Twenty-Five #3
Remembering the things Thomas said to me that night when he opened up completely for me, I feel sorrow tightening my throat until it’s hard to breathe. “You’d never look at me the same again. You’d see me for what I am. And what I am, Ness? You wouldn’t like it at all.”
And I promised him that wouldn’t happen. I promised him that I would stay. I let out a miserable sigh and hold his face in my hands, but before I can tell him anything, a voice interrupts us.
“Vanessa, darling, where have you been? You didn’t even take the car keys…”
Oh, no.
No, no, no, no.
“Shit,” Thomas whispers, squeezing his eyes shut.
“M-Mom.” I emerge from behind the gazebo and watch her expression shift when she realizes that Thomas is there with me.
“Oh. You’re here,” she says, with no enthusiasm but, strangely enough, without too much hostility either.
“Actually, he was just leaving,” I say quickly, rubbing my hands on my skirt.
“He’s leaving? Did he come all this way just to leave?
Don’t be silly, Vanessa. Come on, let’s go inside.
The plates have arrived, and the three of us have things to discuss.
” A wave of panic washes over me, but then, suddenly, the noise of a car horn rings out in the plaza.
We all turn to look at the BMW, which is producing the noise, and Vince gestures for Thomas to come with him.
Thank you, Vince, for jumping in at the right moment.
“Something came up unexpectedly and I can’t stay any longer,” Thomas explains to my mother.
“I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“No, nothing serious,” he answers immediately, running a hand through his hair and tilting his face downward.
She frowns and, looking almost worried, asks, “You look awful; are you feeling all right?”
“Um, yeah,” Thomas says, trying to disguise his slurring voice as much as possible. “Just a little nausea. I get carsick.”
I hold my breath, hoping with every fiber of my being that my mother believes this and lets him go as quickly as possible. But, from the way she’s eyeing him, I can tell that she isn’t even kind of buying Thomas’s lie.
My mother advances upon us with an eerie calm. The closer she gets, the more furiously her eyes burn and the faster my heart beats. She examines Thomas from top to bottom before saying, disgust clear in her voice, “Since when does motion sickness smell like liquor?”
“Mom!”
But she shuts me up with the point of a finger. “Quiet!” she hisses venomously. “I asked you a question, boy,” she continues, positioning herself just a few inches from his face. The dizzying stilettos she wears allow her to almost match Thomas’s height.
He doesn’t answer; he just stares icily back at her.
“I can’t believe this!” my mother explodes, turning purple. “I was right about you from the start. You’re just a pathetic delinquent!” Her voice is sharp, each syllable a cruel strike.
“Now you’re going overboard!” I move in front of Thomas, facing my mother firmly. “You have no right to talk to him like that!” I realize that finding her daughter’s boyfriend—whom she already hated on sight—drunk isn’t great. But I’m not going to let her disrespect him right in front of me.
“Enough, Ness,” Thomas scolds me sharply while my mother looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Are you defending him? I’m so disappointed in you, Vanessa.
This”—she looks him up and down in repudiation—“this societal reject that you insist upon associating with has completely brainwashed you! It seems like you can’t even tell right from wrong anymore.
Travis never would have acted like this!
He would never, ever embarrass you like—”
“Are you still talking about him?” I interrupt, digging my hands into my hair. “Are you ever going to be able to accept that he was a jerk?”
“You cannot tell me that this is what you want for yourself! Spending your life with a drunk who can barely stand up? Having to make up lies to explain his tardiness when he’s too drunk to show up on time for a simple dinner with your mother?
That is not how I raised you! That is not what I taught you!
” I see her hand fly into the air, but with quicker reflexes than I was expecting, Thomas grabs my mother’s arm just before her palm collides violently with my face for a second time.
“Don’t you dare,” he says clearly and angrily.
I observe this scene in shock, my heart beating wildly.
“My daughter made a huge mistake with you. The biggest mistake of her life!” she spews at him. “She gave up everything she had for you, and this is how you repay her? You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he says, surly even as he releases his grip on her wrist.
She gives him a shocked look, eyebrows raised. “Are you kidding?”
“Mom, please just stop !” My legs are trembling at the idea of Thomas learning the truth.
But she ignores my pleading, unleashing all her anger instead. “What do you think is the reason for our estrangement? It’s you, of course. When I gave her a choice, she picked you and threw everything else away!”
Silence descends.
“I didn’t know that,” he admits, troubled. “Is that true?” he adds, turning to look at me, disappointment plain on his face.
My heart pounds faster and faster; I can feel my cheeks burning. “Thomas…” I murmur, my voice trembling.
“Oh, don’t pretend you were in the dark about this,” she continues furiously as Thomas and I just keep staring at each other as if we are the only two people in existence.
The words are stuck in my throat. My eyes beg him tearfully not to let her get in his head. He gives me nothing but dismay in return.
Meanwhile, in the background, my mother just continues her rant.
“My daughter left home to be with an animal like you. You’ve wrecked her life, deluded her into thinking you could offer her things you’ll never really be able to give her!
My daughter was happy before you. Carefree!
Look at her now! Do you see what you’ve done to her? ” She waves her arms like a madwoman.
Hearing these words, Thomas visibly surrenders. As if they have affected him more than he wants to let on. As if, in reality, all my mother has done is give voice to his own darkest thoughts. So he turns and leaves.
I don’t think twice before I run after him.
“Vanessa, come back here!” my mother yells, in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
“Shut up!” I answer, not even bothering to turn around. And before Thomas can get the car door open, I grab him by the back of his shirt and block his way. “Let me explain!”
“There’s nothing to explain. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have done a lot of the things that I did.” He sighs and looks back at my mother, chewing on the corner of his lip. “Go back to her. Your mother is right; you’ve deluded yourself, and it’s my fault for letting you.”
“What? No…no, she’s not right. She said all those nasty things just because she hates you! Don’t fall for it!”
He moves his hand over his mouth and then his jaw, sighing. “Is what she said true? Am I the reason you left home? That you put your education at risk?”
I don’t understand anything anymore. Panic strangles me. This is all happening too fast. “I–It wasn’t just about you. She wanted to control my life. All my choices, Thomas.”
“And was I one of them?”
I put my hands in my hair and then pull them out again. “Not in the way you’re thinking!”
“Yeah, but still! I don’t want to be the reason you end up homeless or without a mother or unable to fucking study!”
“What was I supposed to do?”
Thomas goggles at me. “You were supposed to listen to her! We’re not in one of your fucking romance novels, where you can blow up your whole life for a fucking crush!
If you have to give up everything to be with me, I don’t want you!
” He shouts it into my face with an intensity that paralyzes me.
Then he turns his back on me and climbs back into the car.
A moment later, Vince, visibly embarrassed, starts the car, and they drive away.
I stand there, watching the car disappear as Thomas’s words echo in my ears.
Behind me, I also hear that Victor’s come out of the restaurant.
He asks my mother what’s going on, and I hear her rambling.
I blink and break out of the catatonic state I’ve been in.
The anger I feel toward my mother dominates all my other emotions—enough to make me fight back.
I turn my stare on the woman who gave life to me and now seems to take a ghoulish pleasure in trying to ruin it for me. Then, I rush over to her.
“Are you happy?” My voice is shaking with fury.
She raises her chin proudly and shrugs her shoulders. The same shoulders that Victor rests his hands upon. “I would be much happier if I thought I opened your eyes once and for all. That boy is no good for you. Even he knows it.”
I exhale with an expression of disgust. This is pointless. It’s all pointless with her. “You’re always going to see him as the villain of the situation, aren’t you, Mom?”
“Not a villain. Just wrong. Wrong for you. It’s so obvious that I wonder how you don’t realize it yourself!”
“Why don’t we all try to calm down now?” Victor says, trying to de-escalate things, but I ignore him.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s wrong for me.
Or maybe I’m the one who’s wrong for him,” I say, turning to my mother.
“But just know that when you put me out on the street, he welcomed me into his home, ensuring I had a roof over my head when you had taken mine away from me! Just know that the only reason I am here tonight is because he convinced me to accept the stupid invitation. Because he wanted me to have a civil relationship with my mother again. Him, not me. He’s not perfect, I acknowledge that.
But neither am I. Neither are you. And you have no idea what he’s going through right now.
So don’t you dare talk about him like that ever again,” I warn her angrily as she stares at me in discomfort. “My evening ends here.”
I walk away with brisk strides, ignoring my mother’s insistent calls. And just when I think she’s about to come after me, I realize that Victor is holding her back. “Let her go; this isn’t where she wants to be right now,” I hear him say. I thank him mentally for stopping her.
I pull my phone out of my clutch and frantically call an Uber.
While I wait, I try to call Thomas. But it goes to voicemail on the second ring.
I call him again, but this time it goes straight to voicemail.
That’s not good. That’s not good at all.
I’m shaking, both from the cold and the anxiety.
I left my coat at the restaurant, but there’s no way I’m going back for it.
I just want to find Thomas and explain the situation, try to salvage what I can.
Because there is still something to be saved, I tell myself.
There has to be. Because he took a step tonight, coming back to me.
And I’m not going to let this second chance slip through my fingers because of my mother.
I call Vince, who, fortunately, answers immediately. There’s a giant racket in the background. Music, yelling. He’s at a party. He confirms it, telling me that he’s at Matt’s. And that’s exactly where I have the Uber driver take me.