Page 4 of Damnation
With one hand still pressed to my searing cheekbone, I watch her get up and leave, slamming the door behind her as she goes.
I can’t believe she really said that…
I know that I exaggerated. I know that I vented all my anger without thinking. I know my mother saw the end of her marriage as a failure. I watched her lock herself inside the house, humiliated at having been cheated on while my father doted on his new family, showing them all the care and attention that he’d once dedicated to us. All the care and attention that he had then ripped away from us. I know very well that he is the villain in this story. And if she is so cynical and I am so insecure, that’s his fault as well. I know all of this because I suffered just as much as she did, and I’m still suffering. But her continued insistence on controlling my life made me lose all control. It’s not fair of her to back me into a corner. I was so angry, part of me wanted to hurt her.And because of that, for the first time, I think that perhaps Thomas and I aren’t so different after all.
When the porch light turns off, I feel a stab of pain in my stomach. I squeeze my eyes shut, realizing that in less than an hour, I have managed to make Thomas leave me and goad my mother into kicking me out of my house. I have lost everything in just one evening… I feel the world collapsing in on me.
Exhausted and unable to do anything else, I go to the sofa near the front door and curl up on it in the fetal position. With my cheek resting on the pillow, I try to hold back the sobs that wrack my body, but I fail miserably.
It’s all my fault.
It’s always my fault…
Two
I have no idea how much time has passed when I feel my shoulder being shaken gently. The rain has stopped, leaving the unmistakable smell of petrichor in the air. The breeze has turned into a rather biting wind, but the sky is still dark. Slowly, I open my eyes, which are still burning, and a blurry image materializes in front of me. I frown, and in the nighttime darkness, illuminated only by the streetlamp, there are two soulful eyes staring worriedly back at me. A tattooed hand rests on my hip, which has been covered with a heavy black leather jacket.
“Thomas?” I murmur confusedly, sitting up. “W-what are you doing here?”
“You’re shivering,” he notes with a frown. He kneels down and rubs his hands over my arms to warm me up. “What are you doing out here?”
“I fell asleep,” I say, still a little out of it. I look at him, trying to decipher his mental state. He doesn’t seem angry anymore, just tired and worried.
“Out here?” he answers in dismay as he tucks his jacket around my shoulders. Now that he’s so close to me, the scent of beer and smoke fills my nostrils. Did he go out drinking? That’s a bad sign.
“I needed some air,” I lie. I don’t want to tell him about what happened. I just want to know where he was and what he did. I am about to ask him when I notice the way his forehead creases as he rests hisgaze on my right cheek. He clenches his jaw and runs a knuckle over my cheekbone; I feel a twinge of pain. It’s not hard to conclude that I must have a mark there from the slap I took. So I guess too much time couldn’t have passed since the argument with my mother. I check the time on my phone next to me and see that it is well after three.
“Who did this?” he asks severely.
“My mother.” He raises his eyebrows in surprise, but before he can ask me anything else, I go on the offensive. “Where have you been? I called you over and over, and you never answered…” I say, unable to hide the fear in my voice.
He bows his head, running a thumb over his left eyebrow before lifting his face again. “I had business to take care of.”
I swallow hard and nestle deeper into his jacket to protect myself from the piercing cold. “What business?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
My heart pounds so loudly in my chest that I can feel it vibrating in my throat as a feeling of dread spreads throughout my body. He did it. He was with another girl. I’m sure of it. I can tell from the way he won’t look at me, from his tense face, and from that mortified expression he wears, like someone who has made a huge mistake but doesn’t know how to come clean.
“But I do want to know. After what happened with Travis, nothing scares me anymore,” I say brusquely, taking his jacket off.
“What?” he asks, perplexed.
“Come on, Thomas, just say it.”
“Say what?”
“Look, you left here furious, I didn’t hear from you all night, and now you come back with your clothes smelling like alcohol, refusing to tell me what you did… And that’s fine. I mean, you don’t owe me anything. No justification or explanations, because we aren’t actually together, but I’ve been through this before. I know how these things go and if you”—I feel my stomach clenching like a vise—“if you’ve gone back to her, I would like to know.”
Silence permeates the space around us for several seconds, duringwhich Thomas continues to look confused. Then he squeezes his eyes shut. “Hold on a minute. What do youthinkhappened?”
I look down and don’t answer him. I can’t say it.
Then he lifts my chin gently, forcing me to look him in the eye. “Did you think I was with someone else?”
“Was I right?”
“Christ, no!”
