Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
Between classes and coffee breaks with Alex and Tiffany, Wednesday passes quickly. After lunch, Thomas kidnaps me again and takes me to the tree house, taking advantage of the unusually nice weather. We spent two hours there in comfortable silence, him sketching out a design for a future tattoo and me reading. Periodically, I get lost watching his hand move confidently over the blank sheet of paper, his gaze focused and intense.
I’ve thought a lot about what Thomas said yesterday. Even though he wouldn’t tell me about the problem that is plaguing him, he did admit that he needed me. He admitted that he wants me in his life because I make him feel better. Hearing him say that made my heart beat wildly. But he is so mercurial that I can never tell if he really means what he says or if he just gets carried away by the moment. I would not be at all surprised if, by the end of the evening, he’s shouting in my face about how pathetic I am to have taken him at his word. Not that I want to reopen the topic and ruin the unusual serenity of the moment.
At the end of my shift, Tiffany picks me up from the Marsy, and we go to my house to get ready. The beaming smile and the duffel bag she brings with her don’t bode well for me.
“Hi, Mrs. White!” she shouts from the entranceway.
“Don’t waste your breath, she’s busy with Victor. For a change,” I tell her as we climb the stairs.
Once in my room, Tiff empties the contents of the duffel bag on my bed: a mountain of skimpy bikinis.
Oh, dear me.
After carefully sorting through everything she brought, Tiff makes me perform a long series of try-ons to choose the most suitable bathing suit. I have never been more embarrassed.
“Um, no. Not this one either. It shows my breasts too much,” I say fifteen minutes later, peering at myself in the mirror. “It barely covers my nipples,” I sputter, ignoring Tiffany’s exasperated face.
“Nessy. That’s the twelfth bikini you’ve rejected. If you keep this up, you’ll be going to this party naked,” she warns.
“Don’t you have anything with more coverage? A one-piece, for example?” I whine in frustration.
“Yes, sure, of course. Wait here, I’ll go ask my grandma if I can borrow one,” she answers sarcastically.
I give her a dirty look. “Don’t be cute. I’m on the edge of a panic attack and you’re not helping me at all! Do you have any idea how many people will be there tonight?”
“And why is that a problem?”
“Oh, come on! Have you seen me? Have you seen these hips? And this ass? Look! Jiggling like a Jell-O mold! You know what? Let’s forget it, I give up. Put it all away, I’m not going.” I throw a bathing suit at her indignantly and sit on the edge of the bed.
“You’re delusional. I don’t understand what you’re worried about. Your ass… Half the university is jealous of it, and the other half would like to tap it.”
“Tiffany!” I blanch, embarrassed.
“Vanessa!” she mimics, laughing at me. “We’re going to this party and you are going to wear a bikini, whether you like it or not. Everyone else will be wearing one. No one is going to pay attention to you.” She’s trying to cheer me up but she can’t, because I know for certain that at least one person there will be paying attention to me: Thomas. He’s going to see me, and then he’ll see all the other girls, and the comparison will be inevitable. Actually, it’s really his fault that I’m so worried about this.
“Come on, come over here. I think this one might do the trick.”
I listen to her and try on a simple black suit. The top is bandeau-style with a ring in the middle that shows my cleavage. There’s the same kind of ring on either side of the bottoms. And yet, out of all the suits I’ve tried, this is the one that covers me the most.
Tiffany grabs me by the shoulders and drags me over to the mirror. “Wipe that frown off your face and look at the girl in front of you. She’s magnificent.” She shakes me gently until a small, forced smile appears on my face.
“I really don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to go to this,” I mutter.
“Stop your whining. It’s time to move on to makeup!” she shushes me.
I wear a cream-colored sweater over the swimsuit along with the same skirt that I had on yesterday and, of course, my trusty Converse sneakers. After what seems like endless preparations, we finally go to pick up Alex.
When we arrive, we are immediately overwhelmed by the roar of dance music. The garden and pool are illuminated by jack-o’-lanterns resting on the grass, the candles inside them creating a soft atmosphere. A cardboard skeleton dangles from the door; some already tipsy person has amused themselves drawing a mustache on him. In the entrance, someone calls out exuberantly: “Tiffany! Finally you’re here!” Carol and her friends join us, all in a clamor. Alex and I look at each other for a few seconds. We are both thinking the same thing: How in the hell did we end up here?
“We’re here,” Tiffany specifies, pointing at me and Alex.
Carol turns her attention to Alex. “Oh, right, we take Performing Arts together. And you, you’re the one who was with Baker, right?”
I nod stiffly. I don’t like being remembered just for that or still being associated with him, but I am going to have to live with it.
“Anyway, you’re all welcome, you can get changed in the pool house.” She points to a paved pathway on our right and invites us to enjoy the evening. The last time I was here, I was so enchanted by the grandeur of the house that I hadn’t even noticed the pool house.
Tiffany and Alex walk around in just their suits. I, on the other hand, couldn’t do it. Against Tiffany’s will, I forced Alex to lend me his T-shirt, which goes all the way down to my butt, because mine doesn’t cover enough.
An hour later, Tiffany and I find ourselves sitting at a table, surrounded by a bunch of her friends who are chatting about some new influencer I’ve never heard of. Alex is in the garden with some of his friends from class, and I am—surprise, surprise—bored out of my mind. There’s still no sign of Thomas. I decide to go and stock up on food. I grab a paper plate and start selecting from the dishes set out. An imposing figure appears to my right, holding out a slice of lemon cake.
“I looked for something pistachio flavored but couldn’t find anything.” I recognize Travis’s voice even before I even lift my eyes. I almost drop my plate. I cannot believe that he is here, but more importantly, that he actually has the nerve to speak to me.
“I would like to be left alone.” I walk past him, leaving him and the slice of cake hanging.
“I already left you alone, thinking I was doing the right thing. But all I did was push you further away.”
I turn to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “Push me further away? I didn’t drift away from you, I cut you out of my life. It’s a very different thing,” I point out.
“Do you still hate me that much?”
“Hating you would mean that I still had feelings for you. I don’t feel anything for you anymore,” I declare, as I fill my plate with a pretzel mix.
“I deserve your contempt. I deserve all of it.”
“Not just mine.” I slip a napkin under the plate I’m holding and continue. “Did you ever apologize to Leila for what you did to her?”
“I am guessing I’m not on the list of people she wants to see right now,” he says with a flippancy that makes me sick to my stomach.
“So you haven’t done it, then? I know you well enough to know that the real reason you haven’t done it isn’t anything to do with being disliked. It’s that you simply don’t care.”
“How can you expect me to just go see her after everything that happened?”
“The same way you just took her to bed while you were with me.” The volume of my voice has risen dramatically.
Embarrassed, Travis tries to put a hand on my shoulder, but I push him away contemptuously. “I will apologize to Leila. I fully intend to do that. But I wanted to make things right with you first.”
I gape at him. “You’re still not getting it: there is nothing to make right anymore! You know what, Travis? I came to this stupid party to have fun, but if I’d known I’d find you here, I would have spared myself!” I drop my plate of appetizers on the table and leave without giving him time to respond. Behind me, he throws the cake into a small trash can and storms out of the pool house, furious.
Tiffany runs to intercept me. “Oh, shit. I swear, he promised me he wouldn’t come,” she exclaims apologetically. “He should be gone now; I’ll text him again to really hammer in the point.”
“Don’t worry, Tiff. I can manage,” I spit the words resignedly, as from a distance I watch Travis refilling his glass and draining it in one gulp.
“If I had known he was going to show up, I wouldn’t have done what I did.” She runs her hands over her face, stroking her perfectly defined eyebrows.
I frown. “Why? What did you do?”
We sit down at a table, and she crosses her legs, hugging herself as her long, wavy hair falls over her shoulders. “When you left after lunch, I went to the coffee shop and suddenly Thomas barges in after me, asking about you.”
I clear my throat. “About me?”
“Yes, he wanted to know where you were. After the way he treated you, I wanted to make him squirm for a while and not tell him anything. He was getting super annoying, though, so I just let slip one small irrelevant detail: that he could find you at this party.” Well, there’s one mystery solved.
“Well, don’t worry about it. I already knew Thomas would be here. I saw him yesterday afternoon, and he told me. But I’m beginning to think that he won’t come after all. Maybe it’s better that way,” I lie. The truth is, I perk up every time I hear new voices coming from the hall.
“Oh, don’t despair,” Tiff says with a wave of her hand. “He always comes late to parties.”
I don’t have time to investigate further, because Alex calls out and invites us to join him at the pool, where he is playing water polo with some classmates. We sit on the edge, dangling our legs in the water, cheering every time they score a point. When the game is over, Alex approaches me.
“Did you see that shot?” he enthuses, resting his crossed arms on my lap.
“You were great,” I encourage him proudly. Alex sits beside me and we observe the chaos around us in silence for a while.
“So…” he says vaguely, “I heard there was a little commotion yesterday, on the fourth floor of the men’s dorm.” I immediately stop swinging my legs in the water.
“Really?” I ask, hoping Alex won’t notice the way my breathing just sped up.
He nods his head and keeps looking away from me.
“Apparently two girls were arguing in front of Collins’s room.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, nervous. “Oh, uh…seriously?”
“Yeah… So, I got curious and asked around a bit about who the girls in question were…and the description that emerged was pretty odd.”
“Odd h-how?” I stammer.
“Because one of the girls sounded a lot like you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, Nessy, you.”
“Why?”
“You tell me.”
I huff. “I have nothing to tell, Alex.” I shrug. “It wasn’t me.”
“Are you lying to your best friend?” he asks, draping a wet arm around my shoulders.
“Alex!” I groan, but that only seems to amuse him more and he pulls me tighter to him. “Okay, okay! It was me!” I admit, and only then does he free me.
Alex gives me a tender look. “You really wanna hurt yourself this time, don’t you?”
I shrug. “Apparently, I can’t help myself.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Where do I start?”
“Wherever you want.”
“Okay, but you’re not going to like it. It’s not like me…” I rub my palms on my thighs.
“How long has this been going on?” he prompts.
Sigh. “Since the night at Matt’s frat house.”
He gives me a disgruntled look.
“I know you think he was the one who came on to me, that he was using me, but it wasn’t like that, Alex. I had just learned the truth about Travis. He suggested I leave the party with him, but I was the one who said yes, I was the one who got drunk, and I was the one who insisted that he should…help me forget. As unlikely as it may seem to you, Thomas actually tried to reason with me, but I wouldn’t listen to him. I actually kind of…jumped him,” I admit in a shame-filled whisper.
From the way he looks at me, I can tell he’s trying not to judge me. He twists the hem of his Bermuda shorts as he seems to mull over my words. “So, since that night…” he repeats, almost to himself. “Are you together?”
I let out a thin, unhappy laugh: Thomas and I together…not even in my dreams. I am sure that, even there, Thomas would show up with all his insolence and would manage to make me feel like an idiot for daring to dream of him.
“No. We’re friends. The thing is, it’s so hard to keep up with him… One day he says one thing, the next day he does something else entirely. Not only can I never understand him, I hate him ninety percent of the time; he tries my patience constantly. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, a part of me is tied to him. I know, Alex, I know I’m getting myself into big trouble. But I can’t help but feel that there is something more inside him. I know I can be good for him. And, in his best moments, he makes me feel so good.” I lower my eyes bitterly, waiting for his verdict.
He rests his head on my shoulder and says, “You know, I’d like to think that this is just one of your bad jokes. Like that time when we were kids and you called me in the middle of the night and pretended you were a creeper watching me from the driveway, but you forgot to mask your phone number. Or when you tried to get me to eat Roy’s food by telling me it was tuna fish, but you left the can of dog food open on the kitchen counter.” We both laugh. “But I can see from your eyes, that’s not the case. I’m not going to tell you to stay away from him, because I already did that once, and it didn’t do anything. I don’t know much about him, except what everyone knows and what you definitely know. But I do know a lot about you, and if he has somehow managed to make a good person like you love him, then maybe he’s not all bad. I’m just afraid you’re going to relive everything you went through this past year with Travis. But I trust you, Nessy. If you see some good in him, I believe in you.”
I look at him, stunned. I thought for sure he was going to be angry and that he would make me feel like a complete fool for losing my head over the most obnoxious tattooed asshole in all of Corvallis.
“So you’re not mad at me? I feel guilty for not telling you anything; I was afraid of how you’d react,” I admit in a faint whisper.
He lifts his head. “You have terrible taste in guys, but you’re my friend. I’m always on your side.”
I hug him tightly and he hugs me back.
“Guys, how about we liven up this evening a bit with that game they’re playing in there,” Tiffany interrupts us, pointing to a small group inside the mansion.
“I don’t think that’s our thing,” I start to say, before Tiffany grabs Alex and me by the hands and pulls us up without giving us a chance to argue. “We’re here to have fun, not to be bored to death.” She drags us into the house, where some boys and girls are already sitting in a circle on the floor around a low table. In the middle of the table rests an empty bottle.
“Let’s play truth or dare,” says one of the girls already sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Not gonna happen.
“Truth or dare? Come on, that’s for—”
“For kids,” a warm, sensual voice interrupts from behind me. Two hands wrap around my hips and a mouth rests against my ear, making me shiver. “Hi, stranger.” Thomas kisses me on the cheek, then passes me by, leaving only the trail of his overwhelming scent behind him. He wears a gray sweatshirt, which highlights his powerful biceps, and a pair of dark jeans. His hair falls disheveled over his forehead. My God, he is breathtakingly beautiful. He picks a bottle of beer off the counter, opens it with the steel ring he wears on his middle finger, and takes a sip.
“Collins, are you gonna watch or are you gonna join these ‘kids’?” Tiffany asks.
Thomas stares at me for a few seconds, then gestures at me with the neck of the bottle. “If she plays, I’ll play.” He winks at me, and I can’t help but smile in return. Vanessa, dignity is not optional , my conscience reminds me.
Then, Tiffany turns to me. “Nessy? What are you going to do?” Suddenly, everyone looks at me as if I’m the wet blanket here.
“Sure, I’ll play,” I say resignedly.
We all sit around the table. Alex takes a seat to my right, while Thomas sits across from me. “I’ll start,” exclaims a girl with long brown hair to my left. “Nash. Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” answers a boy wearing a pair of hipster-y glasses.
“Let’s start with a softball. How was your first time?”
What kind of question is that!?
Nash seems to ponder it for a moment. “Definitely too brief.” We all burst out laughing. The game proceeds merrily, between Thomas admitting that the strangest place he did it was inside an old-timey phone booth, me confessing that I have never masturbated (which earned me a cheeky look from Thomas’s side of the circle), some spicy revelations, and big laughs. Thomas and I both chose “Truth” at every turn, and I must confess I’m surprised that he doesn’t take advantage of the dares to have a little fun.
Everything seems to be going smoothly, until Alex is dared to kiss the person in the circle that he has known the longest—namely, me. We both try to weasel out of it, Alex out of respect for his girlfriend Stella, me, both because of their relationship and our friendship, but most of the others around the circle tell us not to be buzzkills and that it’s all just a silly game. So, with embarrassment gnawing at us, we kneel facing one another. We are both bright red and constantly giggling, despite how uncomfortable we both are. After a few moments of hesitation, Alex takes the reins and wraps one hand around the back of my head, pulling me to him and kissing me. We pull away from one another, laughing a little and wiping our mouths with the backs of our hands. However, my amusement fades the moment I see Thomas’s glacial expression.
He can’t seriously be mad about this totally innocent kiss, from a boy who might as well be my brother, can he?
Next is the brown-haired girl’s turn. I can’t even remember her name. Her gaze lingers on Thomas and alarm bells sound in my head, warning me to prepare for the worst. For the first time, Thomas chooses “Dare.” And as he does so, he stares straight into my eyes with a challenging look. My heart begins to pound in my chest at an unprecedented speed.
The brunette casts a mischievous glance at her friend, a girl with dyed pink hair sitting next to me and pronounces: “I dare you to give Malesya a hickey.” I stop breathing. Malesya goes to meet him amid the hoots and shouts of those present. Thomas, still looking at me, makes her sit on his lap, resting both of his hands on her butt. I begin to feel a kind of nausea. Alex and Tiffany look at me sympathetically. I just want to disappear.
Thomas brushes aside her pink locks and starts enthusiastically kissing her neck. She sighs ecstatically, grinding her pelvis against his lap. Amid giggles from the circle, someone tells them to get a room. Finally, they break away. Malesya returns to sit beside me, and I can’t help but stare disgustedly at the bruise he has left on her neck; nor can I banish from my brain the image of her rubbing herself on Thomas as he eagerly indulged her.
My legs are shaking, my eyes are burning, but I refuse to cry. I clear my throat. I shrug my shoulders and tell myself that I am going to avoid Thomas’s gaze for the rest of the evening. For all the days to come! He’s an asshole down to the DNA level, and that won’t ever change.
After several rounds, it’s Tiffany’s turn. She gives everyone a long look, but to my enormous surprise, Thomas is the one she points out.
“Truth or dare?” asks Tiffany.
“Dare,” he answers immediately. As if he’s been waiting for exactly this question from her. Instinctively, I lift my eyes to him and see a wicked expression light up his face.
“Good, good,” Tiffany exclaims victoriously. Too victoriously. I look at her and frown. I know all too well that rush of megalomania she gets when she thinks she has total control over a situation. I silently beg her not to include me in the “Dare.” Thomas also looks at her but appears to be wishing for the exact opposite. Tiffany darts her gaze between us. Then she stops on me, smiling. When she murmurs, “You’re gonna thank me,” I wince. Oh my God.
“Thomas, I dare you to spend ten minutes locked in a closet with Nessy,” she orders.
“What?” Alex and I cry out in unison.
“Come on, let’s go,” Thomas demands, standing up.
“I’m not going to lock myself anywhere with you. What are we? Kindergartners?” I reply acidly.
“Rules are rules, Vanessa. And they must be respected,” he replies with a singsong voice and his most punchable face.
“He’s right. So far we have all followed the rules,” Nash interjects, before explaining where the closets are.
Damn Tiffany. She’ll pay for this. Oh, how she’s gonna pay. I breathe deeply and then huff the air out through my nose.
“Let’s go to this damn closet.”
“After you, miss,” a smug-faced Thomas mocks. I pass him with a glare.
I go in first, and he closes the door behind us. For some reason, the light is on. Maybe someone’s already been in here before us. This little room is claustrophobic. I turn my back to him because, even though I am furious at him, having him within a few inches of my face would make me lose my mind and I know it. So I’ll just stay here, staring at the greenish walls around me, for ten minutes. In front of me there’s a dusty set of shelves with some books and a few ceramic dolls on it. Creepy. I notice a cord hanging from the ceiling. I pull it and the dim light goes out. I immediately pull it again. Light. I need light.
“It’s better in the dark, don’t you think?” Even though I have my back to him, I can imagine his lips curving in his usual goading way.
“No. I don’t think so,” I answer sharply.
“Let me guess, you’re pissed.”
What a brilliant deductive mind, Collins. “No.”
“That wasn’t a question, it was an observation.”
You know where you can put your observations? I sigh and turn to face him. “Yes, Thomas. I’m pissed. What’s new, am I right?”
“Yeah, what’s new?” he replies, annoyed, rearranging the disheveled hair on his forehead with his fingers.
“Is it really so hard for you to stop being a jerk for more than five minutes at a time?” I go on the attack, making no effort at all to rein in my anger.
“When did I piss you off?”
Is he making fun of me? Of course he’s making fun of me, because it’s clear as day that he knows exactly why I’m pissed off. But evidently, if he’s not mocking me, he’s not happy.
“I don’t know, maybe when you put that girl on your lap and practically screwed her in front of everyone? I hope it was good for you, at least,” I conclude with a contemptuous grimace, trying to ignore the pang in my heart.
“And what about you? Did you enjoy kissing your little buddy?”
Is he seriously trying to make me believe that performance was all just to get back at me?
“Don’t call him ‘my buddy’ like that. And, just to be clear, it was just a stupid kiss. He didn’t clamp on to my neck like Count Dracula.”
“If yours was just a stupid kiss, mine was just a stupid hickey. I don’t see what the problem is.”
I give up. He just doesn’t get it. “Forget it,” I mumble, turning my back on him again.
“Turn around.”
“Nope. I’m good like this.”
I hear him advancing on me, and my heart leaps into my throat.
“I want you to look at me when you talk to me,” he demands in a hoarse voice.
“And I want you to stay away from me.”
“No, you don’t.” He rests his hands on my shoulders before gliding them down my arms, all the way to my hips. His rough touch on my smooth skin makes me shiver. My brain tells me to pull away and maintain a safe distance between us, but my body is increasingly drawn to his. “You want me to touch you.” He lifts the hem of my shirt, running his fingers over my stomach. “You want me to kiss you,” he murmurs against my hair. “And do you know how I know?” I try to answer, but I can’t. I just shake my head mutely instead. “Because your mouth can lie, but your body can’t.” He pulls me to him, making my bottom collide with his pelvis and tearing a moan from me.
“So,” he pulls my hair away from my neck and presses his lips to my skin there. “Did you enjoy kissing him?”
“What did it look like to you?” I retort, trying to appear confident. I pray with all my might that I can somewhat hide the incredible destabilizing effect Thomas has on me.
“You seemed pretty into it.”
“Like you were with Malesya? You seemed pretty attached…to her ass, mostly.”
I hear him chuckle into the crook of my neck. If I weren’t so completely subsumed by him, I probably would have slapped him by now.
“But she didn’t get me hard the way you do.” He pushes his erection against my butt to illustrate his point. “And she didn’t make me want to bend her over the coffee table and fuck her breathless.” His hand tightens on my left hip, fingers sinking into my flesh as he licks a spot behind my earlobe. I am overwhelmed by a powerful electric shock that seems to be completely concentrated in my lower abdomen. His fingers move down to settle between my legs, which I close and tighten automatically. “Good job, tight around me is the only way I want to feel you,” he murmurs obscenely, moving his fingers to apply more pressure to my center. A warm and intoxicating sensation makes me quiver. He slides my bikini bottoms to the side and slips a finger between my lower lips, already slick with fluids. I groan and, surrendering to his magical touch, I close my eyes. He makes small circles on my clitoris, and I go boneless. I drop my head back onto his shoulder, and Thomas puts the palm of his other hand against the wall in front of me, panting against my ear. I slur his name and squeeze his wrist between my thighs. I would like to be able to push him away, but instead I move with him. I’m doing it again, making another mistake I’m going to regret. Why? Why can’t I seem to live without this? I feel like a moth that is inexorably attracted to the light, even knowing that, if I get too close, I’m going to get burnt.
“Let go. I know you want it; I can feel on my fingers how much you want it.”
His words short-circuit my brain. As soon as he feels the muscles in my legs give way, he dips one finger into me. I arch my back and push my ass against his groin, causing him to let out a low grunt of excitement. Thomas licks my neck and then sucks it. He bites me, rubbing his ever-growing erection back and forth against my ass.
I feel his breathing getting heavier as, with one quick motion, he unzips his jeans and releases his erection. He rubs it against the cleft of my buttocks, with only the thin layer of my bikini between us. I feel the hot, wet tip of him teasing my slit, sliding back and forth. The hoarse sound of his moans and the sensation of warm, moist skin rubbing against me make me even wetter, so much so that I feel an overwhelming wave beginning to build. He picks up the pace with his fingers, teasing me until my legs are shaking from another jolt of pleasure. I almost want to tell him to stop because the stimulation is too intense, but a third wave of sensation causes a spasm of pleasure so intense that the only thing I can do is squirm, sputtering incoherently.
“Spread your legs a little wider. I want to look at you and I want to…feel you.” He crushes me between him and the wall, repeating filthy things that are about to push me over the point of no return, when a knock at the door makes me jump.
“Time’s up, guys!” someone yells from beyond the door.
I blink, wide-eyed. What? That’s not possible.
“Shit,” Thomas curses, grinding his teeth in frustration. He pulls his hand out of my swimsuit bottoms, leaving me dazed, yearning, and more unsatisfied than I have ever been before.
I look around blearily and slowly lift up my head. I gasp with parted lips, breathing in the stale air of this closet. Thomas turns me toward him abruptly. Only now do I see how his eyes are hazy, filled with an excruciating desire that he is forced to repress. He grabs my jaw and tells me, “The next time you let me touch you like that, I’m gonna make you scream my name until you lose your voice.”
Feeling almost drunk, I watch him painstakingly arrange his still stiff member in his jeans and walk out of the closet. Meanwhile, I try to figure out how I got myself into this situation again.
I let him use me again, like a puppet on a string. Thomas smelled my weakness and took advantage of it without a second thought. I slump onto the floor, disappointed in myself once again.