Page 28 of Collision
What really makes my run blood cold, however, is the absent, empty look on Thomas’s face as he gets to his feet and growls through clenched teeth, “You’re a dead man.” It feels like I’m watching the scene through a hazy filter, and before I can even really register their movements, Travis is thrown to the ground with brutal force. I scream desperately for them to stop, but neither boy hears me. They roll through the grass and onto the asphalt, at each other’s throats like rival lions, until Thomas gets the upper hand and pins Travis. He towers over my boyfriend with his fist raised, ready to pummel him.
“Thomas, stop! Please, I’m begging you!” I shout again, my eyes blurred with tears, hands shaking with terror. Just when I begin to fear the worst, Finn and Matt burst out of the gym doors. They descend on the brawlers and finally, with effort, separate the two of them.
“What the fuck is wrong with you guys? Are you crazy?” Matt yells.
Travis gets to his feet, and, despite his bleeding mouth, tries to hurl himself at Thomas again. Matt holds him back, putting his body between the two of them. “Calm down, man! You wanna get arrested?” he shouts, moving his gaze to Thomas, who is being restrained by Finn. “What the fuck happened here?”
“What happened is this asshole harassing my girlfriend!” Travis yells, spitting out a mouthful of blood and wiping his lip with the back of his hand.
“‘Harassing’?” Thomas repeats with a sinister grin. Finn is stillholding his arm in an attempt to keep him from making any wild moves. “Your girl didn’t seem too harassed to me.”
The implicit accusation lands like a thud in my chest. I give Thomas a murderous glare as Travis takes the bait, furiously trying to charge Thomas again. Thank goodness Matt is still there to stop him.
I move to Travis and plant myself in front of him. Up close, I can see that his eyes are still filled with rage. I take his face in my hands and try to calm him down.
“Travis, nothing happened!”
He pushes me away, furious, and refuses to meet my eyes.
“We were just talking!” I continue, determined to make him listen. “I was on my way home, I saw him out here, and I stopped to chat, nothing more!” I am a big fat liar. I know it, and I am ashamed of it. But, gradually, Travis’s breathing evens out. His face is swollen and already bruised. I put one hand on his chest soothingly and, with the other, reach up to softly caress his cheek. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it, but this is all just a huge misunderstanding. Please believe me.”
“If I see you with him again, it’s over,” he says breathlessly.
He looks at me gravely, his mouth a clenched line, and I realize he is deadly serious.
“Okay,” I murmur, scared. Travis and I are not in a good place right now, but that doesn’t mean I want to throw away what we have for some random idiot who only ever wants to play games.
Behind us, I hear Thomas wriggle out of Finn’s grip. In a moment, he catches up to us. “Relax, Captain,” he calls out to Travis before pausing. He clicks his tongue, shooting me a look of pure contempt. “This one couldn’t get my dick hard if she tried. Otherwise, I would have fucked her already.”
“As for you”—his eyes, full of hate, snap back to Travis—“that’s the last time you put your hands on me. Try it again and you’ll wake up on a fucking stretcher.”
I watch as he turns his back on me and walks away toward the dorms without giving me a second glance. He takes with him all of hisarrogance, his disrespect, and his pure meanness. Meanwhile, there I stand, humiliated, tears in my eyes, trying to pretend I haven’t just been stabbed in the heart.
But I can’t let Travis see me hurting. So I put on a brave face and reassure Matt and Finn before wrapping an arm around Travis’s waist and guiding him to the pickup truck. I offer to drive, but he refuses, and I don’t have the stomach to argue with him. The car ride home is silent, the tension palpable. Travis doesn’t speak to me and doesn’t look at me. I get it; I had promised him that I would stay away from Thomas and instead I ran right to him like an idiot. I should have listened to Travis. Instead I just lied to him.
How stupid are you?I chastise myself. I allowed my emotions to override my reason, but it will never, ever happen again.I have a boyfriend, dammit!
“See you tomorrow,” Travis says when we arrive in front of my house.
“Travis…” I try to take his hand, but he recoils and stares at an indistinct spot beyond the windshield.
“I’ll get over it.”
“I need to know you’re okay.”
“Do you think I’m okay?”
I lower my gaze, ashamed. “But why did you overreact like that? If anyone else had seen you, you could have been kicked off the team. Or arrested!”
“What were you doing out there with him?”
“I told you, we were talking.”
“‘Talking’…” he repeats, a note of frustration in his voice. “What, are you two friends now? Why didn’t I know about this?”
“We are not friends. There’s nothing to know. I ran into him out there and started talking. You know how I am. I’ll chat with anybody.”
More lies.
