Page 136 of Collision
Thomas has managed to suck me into his orbit once again. He is like a tornado, picking me up and carrying me far away, cutting me off from the rest of the world. He’s even made me forget entirely about Logan’s presence in my life. I press the phone to my forehead, close my eyes, and let out a long, despairing sigh. Logan’s not my boyfriend, and we haven’t made any promises to each other, but I still feel that I’ve been unfair to him, insensitive to his feelings.
“What’s wrong with you?” Thomas’s low, exasperated voice rings out in the empty room.
“Logan called me,” I tell him, not turning around.
“Ah, it was him,” he mumbles.
“What do you mean?” I twist my torso slightly, giving him a sideways look.
I watch him bring his arms up behind his head and turn his gaze to the ceiling. “Your phone wouldn’t stop vibrating.” He tilts his head to look at me. “It was about to come to a bad end.”
“Did you touch my phone again?”
“Do you think I did?” he snaps back.
“I’m asking you.”
He’s silent for a few seconds before answering. “No, I didn’t touch it,” he admits. “But the time has come to call it quits, don’t you think?”
I frown. “With Logan? Why should I?” I certainly don’t intend to keep dating Logan if the feelings I have for Thomas are so strong that I’m going to lose my mind whenever I’m with him. I would only end up making a fool out of both Logan and myself. But that’s not a decision Thomas gets to make.
I can tell by the way he narrows his eyes into two slits that my answer took him by surprise. He lifts himself up on one elbow until our faces are aligned. “Why? Maybe because you spent the night getting dicked down mercilessly by yours truly,” he spits contemptuously, leaving me speechless.Dicked down mercilessly.That’s all it really comes down to in the end. Every emotion I felt, every form of intimacy I thought I shared with him, is annihilated and swept aside by his ruthless cynicism.
“My God, Thomas, what an asshole you are!” I turn my back on him again, on the verge of tears.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shake his head and immediately lean toward me. I jerk myself out of the bed and go to the window. I close my eyes, inhaling deeply, and let the wind caress my face as it tosses the dry leaves hither and yon outside. The grayness of the clouds suggests a big storm is on the way. Just what I need.
I hear the creaking of the mattress and Thomas’s footsteps approaching. He takes the pack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket and leans against the windowsill beside me, looking up at the rain-heavy clouds moving swiftly across the sky. I’d like to tell him that there is no smoking allowed in here, but I know he wouldn’t listen to me.
“You always have to push it too far, don’t you?”
“You’re the one who pisses me off.”
“Just because I don’t grant you decision-making power over my life? The understanding you proposed yesterday does not include that.It only includes what we did last night, or am I wrong?”
“It also states that there will be no potential assholes involved, Vanessa.” He lights his cigarette with a nervous gesture, blowing out a big plume of smoke that is immediately lost in the wind. Then he turns to give me a ponderous look. “You thought about what I said?”
“Yeah,” I answer, sucking in a deep breath. He remains silent, his brow furrowed, waiting for me to keep talking. I have to look away; his eyes have this power to make me bend to his will, every single time. “I stayed up all night thinking about it,” I continue. “And I came to the conclusion that I can’t do it. I cannot be in a relationship where I’m giving a hundred and you’re giving fifty. I don’t want to beg for attention nor wait in vain for the day when you’ll finally open yourself up to me without reservations. Assuming such a day would ever actually come.” I pause and bite the inside of my cheek. Then I turn my attention back to him. “You asked me for the sexual exclusivity of a relationship without the ties. But I can’t do that because my body and my heart go hand in hand. They’re a complete package. You can take it or leave it,” I say, repeating his own words back to him.
I see the muscles in his shoulders tense. Thomas tilts his head to the side, angry, and replies only after a few long moments of tense silence. “Take it or leave it?” It is not a question, really, but a furious snarl that startles me. “Are you fucking with me?”
“Not at all,” I answer, managing to sound confident despite the painful clenching I feel in my stomach.
“Help me understand, what is it exactly that you expect me to do? Put a fucking ring on your finger so you can make sense of our fucking and silence your stupid fucking prudery?”
“Stupid fucking prudery?” I repeat, bewildered. I turn away from the window and from him. “Forgive me for wanting something more from the person I’m sleeping with!”
He jolts and advances on me. Every muscle in his body is trembling with rage. “I told you I would never touch anyone else again. I told you it would be just you and me. What else do you want?”
“I don’t know, Thomas, normal stuff, maybe! Going to the movies,holding hands, being able to hug you during a movie if I feel like it, for example.” He lets out a derisive laugh.
“That’s all bullshit,” he says, staring at nothing in particular.
“For you.” I point a finger at his chest vehemently. “It’s all bullshit for you.”
Thomas leans back on the desk and exhaustedly rubs his face. “I already told you yesterday.” He looks me straight in the eye. “I can’t give you what you’re looking for. I can’t now, and I won’t ever be able to either.”
I can feel my heart beating in my throat. With one sentence, Thomas has destroyed all my hopes. Those stupid, pathetic hopes, tucked deep down in the bottom of my heart. The ones that led me to believe that maybe, eventually, I would be able to break down the walls he uses to shut himself away from the world outside. Because while it is true that I was the one who told him that I couldn’t accept such a relationship, there was perhaps a small part of me that hoped that, when pressed, he would choose to let me in.
