April 23, 2003
rushing back (continued)sometime before the move, d and i had started (for lack of a better term) an "affair." we weren't having sex, but we would get drunk and make out a lot. i remember parties, during which he'd take l home at some point (to meet her curfew), and then come back, and the two of us would sneak off together somewhere. i knew it was wrong. after all, his girlfriend was supposed to be my friend. but he told me he loved me. no one outside my family had ever said those words to me before, and they were absolutely intoxicating. i thought i was in love, too.
once we had moved away, d and i kept in touch. he wrote me long letters, telling me how much he missed me, and how much he loved me. i wrote him back, expressing the same sentiments. he was in college by then, and l (who was still back at my former high school) wasn't always around to keep tabs on him. so he'd drive up to see me occasionally, and we'd drink and smoke and be all over each other for a few hours...and then he'd drive away. he wasn't even a good kisser...way too sloppy and imprecise...but i didn't care. i lived for those visits, when it was just the two of us.
my senior year (his sophomore year in college), he asked me to my prom. i had never been to prom, and i hadn't planned to go to this one...but how could i refuse? mom and i went shopping for fabric and a pattern, and had my dress custom made. i would laugh at it now, if i saw it...but back then? it was beautiful. i felt beautiful in it. i couldn't wait to walk into the decorated high school cafeteria, in that dress, escorted by a "college boy" in a tuxedo.
3 weeks before the big date, i got a letter in the mail. half of it written by d, the other half by l. she had found about about the prom date, and she was having none of that. even worse, i was admonished to stay away from d. i was devastated. i spent prom night drunk, at a party in a cornfield. the next day, driving home all hungover and depressed and exhausted, i fell asleep at the wheel. i awoke to the sounds that my left tires made on the gravel on the other side of the highway, just in time to slam on the brakes, spin around, and keep from careening into the ditch. if there had been oncoming traffic....well, there hadn't been. i just lost a hubcap.
predictably, d came crawling back to apologize several weeks later, the day after i had graduated. i had sworn that i'd do my best never to see him again, or even to think about him. but there he was...standing at the door of my parents' house on the highway, holding a gift of my favorite perfume, his brown eyes pleading with me (i always have had a thing for brown eyes...). i was weak. we got into his brown camaro and took off.
that summer, after a party at his house (which his girlfriend didn't know about), he took my hand, looked into my eyes for a long moment, and led me into his mother's bedroom (i think she was in the hospital). i had waited for this moment for years. it took about 10 minutes.
that fall, i went off to college. i was a mere 20 miles from where d was in college and the affair continued. for a few months, anyway, until another letter arrived. this time, entirely in l's handwriting, but signed by them both. again, i was told that "it" was over. that i was to stay away from him. this time, for good.
my floormates insisted that i write his name on empty beer bottles, which we then threw out a third-floor window, smashing them on the patio below (the r.a. had consented, as long as we cleaned it up the next day). with the encouragement of my roommate, i took the letter, corrected every spelling and grammatical error in red ink, and mailed it back. i never saw either one of them again.
10:08 AM
|
|
