Life Begins (16 page)

I have to say that Jack confuses
me. I think he always has. He seems to hold extremely differing
points of view at the same time and be able to reconcile them
without any problem. He is extremely consistent in an inconsistent
way. I think he should have gotten over me by the time that I had
broken his heart in kindergarten, but for some reason he still held
on to this fantasy that he had about us. Even when I was with Gene,
he could still hold on to the notion that we could somehow be
together. I mean, we were starting to become more of a couple by
the time that I left for the Catholic school, but I think it was
more because we both knew that our time together was coming to an
end. I know that I was more willing at that time to start something
because I knew that it couldn't last. I just never expected Jack
to...

He is an extremely cunning and
conniving man that I don't think anybody has ever fully realized
yet. I mean, I can be pretty manipulative with what Jack calls my
feminine wiles, but he messes with your mind and gets you to do
things that you wouldn't normally do. I think he thinks of people
as pieces on a chess board. He is simply brilliant, but he hides it
behind his charm. I mean, look at how he was able to get my
parents' divorce deal. He is the only person who would ever think
of me getting the house and my parents sharing custody of it and
me. I know that he used the logic that constantly moving from house
to house would upset my lifestyle and make me a troubled
individual, but that was all just a false pretense to keep me near
Jack. Since I was the thing he wanted most in life, he was going to
use my parents' divorce as a way to keep me close by. I don't think
anybody has ever thought of it this way. He comes off as far too
innocent to ever to be suspected of something as selfish as this. I
don't know if even his father was able to see through his act or
not. I have a feeling his father went along with it because he saw
the brilliance of it and would appreciate his son more for
it.

Jack had a very unusual
relationship with his father. Jack and I both grew up with a lot of
freedom when we were children. The difference was that Jack's
parents gave him the freedom with the belief that he would use it
for intellectual and spiritual growth, which he mostly did. His
father, especially, believed that with freedom comes
responsibility. While most parents wanted to hinder what their
children could do, Jack's father wanted to give him freedom so that
he could learn how to be responsible with it. His father believed
that once dictatorships had been removed that the newly freed
people didn't know what to do with the freedom that had been
granted to them. To be brought up in a free society meant teaching
the people how to handle their freedom so that anybody trying to
take that freedom away would cause the people to rise up and take
that freedom back. This was the whole mindset of Jack's father when
he was growing up.

Jack was allowed to do anything
that he wanted as a child (within reason). Nothing was denied to
him as long as there was an intellectual, artistic, or spiritual
element to it. I know that he got in trouble in the fifth grade for
doing a book report on
The Color
Purple
. The teacher couldn't believe that
he had been allowed to read such a book. His father was brought in
to have a conference with Jack and his teacher about the
appropriateness of the book. Jack's father then began to have a
discussion with Jack about the book in front of the teacher. Jack
was able to discuss the mature themes of the book in a mature
fashion. His father then turned to the teacher and said, “My son
seems to be able to comprehend the material that he is reading. I
do not see the point of dumbing down his reading material to match
that of his classmates. I don't think that would be beneficial to
him and his education.” And that was the end of the
discussion.

I don't know if it was his old
soul, or his advanced education, but Jack... The night I returned
home from the Catholic school, I never would have expected me and
Jack to have gone as far as we did. It's not that I minded. I would
have probably gone all the way had other events not happened. It's
just that... Well, Jack has always been the more romantic one of
us. I can't say that he was exactly romantic that night, but he was
everything I could have wished for him to have been that
night.

That is what I find interesting
about him. He likes sappy sweet romantic stuff. He says and does
things that are so sweet and make him really adorable. I don’t
think he means to be. In fact, he hates it when I make a comment
about him being really cute. It makes him feel like less of a man.
But the night that I returned home from the Catholic school, he was
trashy romance novel material, and I kind of liked it. And I can't
even begin to explain why I would have liked for us to have gone
all the way that night. I know that I was probably a little too
young. I had just turned twelve. Looking back on it now, I know
that I was definitely too young. I won’t openly admit this to Jack.
He knows that we were too young. You won’t hear him say this. This
is one of the things that he doesn’t discuss.

I have never been one to fantasize
about Jack, or any other man, rescuing me. I have never been the
damsel in distress type. And I don't think of my time at the
Catholic school as being locked up in a tower that Jack was able to
free me from. I know that Jack thinks about this time of our lives
and thinks that was the reason I think that night was so perfect.
He can never understand that for me that night was nothing but the
wild, unadulterated passion that I have always wanted from him and
have always enjoyed from him. Well, I haven't enjoyed that from him
lately.

Jack changed the night that his
father died. I don't want to say that his passion for me
disappeared that night. It didn't. If anything, he loved me more
than he had before. He just loved me in more of a hands off
fashion. I think he was just so confused by everything that he
didn’t really know what to do. I mean, when he was comforting me,
he was really wanting to be comforted by me. Jack is just one of
those people that will put my needs above his own. It doesn’t
matter how great his own needs might be. He loves me to the point
of ignoring himself. It makes it hard for me to realize that he has
feelings sometimes.

Maybe I should have been more
attentive to Jack's needs that night, but Jack has never been one
to deal with his emotions. He sees emotions as a weakness. As long
as he doesn't have a heart, you can't hurt him. I don’t know if he
wants to act like he doesn’t have heart in an attempt to be more of
a man or not. Here’s the thing. He has a heart. He has a very large
heart. He just wants to think that he doesn’t. I’m glad he does. If
he didn’t, I’m sure that he would have broken up with me a long
time ago. His mind would have taken over and told him that I am bad
for him. His heart never let him. His heart made him keep giving me
more chances, even though his mind was keeping track of everything
I had done to him. If you look at everything I have ever done to
him over the years, I have hurt him in every way, except
physically. No amount of abuse from me will stop him from loving
me.

Jack didn't list my not comforting
him that night in his Declaration of Independence. Did I hurt him
that night? I think I did, but he had been hurt so badly by his own
guilt that night that my thoughtlessness was not high on his
memories. Five years later, when were seventeen, he still had that
night blocked out of our official history. He was not going to deal
with us almost having sex or with his father's death. Since he was
going to act like none of this had ever happened, he was not going
to be hurt by me not paying attention to his feelings that
night.

I wanted nothing more than to be
with Jack after his father died. I mean, I wanted to be in a
relationship with him. If I mourned his father, it was because he
was the closest thing I ever had to a real parent. But Jack... Jack
has issues. Some would say that he has a crucifixion complex. I
don’t think he does. He is not willing to die for any cause, except
possibly me, which I don’t think he would ever do. I mean, he might
jump in front of a bullet for me, but it would be more of a secret
service thing than a crucifixion thing. He would do it without
thinking. He doesn’t want you to know this, but he is deathly
afraid of dying and anything that might cause death. He has a fear
of falling, sharp objects, guns, drowning, choking, and any other
thing that could possibly cause death. That is why I can say that
he doesn’t have a crucifixion complex.

On the other hand, I can also say
that he has some issues with his father. It’s not that he didn’t
love his father, but Jack is… Jack has certain rules. His biggest
rule is the “No Other Gods Before Me” rule. He is a very jealous
man, but not in a bad way. He is not one of those guys that is
like, “if I can’t have you, then nobody will have you.” He is an
odd case where he wants me to choose him above all other men, even
his father. If I hurt him the night that his father died, it was
because I showed that I cared about his father while ignoring what
he might be feeling.

Jack can try to pass off our not
getting together at that time on me caring more about my own
feelings than his, but he withdrew from me during this period. We
were still friends, but he had changed. He was turning more to
Melinda for comfort. He said nothing was happening between them. I
believed him. And it wasn't just that I was losing him to her. I
was also losing him to his obsessive studying. He did nothing at
this time, except eat, sleep, and study comedy. Whether it was
intentional or not, he was shutting me out of his life. I can’t
really tell him this. It would hurt him to know that I cared for
him and he wasn’t there for me. He would apologize and try to make
up for it. He would never forgive himself. It was so long ago now
that it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really care. I have him now.
That is all that I really care about.

There is a part of me that
understands this period of his life better now. I have gotten him
to talk about it during one of our couple’s exercises. It was not
just that his father died and I wasn’t there to comfort him. It was
also that he had to take care of his mother. He was taking care of
his father’s estate. He had to be present at the trial and deal
with the media. He had to try to deal with me being me while not
wanting to be with me because I reminded him of the guilt that he
felt for his father’s death. He escaped into comedy and the
studying of comedy. He was going to emerge from this time period
with the ability to make others laugh. He was going to take his
academic, legalistic mind and apply it to the science of comedy.
This is typical Jack behavior. Whenever he has a problem, he
escapes into studying. He doesn’t believe that there is any problem
out there that you can not reason out by studying it closely.
Although it felt like he was withdrawing from me, he was
withdrawing into himself as he always does until he can think his
way through a problem.

For the record, though, I did try
for over a year to get together with him, and he showed no interest
in me. I don't think he has ever thought about what it felt like
for me, and I don’t want him to know what it felt like for me. But
I had the boy I had always loved rescue me from the Catholic
school. He then is about to show me the most wonderful romantic
experience of my life before we get interrupted. He then shows no
interest in me other than being my friend. He has no idea what it
felt like for him to see me naked and to go as far as we almost did
that night to then have him then not pay attention to me. I don't
care if his father had just died. I could have helped him through
it. I wanted to. He just... He will never ask for help. This is
almost more of a sin for him than admitting that he has a
heart.

If I had known that he was hurting
and not just rejecting me, I would have done a lot of things
differently. I wouldn’t have spent an entire year trying to get
Jack to pick up where we left off at when his father died. I didn't
even look at other boys. I was faithful to him while he found
excuses to not spend time with me. I knew that he was going through
a difficult time. I tried to be patient, but while I was sitting by
the phone waiting for him to call me, he was studying comedy or
spending time with Melinda. That hurt a lot.

When I complained to him about
this, he tried to make it better by inviting me over to watch
stupid old comedies. It was him, me, and Melinda. Why would I want
to watch a bunch of stupid black and white old crap with him and
another girl? There was no way for me to put the moves on him with
her right there. I couldn't snuggle up to him and make him hold me.
I tried once. It was awkward. And Jack seemed upset that I was
trying to disturb him while he was studying.

Well, Jack and I had a
conversation about my behavior. Okay. It wasn't really a
conversation as much as it was an argument. I yelled at him for not
wanting to spend time with me. He countered that he did spend time
with me and reminded me that he had invited me to watch all of the
crappy movies with him. He might not have called them crappy,
but... Anyway, I got really angry and started to really yell at
him. I know that I said, “And how in the hell do you expect me to
blow you with her in the room sitting beside you?” I then stormed
out of the room.

Jack just stood there. Melinda
shot me a dirty look. I don't know what happened after that. I
don't want to admit it, but I spent the rest of the night in my
bedroom crying. Jack doesn't know that. He would feel awful if he
did. That's why I have never told him. I can say it here because I
know that he will never read this. And I can say it because it
helps to explain another event better.