Laid 2 Rest Two Halves of a Whole (16 page)

KJ and I had always had a very special bond; it was almost as if I were his birth mother instead of Maya. Since his appearance, we shared a closeness that I didn’t have with my other God kids. It wasn’t that I loved him more; it was just that my connection with him went deeper somehow. I was in mourning with the loss of my child for the second time in my life. I hated myself; I couldn’t even talk to Maya because I felt so guilty.

I am so sorry, KJ. I will always remember you. No matter what, I will always remember. You existed to me. To me you were real. You will never be forgotten as long as I’m still breathing,
I vowed sending out my silent promise to the sky above in hopes that KJ was up there listening.

One day while out swinging on my hammock in the backyard, Jay said unexpectedly, “Can I ask you something? I’m just curious, is all.”

“Sure, ask away.”

“When you were in the hospital, you said something about an ex-husband. Who were you referring to exactly?”

Shit!
Figures he wouldn’t let that go. “Oh that… I thought I was married to Able for a short time right after high school, but it must have been a dream,” I said calmly, hoping that he accepted my lame answer.

“Sounds more like a nightmare to me. I don’t think he’s spoken to you since you crushed his man-pride after prom.”

“I know, huh. I don’t think he ever got over it!” That was real talk because I remembered everything now,
just like that.
All the missing gaps were filled in completely. Able never spoke to me again. I never got pregnant. We never got married and I haven’t laid eyes on him since graduation.

But… my victory was bittersweet and it wasn’t something I could celebrate; I still had mixed feelings about the choice that I had made. I lost one unbearable pain just to have it replaced by another.

I was an utter mess. I was hot & cold, up & down, my emotions were all over the map that I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I was definitely not sure if any amount of time that passed would ever erase the heartbreak that I felt.

“It’s his loss, love. Just think… you could have been lying with him in this hammock instead of me!”

Knowing full well, that I would swat him for that comment, he braced himself for my wrath.

“Yuck… as if. Hell would serve their guests snow cones first!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
FINALLY LET
J
AY OFF THE
hook and allowed him to leave me to return home to California. He had a busy life of his own to get back to. I could not allow him to shelter me forever. Even though that was what I wanted and needed the most.

Once he was gone… I have never been so scared. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Jay was my lifeline and being separated from him felt like I was adrift at sea with a large leak in my tiny rubber dingy. I knew it was only a matter of time before the air ran out and nothing would be left, keeping me afloat.

I never did return to that god-awful jail job. I had stopped by the office one day after everyone had clocked out for the night and left behind my company car, cell phone, credit cards and the keys to the building, along with a nasty e-mail telling my boss to go fuck himself. I guess my message was direct enough for him because he has yet to bother me since.

Now with no job, no massage clients, and no Jay… I found that I had way too much free time on my hands.

Loading up on books that looked interesting, I immersed myself in the wonderful world of fiction while I planned my next move. I selected a little bit of everything: wizards, fairies, dark angels and of course my favorite… vampires. You know,
just the bare essentials!
I might as well dive into someone else’s wild imagination to drown out my sorrows and who knows, maybe if I’m lucky, it’ll lead me to some new
little fantasies
… if you catch my meaning.

Sadly, I was just going thru the motions. I had lost my sense of direction, my purpose and with my path unclear in front of me, I needed some sort of distraction to take my mind off of my lengthy stack of failures.

Scooping up the first book that touched my fingertips from out of the plastic shopping bag, I headed outside to my hammock to read for a little while since the weather was so nice and calm out today (
If you have never been here, springtime equals WINDY in New Mexico
).

I had barely started on the second chapter when a sharp pain burned in the back of my eyes. Pinching them shut for a second when…..

I was suddenly making out with someone. Quite passionately, I might add.

Wonderful!

Pulling back to learn who had their tongue down my throat, I found.... LUKE. I do not believe it. Could things possibly get any worse for me? Did I really need this, right this second? There were far too many items on my plate, as it was. And to be blunt, I don’t really like it when my food starts to run together.

Out of sheer shock alone, I spontaneously jumped back a few inches, breaking his tight hold on me so I could sit up. Drawing my bare knees up to my chest, I wrapped my arms protectively around them as I rocked back and forth, and wished to be anywhere else other than here.

We were at the beach, lying in the dry sand, under a gigantic full moon. A cool ocean breeze blew thru my hair as my ponytail came loose, allowing it to whip freely around my face. The sound of the waves crashing at our feet had a soft soothing rhythm to it. The water’s lullaby lulled me more and more as my breathing became in sync with its natural melody.

This would have been quite romantic to me back then, but at the moment, all I felt were the extra scoops of guilt and embarrassment that were just dumped onto my colossal plate of sadness. Without any doubt, this reenactment was going to be the hardest to swallow. I’m sure of it!

Luke had been such a nice guy, once upon a time. At least until I had sunk my claws in and ruined him for all the other women in the world, that is. He was a couple of years older than I was and lived over the hill in Long Beach. Luke had been my rebound guy when I was going thru my older college boy phase after Tyce and I had ended things. The plus side was the fact that he lived almost an hour away from me, preventing him from making any unexpected trips to the valley to keep tabs on me. Therefore, I had a lot of freedom.

Freedom, a girl like me should never have had.

We had met a year before at a fair he was working at which was coincidently right down the street and around the corner from my house. I had been dating Tyce at the time, but I kept Luke in my back pocket for safekeeping just in case.

I’m not proud of it, gees! Relax people.

It’s not like I cheated on Tyce or anything. I was just prepared. That’s all. I didn’t know the meaning of the word “alone” back then and wouldn’t have been caught dead being single for more than a day or two.

I had an image to keep up.

Ironically, I met Luke at the same place that my dad would be killed at, years later. “The Dam” would forever be a place that held both good and bad memories for me. There was no way to think about one, without thinking
about the other.

But the strange thing was… something that day had pulled me in Luke’s direction. I wasn’t supposed to be at that location in the first place. Mainly because it wasn’t my scene and just happened to be in an area where all the local riff-raff liked to hang out.

Luke came over a hill and strolled straight towards me with his bright yellow “Event Staff” windbreaker on as if he had known me for years. It was his confidence that played the deciding factor on if I gave him my number or not. I had told him up front that I wasn’t exactly single, but he decided to stick around for almost a year in hopes that I would eventually became available and gave him the fair chance that he longed for.

But even though he was a little cutie pie and was as nice as they came, it didn’t change the fact that I had used him in the worst way(s) possible, simply because…
I could.
As messed up as I was back then, I didn’t care who I ran over… or who I hurt. Jay was dead, Tyce was long gone at boot camp and Able had sent me to hell and back.

I wasn’t in my right mind and shouldn’t have been allow to date anyone!

It wasn’t until I got older that I fully understood the ramifications of my actions. I never got the chance to tell Luke the truth…or to apologize to him for the affects my actions would have on his future adult life. Allowing him to be set free from the repercussions of my selfishness. He had moved away to Chicago and over the years, I had lost track of him altogether. However, here he was… sitting right next to me, under a huge blanket of sparkling stars without any clue that I would destroy him completely in the months to follow.

Lost for words, I just stared out towards the ocean and soaked in the view. Even though it was dark, the reflection off the water from the moon was tranquil… peaceful. The polar opposite of what I was feeling inside.

It had been awhile since I had actually seen or smelt salt water (New Mexico is nowhere near the ocean in case you weren’t aware, people). I just watched as foamy waves rolled up onto the sand towards us and wondered how cold the water was. Every part of my being longed to reach out and touch it.

“Are you cold?” he asked, breaking the oceans spell on me. He held his body completely rigid from being unsure if he had done something wrong to make me pull away all of a sudden like that.

“No Luke, I’m not cold,” I paused and then continued. “The water is beautiful tonight isn’t it? I love how the moon compliments it perfectly. How it’s all in harmony with one another,” I said lost in my own thoughts.

“I knew you would love it here tonight. You always stare up at the moon and stars, and the beach is one of your favorite places to be, so I tried my best to roll them all into one for you.”

“Thank you for going out of your way for me… it’s perfect… something that I’m definitely not. You deserve someone so much better than me. I’m not who you think I am, Luke. I’m nothing but a lost, troubled, broken little girl right now. You shouldn’t waste anymore of your time on me... I’m beyond repair at the moment. Run away while you still can. Before it’s too late and you fall hopelessly in love with me. I’ll only hurt and use you in the end, and for that, I am so sorry.”

“Love, I don’t understand. What are you talking about?” He went to touch my leg, but I cringed at the mere thought of it, stopping him in mid-movement.

“Luke, please don’t call me that,” I whispered slowly, embarrassed by my behavior.

Him calling me “Love” felt like a betrayal to Jay for some odd reason that I couldn’t even begin to fathom. Only he was allowed to address me as such and hearing Luke call me that, felt wrong on so many levels.

“Alright… if that’s what you really want. Why are you acting like this all of a sudden? What did I say wrong? Do wrong?”

“That’s the problem right there. You see,
you
didn’t say or do anything wrong. It’s all on me. I did this, not you! It has always been my fault and I take full responsibility for everything that is going to happen to us down the road.” I confessed even though he had no idea what I was babbling on about.

This may very well be the only chance I get to mend fences with him, so I wanted to get all my words just right. My heart couldn’t bear to recall that I would break this poor boy in two soon, but I was hesitant to make any more adjustments to my past now that I was fully aware of how its impact could jeopardize my present. I wouldn’t be able to survive losing anyone else special to me.

Caught in an impossible situation, I bowed out altogether. I’ll let him decide his own fate; he’ll have to choose what’s best for him and then we would simply go from there.

Swallowing what was left of my pride, I stated, “I’m going to tell you a story and I want you to tell me how it should end, alright. Can you do that for me?” I said still not looking at him, but out at the dark water before me.

“I’ll try,” he told me nervously.

Keeping my eyes transfixed out to sea, unable to look at him, I began my tale. “Sometime in the not so distant future, an emotionally damaged girl is going to call a good-hearted boy and worm her way back into his world after she had used and took him for granted over the entire course of their relationship. This boy was so kind that the girl took and took until there was nothing more she could take and then threw him away like a used dirty tissue when she was done with him. This girl moved on with some jerk shortly afterwards and soon found herself pregnant, but was forced to abort the baby by its father... thirteen weeks later.

It was the biggest mistake of her young life. For some reason, the girl had managed to convince herself that if she got pregnant again that it would correct the decision she made to terminate the pregnancy. She had suffered alone without anyone to help her through her sorrow and soon came up with a plan that would cause more pain than good, but couldn’t necessarily see it at the time.

One night, she took full advantage of that good-hearted boy’s feelings because she knew that he was still hopelessly in love with her and ended up seducing him in an attempt to re-impregnate herself again. She didn’t care who the new father of her baby would end up being and doubted if she would have ever told him anyways. After she took what she wanted from him, she disappeared as quickly as she had arrived, leaving him without even a note while he was in the shower.