Page 139 of Collision
Disconcerted by my words, she is clearly surprised. “What do you mean, you have a bruise on your shoulder? Why didn’t you tell me?” She grabs my arms and turns me around.
“Because it wouldn’t have mattered. You would have found some way to justify it.” I wrench myself out of her grip.
Her eyes grow wide. “How can you say such a thing? I’m your mother! If someone hurts you, I need to know!” she cries out.
“That’s just the thing, Mom. Travis has hurt me many times, emotionally. Yet even after we broke up, I’m still the one in the wrong as far as you’re concerned. Now, you want to warn me away from Thomas, thinking you know everything. But the truth is, you don’t know anything!” I turn my back to her and stalk back to the chair where I had been sitting, picking up my bag and preparing to leave the kitchen. But she keeps talking.
“Maybe you’re right and I don’t know anything about him. But it only took me five seconds to see the kind of guy he is. So I’ll tell you again: I don’t want that person to be a part of your life,” she orders.
“I’m almost twenty years old, Mom. I can do what I want.”
“Not as long as you live under my roof,” she spits out angrily. I look at her, reducing my eyes to two slits, trying to figure out if she’s really implying what I think she’s implying. “Remember that everything you have, you have because of me. And you know the sacrifices I’ve made for you. But I can take everything away, Vanessa. Do you really want to go that far, all for an insignificant little boy who will leave you the moment he finds something better?”
“Would you really do that?”
“If it would make you do that right thing, I would absolutely do it. Even if it made you hate me.”
“Are you joking?” My blood boils.
“Not at all.”
I shake my head in bewilderment. “You can’t impose yourself on my life like this.”
“I am your mother, Vanessa. I’ll do what I think is best. Thisconversation is over. You can go.” She dismisses me with a wave of her hand. She turns her back on me and focuses on the stove.
“I like him, Mom!” I cry. Only after the words come out of me do I realize what I’ve just said.
“Yes, Vanessa, I noticed that!” She turns away, her lips a thin, angry line. “And that is exactly why I find myself compelled to take drastic action. The feelings you have are clouding your judgment; they cause you to make bad choices. I will not allow that to happen. You are young. And guys like him always bring problems and sorrows. I understand that at your age it can be fascinating, but sooner or later, he’s going to feel entitled to offload his troubles on you. And, by then, you’ll be too much in love to stop him. Don’t believe me? I’ve had a Thomas of my own before, and I guarantee you that the love you feel for him will push you to make so many mistakes. It will consume you, annihilate you, and take away every last good thing you have inside you. Until one fine day you will wake up and realize that you’ve spent the best years of your life chasing after someone who never, ever intended to stay. And at that point, it’ll be just you with your broken dreams and your mistakes which you will have to live with for the rest of your life.” There is a tremor in her voice. It’s barely perceptible, but it leaves me completely confused.
As far as I have ever known, my mother had always been with thoroughly respectable men. I am surprised by all the regret and anguish I can hear in her voice.
“I-I don’t understand what you’re talking about. None of that is going to happen to me because I’m not in love with him,” I explain to her in a softened tone.
“Yet, my just mentioning him was enough to make you fly into a rage. That says a lot about the feelings you pretend not to have.”
My reaction has me confused as well. After what Thomas said to me, a smart person would just listen to my mother. Still, just the idea of not having him in my life anymore makes me feel like I can’t breathe.
“It’s not up to you to decide who I can or cannot date. It’s unfair,” I say in a near-whisper.
“I’m sorry, but as long as you live under my roof, I will be the oneto decide. And I have decided that you won’t see that boy again. Or you will suffer the consequences.”
Thirty-Six
I run to my room furious, ready to pack up my things and leave. Too bad I don’t have anywhere else to go nor the money I would need to pay rent on some hypothetical apartment. As if that weren’t enough, I hear Victor’s voice from downstairs. He’s always eating dinner here these days. But my mother can forget about playing happy family tonight. After what she told me, I flatly refuse to sit at the table with the two of them. I text Alex to ask him to come to my rescue with a takeout sandwich, and I see that Tiffany has also texted me. A simple, direct:coming to you, have updates.
A few minutes later, the doorbell downstairs rings at the same time I hear someone knocking on my window. Wow, Alex and Tiffany must have coordinated. As I open the window, I can hear Tiffany running up the stairs.
“Why are you climbing through our friend’s window like a burglar?” Tiffany chuckles once they are both inside.
“And why are you entitled to front-door access? If I rang the doorbell at this time of night, Esther would have murdered me,” Alex retorts.
“One of these days, you’re going to break every bone in your body. You do know that, right?” I scold him jokingly, taking the bag with my dinner in it from his hand. It smells mouth-wateringly good.
“The one with the scribbled-on wrapper is yours, no lettuce, nocucumbers. Tiff, I didn’t know you’d be here too,” Alex says, a little awkward.
“Don’t worry about it, I came unannounced.”
“Did something happen?” I ask with some apprehension. I put their coats on the desk and invite them to sit on the bed with me.
