Something Had to Give (30 page)

She did not share my enthusiasm in seeing each other after so long. She stopped what she was saying mid-sentence when she saw me, but did not speak back. Instead she gave me a look of disgust, rolled her eyes and went back into the apartment. I wasn’t surprised at her reaction, but the way she slammed the door made me jump. I respected her reaction though and the next few times I saw her I acted like I didn’t know her just like she did me. It was awkward acting like we weren’t good friends before, but I had put so much energy into making amends with her before, that I felt like there was nothing else I could do. It appeared as though she was living in the apartment with her boyfriend and looked great, so I couldn’t help but be happy for her. It was two weeks later that I got a knock on my door and saw her out the peephole. I hesitated before opening the door not knowing if she was coming to argue. Reluctantly, I opened up the door.

“Hey, were you busy?” I assumed she asked since it took me a minute to open the door.

“Not really, just reading for a class.”

“Oh, well UPS delivered your package to my apartment. I just wanted to bring it up.”

“Thanks.” I couldn’t help but snicker at the show she was putting on. I had been there for several weeks and never had UPS mess up a delivery. I felt like she had set up this whole thing, but took it as a sign that she wanted a reason to come up and talk.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to studying but also wanted to let you know that my boyfriend Stanley’s band is playing tonight downtown. Here’s the flyer with the address if you want to come out.”

“Ok, thanks, I’ll try to make it. When April left I wasn’t quite sure what to think. Not only had she gone through the trouble to come up and talk to me, she had also invited me to see her boyfriend’s band play. Nonetheless I was excited about having something to do outside of work and school and mostly at the prospect of having my old friend back.

The show started at 9pm, but I was careful to get there later around 9:30 just so I wouldn’t seem like I was too eager to be there. April was sitting by herself so intently glued to the drummer that she didn’t notice that I had sat at the table with her. When the band stopped playing the current song, April jumped up to cheer louder than anyone in the building and it was only after she sat back down and I tapped her on the shoulder that she realized that I was there. She did a double take as if she was surprised that I had actually come but she seemed pleasantly surprised. When the band wasn’t playing we talked about school, and life in general, but neither or us brought up the incident with Daniel. If what Daniel and Eric had told me were true I knew it had to be an embarrassing subject for her. Plus, it seemed like so long ago and there was really no point in bringing it up. I just hoped we could truly move past it. I can’t say that I enjoyed the music they played even slightly but it felt so good to be out the house that I stayed until their set was over.

That night when April said she would call or come by sometime for us to hang out, I only half believed it. I wanted to believe it but a part of me felt like she was probably content with clearing the air and felt fine moving on. She surprised me though over the next few weeks. We didn’t hang out a lot being that she did have a boyfriend that took precedent, but it was nice to have company from time to time and to get out some. Things were looking up from the start of the summer, which made the start to the second summer session not seem as dreadful as the first session. It was the first time I had felt content since all the drama at the end of the school year and I hoped that things remained mellow for me for a while. It seemed like it would for a while until the day I was walking around the mall to kill time before work and literally ran right into Eric as he was coming out of a shoe store. I said, “Excuse me” without realizing who I was talking to but even once I did it was my intention to keep going. In true Eric fashion, he was not willing to let things go that easily.

“Hey wait up Cheryl.” I still wanted to keep walking but he was so loud that I stopped. It also dawned on me that if I gave him his time to talk then maybe he would leave me alone.

“What’s going on Eric? I’m on my way to work and don’t have a lot of time.”

“Ok, I won’t hold you up. Do you want to sit in the food court and talk for a minute?”

“No, I really don’t have time for all that. I have ten minutes and I really have to get going.” I really had an hour before work and the food court was right behind us where I was headed to get a milkshake, but I didn’t want to be that nice to him. Being nice to him had cost me my relationship with Jason.

In those ten minutes that I talked to him, history repeated itself and I learned a lot about what was going on with Eric. Come to find out, he had flunked out of school at the end of fall semester and was basically hopping from couch to couch of friends. He was having a hard time keeping low paying jobs and though he didn’t say it, I was pretty sure it was related to his alcohol abuse. His mom would not allow him to come home until he got treatment for his alcoholism, but he was pretty adamant that he didn’t have a problem. He was there in the mall hoping to pick up a second job so that he could get a place of his own and lastly he wanted to let me know how very sorry he was over what had happened at Dockside. He had dropped the charges against Jason and they never had to go to court, which was news and a great relief to me. I felt like Eric wanted me to feel sorry for him and was once again looking for me to save him. I couldn’t do that though and didn’t even want to try. I listened to him and when he was done and I had heard enough I wished him all the best and said good-bye. I was done.

The second session of summer school went by extremely fast. My classes were harder than first session. I managed to stay busy with studying, working, and some leisure activities. Thankfully, loneliness was not an issue. The only down part of the session was the 4
th
of July holiday when the family was once again headed to Chattanooga just as we all did the previous years. I chose not to go even though I could have stayed in the hotel with my parents. I felt like the tension between me and Shanna would put a damper on the vacation and I didn’t want to risk running into Jason while there. When Daddy asked, I told him that I had decided to end our relationship due to the distance between us. I still missed him like crazy and even though I spent the holiday at the beach with April and her friends, it was very hard not to think about my family and Jason. Several times I had to fight back tears wondering how long it was going to hurt.

∞∞∞

My junior year of college started before I was ready for it. After spending the whole summer taking classes, I definitely felt like I needed at least two more weeks out to catch my breath. The good thing that I had going for myself was that was I on track to graduate on time with a psychology major provided I did summer school again before my senior year. The sting from not getting into the nursing program was still very much there especially when I would see people that I had classes with in preparation. I had learned to accept it though and devote positive energy towards my new major. I still had my job from the summer that I very much hated. My co-workers were the most annoying and childish high schoolers I had ever been around, but I continued to tough it out since it served its purpose of providing some extra money. April and I still talked but with classes it was harder to find time to for us to get out. Life was peaceful and I learned to be content instead of looking for more.

There wasn’t much excitement going on for me until right before fall break when my cell phone kept ringing late at night. The fact that the person kept calling was odd to me but I didn’t want to answer, I wanted to continue to think that it was someone dialing the wrong number. It was only when my home phone started ringing that I finally decided that it might be someone really trying to reach me. When I answered, I could tell someone was on the other end but I couldn’t hear him or her saying anything. I wasn’t sure if it was due to me being half asleep or if someone was really getting a kick out of playing on my phones. Just as I was about to hang up, I heard a voice that sounded vaguely familiar.

“Cheryl, can you hear me?”

“Shanna?” I could tell it was her but why did she sound so weird and why was she whispering?

“Yeah, it’s Shanna, please don’t hang up.”

“Shanna, are you in the library or something? Why are you whispering?”

“No, I’m not at that library. I’m in the hospital.” She started to cry, which confused me even more. What in the world was going on?

“The hospital? Were you in an accident? Are you hurt?”

Between tears I made out that she was there related to drug use and really needed me to come. The rest, I decided didn’t need to be discussed over the phone. I just needed to get to Chattanooga. I packed in record time, stopped at the closest gas station to get a couple of red bulls and hit the road not knowing what to expect. I was so intent on getting there as quickly and safely as possible, that I didn’t have time to react to the fact that she was really in the hospital. She had pleaded with me not to call our parents and as much as I felt like we both needed them to be there, I respected her wishes. The good thing about driving during the middle of the night was that there was virtually no traffic. The drive to Chattanooga that usually took over seven hours only took just over six even with my two stops for bathroom breaks from drinking the red bulls.

It was just after 7am when I walked into the hospital I had spent a whole summer volunteering. It felt eerie not being there as a volunteer, but as one of the many people coming to see their sick loved one. It hit me when I was in the elevator that my sister who for so long I had viewed as a bully was in the hospital. I could remember thinking that nothing could hurt her; she was too tough and mean. The person I saw in the hospital bed was not my mean bully of a sister. It was a pale skeleton with black sunken eyes and numerous bruises. She started to cry immediately when she saw me and I wanted to cry but the shock of how bad she looked kept the tears back. Between sobs, Shanna told me what I already knew that she had been doing drugs for a while now. Her drug of choice was cocaine. It was the same drug that had killed Jackie. What was she thinking? She and Craig fought constantly over money to buy alcohol and drugs. Since he always had more money than her, what he said went as far as how much he was willing to spend daily on their habit. Their fight the night before had started when she flipped on him for lying about having cocaine. The fight had gotten out of hand and resulted in him being arrested and her in the hospital. The worst thing about this whole ordeal was that she was defending Craig’s actions to him being high and not realizing what he was doing.

Though Shanna initially demanded that I not involve our parents in this, I was later able to convince her that this whole thing was bigger than what we could solve alone. Finally, she agreed and as I went back to the ground floor to get some breakfast I made one of the hardest phones calls home. I was hoping that Daddy would answer the phone knowing that it would break Mommy’s heart, but just my luck she answered on the first ring. She fell silent as I tried to sum up the situation in just a few words but I knew she was stuck on the words that Shanna was in the hospital. Daddy had to take the phone from her demanding that I give him more information, since the story didn’t make sense to him. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him about the drugs or alcohol, especially over the phone, but my hands were tied. He sounded absolutely devastated by the information I gave and it made me feel even worse. It had to finally make sense to them why she didn’t graduate like she should have and why Craig had to move in together over the summer to help her out financially. Still, I could only imagine how heart breaking it was to hear.

Back in the room, Shanna was asleep as I ate my breakfast. I made myself as comfortable as possible as I waited for my parents to make their long drive in. At some point I fell asleep myself and woke up feeling like I had been asleep for weeks. I had missed a few calls from Daddy and his voicemail said that they were able to find plane tickets instead of making the drive down. I was glad they were coming, but since I was the one that had to pick them up from the airport, I was the one who would have to answer more of their questions. I was not looking forward to that. I had a little over an hour before their flight came in so I took a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up some toiletries for Shanna and a few things for myself that I forgot in the haste of packing. Since I had time to kill, I decided to pick Shanna up a card for all of us to sign and some flowers. As I was going through reading the hundreds of cards, I heard someone come up behind me.

“Cheryl?”

The voice alone made my stomach drop. It was Jason. With everything going on I didn’t even consider the possibility that I could run into him. It felt like it had been years since we had talked and with the way things had ended, I wasn’t quite sure what to say to him or how to act. I turned so that my back was no longer to him, but I didn’t say anything still not knowing what to say. He looked exactly the same except instead of a smile his face had an expression of shock that he had happened to run into me.

“How have you been? You are the last person I expected to run into here.”

It was at the tip of my tongue to ask him how he thought I was after he dumped me, but I played it cool. “I’ve been good. I’m here visiting my sister.”

“Gotcha. How long are you in town for?” The fact that he was talking to me like an old friend he had just happened to lose contact with was surprising to me and a bit offensive. I really just wanted to get away from him quickly.