Page 122 of Collision
“I want to figure it out,” Thomas replies after a few moments of silence.
“Figure what out?”
“Why ever since that fucking night, no other girl can hold my attention.”
I press my head against the wall and stare down at the floor. “And how do you plan to figure that out?”
He gives me an indulgent look and squats down to look me straight in the eye. “With you.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. I am dreaming. I can’t see any other explanation.
“With me? What does that mean? Do you…do you want us to date?” I stammer, afraid, as always, of being rejected.
He nearly laughs right in my face, making me feel like complete dope. I almost fell for it.
“No relationships, you know how I feel about that.” The frigid way he says it chills my blood.
“Then what the hell do you want?” I shout at the top of my lungs.
“I want you.”
“And in what way do you want me? Tell me that,” I say irritated.
“You know how,” he answers seriously. Yes, Thomas, I know. You want me in a way where you don’t belong to me. In a way that hurts me.
“You want my body, but not me,” I murmur bitterly. “And what would I be to you? The naive little girl you fuck when you’re bored? Or pissed off? Or horny? No, thank you. If I’m going to feel like a nonentity, I’d rather do it alone,” I say with a lump in my throat and my eyes misted with tears.
“You wouldn’t be any of that.”
“And what, then? What would I be?” My voice is heavy with disappointment.
“Why is it so important for you to classify the relationship? Does it connect you to the person? It’s just a word. A fucking word. Trust me, you can have fun with someone without necessarily being with them,” he says without hesitation.
“This is ridiculous. Are you seriously asking me to start a non-relationship with you based purely on the physical without any emotional involvement? That is your pitch?”
“I know it’s hard for you to understand…” He pushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “You see relationships differently than I do. You dream about true love, that romantic and all-encompassing kind you read about in your novels. But I will never be able to give you anything like that, I can’t give you anything close to that kind of love. And you shouldn’t want it from someone like me anyway.”
“Why, Thomas?” I ask in a broken voice. I don’t care whether I sound desperate or pathetic to him. It’s not like his opinion of me can get worse.
He bows his head, and for a moment, he just stares at the floor. Then he looks at me. Very grave.
“Because I’m broken inside. And there’s no cure, no treatment, for people like me. If I were a better person, I’d keep you far away from me and the way everything goes to shit around me. But the problem is,I’m greedy. Selfish. I’m so selfish that I want you, even though I know how wrong it is. Even though I know it won’t last and that nothing is ever going to change. And I’m sure that, sooner or later, you’ll find someone who is prepared to give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of and gone after and wanted. And when that happens, me and Travis, Logan, and all the other assholes who come along will only be able to watch as you walk away. But, before that happens, I want to be able to enjoy everything about you. Everything.”
I am incredulous. My heart seems very loud, even to me. “I-I don’t understand. If that’s what you want…then, why don’t you want to be with me?” I ask, looking into his eyes.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be with you. It’s that I don’t want you to be with me. I’m a complete mess. Tying the two of us together would mean involving you in my life. And then you couldn’t help but end up ruined just like me. And none of this takes away from the fact that I want you for mine. All mine. Only mine.”
“And while you’d have me, what would I have?” I cannot believe that I’m even considering this proposal.
“You’d have sex with me.” He cracks a small smile but quickly realizes that I’m not in a joking mood.
“I can have sex with anyone.”
“But you want it with me, don’t lie. I feel it every time I touch you.”
“And what about the other girls?”
“I’ll stop seeing them,” he says resolutely. It seems like the only positive note in all this madness.
