Twenty-Six
Twenty-Six
When I get out of the Uber, I’m surprised by the number of people both inside and outside the frat house.
Many more than usual. I guess today’s game went well, even without Thomas.
I walk down the sidewalk, ignoring the chaos around me, from the empty cups scattered on the grass to the small group of shirtless boys who, despite it being the end of November, are running around throwing cups full of beer on each other.
Shana’s here too, of course. She leans on the doorjamb, grinning at me as she nibbles on the rim of the plastic cup she’s holding.
I try to look indifferent, pretending she doesn’t even exist. But, as I pass her, she exclaims, “Uh-oh! Trouble in paradise?” I don’t pay attention to her.
I shoulder past her hard, now that I have the chance to return the favor.
I walk into the house and look around for Thomas, but all the people crammed together make it hard to see.
I spot the figure of Vince in the distance.
He’s in the kitchen with some girls who are sitting on the table while he pours drinks directly into their mouths.
I take a step toward them, but my path is blocked by a tall muscular guy.
He’s wearing light-wash jeans with rips in the knees and a completely unbuttoned plaid shirt.
His eyes are red, and like everyone else here, he seems to have had at least one too many.
He smiles at me. But the way he does it, I don’t like at all.
“Sorry, I need to get through,” I say, glancing nervously at the surrounding crowd, hoping to spot Thomas there.
“There’s nothing interesting over there.” He smirks, head cocked to one side, and takes a few steps closer to me. “You here alone?”
“No.”
Ignoring my answer, he gets even closer to me, and I feel a lump beginning to form in my throat. “My boyfriend is somewhere in here,” I iterate. “So if you’ll excuse me…” I raise both eyebrows, gesturing for him to make room and get out of my way. But he doesn’t.
“Why don’t you tell me your name? You’re gorgeous,” he continues lewdly, trying to grab me by the hips.
I push out my hands to stop him from getting any closer and step aside, bumping into someone else’s back.
Suddenly, another boy emerges and joins the first, playfully wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling him away from me.
“Dude, what are you doing?” the second guy shouts in the first’s ear, trying to be heard over the music.
“I’m having a good time; isn’t that what we’re here for?” the asshole replies, staring hungrily at my legs.
His friend raises a red cup to his lips, looks carefully at me, and shakes his head. “Not with her, trust me. Let’s get some air.”
I narrow my eyes to slits. I’m not sure what that was about, but I feel a sickly sensation growing inside me at the thought of that guy going on to harass someone less fortunate than I am.
The perv protests a little bit but eventually allows himself to be pulled away.
Only then do I start breathing again. I shut my eyes and try to remind myself why I’m here again.
When I open them, I walk into the kitchen and touch Vince’s shoulder to get his attention.
Luckily he, at least, isn’t drunk. I ask him where Thomas is, and he tells me that as soon as they got here, Thomas went upstairs.
I thank him hurriedly and rush up to Thomas’s room.
I push open the door and find him at the foot of his bed, his back pressed into the mattress and both feet planted on the floor. His eyes are glued to the ceiling, and he has what appears to be a joint between his fingers. “If I wanted to see you, I’d have answered your call, don’t you think?”
I close the door and approach him. “You left before I had a chance to explain.”
“I don’t wanna hear your explanations,” he replies, sitting up and taking a hit off the joint. “Look where they got you.”
I shake my head. “I don’t regret the choice I made or where it’s gotten me. I’d do it again, a thousand times, because it was what I wanted. You can’t blame me for that.”
“I absolutely can. Is it possible that you actually don’t see it? What, do you enjoy ruining your life, or are you just too stupid to understand when you’ve got a problem right in front of your face? I mean, what more do you need before you finally get that I’m not good for you?”
My brow furrows. “Are you the same guy who showed up drunk to dinner with my mother just now? The one who begged me to tell him that I was still his girlfriend?”
He glances quickly at me. His eyes are cold and foggy.
“That was bullshit, actually. Never listen to a drunk.” He pauses.
He stubs out the joint at the bottom of an ashtray next to him on the mattress and then continues: “I should have let you go, just like you asked. In fact, that’s what I should’ve done at the beginning, but instead I got myself trapped in this thing , and now everything is fucked. ”
“Why, Thomas? Why are you saying this?”
“Because it’s the truth. I’m a problem. I always have been, and I’m not going to stop being one just because you’re in my life. You have to understand that—I mean really understand it.”
I kneel down on the floor, resting my hands on his thighs. “Is that what has been torturing you? Awareness of what you are and fear of how it could affect the people around you?”
“I’m not afraid of what I am. I’m afraid that you aren’t.
It scares me that you’re so delusional that you actually believe that you can change me, that this thing between you and me could possibly end well!
It scares me that whatever it is that makes you want to be with me also makes you accept all my bullshit, all my disrespect, all my freak-outs.
But what scares me most of all is that every single time, you’re ready to rationalize my behavior.
To defend me and forgive all my screwups.
To choose me even over your own family. That scares the shit out of me.
Because I am a time bomb, and you just keep holding on to me like a lunatic, waiting to blow yourself up.
Do you want to end up like my fucking mother?
Because if that’s your plan, I’m telling you, you’re on the right track! ”
The cruelty of his words twists my stomach. But I force myself to take it. “Don’t be absurd, Thomas. You would never do to me what your father did to her; how can you even think that?”
“Do you think that when she met him, she had any idea the kind of man he would turn into? No. No woman ever does. Do you know how she ended up trapped in a marriage with a man who beat her? By rationalizing. Forgiving him. And then before she knew it, she opened her eyes one day and it was too late. A person’s nature doesn’t change, and I refuse to change for you. ”
I shake my head, rubbing my temples. “Thomas…you can’t…
you can’t seriously believe that. Don’t you see that the mere fact of you recognizing the risk of the situation repeating itself makes you different from your father?
You are going through a hard time right now, and yes, on more than a few occasions, you have been at your worst. You do things that I don’t agree with, and that does hurt me, but it doesn’t make you a monster. ”
He snorts, lowering his gaze. And as he turns the joint over in his hands, he whispers, “You’re still doing it. Still rationalizing what I do.”
“You’re wrong. I’m not rationalizing. But I won’t let your brain trick you into believing something that isn’t true. Your father’s death has clearly thrown you off-balance, but—”
“My father’s death is not the problem! The problem is us!
I was selfish with you. Petty. A total bastard.
I took out my frustrations on you, forced you watch the ‘Thomas is a failure’ show every fucking day for the last two weeks.
I kept you with me even when I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do.
And despite all my shit, the drinking, the drugs…
you stick with me. Why? Why are you doing this? ”
“Because you’re my boyfriend, Thomas. I can’t just turn my back on you when you’re having trouble. That’s not in my nature.”
“Is it in your nature to just accept it all?”
“No. You know it isn’t.”
“Then why the fuck do you keep doing it?” He throws his arms out wide in frustration.
“Because I love you!” It escapes from me like some kind of release, and I’m the first to be shocked by it.
Thomas’s face contorts into a mixture of upset and denial. Silence reigns for a handful of seconds before he demands, “What did you say?”
Not without hesitation, I reach for his face in the hopes of touching his cheek, and I repeat stubbornly, “I love you.”
It’s the last bit of fuse before everything explodes in our faces.
Thomas grabs both my wrists and tosses them away.
The enraged look he gives me tears a chasm in my chest. “You’ve fallen in love with me?
” he hisses, his mouth twisting into a disgusted sneer.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he bursts out, leaping to his feet while I stay kneeling on the floor, staring into the void ahead of me with a lost look.
“I just finished telling you how dangerous I am to you, and this is what you say to me?”
I don’t answer him; I can’t. I’m too stupefied by his reaction to say anything at all.
“No one said anything about love,” he continues, almost to himself.
“I started all this by fucking you every now and then because I felt like it. Because you were there and easy. Then I let myself get drawn into this ridiculous relationship that is constantly foundering, all because you kept throwing tantrums like a spoiled little girl. But no one ever said anything about love or any of that shit! It’s honestly pathetic that you could even think that. ”