Back To You (30 page)

Since I had driven myself that day because Carrie had a final, I had to drive myself back.  I was numb.  I had to ask God why He would allow me to conceive if He was just going to take it from me.  When I got to the room, I called to make an appointment for the abortion.  I called Chaz.  Then I called my pr
ofessor.  The good news was that I would be able to have the abortion.  The bad news was that I was going to have to deal with it all until after we got back from London.  I finally called Mom and told her everything.  She couldn’t come up on such short notice because of work, but she was there for me in her heart. 

London was amazing.  I was able to forget my troubles for a few hours here and there while I absorbed the living breathing hist
ory I had been reading about for so long.  My professor was always there, making sure that I was eating and resting.  My friends hovered until I told them to go and enjoy themselves.  That trip was beyond all of my expectations in so many ways.

Three days after we got back, my professor showed up to drive me to Atlanta. 
She made Chaz ride with us.  I sat in the front seat while he sat in the back, dozing on the way.  It was a wet drizzly day.  I will not ever forget that because my heart was beating right along with the slapping windshield wipers.  The two of them sat in the waiting room as I filled out paperwork, went to a “counseling” session and waited my turn.  I looked at the others who were there.  Some of the women were scared, some acted like it was just another day in the park.  I was sedated just enough to not feel the ordeal, but not enough that I didn’t hear the awful suction sound of my baby as it was taken out of my body.  In recovery, I was silent.  My brain was going crazy to the point that I was totally blanking out.  When they walked me out to the room where Chaz and my professor waited, I had no words to say.  I fell into the open arms of the woman who had taken me into her life like her own.  It was quiet on the way back to Macon.  My professor held my hand here and there when she could tell I winced in pain, whether emotional or physical.  She was my guardian angel that day.

When we got back to the apartment, there was a plant wai
ting for me from Mom.  Not flowers, because flowers die.  A plant because I could love it and nurture it and keep it alive.  The one thing I couldn’t do for my baby.

I had hoped that Chaz would be there for me that night.  But
his friend come into town and wanted to go out with him.  He left me alone to deal with my demons.  Carrie called to check up on me.  When she heard that Chaz had left me to go out with friends, she promptly came over and took me back to her apartment (she and another girl had gotten an apartment for the summer too).  Lisa had been with us in London so she knew what was going on.  She rented a tear jerker movie.  Carrie knew that I didn’t cry easily.  And she knew that I would make myself sick trying to be strong through this.  She had seen me do it a couple of times.  So with my favorite blanket, I sat on her couch watching “Dying Young” and bawling my eyes out.  We had plenty of chips and chocolate.  I had everything a girl could ever want when faced with tragedy, except the guy who should have been there and wasn’t.  Oddly, it wasn’t Chaz I wanted to hold me.

I
knew I couldn’t be with Chaz anymore.  By the end of the summer, I was through.  He had raped me, got me pregnant, and abandoned me when I needed him most.  My body might have healed from the ordeal, but my heart and mind had not.  I wasn’t sure I would ever heal.

My hormones were still out of whack.  The cysts conti
nued. I went to a gynecologist.  When I had the abortion, I was given a shot for the RH negative thing.  When I saw the doctor, I understood what the RH negative thing meant.  Supposedly, I could have one child or be pregnant once without having trouble carrying the baby.  But I would have needed the shot afterward to safely have another pregnancy.  Basically, I shouldn’t have had trouble carrying my baby unless I had been… 

T
hen I realized that I may very well have been pregnant before.  Just once.  And I lost it when I bled through all of my clothes and bedding.  When I had thought the world was wonderful and Jack was back in my life.  I lost him the same time I lost his child.  I could never tell a soul about that.  It hurt too much to even think I had his child in me for such a brief time.

Since it seemed that I had probably lost two children a
lready, I resigned myself into believing that I would not be able to have children.  I got on the pill to correct the hormone imbalance and to help ensure that I never had to go through this again.

Perhaps God knew what He was doing after all.  I didn’t have room in my life for children if I was going to go after the brass ring, right?  It was a small bit of hope in the middle of a huge mess.  I could trust only myself. 
Men had only brought me heartache and pain.  From this point, I was going to focus on one thing.  Me.

C
hapter 26

The first semester of my senior year flew by.  I made the President’s list.  I was on fire.  I was driven.  I did everything in my power to focus every bit of energy on school and work.  I had no time for men.  I didn’t have the time or energy to put into a relationship.  I was shocked at how many of my friends planned to get married after graduation.  The most shocking thought was that we had reached an age that it was expected for us to start thinking about forever.  People didn’t laugh and tell us the love we felt was just a crush anymore.  Only, I didn’t feel any love and forever was just a word.

Carrie was a Resident Assistant that year, so I had the room to myself.  I had my papasan chair in the corner so I could look out of my window and see the
small lake while I studied.  I bought pink bedding and allowed myself to indulge in a few things for myself.  After all, this was the first time I had a place of my own.  Of course, I still shared a bathroom with Kate, but she was gone most of the time.  I took long hot baths when I needed a break.  I slept about seven hours every night and ate three meals a day.  I didn’t have time for stress.  I couldn’t waste time worrying about anything.  I got up each morning in robot mode.  No time for emotion.  If I felt one emotion, I would have to feel them all, and I couldn’t afford the time to do that.

I went home for Christmas.  I saw my friends.  I wo
ndered with Megan about the path that our lives were going.  I took a long hard look around my house, my hometown, my life and knew, just as I knew the summer before I left for college, that everything was about to change.  Once again, I found a way to say goodbye in my heart, braced myself for new beginnings and started my new year with hugs from my favorite people in the world.  Even Jack saw me across the room at Augustine’s and came over to give me a hug.

Somehow we ended up spending most of the night tal
king.  I asked if he regretted the way we left things.  He said he had never regretted anything more.  He told me how he had wanted to pick up the phone and call me so many times just to say he was sorry, but he just couldn’t.  When the bar closed, we sat in his car to talk some more.  He held my hand while we talked until the sun began peeking above the horizon.  Just talk.  Nothing else.

*****

Jack couldn’t believe his eyes.  He never thought Suzy could ever be more beautiful than the last time he saw her.  When she slapped him for being such an asshole.  He was wrong.  She stood there laughing and talking to friends that they both knew.  Honestly, Jack was surprised she was there.  He knew she stayed in Macon over the summer.  He figured she wouldn’t come back to this small town.  She was on her way to greatness. 
Why did she have to come back? 
He couldn’t bear to see her and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. 

He didn’t want her to see him.  He just wanted to look at her smiling face and think that she was perfectly happy.  He didn
’t want to ruin that.  He desperately wanted to tell her how sorry he was for being such a jerk.  He wanted her to know that it hurt him to the core to let her go, to give her the freedom to be everything she should be, to have the chance to meet someone who can give her everything she deserved.

But when the sound of everyone counting down the New Year and Auld Lang Syne began playing, he just had to know if she could forgive him.  If she would allow him to hold her just one more time.  It took every ounce of courage he had to walk up to her.  She turned to look at him with the strangest look in her eyes and walked right into his arms.  He was consumed with her warmth, her scent, the way she fit perfectly as he held her a m
oment too long.  They sat at a table and talked.  And talked.  And talked.

Jack was mesmerized by the stories she could tell, how her eyes lit up as she talked about school and her friends.  They talked in his car.  He had always loved hearing the sound of her voice.  Jack wasn’t sure when he took her hand in his, but he knew that he wan
ted this.  To talk.  To be connected to her.  He told her how horrible he felt about the last time they were together, how he didn’t like his job so much, how he wanted to go back to school but didn’t know what he wanted to study.  He wanted to tell her everything.  Everything except how hard it had been to get her off his mind, how he wished they had a chance at forever, how he wanted to be the man who could give her everything.  But Jack knew that before he had any chance with Suzy at all, he had to find himself first, had to make himself worthy.  Right now, he was far from that.

Neither of them
was tired as they watched the sun make its way into the crisp winter sky.  They drove to a local breakfast place and ate together.  She laughed at how horrible she must have looked, but Jack thought she looked perfect.  She was going back to Georgia the next day, and he wanted to soak up what little time he could.

*****

I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend the last remaining moments of a year of turmoil.  Or a better way to ring in a new year.  Neither of us made any promises to write or call each other.  I had asked God for one last gift before I said goodbye, and He gave me the best gift of all.  He gave me my best friend, my soul mate, for one last goodbye.  It still always amazed me how strong the connection was between us.  How drawn I was to him and his smile.  How his touch sent a shock of electricity through me.

I had a lot to think about on the trip back to Georgia.  This time I didn’t have anyone carpooling, so it was just me and
a million of my thoughts.  And really loud music.  I was excited to start the final semester of school, one that promised to be a little bit easier than the semester I had just survived.  I was anxious to learn what life had in store for me after I walked the stage and got both of my diplomas.  I was sad to know that Wesleyan would no longer be my home.  And I was relieved that the hole that Jack had left inside my heart was a little better.  Perhaps I was ready to let him go.  Our issues resolved, closure obtained.  No matter how much I still loved him.  Every writer and musician in the world knows that in order to really experience life, you must experience love.  And loss. Just like the movie that triggered our break-up six years earlier.

I started the semester running and didn’t stop. 
The week before graduation, I was beginning to pack my things when I heard “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Raitt.  It stopped me in my tracks.  I had to sit in my papasan chair.  It was a rainy spring night.  Before I knew what was happening, tears were streaming down my face.  Everything I had ever felt for Jack hit me all at once.  I curled up in a ball and cried until I fell asleep.  When I woke up, the rain had stopped.  It was about three am.  I grabbed my shoes and went for a walk to clear my head.  It was one last chance for me to say goodbye and get him out of my system.  No looking back now, Suzy, I told myself.

Someone left a note on my door while I was gone.
  My friend Jessie was dating a handsome older guy that lived in the area.  Well, it wasn’t “dating”.  It was casual sex with someone she would never see again after graduation.  I had met him a couple of times in the hall with Jessie.  He knew which door was mine because Jessie had left me several notes on my dry erase board with him around.  I grinned when I saw his note.

“Hi beautiful!  Call me sometime.  Da
le."  He left his number.

It was a point of no return.
  And exactly what I needed.

*****

Jack was moving back to his parents’ house.  He was enrolling to take some summer classes and needed a place that didn’t cost so much.  His parents were happy to have him home.  They would do anything for him.  He was ready to start over.  New beginnings.  He didn’t have many personal things he was attached to, but he had a small box of things no one knew about.  Pictures, little souvenirs from places he had visited, a silly gift Randy had given him for his eighteenth birthday, some Mardi Gras beads from last year to remind him that he couldn’t remember a thing about the entire weekend.  He sat on the bed to look through the box, smiling at the memories.  At the bottom of the box was a picture of Suzy, Randy and himself at their high school graduation.  He ran his thumb over the picture like he would run it across her cheek.  She was probably on her way to Boston or New York by now.  He put everything back into the box and went back to packing.

*****

Graduation was a week long process at a place like Wesleyan.  Both my mom and my dad came to see me graduate.  And they actually got along.  Chaz showed up and gave me a big hug, telling me how proud he was.  Dale was even there.

N
othing affected me more than the moment the dean put my diploma in my hands.  The world opened its doors to me.  I had done it!  Two degrees, my ticket to a great and amazing life full of success and happiness.  I could leave my past behind me and move on to something bigger, something better.

After
the ceremony, I still had to pack up my room.  I wanted to stay in Macon for the summer and work.  The dean needed someone to house sit for her and offered the basement apartment to me to live in for free.  Did it get any better than that?  I was surprised at how much stuff I had accumulated over four years.  One box was nothing but pictures and trinkets.  I still had the purple box and the Precious Moments figurine with the girl at the typewriter Jack had given to me.  And the picture of Jack, Randy and I at graduation.  I closed up the box, letting the past wash over me for just a moment.  As the last box went to the car and I swept away all traces of my existence in that room, I closed another chapter of my life.

*****

Jack worked at his parent’s yogurt shop through summer, hoping it would be the last summer he had to spend there.  After spending New Year’s Eve listening to Suzy and her plans for the future, he started really thinking about where he wanted to be. 
Or maybe the phrase was “what he wanted to be when he grew up”,
he thought with a chuckle.

Living at home with his parents might have seemed like a step backwards, but he had things planned.  Classes to get his assoc
iates degree to start, then maybe on to a four year degree to begin with.  He still talked to some old friends, but for the most part he practiced on the guitar and wrote new songs in his free time.

In July, he posted an ad in the local paper to get a band together.  He figured
he would never be famous, but a guy could dream.  In the meantime, he just wanted to find a night gig at Augustine’s or something. 
Extra money and playing his music in front of people?  Awesome!

H
e managed to get a bass player, a decent drummer and a back up guitarist.  All he needed was a front man.  Jack knew he didn’t sing well enough in front of people to keep them coming back.  Music might bring people in, but a great lead singer would really hook them.  He learned that from Van Halen.  He wasn’t expecting Alexis to knock his socks off at all.  In fact, he almost laughed when she asked if she could audition.  Jack wanted people to take his music seriously.  He wanted grit and depth, not a bunch of “girlie pop crap”.  But he changed his tune when Alexis belt out the vocals to one of his favorite Metallica songs.  She was exactly what he needed.

They
rehearsed for a couple of months until they had enough songs together to play on a live music night at Augustine’s.  The owner had known Jack for so long by then, he was excited to have him play.  They “wowed the crowd”!  They still hadn’t decided on a name that suited.  They figured that would come in time, a brilliant flash of imagination or something like that.  Until then, they brainstormed to find something simple, catchy, classy and appropriate for heavy metal.

Jack often thought about Suzy and how she inspired him to make something of his life.  He finished a couple of classes and rea
lized it wasn’t so bad in college.  He lived the dream life of a guy in his early 20’s.  Single, gaining popularity in the town, dates when he felt like it, and the chance to play his music in public.  He put everything he had into playing his music.  When he was done with a set, he felt free.  Like a weight was lifted, his clouded mind cleared, his heart pounding with happiness and pride.

Jack’s mom needed him to go by the florist’s to pick up some flower arrangements she ordered for the family reunion they were hosting.  When he entered the store, he stopped
mid-step.  In front of him were the most stunning roses he had ever seen.  In a flash, he remembered the silk box he had picked out for Suzy on their seventeenth birthday.  The silk was a really light lavender, almost grey.  The embroidered flowers were roses that were similar in color with a bit of darker purple around the edges.  The moment he saw the box, he knew it was perfect for her.  She looked amazing in pink, but when she wore purple, she glowed.  She had this one shirt that she wore in high school that made her eyes look so green...
Stop it!
  He said to himself.

The owner of the shop came up to Jack.  “Well, hi Jack!  Haven’t seen you in ages!  How have you been?”

“Hey Miss Linda.  I am all right.  Nothing too exciting to talk about.”