!”
“Then make it simple and ignore the judgments of people who don’t matter.”
“Ugh, never mind, I give up! Instead, why don’t you explain to me what you came here to do? Didn’t we just establish that we were going to keep our distance from one another? Instead, you keep tormenting me.” I can feel myself losing my patience.
Thomas’s face wrinkles in surprise. “I torment you?”
“If you hadn’t caught up with us, Travis wouldn’t have suspected anything! So thank you, thank you so much! I hope my public humiliation has served your purpose!” I throw the accusation at him, my thoughts and feelings a confused whirl.
“My purpose?”
“It’s obvious, Thomas, stop pretending. You’ve been dying to tell Travis about us from the moment I agreed to go with you to the frat house, admit it!” Saying it out loud severs the last tether on my temper and, moved by an anger that I cannot control, I shove him.
“That’s not what I did,” Thomas replies, unflappable.
“Only because you chose to be cunning, to play it underhandedly. Just us being seen together would have been enough to make people suspicious. You know, maybe everyone is right, maybe you are just a selfish asshole who doesn’t give a shit about anyone else!” I explode, angry as I have never been before.
My words land hard. Suddenly, though, something in his gaze changes, and it sends a chill through me. His eyes become hostile and he takes deep, short breaths, like a bull before a red cape. He approaches me slowly, looming over me with his height, and then touches my chin with his thumb. I swallow and stiffen before this seemingly gentle touch, in such sharp contrast to the menacing look on his face.
“You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you?” His voice is low and intimidating. “You’re right, I’m not afraid of what I am. I enjoy life, I fuck whomever I want, and I don’t give a damn about thejudgment of fake moralists. You, on the other hand… You put up this front as a good girl, hiding your true self even from yourself because you are incapable of accepting what you really are. Well, I’ll let you in on a secret.” He comes close to my ear, and my heart rate increases. “That doesn’t make you honest or respectable, Vanessa.” He looks me in the eye again, annihilating me with a glance. “It just makes you a fucking hypocrite,” he says bitterly.
Thomas’s words cut me to the core, but, drawing on an inner strength I didn’t know I had, I force myself to keep my guard up.
“Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?”
“Who do you think you are to judge me?”
My God, my head is going to explode.
“You know what? I’m not surprised that this is so difficult for you to get your head around. I mean, your whole life revolves around two things: fuck and run. No one expects anything else from you; it’s who you are and you’ve never made any secret of it, it’s true. But that’s nowhere near who I am. That’s why I don’t I want to be around you and that’s why I was running away this morning. Because I deeply regret having made such a mistake. Don’t confuse hypocrisy with awareness!” I burst out. I leave him there, just as furious as I am. And as I walk back to Alex and Tiffany, with anger blurring my vision, it only takes me a few moments of clarity to realize what I have just done: I vented all the frustration and pain I felt about Travis onto Thomas. I said terrible things to him, which I didn’t really mean, just to hurt him. I was mean, and I’m ashamed of that. Seized by a profound feeling of guilt, I turn around, ready to go back and apologize, but there is no longer any trace of him.
