London

37 - "I think we're through, done."

Alex

"What?" I ask him just to be sure.

"It might be good to talk to him. When we last discussed him you told me yourself that you were scared to text him back, because it might mean a lot to you if he'd gone back to Palas for you."

"Well, yes, obviously."

"Why is that obvious?"

"Because he meant a lot to me, and New Year's Eve did too."

"That was when you decided to move forward with him, right?" He asks, looking through his notes. 

"Yes," I answer, not letting myself go back to that moment. When we first discussed Thomas I realized it was hard, just like it is hard to think about him right now. 

"Just like you were about to do right now."

"Yes, so why would I call him back? I was going to call Harry."

"Because I think you need to know why he wants to stay in touch with you. You were spare with your words about it him, but you were clear about that fact that he's too good for you. That's probably also why you didn't properly fought for him. You thought that you could let him go so easily because you didn't love him enough, but it might be because you can't believe someone like him might love you. That's why meeting him again and living around him was much easier than it was with Harry. You never gave him a second chance and protected yourself from him."

"I did try to kiss him later on though," I tell him, reminding myself from that embarrassing moment in my apartment in Palas where I tried to kiss Thomas, but he refused.

"And what would have happened if he kissed you back?"

"I don't know," I mumble, feeling the walls that doctor Collins described coming up when I think of Thomas. 

I know he's only trying to make me see different sides of every story, just like he wants me to think positive of my mother, but I do find it difficult to think I had so much control over everything that went wrong in my life. That if I handled one thing differently, or someone else, I might not even be sitting here.

"He probably didn't do it because your ex was in town, someone he had trouble with already. He also had a girlfriend if I recall correctly."

"He told me later that he wanted to kiss me," I remember, and this is new information to Collins. It seems to excite him, although it is only visible because his lips curl up a little bit. 

"Did he tell you why he didn't?"

"No, but I can imagine it had to do with the fact that he also knew we were a lost cause."

"Or that he believed you'd never return to England and that was the only thing he needed from you?"

Once that was exactly what I thought. When I'd been embarrassed after I'd thrown myself at him. I believed that getting back with Harry was impossible and that I still felt just as much at home with Thomas as I once did with Harry, but that I could never give him what he needed. Only months later I left Palas to live with Harry. Was that the wrong decision?

"You are playing with my feelings. I don't like it," I say, standing up and shoving my phone inside my pocket. "Me and Thomas are history. He came back to Palas to end it on a better note than we left it with. There was no indication that he wanted to get back with me then, nor is there now. So why let me think about him in that way? For fuck's sake, I'm just coming to terms with the fact that maybe Harry and I don't have a future no matter how hard I work on myself. That all I did was make mistake on mistake on mistake."