Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Eight
His mouth moves greedily over mine. He is devouring me, and I’m losing track of my surroundings. I ignore the dark of the night that envelops us, the wind blowing above us, the fact that we are still on my front porch and the very real risk that my mother could come out at any moment and surprise us. I let myself be overwhelmed by the warmth of his tongue and feeling of his hands on me, sliding down my hips, down to my butt. He squeezes me enthusiastically and pulls me tight against him, making my chest press into his. I spread my legs slightly to better accommodate him, while his grip on my backside only gets tighter, dragging a moan out of me.
Thomas smiles against my lips, bites them and worries them between his teeth before slowly loosening his hold on me. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”
“Not exactly,” I gasp, my heart pounding. And it’s the truth. I have no idea what I’m doing. Did I kiss him because I had on some unconscious level accepted his proposal of a “non-relationship”? Or was it just the heat of the moment? Hearing him confess all of this stunned me. He knocked me for a loop.
The only thing I’m sure about is what I feel when I’m with him: Rapture. Adoration. Connection. Desire.
Thomas leans his forehead against mine and looks raptly at me. Those emerald-green eyes of his seem to pierce through me all the way to my soul. “And you’re okay with that?”
I nod, trying to regulate my labored breathing. “I think so.” We stand there just looking at one another for a few seconds in silence, letting our eyes do the talking for us. Then Thomas gets to his feet and I suddenly feel adrift. Like an invisible protection has been torn away from me, leaving me vulnerable to everything. I follow him with my gaze, and my instincts tell me that this will be the last time I see him today. My stomach is clenching. I hate it. I hate this feeling of torment mixed with disappointment that I get every time we separate. It makes me feel weak and dependent.
“Are you leaving?” I ask hesitantly, standing up as well.
“Already missing me, stranger?” He gives me an insolent grin as he pulls the motorcycle key from his pocket.
“Not at all.” I sniff with my chin held high, pulling the sleeves of my cardigan over my fingers.
He chuckles. Relentlessly confident as he is, he doesn’t buy it for a second. He reaches over and takes my chin between his fingers, planting a kiss on the cold tip of my nose. “It’s late, and you need to rest.”
“Are you worrying about me?” I tease him a little, quirking one corner of my mouth.
“I worry about your academic performance. If you don’t sleep, you won’t be focused for the test tomorrow. I could never forgive myself if you flunked for the first time because of me.” A chill moves through me down to the bones, while my knees turn to jelly.
“T-the test?”
“Yeah, the philosophy test.” He makes a dismissive gesture as if he couldn’t possibly care less, while I’m feeling the earth shake under my feet. Slowly, I sit back down on the small sofa behind me with wide eyes, trying not to panic.
Tomorrow is the philosophy test, and I have completely forgotten about it. How the hell is that possible? I have never, ever forgotten about a test before.
“You okay?” he asks leaning toward me, looking worried.
I shake my head, unable to utter a word, and stare into the middle distance. He rests his palms on top of my thighs and looks at me seriously. “Hey, Ness, what’s up?”
“I forgot,” I breathe.
“What did you forget?”
“The test, Thomas. The test!”
He stares at me impassively for a few seconds until I see him struggling to hold back laughter.
I frown. “Does this seem like a good time for a chuckle?”
“Jesus,” he snickers, “I thought you were having a heart attack. But you’re just freaking out about a test. You’re such a nerd.” He starts full-on laughing, resting his forehead against my legs.
“Thomas, we have a test in a few hours, and I’ve barely started studying the material! And it’s my favorite subject, to boot!” I wail in reply, upset by his amused demeanor.
“Come on, it’s not the end of the world. As soon as I get back to the dorm, I’ll email you some notes, they’re simple concepts.”
“I don’t need your notes, I have my own. Also, sorry, but since when do you take notes? And since when do you prepare for things?” I ask, with wounded pride. I find it really hard to imagine him parked in front of an open book, studying intently.
“The notes aren’t mine and, for your information, I am prepared for many things, young lady,” he says smugly.
I cross my arms and give him a skeptical look. “That seems rather unlikely. You’ve never paid attention in class, I remember that clearly.”
“We have different ways of digesting information.” He gives me his shit-eating grin. He retrieves his phone from the sofa, turns around and walks to the bike. I get up and follow him, shielding myself from the now less intense rain with my cardigan.
“So, we…um, see you tomorrow,” I say suddenly. Awkwardly.
“Yes, tomorrow.” He takes his helmet from the handlebars and unclasps it. But before he slips it on, he grabs me by the edges of my sweater and pulls me into him. “I want you to remember what I told you tonight, really imprint it into your brain, because I won’t say it again another time,” he says hoarsely, giving me a gentle kiss on the lips. Then he pulls back, taps me on the nose with his index finger, and gets on the bike. He lowers his visor and starts the engine. I don’t even have time to tell him to go slow before he speeds away like lightning.
I go back inside the house, close the door behind me, and lean heavily against it for a few seconds with the dumbest grin plastered on my face. My heart beats wildly, I touch my lips with my fingers. I almost can’t believe what he said to me.
“You know, you should listen to your mother more.” Victor’s Canadian accent pulls me abruptly from my thoughts. I jump when I see him standing just a few feet away from me with a ceramic coffee cup in his hands.
I stand up straight and frown. “Excuse me?”
He gestures to the window with his cup. It overlooks the porch where Thomas and I had just been talking. And kissing. “Your mother told me what happened…”
I cross my arms over my chest and narrow my eyes. “What were you doing here? Spying on me?”
“No, Vanessa. I wouldn’t dream of it. But I heard some noises coming from the porch and I was alarmed, so I came to check that everything was all right.”
“There was no need for you to be alarmed. Corvallis is a quiet town. The only criminals we have here are kids who like to play ding dong ditch,” I explain.
He shrugs and takes a sip from his cup. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In any case, don’t you think it’s pretty disrespectful the way you continue to defy your mother’s authority?”
“I think that it’s none of your business,” I say defensively.
He looks down at the cup in his hands. “Yes, you’re right.” Then he brings his attention back to me. “But very soon it will become my business.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?” he asks, surprised. Slowly, I shake my head no. A confused and apologetic expression crosses his face. “Oh, I thought she told you.”
“Told me what?”
“In a few weeks, I’ll be moving in.”
I can almost feel my stomach tying itself into knots. “What?”
“Vanessa, I apologize.” He moves as though he’s going to approach me and lay a hand on my shoulder, but I stretch out an arm to stop him.
“I was sure your mother had already told you about it.”
Now I’m wondering how long ago my mother made this decision without my knowledge, and when exactly she planned to tell me. Maybe the day before he moved in? Or maybe the day itself!
“You know, things have been going so well between us, and we talked about it—”
I interrupt him: “No.”
“What did you say?”
“I said no. You are not going to live here. This is my house. My father’s house. The house where he raised me. If your need to live together is so strong that you can’t do without it, then go ahead and move in together but do it somewhere else.” I push past him, glaring and leave him standing there astonished behind me.
How could my mother allow another man to come into our house and live there without even consulting me beforehand? I mean, does my opinion matter so little to her?
I take off my boots and leave them beside the door. I slip off the cardigan and lay it on the end of the bed. I sit down at my desk, turn on the lamp and take out my books and notes from philosophy. I intend to study as much as I can, although I’m finding it pretty difficult. My head is filled with all these conflicting emotions about everything that has happened tonight.
A few hours later, my eyes are burning from concentration and I have to throw in the towel. When I look at the alarm clock on the nightstand beside me, I realize that it is five o’clock in the morning. I open my eyes wide and rest my forehead on the desk, cursing myself under my breath. In less than four hours, I have to be on campus. Damn me for forgetting this stupid test! I turn off the light and curl up in my bed.