Page 26 of Collision
“Have you ever thought of quitting?” I gather my knees to my chest and rest my chin on them.
“You gotta want to quit to make it stick. And I don’t want to.”
He takes a long drag and, after blowing out all the smoke, gets lost staring at the glowing cherry with a strange and worrisome devotion.“Nicotine keeps a lot of my impulses at bay. Things I wouldn’t be able to control otherwise.”
“What impulses?” I ask innocently, and I immediately regret it, because I can see Thomas getting broody again. He runs his hand through his hair, nervous. “Tell me something,” I say quickly, hoping to disperse some of the tension, “how long have you been playing basketball?”
“Why do you care?”
“Well, if we’re going to be friends, we should know things about one another,” I explain, but really he’s the only one I want to investigate. There’s more to him than he wants to let on, hiding under the surface.
“So you want to be my friend?” he jokes, giving me a sly look.
“First rule of friendship: wipe that smirk off your face.”
He snorts in amusement and, after taking another drag on his cigarette, he replies. “I’ve been playing pretty much as long as I can remember.”
“Have you always been so good at it?”
He looks at me as if the answer is a given. “What do you think?”
“So full of yourself…”
“Self-aware, I’d say.” For a moment he pauses, clearly thinking about something, then adds, “In all honesty, I am a complete failure. On every front. Basketball is the one thing I’m good at. As soon as I step on the court, everything falls into place, and all the rest of the shit in my life disappears. There’s just me, the dull sound of the net when I make a basket, the hardwood floor under my feet, and the adrenaline coursing through my body, guiding my movements.”
I look at him, spellbound. “That must be a beautiful feeling.”
“You bet it is.”
“Thomas…” I pronounce after mulling it over.
“Yeah?”
“You’re not… You arenota complete failure. Nobody is,” I add, fiddling with my shoelaces, because the way he’s glaring at me makes me realize that I am touching on something delicate. Maybe another time.
“Don’t talk about me. You don’t know me,” he admonishes me tersely, turning to look away.
“True, I don’t know you. But I know you’re human, and human beings make mistakes. All of us. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. You may even be grateful, one day, because our mistakes are what make us who we are. Without them, we would never really understand the essential nature of life—we would just be empty shells.” I place my hand on his shoulder to reassure him, but I feel him stiffen. I realize I have pushed too hard, and I retract my hand as if burnt. But I don’t give up. “Our mistakes make us human, not failures,” I continue.
“Some mistakes destroy people, Vanessa. Permanently.” He’s so cold as he utters these words, I can’t help but wonder what made him so disillusioned.
“Seriously?”
“Never been more serious in my life,” he replies, looking steadily into my eyes.
I look away from him, refusing to hear anything else. I’m cold, so I wrap my arms around my knees.
“You’re shivering,” he observes after a while, tossing his cigarette a few feet away from us. “You should go home,” he orders.
“No, I’m fine.” I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here with the evening breeze on my face and allow this knot in my stomach to slowly unravel.
I lie down, resting my head on his bandana, and look back up at the sky in an attempt to find some relief.
“Whatever you say,” he says, lying back down beside me.
“You can go inside if you want.”
“I offered for you. It’s fifty degrees out, and you’re shivering.”
