Pink Shades of Words: Walk 2016

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Content Editor: Angela Borda

Copy Editing: Elli Reid

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S
ometimes good people do bad things.

I’m fundamentally a good person, so my big, bad thing from my past chafes me like a wound that won’t heal. It’s truly the only regret of my life. It was a choice I made nineteen years ago. If I could, I’d go back and change it, knowing as I do now that it altered the entire course of my life.

* * *

O
n this sunny April afternoon, I’m sitting impatiently in my chiropractor’s beige-on-beige waiting room waiting to be called up to the desk for my appointment. Picking up a copy of LA Weekly off the coffee table, I mindlessly thumb through the entertainment section when I see an advertisement of a concert for the reclusive musician, Alec Lowell. I push my reading glasses up my nose and read the ad again. I haven’t heard of Alec Lowell performing live in years.

I scan the ad for information and then glance down at my phone’s calendar. The concert is two weeks from Saturday at the Ace Theater in downtown L.A and doesn’t appear to be sold out yet. I’ve always been a huge fan of his music. Should I go?
Could I?

I’m immediately overwhelmed and determined to buy a ticket. My heart starts pounding and my fingers tremble, tightening along the page’s edge as all the memories of an earlier time in my life flood back to me.

For a moment I wonder who I can drag along with me to the show, but then I acknowledge that there’s only one person I ever wanted to see Alec Lowell live with, and I broke his heart almost twenty years ago ... the very night we were going to see his show at a small venue near our college campus.

* * *

I
met Matthew Richardson at the end of my freshman year when he was visiting a friend who lived across from me in the dorm. He was unlike any guy I’d ever known: brilliant, quirky, and more fun than anyone I’ve met since. He had a crooked smile and twinkle of mischief in his eyes, but also had a serious side when it came to his ambitions. He was an engineering major, determined to be an inventor or developer and work for a progressive company with a focus on with cutting edge ideas.

We became friends at first, having long debates about philosophy and politics, the kind of stuff college kids can talk hours about over cheap beer. I was intrigued by his sharp mind even when I didn’t agree with him. And honestly I had no idea he had any interest in me until the night he insisted on walking me to the library when our debate ran late and it was dark.

When we got to the library entrance, he turned to me with his hands jammed in his jean pockets, and his cheeks flushed and asked if I’d go on a date with him. My mouth fell open. After a long awkward pause where he shuffled his feet and waited for my response, I accepted. His resulting grin I can still picture in my mind.

Our early dates are still vividly memorable. With almost no money between us he always figured out crazy things for us to do. He had good friends in the right places, and those friends would sneak us into movies at the theaters they worked at, gallery openings with open bars, and let Matt know about vacationing professor’s schedules. One professor in particular traveled a lot, and when he did we’d recklessly sneak into his backyard and skinny dip in his swimming pool late at night.

We were silly too, doing ridiculous things like playing miniature golf high and then stopping at the froyo place to partake in free samples until we were kicked out. I had never laughed so freely in my life and I adored everything about him, including his black-rimmed glasses and cowlick of hair he could never flatten.

Matt always made me feel beautiful, telling me that my pale skin was perfectly peachy when it was pasty, and that my wild and wavy long dark hair made me look like the fierce heroine in his favorite SciFi series. He loved my height and my curves, always running his hands over my body, making me feel sexy when I never had before. I don’t think I fully appreciated how special it was to be so revered.

He would ditch classes when I had a free afternoon and roommate-free dorm room so we could partake in highly inspired sex, trying everything we could imagine, laughing when it was a failure, and seeing stars when it wasn’t. I couldn’t get enough of him, nor he of me. Sometimes I’d get so worked up just sitting next to him in the library that I’d woo him to his car for a quickie. I didn’t care about awkward car seats and center consoles ... I’d do anything for that feeling of having him deep inside of me. Not that he minded that I was insatiable. He was too...or at least just for me, he insisted.

By my junior year, and his senior one, we shared a small apartment in student housing. It was run down, but we lovingly filled it with wobbly Ikea hand-me-downs and mismatched dishes. In the tiny living room we hung a large world map and put pushpins in all the places we wanted to visit one day. We had big plans. We were dreamers, imaging our lives when our careers took shape, rewarding us with a life that was student-loan free and didn’t require Top Ramen for dinner when funds had dwindled to single digits.

Some of my favorite times were when we’d lie in bed late at night after making love. Matt would make up stories that he’d call “Let’s Pretend.”

“Let’s pretend we get to stay in a fancy New York hotel every year, and do all the things while we’re there.”

I clapped my hands together with glee. “Like see shows on Broadway and walk in Central Park! Oh and the museums Matt! Can we go to the Met first?”

“Sure. And how about not just a walk, but a carriage ride in Central Park...nothing’s too good for my girl!”

I’d swoon and curl up against him.

Other times his ideas were more outlandish. “Let’s pretend we’re getting married on a Ferris wheel at a carnival,” he said. “We could have the entire wedding party and guests in the various bucket seats as we went around.”

“Ha! My mother would love that ... not! She has motion sickness. She probably wants us to do a hippy thing, barefoot, with flowers in my hair and in a field somewhere.”

“How boring,” he groaned and I agreed.

One night he said, “Let’s pretend we’re pregnant with twins!”

My eyes grew wide but then the idea settled in and I liked it. “And we’re having a boy and a girl! They’ll be mini-me’s like you and I!”

“How about just mini-you’s. You’re gorgeous,” and then he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. He made love to me slowly and gently that night, every emotion so intense that I could
feel
our future in my heart and it was so good.

It’s hard to imagine where we took a wrong turn. What is it about relationships and the slow sinking when love is taken for granted?

Life and school trudged on, as did the mundane boredom of routine and school pressure. I remember that for my twenty-first birthday, Matt kept asking me what I wanted for my special day. I told him that I wanted to go see Alec Lowell who was coming into town even though I knew it was near impossible to get tickets. Alec insisted on playing only in small clubs long past when his audience had outgrown such venues. The result was extreme measures to get tickets unless you could afford paying top dollar to scalpers.

I look back now and realize that Matthew was desperate to give me something special because he must have sensed that I was starting to drift away from him. The distancing began in tiny ways, some of his jokes weren’t funny to me anymore, and it bugged me how he never washed the dishes or picked up his bath towel.

When I’d nag him his eyes would grow wide like he couldn’t believe I cared about such things, and then I’d feel horrible for not loving him the way I should.

At the time I refused to be honest with myself about what was happening. The truth was another man was casting a shadow on our little world, and his name was Brett Carlton.

I first became aware of Brett in my Sophomore American Lit. class. He was the kind of guy I’d always avoided and he was everything Matthew wasn’t: gorgeous, sophisticated, wealthy and mysteriously dreamy. He was romance novel swoony, a dark mix of Darcy, Heathcliff, Rochester and Mr. Wickham. He was a literature major like me, who quoted Wadsworth, Emerson and Thoreau like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He was tall and had a swimmer’s body, broad strong shoulders, narrow hips and the long, fit legs of a man on the go. His wavy thick hair fell around his neck so he was always pushing it off his face, away from his chiseled cheekbones and emerald eyes. I made a point to always sit as far away from him as possible.

All the girls had a thing for him, and practically threw themselves at his feet, but for some reason in our Junior year he took an interest in me. Yes, shy, understated, and very much in a relationship, me.

Now I understand that his fascination was that I all but ignored him and thus seemed unattainable. I think he liked the challenge.

His focus on me started so unexpectedly that I hardly knew what to do. He would come into class once everyone was seated, and then pick a seat near me and spend most of the lecture with his gaze, filtered through his thick fringe of eyelashes, fixed on me until I’d squirm. Then after class, he’d follow me out asking my thoughts on the lecture while coaxing me to join him for coffee.

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