Gina and Mike (6 page)

“It’s never going away,” said Mike, unzipping the blue sleeping bag. “Just like I’m never going away.”

Mike spread the sleeping bag out with the plaid liner facing up. He grabbed his T-shirt at his shoulders and pulled it over his head. There was just enough moonlight to see the ring of thorns that wrapped around his right bicep.

“Looks like the weight lifting is paying off,” I said, reaching out to touch his tattoo.

Mike sat down on the sleeping bag and held out his arm. “Come here.”

I sat down beside him. He brushed my hair off my face. “You’re so beautiful.”

I closed my eyes as he outlined my lips with his thumb.  I opened my mouth and his finger slipped inside and I playfully bite it and circled it with the tip of my tongue.

I tried to focus on Mike, his gorgeous, thick curls and beautiful smile. I ran my fingers through his hair and I heard him moan softly. I played with his ear and let my fingers trail down to his lips. I rubbed my fingers over his lips and down to his chin before I pulled his head toward me and found his soft lips. Playful kisses led to deep kisses and I felt the familiar tingle I hadn’t felt since before the rape. So far, so good. I rubbed my hand over Mike’s chest and down his arms. He slid his hands under my shirt, unhooked my bra and slipped my shirt over my head. We hugged bare chest against bare chest. He was warm and it felt good being next to his skin. I reached down to unzip his jeans.

“I’ll take care of this,” he said, and wiggled off his jeans and boxers. I saw his boxers in the moonlight and it sent me reeling back to the rape. His boxers were the same blue boxers Smith had worn. I could see the Fruit of the Loom tag
.
 

I was squirming on the cold vinyl floor. Tears flooded my face. The gag hurt my mouth. I felt the panic. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to escape but I didn’t know how. I could smell Coach Smith, the beer and stale smoke.  I could feel him tearing me apart inside. It hurt. I could hear his skin slapping mine as he rammed into me and told me how much I liked what he was doing.  I watched his hips move back and forth as he violated me.

Heavy sobs wracked my body and Mike held me in his arms. “It’s OK, Gina, baby. Everything’s OK. You’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you. No one’s going to hurt you.”

Mike got dressed and dressed me and kissed me on the forehead and we laid there on the sleeping bag under our tree.

“Gina,” Mike whispered after awhile. “It’s OK. We don’t have to try that again. I’m all right just laying here beside you and holding you.”

I’m not sure when I stopped sobbing that night. I cried for what I had lost. I cried because I felt that I would never be the same person I was before it all happened. Mostly, I cried because I realized that it was only a matter of time before I was going to leave Mike. He deserved better than what I was able to give him. I couldn’t be the girl he wanted me to be. That girl was gone.

Maybe forever.

****

Mike

I’m not sure what happened. Everything was going great. Gina seemed relaxed. I was letting her lead. I didn’t want to move too fast and then turn her off. After she unzipped my jeans, I took them off. That’s when Gina freaked. It was like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute she was all into it and the next minute she wasn’t.

I’ve never seen Gina act this way. Watching her was like watching a runaway train. It just keeps going and you feel so helpless because you know it’s going to crash and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it. And it’s the crash that I was worried about.  How bad will it be? The casualty count? About all I could do was hold Gina and let her sob.

I was beginning to wonder, though, if something sexual happened to Gina that she couldn’t talk about. There had to be some reason why she froze every time we got past kissing and touching. It’s about the only thing that made sense. Maybe something happened with J.R.  I knew they played tennis a lot and they didn’t seem to play as much lately.

I knew that Gina thought of J.R. as a brother but that he loved her and would like nothing more than for Gina to see him the way he saw her. No. It couldn’t be that. As much as I disliked J.R. I know that he would never hurt Gina. He cares too much about her.

I just couldn’t quite figure out what had happened, but I was beginning to see that if I loved Gina, I was going to have to let her go. I didn’t want to pressure her or make her feel crappy every time we tried to make out. I needed to let her go so she could figure out whatever the hell was going on. What’d she call it? Yeah, her wilderness. I needed to let her find the way out of her wilderness. I was pissed that she wasn’t letting me help her, but there was a part of me that knew that maybe Gina was right. She needed to do this alone. And I definitely didn’t want to make it more complicated and difficult than it already was.

****

Gina

It was a few weeks after graduation. The parties were over and senior week was history. Mom and Dad were out with friends and Mike came over to watch movies.  

Mike sat on the couch beside me. He took my hands in his and kissed each one. “You just don’t seem to trust me, Gina. I’ve tried. I’ve really tried. I’ve been patient and I’ve tried not to push you.  I didn’t even pressure you into having sex during senior week, which, by the way, was incredibly hard. Everyone else was screwing but us. But it’s not just the sex I miss. I miss you. The Gina I loved before this new Gina came into the picture. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know you anymore. You and I know that we can’t go on like this. I love you. I’ll always love you. But, what’s that you called it? Wilderness? You need to get out of that wilderness you’re in.”

Tears pooled in my eyes. Mike was right. I did have trust issues. I couldn’t trust anyone anymore – even him. After all, I had kind-of, sort-of trusted Smith and he betrayed that trust.

I bit my bottom lip and the tears came without being called. Mike handed me the box of tissues on the end table. I blew my nose and nodded. “You’re right.”

Mike sighed. “You’ve also become more and more withdrawn. You don’t want to go out much anymore, and you never tell me anything.”

I grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it. “You’re right. I need to get my head on straight. I’m sorry. This just isn’t working. I’m screwed up. I’ve been screwed up for awhile. I need to get unscrewed because I definitely don’t want to screw you up, too.”

Mike bolted up. “I didn’t mean that I wanted to break up, just that things have to change.”

“Things aren’t going to change until I change. And I’m not going to change because I can’t change. At least I haven’t been able to yet. I think it’s time that we break up. You deserve more than I can give you now. I’m sorry.”

Mike jumped off the couch and threw his arms in the air. “I can’t believe you’re throwing everything we had away. Just like that.”  He snapped his fingers. “That it didn’t mean anything to you.”

I stood up. “That’s not fair. It means everything to me. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

Mike grabbed my shoulders and his eyes bore into mine. “Gina, baby. Do you realize how incredibly stupid that sounds?”

“But it’s the truth. I need to work through some stuff.”

Mike threw his arms in the air again. “Yeah, stuff that you refuse to tell me about.”

I crossed my arms. “Right, stuff that’s mine and mine alone to work out. But it’s not that I don’t love you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Mike, I have always loved you and I always will. But sometimes loving someone means letting them go.”

Mike punched the air. “Fuck that, Gina. That’s a line of crap. When you love someone you trust them, you don’t keep things from them. When you love someone you want to spend the rest of your life with them. Not throw everything away that you worked so hard to build.”

“Fine. Then I don’t love you anymore,” I said.

As soon as I said it, I knew it was the answer. It was the only way. I think a part of me always knew it would come to this. My heart felt like glass being shattered into millions of pieces, and I knew that it would never be the same, that no matter how hard I’d try to put those pieces back together there would always be lost slivers.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me that,” Mike demanded. He grabbed me by the shoulders again and I looked into his eyes and watched as a deluge poured out of them and soaked his cheeks.

I swallowed hard. The only way this was going to work, that Mike was going to leave, was if he believed what I was telling him. And the only way to make him believe what I was telling him was to tell him a lie so good that I believed it myself. It would be the biggest lie that I ever told, but I would do it if it meant saving him. It was also a lie I had been practicing, knowing deep down that this day was near.

I took a deep breath and steadied myself, looking Mike right in his eyes. “Mike, I’m sorry. I just don’t love you anymore. I haven’t for quite awhile. I’ve been pretending because I didn’t want to hurt you. But the truth is it was over for me a long time ago.”

Mike shook his head. “You’re lying. Come on, Gina. You’ve got to do better than that.”

“It’s true,” I said. “I feel like I’ve been an actress in a play. I’ve been playing this part because I didn’t want to hurt you. The truth is I can’t play the part anymore. I wish I would have had the courage to tell you before this. I’ve felt like this for months and just didn’t want to hurt you, so I kept it to myself, hoping that I would change my mind or somehow those old feelings would resurface. But they haven’t.  I care about you, but not enough to keep what we had going. I want more. I want someone different. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I wish I could change everything and that you would be happy. But I can’t. No more pretending.”

Mike shook his head like he couldn’t believe his ears. Tears exploded from his dark eyes and his face turned tomato red. He grabbed his hair and pulled it and kicked the hassock and walked out the door.

And he never looked back.

The door slammed behind him and I ran to my room and threw myself on my bed, soaking my Snow White quilt with my tears.

I felt horrible and worthless and mean.  All of the negative verbs in the dictionary would not be enough to describe how I felt. But I knew that the only way to get Mike to go was to lie about how I really felt. And I knew that I played the part well. That he believed every word I said, and he hated me for it.

But I hated myself more.

Chapter 7

20 Years Later

Mike

The line to get into the funeral home wrapped around the brick three-story building on Main Street. I wondered if I would see anyone that I went to high school with. I knew Jeremy was coming, but I wasn’t sure about any of the others. I felt a hand on my back and I turned around. It was Cookie. Despite living in nearby towns, I hadn’t seen her since graduation.

“Michael Parker. How the hell have you been?”

She hugged me before I could even get my arms up.

“I’ve been good; great actually. Read about you in the paper.”

Cookie smiled so wide her eyes winked. “Well, you know me.”

I laughed. Cookie hadn’t changed. She was a giant of a girl and still looked like she could whip my ass and knock me out cold in seconds. She was one tough lady. She’s the only girl I know who could palm a basketball. “You always did stand up for what you believed in,” I told her.

The newspaper article was about her school district banning books because they had bad words and contained too much violence. I think the official wording was “sexually explicit content, offensive language, and violence.” Cookie led the opposition. I always thought she should have been a teen during the 60s. I could see her protesting the Vietnam War and listening to Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and Joan Baez.

“How old is your son?” Cookie asked.

“Jack’s ten.”

“Does he play baseball like his old man?”

I laughed. “Yeah, and he’s a lot better than I was at his age. Playing baseball is all he wants to do. What about you?  Any kids? ”

Cookie rolled her eyes. “Two girls. They’re twins.”

“Oh, no. Double trouble, huh?”

“You can say that. They’re teenagers and the shit they wear to school drives me freakin’ mad. The guys gotta have constant hard-ons.  Zara was sent home from school the other day because her ass was sticking out of her skirt. Of course, I told her that would happen but did she listen to me? Noooo. Mom’s never right. ”

We laughed. 

“Just be glad you don’t have a girl,” Cookie said.

“Sounds like they take after their mother,” I told her.

Cookie playfully hit me on the arm. “What’s that supposed to mean? I never dressed like a whore working the Boulevard.”

“True. But you did dress differently and you never cared what anyone thought. It’s one of the things I liked about you. You always did your own thing. Remember the time you wore three sets of leg warmers and that oversized sweatshirt that came down to the middle of your thigh?”

Cookie laughed. “I remember. My legs were so hot that day! I felt like a damn bear in heat.”

I scanned her ivory silk blouse and black pants. “Now look at you. The typical suburban mom.”

Cookie chuckled. “Sooner or later, we all end up there, I guess.” 

I turned around and realized there was a gap between me and the person in front of me. I closed the gap, with Cookie following on my heels.  

“Whatever happened to that guy you went out with after you broke up with Keith?” I asked.

“You mean Bill. We didn’t even last a month. He wanted to be able to date other girls in college. He kissed like a damn frog anyhow. Too much lick. Always felt like a damn fly. The last I heard he was working as an engineer for some oil company in Texas.”