For Always Page 8

  “Thank you.” I meant to say it loudly. Instead, it came out in a whisper and I wasn’t even sure at first, he heard me.

  He nodded. I could tell by what he didn’t say, the situation upset him. I watched the clock on the dashboard certain it stopped moving forward. Each minute seemed to pass three times longer than usual.

  “I warned you about him.” He sounded furious. “What if I wasn’t there? What would you have done?”

  I didn’t like being reprimanded. My thoughts came in a defensive pattern. I almost blamed it on him. If he didn’t have his arm around me, none of this would’ve happened. And if I didn’t like Jordan so much, there wouldn’t have been an issue because I wouldn’t have looked so guilty.

  I knew if I said any of those things he would go from suspecting how I feel about him to being certain. Already feeling weak and defenseless, I couldn’t compromise myself any further.

  “I was going to break up with him that night,” I picked at my finger nails.

  “Why didn’t you?” he asked in an accusatory manner.

  I wanted to bolt out of the car.

  Keeping my eyes focused on my nails, I continued. “I found out, just before I saw him, that my grandmother has pancreatic cancer.”

  The frustration and anger I’d been feeling came to a boiling point.“It felt better to be with him, than being alone,” I explained.

  He let out a long sigh before answering me. “I’m sorry, Stephanie,” He didn’t expect to hear more sickness and darkness around me. I heard an exasperated sadness in his voice. Like he wasn’t sure which emotion he should address because they co-existed as one. “But it’s a part of life.”

  He placed his hand on top of mine, offering comfort and support. I turned my head to look out the window. Why was he so kind to me? I didn’t deserve it.

  I cleared my throat and gave my head a slight nod. “I know it is. She’s not doing well.”

  “Steph, you’re not alone.” He squeezed my hand. “You have friends to help you. You have Maria and me. You don’t need to lower yourself, and be with some pathetic loser, to get through this.”

  His words struck me hard, like a rock thrown at my head. I didn’t know what to react to first. I had him? What a joke. Didn’t he realize what I wanted from him wasn’t pity? I know he meant for his words to help, but they stung. The dark void started to spread through me again. All I could do was lash out.

  “Lower myself? Really? Who do you think you are, my father?”

  “No,” he snapped, “but, speaking of him, I’m surprised he let you go out with Chris at all,” an undercurrent of anger I didn’t understand tinged his voice.

  “Yeah, well it’s not like he has a choice, Jordan.” I shot back with all the gusto I could muster, “He’s dead.”

  There’s something to be said about the shock factor. That stopped him. I could feel uncertainty oozing off him. He didn’t have a clue what to say or do next.

  Jordan’s mouth hung open. Without another word, he pulled the car over and parked under a dark tree.

  “Hey,” He pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry.”

  I stayed in his embrace because there was no place in the world I’d rather be and shrugged, “It’s not like you knew.”

  “I didn’t. But still,” I felt his body tense, yet he made no move to release me. “I know what it’s like.” He hesitated. “To not have a father, I mean.”

  I knew I couldn’t possibly have heard right. I’d seen him stringing up Christmas lights with his father. Or so I thought. I pulled back to get a good look at him. He let me create the distance, but didn’t let me break contact completely. He took my hand in his. The way my skin singed beneath his touch, warmed my whole body, so different from how I felt with Chris.

  “My biological father I mean.” He went on to explain. “He’s not dead,” he hesitated, “but I wish he was.”

  “What happened?”

  “He left when I was five.” Jordan released my hand and started running his fingers over the bottom of the steering wheel. I watched him, wishing he’d look at me, so I could see the nuances of vulnerability I knew would be in his eyes.

  “Apparently I wasn’t the son he thought he deserved.” I heard the resentment in his voice. “Things got bad between my parents. They fought all the time until he upped and left. He never called or visited after that. It’s like he dropped off the face of the earth.”

  I wasn’t expecting him to have his own deep pain. Unlike me, he never showed it.

  “Do you miss him?”

  He sneered, “You don’t miss the whip that lashes you.” His voice was ripe with bitterness.

  “Did you ever look for him?” I asked wanting to know every detail. “Maybe you could call or write, and tell him how you feel. Tell him to go to hell or something. I bet it would make you feel better.”

  Jordan’s eyes grew dark and angry again. He shot a menacing look my way. “I don’t know where he is and I don’t care.”

  I knew better.

  I know he wanted me to believe he didn’t care, but his resentment only proved he did. I understood the pain and guilt he kept hidden. And no matter how he wanted to deny it, he did blame himself. I could feel it. But we hit a wall. He wouldn’t say another word about his father.

  “At least you can make it better someday. If you want.” I looked down, knowing it was my turn to lay my battered, bleeding heart on the table. “I can’t ever make it better,” I wiped away the single tear that fell from my eye.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  I considered giving him a rundown of the facts, without the back story. The all-important explanation that no one, not even my mother or Maria knew.

  Pain for pain. He shared his, I shared mine, my darkest, most painful secret.

  “I was going to bed and my father read to me.” I began, my head still down. “He always did.” A sad smile crossed my lips losing myself for a brief moment in the warmth of the memory.

  “Before leaving he pulled a brochure from behind the book. He looked at me, all happy and excited. He wanted me to go to sleep-away camp for the summer.”

  I peeked over at Jordan to see if he was even listening. His eyes were glued to me.

  “I couldn’t believe he’d even suggest it, you know. He thought it would be a great opportunity, tour the east coast and make new friends. Maria wasn’t going, which he considered ‘making the most of the opportunity.’”

  “Sounds like he cared a lot,” Jordan said.

  I shrugged, “I guess. But back then, I felt like he wanted to get rid of me, just ship me off somewhere so he wouldn’t have to deal with me.” I hesitated a moment and sniffled, stopping my words before they led to a trail of tears. “I thought he didn’t love me anymore.”

  Jordan reached over and smoothed my hair, leaving his hand at the base of my neck. “He loved you Steph, fathers who can’t stand their kids just up and leave.”

  “He said he wanted to discuss it when he came home from work the next day. I wouldn’t agree. I mean he already had his mind made up. There was no way I would change it. I didn’t even say goodnight to him. Or tell him I loved him.” I felt my body shivering. “I wanted him to leave and never come back so I didn’t have to go to some terrible camp.” The sniffles were coming steadily now. “When he left my room, I told him I hated him.” I paused, trying to steady my emotions. “The next day he died.”

  Jordan looked at me in disbelief. His eyes held mine for a long time. It felt like he was trying to communicate with me telepathically, as if we no longer needed words between us. And then he turned.

  “You had nothing to do with your father’s death. You know that, right?”

  I shrugged. Sure I knew it in theory. I knew you couldn’t wish people dead, or the entire population would’ve been wiped out. But still, I felt responsible. I caused my father stress and aggravation. I retracted my love, what could sear his heart more?

  I knew my father’s deat
h was my fault, the same way Jordan knew he was to blame for being left and forgotten by his father. We both existed in a world in which we needed to keep ourselves emotionally guarded from everyone around us, never sharing the burden of our shame with anyone else.

  Until now.

  Until this night in which we found each other.

  We sat in silence for a while. It wasn’t uncomfortable. This strange new quiet I shared with Jordan held a calm soothing quality. As his hand moved gently down my hair, across my back, a healing wand passed over my spirit. As if a dim glow awakened in the darkest part of my soul, while it fused with Jordan’s.

  And then the car was moving again. Jordan drove and stopped the car in front of my house. When he spoke, his eyes regarded me with tenderness I’d not seen from anyone before. “Promise me something?” He waited for my reply. I nodded and he continued. “Promise you’ll call me, anytime you need someone to talk to. Any time you want.”

  “I promise.”

  “Good.” He gave a slight nod of his head, a sign of his approval. “And don’t worry about Chris. After I talk to him, he won’t bother you anymore. I promise.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  He smirked, looking slightly amused. “I know I don’t have to. I want to.” His grinned widened, like he found something humorous in the situation.

  “Jordan, do you think he was stoned? He seemed so weird tonight. You had to see that, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

  “Were you really going to fight him?”

  “I knew I wouldn’t have to. Stoned or not, he knows better than to pick a fight with me.”

  I stared trying to understand how Jordan could be so confident. Until he dismissed me.

  “Goodnight, Stephanie.”

  “Goodnight,” I answered.

  I knew everything changed between us. He realized I understood him like no one else. And I knew no matter how he denied it, buried deep inside, there was a whole lot of hurt. And that mutual pain and understanding, paired with an unyielding attraction made us perfect for each other. I felt it in my heart and I knew he felt the same way.

  And if he needed time to act on it, then time I’d give him. So I put my mind to it. I was going to wait.

  And so I did.

  I waited.

  Fourteen

  And I waited.

  Fifteen

  And I waited.

  Sixteen

  I brushed the red polish over my little toenail, trying for the third time to fix the pedicure I ruined when my toe scraped against the car door earlier in the evening. I’d recently discovered I liked pampering myself with manicures and pedicures. But I still hadn’t found the knack of getting the polish to dry without smudging it.

  Two weeks before senior prom and almost two months before my eighteenth birthday, life seemed perfect. College loomed in the not too distant future. Although only an hour away from home I planned to live on campus. I had a wonderful boyfriend I couldn’t get enough of. And I felt like I broke through the insecurity and self-doubt I used as a shield most of my life.

  The phone rang. It sat on my desk across the room, out of my reach. The ringer taunted me like a young child sticking her tongue out saying nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, daring me to answer it. I wasn’t about to move and ruin my little toe masterpiece, so I let it go to voicemail. Besides, I already knew what I’d hear.

  After five minutes passed and I felt absolutely certain the polish had dried, I got my phone and listened to the message.

  “Stephanie, it’s Charlie. I’ll be a little late.”

  He always ran late. I’d grown so accustomed to Charlie’s last minute calls and texts, I knew to pad on thirty minutes if we needed to be somewhere on time. But tonight he made the plans which included when he would pick me up.

  I wondered what he had in store for us. He told me to dress up, we were doing something special. Charlie was big on surprises and since I liked to be surprised, we were getting along great. I liked him. A lot. Maybe I even more than liked him. Maybe I loved him. Maybe.

  I heard a knock at my door. I knew, like a mind reader, before I could even get the words, “Who is it?” out of my mouth, Maria would walk in without waiting for a response.

  “What’s up?” she asked flouncing in and plopping on the bed next to me.

  “Not much,” I answered, hugging my knees to my chest.

  “Waiting for Charlie?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I smiled.

  “Did you get everything you need for the prom?”

  “Uh huh,” I nodded, “What about you?”

  She nodded. “Picked up my shoes today. I can’t wait.” The last part came out in a high-pitched shriek. “Have you decided yet? Are you going to go through with it?”

  Maria was referring to my sexual dilemma. While I cared very much for Charlie and we were barely able to keep our hands off each other, we still hadn’t gone all the way. And prom night being a cliché for first time sexual experiences, I had a decision to make.

  Sometimes it made me feel like a freak. Everyone else did it. Even Maria. And she didn’t seem to have any regrets. Going all the way didn’t have the stigma my mother tried to convince me it did. At any rate, no one expected you to be a virgin when you walked down the aisle.

  I had mixed emotions. Part of me wanted to wait until I was with my one true love. But on the other hand, unfamiliar longings boiled inside me, getting stronger by the day and I grew ever more curious. Until this point I hadn’t had the same interest in sex as my peers. Something I myself had a hard time understanding. I attributed it to two things.

  First, whenever the prospect of having sex crossed my mind, I thought of all the people I’d lost, looking down on me from Heaven. I could hear my father calling my grandparents’ attention to what I was doing.

  “Does everyone have a good view?” he’d shout out, and my grandmother would follow this up with gasps of horror, tisks, and “Where did she go wrong?” I pictured the look of disapproval on my father’s face as he shook his head in disappointment. Immediately any surfacing desires were squashed.

  Second, I wasn’t emotionally connected to the guys I’d dated. Most of them were jerks. I didn’t think the possibility existed that I could ever grow to love any of them. Except Charlie. If I gave him enough time, I could love him.

  I looked away avoiding Maria’s eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you have to forget Jordan.”

  Jordan.

  I had trouble swallowing. The sound of his name heightened every one of my senses. My heart leapt at the mere mention of him, and then fell back in place with the same ache I felt since the day I met him. Pathetic.

  I shook her off, “This isn’t about him.”

  “Like hell it isn’t.” She looked at me the way she did when she knew I lied. “It’s always about him.”

  “Okay, it is, but not the way you think.”

  “And what do I think?”

  I rolled my eyes, annoyed we were having this conversation. “I want to want to make love to the person I’m with my first time.”

  “What if it never happens with Jordan? What if you two are never more than good friends? Are you never going to have sex or get married?” she had the nerve to ask.

  I shook my head, and answered very seriously, “No. I’ll join a convent.” She didn’t see the humor in that. I thought it was darn funny. “Look Maria, I want my first time to be special.”

  “Yeah, but . . . ”

  “I shouldn’t be fantasizing about Jordan when I’m with Charlie or else I’m not ready for that kind of relationship.”

  “I just don’t want you to watch your life pass you by waiting for him to come to his senses.”

  “I’m not,” I lied.

  “Good,” she paused. “Because I’m not sure he ever will.”

  Ouch.

  “I ran into Madison while I was looking for shoes
today.”

  Madison. Maria sure knew how to rub salt in a wound. This name gave me angst, like a knife twisting deep in my heart. She was Jordan’s, over-a-year-and-a-half-long girlfriend. Just the mention of her name made me want to vomit.

  “And?” I snapped.

  “She was window shopping,” Maria hesitated, “for an engagement ring.”

  I bit my bottom lip, no reason to panic. “Was Jordan with her?”

  Maria shook her head, but I could see the argument forming in her eyes.

  “Like you said, she was window shopping, no big deal.”

  She sighed, “Stephanie.”

  “He won’t marry her.” I said with absolute certainty. I saw her shake her head, just a small subtle movement. “Trust me. He won’t.”

  Maria stood sorting through my closet when Charlie arrived.

  “If you guys aren’t doing anything, why don’t you come out with Rob and me,” she offered.

  “Thanks,” he answered, “but I have a special night planned,” he looked at me with his bedroom eyes and sly smile.

  “Ooh. Sounds like fun,” she wiggled her eyebrows up and down. “Just remember what I said.”

  “About?” Charlie asked.

  She pulled a thin black scarf out of the closet. Deciding against it she attempted to put it back, but not before Charlie snagged it from her and stuffed it in his pocket.

  “Nothing.” I answered, afraid she might tell him even she agreed we’d waited long enough to have sex.

  “I have to go.” She shut my closet door unsatisfied with the selection. “Have fun.”

  Once the door to my room closed behind her, Charlie pulled me playfully into his arms.

  “What’s the scarf for?” I asked.

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  I looked into his bright green eyes, contrasting nicely with his dark, almost black, mussed hair. They were playful as always.