Little Conversations (2 page)

There was a time when Devin would have done just about
anything for Jake.  She had been the new kid in school, moving to live with her
dad after years with her mom.  Since her folks got divorced when she was a kid,
it seemed like her brother and Devin traded places from time to time.  He lived
with their dad, Devin lived with their mom.  Then Devin lived with their dad,
he lived with their mom. 

Jake caught her attention the first day of school, sitting
right beside her in math.  Devin had moved from a place so small that most of
the guys were like brothers; guys Devin had known since she was a little kid,
and there was just too much history.  She’d never really been able to see them
as someone other than the little jerks that used to tie her braids to her chair
or chase her with grasshoppers.  No love lost there. 

Now, she was in a new place, ready to start her sophomore
year.  She was starting a new life and had the perfect chance to reinvent
herself.  A chance to be whomever she wanted to be.  She was ready to be cool,
calm, and collected.  She had new clothes, a new haircut, and an after-school
job that would provide money to blow.  Devin was playing the role of a
sophisticated teenager who had it all together. 

Then, in walked Jake with a group of his friends—confident,
good-looking, and he flashed her a smile.  Mind you, Devin didn’t see herself
as anything special, far from the fashion plates she’d seen parading around the
halls.  Sort of mousy, brown hair and a round face, nondescript grayish-green
eyes.  No high cheekbones, and her butt was a little bigger than she would have
liked.  Therefore, her first thought was that he was just being nice.  Over the
following days, they’d chat a little during class, and Devin quickly started
developing a pretty serious crush.  He was funny and self-assured.  He was… perfect. 

She finally worked up the nerve to slip him a note, asking
him to ‘go out’ with her.  Juvenile.  So very juvenile, but she was also so
very young.  Her life up to that point had been rather sheltered, living far
out in the country where distance from the rowdy town kids had inevitably kept
her more innocent and naive.  Devin wasn’t even sure what ‘going out’ really meant,
since she had never even actually had a real and true boyfriend before.  To her
surprise and delight, Jake responded with a smile and a ‘yes.’  The months
progressed and they grew closer, officially becoming boyfriend and girlfriend
when he gave her his class ring and a little carnation from the cheerleaders’
Valentine’s Day fundraiser. 

He was her first boyfriend.  Her first kiss.  Her first and her
only
everything
. 

It all seemed so idyllic in the beginning.  To be Jake’s
girlfriend was a bit of a dream come true.  He was wildly popular at their
small-town school.  He was athletic, playing football and running with the
track team.  He was so good-looking with his wavy blonde hair and blue eyes. 
An Adonis-like golden boy.  Devin’s own social status was elevated by her
involvement with him, although she was so shy that the attention it garnered
sometimes exhausted her.  A lot of the kids who ran in that circle sold their
soul to be trendy and came off pretty damn superficial.  Many of the girls were
a bit miffed by her claim on him and could be quite vocal about it, often
whispering and slanting their eyes in her direction. 

But Jake had chosen her, in spite of what those bitches
thought.  He was, for the most part, very sweet and considerate.  The next two
years sort of flew by, and Devin’s attachment to him grew until he was the most
important person in the world to her.  She thought they really truly had
something special.  Not everything was perfect, but she took the bad with the
good.  Everyone had problems they had to deal with.  And he loved her.  He said
so, after all. 

And, really, who would say they loved you if they actually didn’t?

But, very slowly, things began to change.

It started with her friends.  Jake thought they were boring
and kind of snooty, too smart for the raucous crowd he hung out with.  They
were brains, and he hung with the partiers.  Devin grew up in a family of
teachers, so she
had
to have good grades.  It was nonnegotiable.  She
was a good girl and she couldn’t let her dad down.  So, Devin spent time with the
4.0 GPA kids in school and with Jake’s crowd outside of school.  Easy fix,
right?  Her smart friends didn’t do much outside of school anyway.  They were
studious and, honestly, actually kind of boring.  Their idea of a crazy night
on the town meant going to a movie, maybe even putting (gasp) butter on their
popcorn.  Much different than the keggers Jake, and subsequently Devin, often went
to. 

Devin didn’t branch out much at the keggers.  She mostly
hung really close to Jake, sitting quietly and speaking when spoken to.  She
was pretty shy and reserved.  Occasionally, though, Jake would get preoccupied,
and she’d be left on her own, at which time, she would sit off to the side and
watch the party go on around her.  Laughing, kissing, fighting, rough-housing. 
A microcosm of teenage debauchery swirled around her.  Occasionally someone
would talk to her, but she didn’t really have much to say and was a bit afraid
to come out of her shell. 

Besides, Jake didn’t really like her to mingle much.  He was
only trying to protect her from the others’ wayward influences. 

The girls that went to keggers tended to lean towards the
slutty side, and some of them smoked pot or experimented with other substances. 
This truly shocked naïve little Devin to the core, and she honestly wasn’t
truly comfortable hanging with a majority of them anyway.  Most of them were
downright bitchy to her, wondering loudly what Jake saw in a mousy little thing
like her.  So many others just seemed to be intent on pressuring her into
trying whatever new high they were on.  Very few, primarily just Amy and
Joanie, seemed pretty cool, a wee bit mellower than the rest.  That said, they
were still a tidge on the wild side, and Jake often remarked how glad he was
that she didn’t act like them.  Because of his obvious dislike of their escapades,
she chose to not get too involved, although she definitely envied the fun they
seemed to have.

Jake didn’t really like her talking to the guys, either.  Some
of them eyed her as though she was a rare, juicy steak, and that always enraged
Jake—incessantly.  Not one to make a spectacle at the party, he would wait
until they had left, at which time he’d rant at her about how furious it made
him.  About how, one of these days, she was going to really find herself in
trouble if she continued to come off so easy.

A few of Jake’s close friends seemed to just be genuinely
nice—brotherly.  They would stand by her when some other guy was acting a
little lascivious or when a girl would spew catty words her way.  She began to
feel a little more comfortable around them.  Over time, they sort of became
friends…

…which led to more problems. 

“You know, the only reason they are being nice to you is
because they want to sleep with you,” Jake would say.  And her ego would take a
hit.  “You should hear the things they say when you’re not around.”  Another
hit.  “That outfit is awfully slutty.  You’re going to give them the wrong
idea.”  And another hit.  After a while, most of their conversations began to
revolve around all the reasons nobody would really like her, and how lucky Devin
was that Jake did.   That he was around to protect her from all his nefarious,
dishonest friends.  Because of what they had together, though, because she didn’t
want to rock the boat, Devin pushed the confusion from her mind, not allowing
herself to question why he was such good friends with them if they were all so atrocious.

Before their senior year, Jake spent the summer working on a
farm in a town about five hours away.  Devin barely saw him, and she missed him
tremendously.  He would come back for a few days now and then, at which point
she would drop everything and trade shifts at work so they could spend time
together. 

Things were getting more and more strained, though.  Jake
was quieter, not as inclined to go to parties.  Instead, he only wanted to hang
out at his house and watch TV.  So she would go to him, be with him.  She desperately
tried to reconnect, responding zealously every time he showed her the slightest
hint of lust.  As the weeks went by, his visits became shorter, less often. 
When he did come home, his kisses began to feel colder and more distant.  Where
she had once felt a fervent passion emanating from him, she now felt disconnected. 
She could be wrapped in his arms, yet still feel so lonely and desolate. 

They didn’t really talk much, either.  Jake wasn’t
interested in sharing what his life was like when he was out farming.  Long
days, driving a tractor around.  Not much to tell.  And all Devin did was work,
come home, work, come home.  She spent a little time with her dad on occasion,
but Jake didn’t like her to go out when he wasn’t around to protect her.  Devin
feverishly worshipped him by this point, her first and only love, so she would
wait on pins and needles for him to come back. 

Now and then when he was gone, his friends would stop by the
restaurant where Devin worked, and they’d visit a bit.  It made her feel closer
to him, and she’d tell him about it when he’d call her.  Jake, though, was always
irritated by this to the point that it began to make her feel uncomfortable.  He’d
accuse her of having feelings for them, that maybe Devin was flirting and coming
onto them.  “They only like you because you give them free stuff when they come
in.”  Her already battered self-image slipped another notch.  Devin took to
being too busy to wait on them when they’d stop by.  No more free French fries
for them. 

Finally, that awful summer was drawing to a close, and Devin
was eager to have him back home—home for good.  The tension had grown over the past
few months.  Devin’s self-deprecating mind convinced her that this was her
fault.  He was off working hard, slaving away to make money to put into his old
pickup, and she was gallivanting around behaving in ways that he deemed unacceptable. 
How could he trust her?  How did he know she was telling him everything? 

In order to allay his suspicions, she started spending every
penny she made on things she thought would make him happy—stuff for his truck, proper
clothes she thought he’d approve of, movies she didn’t want to watch but knew
he loved—just things to show him how much she loved him and how glad she was that
he was coming home.  And then, there he was, standing at her door. 

They went for a drive up to a nearby lake in the mountains. 
The heat of the day had faded into a crisp evening, and a few stars struggled
to shine through the clouds, signaling that a mountain thunderstorm was headed
their way.  Jake was quiet and withdrawn, but Devin was sure he was tired
because he’d been working so hard and had driven all the way home, coming
straight to her house to see her when he got to town.  That showed how much he
cared—he wanted to see her before he saw anyone else, even his own family.

They walked along the lakeshore, finding a giant hunk of
granite to climb up and sit on.  A slight breeze blew through the trees, and
the occasional rumble of thunder echoed through the glacial valley.  He pulled her
to his side, held her hand, looked into her eyes and said, “I met someone this
summer…”

The rest of the conversation was kind of a blur to Devin. 

“I do love you, Devin.  I really do,” Jake had said, his
beautiful blue eyes showing remorse and regret.  “But… I love her, too.  She’s
just so different than you.  She likes all the same things I do.”

And I don’t?
Devin’s heart cried out as she stared
ahead, watching the ripples in the lake, too choked up to talk.

“She likes working on cars,” he continued.  “God, she is so fuckin’
amazing about that, and it’s so cool to see a girl into that sort of thing. 
Her home life sucks, and it makes me feel so bad for her.”

Bad home life?  Since when is that something you are
looking for in a girlfriend?
 Devin thought to herself.  But she still didn’t
trust herself to speak.  She couldn’t talk through the ball of emotion
festering in her throat.

“But I came back to you, Devin,” he insisted.  “I really,
really love you.  I didn’t mean to love her too, but I’m home now.  We will work
things out.”

From time to time, though, this other girl would come to
visit. 

Those weekends, he was unavailable to Devin.  She would see glimpses
of them, this new girl’s light blonde hair reflecting in the sunlight as they
dragged main on a Saturday afternoon.  Her heart cracked a little every time.

Then the other girl would leave, and he’d be Devin’s again. 
He’d come to see her right away, and she’d fall into his arms as though nothing
happened.  She didn’t even mind his comments at this point.  She probably
was
flirting with his friends too much.  Granted, she only was giving out pieces of
gum to those who asked, or maybe simply responding to their questions and
comments.  She tried to behave herself, to keep Jake happy with her, but she
wasn’t doing a very good job, apparently.

Then, the pictures started appearing.  The first one was a
little school photo pinned onto the tack-board in his room.  They were sitting
on his bed doing homework, and Devin glanced up to see it hanging there above
his desk, so unobtrusively. 

Maybe it was a relative
, she tried to tell herself. 

But she knew better.  Devin had only seen the girl from a
distance, but the hair color, the shape of her face.  That was her.  When Jake
left the room to grab some chips for a snack, Devin examined the photo
closely.  Her own insecurity pounded forth as she stared at the picture with
agonizing dread.  The girl was stunning.  High cheekbones.  Beautiful brown
eyes.