Seventeen #2
Once we’re alone, Thomas rests his hand on the trunk but otherwise remains still.
He doesn’t speak and neither do I. I watch his chest rhythmically rising and falling as I wring my hands and chew on my bottom lip.
Finally, I get up the courage to speak. “You shouldn’t have done that.
He only came here to apologize…” I point out, aware of the risk I’m running.
But there is no way I’m going to just excuse his violence.
Thomas takes a cigarette out of his pack, lights it, and inhales greedily. “You’re right,” he says. “I should have done much worse.”
Without another word, he starts off for a low wall, far from the chaos that surrounds us.
I follow him unthinkingly. He sits down, breathing in cigarette smoke and flicking the ash between his feet.
“I only asked you for one thing. Just one. To stay away from him.” He looks up at me.
“How is that so difficult for you?” His voice is thick with anger.
I take a cautious step closer to him. “I did stay away from him. And you know that. But this morning, when I was offered a tutoring position, I didn’t know that he was the student. If I knew—”
“What would you have done?” he interrupts me brusquely. “Would you have said no?”
“Of course I would have!”
“Then do it now.” He shrugs irritably. “Say no.”
I give him a bewildered look. Is he seriously asking me to give up an academic project just because he can’t control his jealousy?
That’s wrong! Inevitably, that conversation I had with Logan before the game pops into my head.
Is what he suggested about us true? Does Thomas really get the final say in all my decisions?
And am I going to let him? I don’t want it to be that way between us.
He has no right to make choices about my life; I’m his girlfriend, not his property.
“I need the extracurricular,” I answer decisively, crossing my arms over my chest and not even trying to hide my irritation.
“Get it some other way,” he orders with the determination of someone who is not willing to hear any objections.
My eyebrows arch in amazement. “And how exactly shall I do that? Overload myself with more activities? What about my job, Thomas? Did you perhaps forget about that? I don’t have the time! Tutoring is the best alternative right now.”
“Okay, then change students!” he exclaims, throwing his arms out wide in frustration.
“I can’t! Professor Scott assigned Logan to me because he trusts me, and I gave him my word that I’d work with him.
How is it going to look if I back out now?
What am I supposed to tell him? Hello, Professor.
You know what? I’ve changed my mind about your offer; I can’t do it anymore because my boyfriend disapproves ?
” I burst out. But my reaction only fires him up further.
He leaps off the wall in one movement, using his height to loom over me. His jaw is tight. His brow is furrowed. For the first time, I’m almost afraid of him, but I stand firm. “After everything that went down, are you really still trying to convince me that he’s okay?”
I neither confirm nor deny this.
Faced with my silence, Thomas just snorts and stares mercilessly at me.
“Christ, I can’t believe this.” He shakes his head, eyes lowered.
“I am trying every way I can think of to keep my cool around you. But you’re making it so fucking hard for me!
” he shouts, punching the wall next to us.
I gasp, staring horrified at his damaged hand, the knuckles skinned.
He’s completely out of control. I feel exhausted and empty.
Drained of all energy. But also disappointed.
And angry; Thomas isn’t making the slightest effort to put himself in my shoes.
He’s being selfish and he has no faith in me or my judgment.
“What am I supposed to do? Huh? Do I have to give up this assignment because you don’t like Logan?”
“Fuck off, Ness! It’s not like you’re giving up the presidency; you’re taking a pass on a fucking tutoring gig!”
“But at the moment, that’s how I need to play the game!” I make an agitated gesture.
The veins in his neck are getting larger as Thomas sinks his teeth into his lower lip and exhales through his nose.
“You know what? If you want to do, then do it,” he pronounces, an inch away from my face.
“But just know that you’re being a hypocrite.
You threw a fit when you found Shana and me in the same club, but now I’m supposed to be cool with this? ”
My eyes open wide. “Are you seriously equating Shana with Logan? I only went out with him a few times, and we never even went further than a dumb kiss. You and Shana were fucking up until the other day!” I shout.
“Yeah, and maybe I should go back to doing that. At least when I was fucking her, things were easy!”
I stagger back, as though I’ve just been pierced through the heart by a bullet.
I stare at him, frozen in the face of such cruelty.
He’s impassive. He tosses his cigarette to the ground and grinds it out with the toe of his shoe.
He gives me the kind of contemptuous look he usually reserves for those who dare to challenge him.
And I feel a profound emptiness in my stomach.
In my heart. I feel so cold and so far away from my Thomas. It hurts so bad, it feels like dying.
My vision blurs as I watch him turn his back on me and walk away.
I’m too stunned to do anything. My heart urges me to run after him, to cling to him with all my might and beg him to stay.
But my head won’t let me. My head is loudly telling me not to follow him because I don’t deserve this spiteful treatment.
My throat tightens into a knot when I hear the wheels of his motorcycle on the asphalt.
Probably because, right up until that moment, a small part of me was hoping he wouldn’t get on it.
Hoped he would stop right before and come back to me.
I sink down to the earth, destroyed, and lean back against the wall where, until recently, Thomas was.
The smell of him still lingers: vetiver, trees, soap.
Mixed, inevitably, with the scent of tobacco.
I cradle my face in my hands as hot tears roll down my cheeks. Right now, I want nothing more than to rewind time and go back to when we were sitting in the kitchen, laughing and playing, so close to one another.
“Holy cow, you pissed him off good this time.”
The slurred commentary makes me leap to my feet. I glance around, hastily wiping away my tears, but I can’t see anyone.
“Back here, Little Gem.”
I frown. There’s only one person who insists on calling me that. I lean over the stone wall. Lying there on the ground, weakly curled up into a ball, is Vince.
“What the hell are you doing down there, Vince?” I ask, my voice cracking as I sniffle.
“I was looking for a place where I could fall apart in peace. The problem arose when I could no longer get up under my own power. So I stayed here. It’s not so bad…
There’s the stars…the leaves on the trees, dancing like feathers in the wind…
the autumnal breeze shriveling my balls.
And then everything started spinning, and it felt like I was on one of those rides for kids.
You know the ones, with the little horses that look at you with crazy eyes? ”
“Tell me, on a scale from zero to alcoholic coma, how much did you drink?”
“Less than you might imagine.”
“You wouldn’t know it from looking at you.”
“That’s because I can’t hold my liquor.”
“It does seem that way,” I answer. “Wait for me, I’m coming over.”
“Where are you expecting me to go?” I hear him grumble as I hop over the wall to meet him.
I kneel down at his side and examine him. “If you know you can’t handle alcohol, why did let yourself get like this?”
“Do you know the Brooks twins?” he begins in a thick voice, his eyes slowly opening and closing.
I nod. Who doesn’t know them? With their olive complexions, green eyes, and long wavy black hair, they’re probably the most sought-after girls at Oregon State.
“Well, they promised to spend an entire weekend with whoever could do a keg stand for the longest.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That’s it?”
He frowns and looks at me like I’m an alien. “I’m sorry, did you not understand what I said? An entire weekend. With them. With the Brooks twins.”
I shake my head in resignation. “You’re an idiot. You all are, in fact. You let yourselves get duped.”
“What are you talking about…?”
“None of you were ever going to spend the weekend with them,” I say simply, pulling some of the dried leaves out of his hair.
“But, they said…they…”
“Mm-hmm” I nod, humoring him. “They always say. And then you, you knuckle-dragging troglodytes with sawdust for brains, you always fall for it.”
“Ah, I’m still too drunk to keep up with you, Little Gem, but I think you’re right. They made fools of us.” He chuckles, rubbing his face.
We stay silent for a while, sinking into the quiet that surrounds us.
Beyond the wall, the sounds of the party are far away.
All we can hear is the wind in the trees and the faint sound of blink-182’s “First Date” coming from the frat house.
The damp night air forces me to roll the sleeves of Thomas’s sweatshirt down until they drape over my fingers.
I wrap myself in the soft, heavy fabric.
Then, my thoughts turn right back to Thomas and that hateful burning feeling starts up in my eyes again.
I’d like to leave because the urge to cry is getting overwhelming, but I don’t feel good about leaving Vince alone, especially under these circumstances.
He taps me on the arm with his index finger, and when I turn to look at him, his eyes are still half closed. “You wanna talk about it? I’m drunk but I’m still a really good listener.”
I’m so worn out that it takes me a few seconds to even understand what he’s talking about. “There’s not much to say.”
“I know that lunkheaded clown too well to give much weight to the things he says when he’s angry.”
I shrug, letting out a shaky sigh. “I’m trying not to, but it’s too hard sometimes.”
“Did you argue about a guy? That Logan dude?”
I pull my knees up to my chest, resting my chin on top of them. “You know him?”
He nods sleepily. “More or less.”
“You might not know, but the two of us dated for a little while. And Thomas never liked him,” I explain as I twist some blades of grass between my fingers.
“When I broke things off with Logan, he tried to change my mind. It’s kind of a complicated story, honestly, and I feel confused every time I think about it.
In the end, Thomas and Logan got in a physical fight.
Actually, that happens just about every time they get within a few feet of each other. ”
“Little Gem, far be it from me to stick my nose into things that are none of my business, but I think you should listen to Thomas.”
I look at him and scowl. “I should let Thomas’s jealousy interfere with my academic career? That’s not how a relationship is supposed to work.”
“True enough. But that Logan guy has weird vibes. Feels like he’s hiding something, something big. I wouldn’t want my girlfriend to hang out with someone like that either.”
“‘Someone like that’? There’s nothing wrong with Logan, I can assure you,” I say defensively, wiping my dirty fingers on the fabric of my leggings.
“Oh, come on, haven’t you noticed how he’s always by himself and doesn’t talk to anyone? Nobody knows anything about him. And he’s not on social media at all; doesn’t that strike you as suspicious?”
“Not having socials doesn’t make a person weird, Vince,” I say in an irritated mutter.
“But not having friends does,” he insists.
“He’s just an introvert. So am I. Since when did being a private sort of person become a crime?
And he does have interpersonal relationships.
He and I dated for a while, for example.
And I know for a fact that he does have friends,” I add, thinking back on the roommate he plays Call of Duty with and the guy he went to pick up when his car broke down.
“Hey, I wasn’t trying to upset you. Just keep your head on a swivel, okay? Thomas is an asshole, but he’s not actually stupid. If he wants you to stay away from Logan, he probably has his reasons,” he answers, yawning with a relaxed air.
“His ‘reasons’ don’t hold up. He’s just jealous, and that’s okay; I understand that. I mean, I would be too. But…”
“Jealousy is one thing; concern is another.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Just what I said. And maybe what I shouldn’t have said. Shit, I’m too drunk for this conversation.”
“Do you know something that I don’t?” I press him. But he doesn’t answer me. “Vince, spill!”
“No, nothing, just…trust him. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Do you mean Thomas? Is he doing something behind my back? Vince, if there’s something I don’t know, I demand you tell me!”
“Stop trying to weasel information out of the drunk guy. You…you just be careful, okay?” he slurs as he rolls onto his side and curls into a fetal position.
“Be careful of what? Of Logan?” I’m getting increasingly nervous as I get no response from him. “Vince! What are you trying to tell me? Is Logan ‘homicidal maniac’ bad or ‘shoplifts candy’ bad? Because there’s a pretty big difference between those two things.”
No answer again. I give him a vehement shake but to no avail. Apparently, he’s passed out. I am left with my mouth hanging open, speechless, heart thumping, and, frankly, slightly nauseous.
What the hell does all of this mean?