Eight
Eight
We are sitting next to one another on the lawn, and neither of us utters a word. A deep silence descends upon us, and the only thing I can hear is the distant chirping of crickets and the hum of other insects far in the background. The dimmed lights of an after-hours campus illuminate this rather awkward moment. Awkward for me, at least.
Thomas seems perfectly at ease as he fiddles with the tab of his soda can. I look around, pull up a few tufts of grass, examine a chunk of my hair for split ends. I should trim these…
“I really make you nervous, huh?” he observes with a hint of smug satisfaction in his voice.
“Of course not,” I lie. “So…why aren’t you practicing with the rest of the team?” I ask, pulling the sleeves of my jacket over my hands.
“Who knows?” he replies tersely.
Oh, well, that clears everything up.
My gaze snags on his exposed biceps, and I get lost, admiring the tattoos that cover his skin. I get stuck on a sideways hourglass, wrapped in barbed wire. Inside, three small black butterflies are ready to take flight. I wish I could ask him what it means, but I know he’d never tell me.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to get a tattoo. The idea of permanently imprinting something on my skin fascinates me, but I’m too much of a wimp to really do it. Just the thought of getting stabbed so many times with those little needles gives me the creeps.”
Thomas gives me a furtive, indecipherable look.
“You wanna go back in? You’re probably getting cold,” I fret.
“No.”
“Care to tell me why you’re in such a bad mood?” I venture, knowing that the answer will be a resounding…
“No.”
Of course.
“Thomas, you may not know this, but if you want to have a conversation, you may have to tell me more than just ‘no,’” I explain patiently as I would to a small child.
“Never said I wanted a conversation.”
“Okay…” I feel a little silly for hoping that he would confide in me. After all, we barely know each other. “Look, you seem tired, and I get the feeling that you don’t really want me here. So I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.”
“If I didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here,” he snaps impatiently.
“All right, then.” I’m not sure what to do if he doesn’t feel like talking. I take Sense and Sensibility out of my bag, and, taking advantage of the flickering light from a nearby streetlight, I let myself get lost in the story.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Thomas lie down on the grass. He crosses his arms behind his head and turns his eyes to the sky.
“What are you doing?” I ask, surprised.
“I’m taking advantage of the darkness and enjoying the view. Wanna join me?”
“No,” I answer in plain disgust. “The lawn is dirty and wet.”
“So you’re squeamish as well as prickly,” he answers, mocking me.
“It’s not that, it’s just…”
“Shut up and come here,” he interrupts, taking the book from my hands. He closes it and sets it on the ground in a way that makes me wince, and then he takes my arm and pulls me down next to him. This unexpected closeness puts me on edge. My heart starts to beat faster, and my breathing speeds up. As I turn my gaze upward, I am amazed at the spectacle above us: the sky looks like a spill of ink, enclosing an infinity of bright stars. They look like innumerable tiny diamonds.
I spot constellations: Cygnus, the swan and, near it, Delphinus, the dolphin. When I was little, Dad used to take me up onto the roof of our house. All, of course, without Mom’s knowledge. It was our secret place, where we could sit and stargaze, and he always said that the brightest one was the wishing star. We would race each other to find it and make a wish.
The starry sky has never been the same since he left us.
Thomas and I stay quiet for a few minutes and settle into the stillness around us. A light breeze rustles the trees and sends the taller grass swaying. Although I am inclined to enjoy the moment, I can’t hold back a shudder at the idea that my hair is touching the grass that everyone stamps all over with their dirty feet. I try to suppress my discomfort, even though I want nothing more than to run straight into my shower at home and scrub until I’ve eliminated every last one of the microorganisms that surely must be feasting on me.
“Are you okay?” asks Thomas.
I jump.
Of course I’m okay. I’m just dealing with a very minor nervous breakdown caused by my germophobia.
“Oh, yes. I’m fine,” I hiss, crossing my arms over my chest and trying to keep calm.
“Yeah, I can see that.” He chuckles. “What’s the problem?”
“Nothing! It’s just that insects scare me a little bit and lying on the ground kind of…grosses me out,” I confess offhandedly. Thomas sits up, shaking his head. He pulls his omnipresent bandana off his wrist, unrolls it, and looks at me. “Lift your head up,” he commands, with a hint of amusement in his voice.
“What? Why?”
“Just do as I say and knock it off with all the questions. It’s annoying.”
“I can’t help it, that’s just the way I am,” I defend myself as I get into a seated position.
“Nosy?”
“Curious.”
Thomas gives me an eloquent look but does not reply. He spreads the bandana out on the ground and invites me to rest my head on it. I can’t deny that the gesture warms my heart a little.
“Did somebody inject you with pleasantness?” I tease. “Or have you perhaps discovered that you have an incurable disease and now offer good deeds to anyone who crosses your path?”
“It’s just a bandana,” he grumbles. “You looked like you were on the verge of a hysterical episode.”
“That’s not true.” Sitting next to him, I elbow him in the ribs and bite my lip. He smiles genuinely for the first time since I’ve known him. I want to point that out to him, but I have a feeling that, if I did, he would instantly stop.
“Yeah, you did. You made the same disgusted face I make every time I have to see your boyfriend in the showers,” he says wickedly, and my smile dies on my lips.
“Am I ever going to find out why you two hate each other so much?”
Thomas ignores me.
“Hey, I asked you a question. Did you hear me?”
He sighs in frustration, ruffling that lock of hair that constantly falls over his forehead. “Hard not to hear you…” He’s quiet for a moment, before continuing, “Suffice it to say that your boyfriend is a moron. And you should open your eyes.”
“Be more specific,” I press, feeling a strange sense of foreboding.
“You’re together, right?” he blurts out angrily, his eyes full of hate. “If you have any doubts, fucking ask him.”
I’m startled by this unexpected aggression. “Sorry, I…wasn’t trying to make you mad,” I murmur, disheartened.
Thomas lets himself fall back on the lawn, while I am overwhelmed by a thousand feelings and even more questions. I torture myself trying to think of a plausible reason for the intense hatred he harbors toward Travis—and Travis toward him—but I come up empty. I feel like there’s just so much that I’m not being told.
It’s Thomas who pulls me out of my spiraling thoughts. He picks up the book I was reading and waves it in the air. “ Sense and Sensibility , by Jane Austen,” he reads from the cover. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Why am I not surprised?” I can tell by the way he speaks that he’s trying to let me know that his anger has subsided.
“Do you like reading?” I ask hopefully.
“It’s boring.”
I press a hand to my chest in mock grief. “You have broken my heart.”
“It was bound to happen sooner or later,” he teases me. I’ll allow it, this time.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Oh yeah? Why don’t you tell me about it?” he asks curiously.
“This one is about the lives of two very different sisters. One is passionate and spontaneous, the other more logical.”
“And what happens to these two sisters?”
“They fall in love with two men, also very different, and that love changes them all profoundly.”
He doesn’t answer, instead setting the book down on the lawn again and sitting up before lighting a cigarette.
“You want one?” he asks, holding the pack out to me.
“No, thank you.” He smirks, as if he’d been expecting that answer. “Don’t you smoke a little too much for an athlete? I thought there were very strict rules about that.”
“There are, but I can’t help it.”
“And your coach is okay with that?”
He laughs a bitter laugh. “If by ‘okay’ you mean ‘threatens to suspend me every other day,’ then yes, I would say he’s okay with it. He’ll never go through with it, though. He needs me. We both know that.”
“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 are not a 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.”
“I’m not cold,” I insist.
“Tell the truth,” he teases me.
“What truth?” I look at him, confused.
“This is all just an excuse to get me to hug you. Sorry, but it’s not going to happen,” he snickers.
“It is absolutely not an excuse for any—” I start to say, before I realize he’s teasing me again. “You are such a comedian, Thomas,” I say in a flat voice, narrowing my eyes at him.
A gust of wind suddenly picks up, rustling the trees around us. Some leaves break off and dance in the wind, eventually coming to rest, mostly in my hair. I sit up and try to pick them out but, in my usual bungling way, only manage to tangle them up more.
“Stop. Let me help,” Thomas leans toward me, stretching one hand out to my hair while holding my arm with the other. “I’m helping.”
“No need, I’ve got it,” I insist. I extract blades of grass and bits of dry leaves with no small amount of difficulty. He lifts a corner of his mouth, amused, but in the next moment, something in his gaze changes. He stiffens and becomes more alert. I am immediately alarmed.
“What? What is it?”
“If I told you to stay still, would you listen to me?”
“Why?” I hiss, almost breathless.
“Because you have a bug in your hair.”
What!?
My eyes snap open wide, and I begin to writhe and scream in panic. “Oh my God, that’s disgusting! Get it off! Get it off right now!”
“I would if you would stop thrashing like a lunatic.” I do not miss the amused tone with which he speaks to me. Clearly this is a great joke. For him. He leans toward me, and my breath catches in my chest. His breath is warm, very close now to my lips. When I feel his fingers move gently through the strands of my hair, I close my eyes fearfully and cover my face with my hands.
“Open your eyes,” he urges me after a little while, with a care in his voice that he has so far never reserved for me. But I shake my head no, lips pressed together tight, scared to death.
“C’mon, be brave.” He nudges me. I feel his hand grasping mine and trying to pull it away from my face, but I resist. An involuntary reflex. “I got it, you’re okay,” he murmurs soothingly against my ear.
I slowly lower my hands, coax myself to open my eyes, and I realize suddenly how close Thomas is to me. The tips of our noses are nearly touching. I shiver, my throat drier than the Sahara.
“Are you okay?” He curves his lips into a mischievous smile while I’m trying to remember how to swallow. I give a disjointed nod and, as I feel his gaze sliding slowly to my mouth, my stomach contracts, and a wave of heat sweeps over me from head to toe. I am helpless here, a breath away from his face, completely at the mercy of whatever move he makes.
Thomas inclines his head, as though fighting an impulse stronger than himself. “Fuck…” he curses through gritted teeth, closing his eyes. When he lifts his head up, the cold expression on his face immediately dampens the fire that was beginning to kindle in my body. There is no time to press my hands against his massive chest, no time to put the necessary safe distance between us before I am startled by a familiar voice behind us. My heart stops.
It’s Travis.