December 31/January 1
I was sitting alone in a corner of the room just looking at the people that Aaron had invited. I hated parties, hated all the social stuff involved with them. Aaron had talked me into coming because after one full semester here, I had almost no friends. Aaron didn't seem to understand that fact that I wasn't like him. I was a loner. I didn't need the incessant stream of people in my life to keep me happy.
I alone was my greatest company.
Everyone gets all dressed up for this stuff. Party dresses and button up shirts. Half of them will be staining theirs with their own regurgitation after drinking too much at the open bar. It's like we are all rich for one night. We get to schmooze. It is a see and been seen kind of thing. I was wearing a black tee shirt and jeans. If this made me feel uncomfortable it was only because everyone else was dressed to the nines and staring at me like I was the crazy one.
Maybe I am the crazy one.
So, this is the New Year? It's the same as any other only more noisy and annoying than most that I have had. I hear the fireworks exploding off in the distance. I try to focus on one of the thirty dialogues going on all at once. I hear people clanking their glasses together as they toast and make resolutions.
I don't have any resolutions.
I just sat there in that corner kind of wishing things would go back to the way they used to be. Before technology came along. I don't want to be the guy to reach out and touch someone. Heck, I'll go even farther to being the guy who still believes the world is flat. Wouldn't it be easier to travel that way?
I thought the night would soon be over.
I saw her standing near the window. She was wearing black jeans and a white tee shirt that said "Party Like its 1999." Fitting, since it was already about to be 2012. It made me laugh, and I caught her eye with the smile still on my face. It might have been the first smile I'd had since the A on my psychology test last semester.
I wanted her to come talk to me.
She wandered her way over to me. I stood up when she got there. What was I going to say to her. She was gorgeous. I was a geek who made straight A's. There was no way she was sober enough to really see me.
"Hi, I'm Gwen." She smiled and reached her hand out to me.
I quickly took it but tried to make sure it was dry on the side of my jeans first. Hopefully she didn't see the wipe. "I'm Benji."
I was flabbergasted that she was talking to me. She had a beautiful auburn mane that lay past her shoulders but not too long. She had emerald eyes that I could see myself looking into for my entire life.
I guess I stared too long because she cleared her throat.
"I was just wondering if you were here with anyone. I came alone and well, you know I need someone to kiss at midnight." She blushed a bit at the end of her sentence.
Had I died and gone to heaven? "I'm here alone, too. Aaron, you know the guy throwing the party, he is my roommate at school, and he invited me." Why does she care about all of this? I was wondering why she cared about the guy she was talking to anyway.
I was tall and lean, I mean I worked out once a week, but nothing to give me muscle. I had brown hair that could have used a trim and blue eyes. They weren't the kind of eyes girls read about in those romance novels. They were an odd size and shape for a guy, big and round, they were really quite feminine looking. They were behind a pair of Buddy Holly black rimmed glasses. Like I said, not much to look at.
She put her hand on my upper arm and said, "Well, let's stick together since we are the only people dressed like it's a party and not the Emmys."
I was really proud of my next move.
"I see that your glass is empty, can I get you something?" Really suave, right?
"Yeah, I am drinking Coke. I don't like to get drunk. I like to know who I am hitting on." She blushed again with that, and I sped walked to the bar.
I told the bartender I wanted two cokes and I walked back to her. When I got there she clinked her glass against mine and made a resolution with me. The first resolution I had ever made in my life.
Hey, it was impulse.
Gwen and I shared our first kiss at midnight. I took her home after it was all over. By the end of the night I had found out all I needed to know on how to get a hold of her again. There was no way I was letting this one go.
February 14
I was getting really nervous about this date. Gwen and I have been going strong for over a month. I really feel as if I am with someone I can be with forever. I slip on a red button up with my black slacks and checked my ever growing hair one last time. Good enough for someone who could never remember to get a haircut.
My car broke down the day before so she was coming to get me. Gwen told me she had a surprise for me. She told me not to make reservations anywhere or plan anything.
I looked at the flowers sitting on my dresser. I didn't really plan them. They were sporadic. They were potted buttercups. They weren't the normal. Gwen didn't like the normal things. Cut long stem roses would have turned her off and probably made her pissed off at me for expecting her to swoon at them.
So, I wouldn't wear the normal either. I never even owned a button up before this. A polo was about as dressy as it got for me as a kid being forced to wake up early on Sundays to go to church and be bored. Kids really shouldn't be tortured. Adults are the only ones who understand the service anyway.
The button up led to me buying the slacks to go with it. And the bike trip home took me by the florist who was packed. It made me want to look. It made me see the buttercups sitting outside getting sunlight while everyone grabbed for last, wilting cut roses. I grabbed for the buttercups.
The florist looked up at me almost as if she was confused by my purchase. She slowly smiled and told me the good choice I had made. "You have a lucky girl." She told me as she folded watering and feeding instructions in with my receipt. I smiled and told her the opposite. "I am lucky to have this girl."
I know! Half of you think I am corny now, but it's how I felt.
I heard a knock on the door and I knew it had to be Gwen. I grabbed her flowers and went to answer the door.
The night was wonderful. Rather warm for February and I knew I would sweat like crazy in the long sleeves. She looked at me in my dashing attire and looked at the sunny yellow buttercups in my hand.
"Two surprises for me." She grabbed up the flowers and sniffed them.
She looked radiant too. She was in a red sleeveless dress and had a black cardigan over it. She stopped sniffing her flowers and said, "Come on. Lots to do."
We drove down a winding road and on to a country road far out from civilization. If I had ever thought that she might have been a serial killer I probably would have started to panic. She drove until the end of the path then got out of the car but kept the headlights on. Out in front of the car was a picnic for two, in the middle of the woods in the dark of night. Creepy, but romantic.
We ate as fast as we could because the temperature began to drop… and because we didn't need her battery to die out there in the middle of nowhere.
As we drove home the heat was blaring, and it was getting a bit stuffy. I rolled the window down a bit to get some breeze flowing. I began to breathe the fresh cool air into my lungs. It was a dark country road that seemed to be filled with the scent of the evergreen trees.
I looked up at the sky and saw what I thought was a shooting star, but Gwen decided to call it a satellite. "Do you think that they ever collide?" I asked her. She looked over at me with a smile that was so playful and sexy. She never answered me. I put my feet up on the dash board and leaned back. I took note of how I felt.
When I am with Gwen, the entire world could implode and I would never know.
March 24
This is love. Gwen and I are in love.
I laid next to her in the bed. She was lightly snoring as she slept next to me. We'd been together all day. She showed up at my dorm room this morning and said she wasn't going to class. Then she pulled me inside as she walked in and sat with me on the bed. It was a long talk about things before it happened.
She seduced me, what can I say? I'm the innocent one here.
The window of my room was open allowing in all the sugary smells of spring. I would always remember this day. After we were done she slowly fell asleep while talking to me. I slept for a while, but woke up about thirty minutes later.
This became a trend for us. Thursday mornings would come, and I would wake up to the sound of Gwen knocking on my door. She skipped her classes every Thursday to be with me. I didn't have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and she only had one. We spent these early mornings learning how to move together, learning how our bodies worked. She was my first lover, and I was hers.
At night when we had so much studying to do and both of us had roommates who were there, we would steal away in my gray Honda CRX. It was crowded and cramped in the back seat but we somehow made it work. I hated how savage I felt, how primal my needs were with her. We fumbled around in the back try just to make the contact we needed. We must've looked like giants in the back of that car.
April 21
It was early when Gwen knocked on the door. I was expecting her. I got up and answered somehow more anxious about this day more than any other. I had been up for around an hour already. I just laid there and stared at the ceiling. Just counted the minutes until I heard the knock. Fifty-three minutes, twenty-seven seconds.
I was being consumed by this woman. My every breathe was breathed just so I could live to see her again. A breath blown away without her name on it was wasted. I looked at her today.
Oh, there was something different about today, all right.
She stood there in a dress. A tiny, tiny black dress. Gwen wasn't the type to wear dresses for something that she had to dress up for, let alone a once a week, come as you are occasion. There was a pattern of tiny little black embroidered flowers all over it. It skimmed barely above her knee.
Yes, today was different.
I went crazy with need for her. The light from the hall illuminating her from behind as she leaned nonchalantly in my doorway. I moved aside to let her come in.
Without a word I kissed her and began to undress her. Words would ruin it. Undressing her took no time at all. I tore the dress from her body with one motion of my arm, and underneath was nothing but what God had given her. I wanted to groan. Her perfect ivory skin was driving me to insanity. I took her hand in mine and lead her to the bed. I removed the only thing I was wearing, the boxers I had fallen asleep in the night before. I kissed her all over her face and down her neck.
I was shaking. It had never been like this. So much need, so much desire burning through my body. I united with her, and it was magic. There were no moans or groans. No talking or I Love You's. The only change in sound was the rushing of breath as we got further along. No crying out or saying a name. It was magic.
The orgasm I reached with her this time was more powerful than I had ever gotten with her. I knew when she finished too by the way she dug her nails into my arms and her eyes close as if they were too heavy to keep open.
She got up and got dressed. Still no words were passed between us. She kissed my fore head and waved to me as she headed out the door. The door closed softly behind her.
"What?" I was confused. Thursdays were for us to be together. Why did she leave.
She was so hard to understand sometimes. It's like all of her is connected inside and I can get to her heart, I can get to her body, I can get to her smile, I can win her love. It's as if her heart pumped a river for me to swim through. But when I get to her brain, it's impossible to get through. It's a dam in the river. There is a big wall that filters out the water not allowing in anything else. I wanted to scream out the window hoping she would hear me . "What is inside of your mind Gwenivere Rose?"
May 14
It was a beautiful day and we were going for a picnic out in this park. School was out finally, and we were going to have to go to our perspective homes. We knew this would happen. She lived in Southern California, and I lived in Washington. I promised that I would come see her for a week, and she promised me the same.
I never wanted to leave her. I was becoming settled with her. I could close my eyes and picture us growing old together and I found myself saying, "I can't wait to get old and gray together." Tears were streaming down her face as we packed up the picnic and headed for the car. She climbed into the passenger seat and stared out the window as I took her to the airport. Her flight was that evening at six. Then it would be over a month before I would go to see her and over six weeks before she would come to see me.
I could have let a few tears go too.
I was prepared for the last kiss we would share for the month, I was prepared for the hug goodbye, but when Gwen looked at me with her eyes filled to the brim and spilling over, my heart wrenched. I was going to miss her like crazy.
At the terminal, we didn't say goodbye. This wasn't really a goodbye but a pause in our lives, an ellipsis. A holding of breath until it was safe to breath out each other's names once more. I kiss her passionately and slowly I wanted it to last until our three month summer was over.
I had to let her go.
June 10
Sometimes I think life is an endless cycle. Like children in line for a slide at the park. No matter how many trips they take up the ladder and down the slope, they run to get back in line. The redundancy has no effect on them.
It's killing me.
Every night at nine, Gwen calls. She's just gotten off of work and she desperately needs to talk to me, she will say. I will listen to her spout problems to which I have no solution. Then I will listen to her say how much she can't wait for school to begin again so she can be held in my arms yet again. Then we say goodnight, and I sit down in front of my computer. I open up my photo album and turn through the pages of the last semester from January first, when we met, to May fourteenth, when we had to part ways.
Last night she called, and I didn't want to listen to the stories, I didn't want to hear her say, "I miss your arms around me. School can't start soon enough." But I did listen and I did hear it. Because I feel that if I change one thing I will lose. Like when a kid moves out of line to play with the butterfly, he turns back and he has lost his place in line. I go through every day, waiting for the familiar resolve, another repeat from the night before.
But last night I didn't look at our pictures.
I heard the ring, nine o'clock. I picked up the phone but made sure it was nine oh one when I did it. "Hey," I said but continued on instead of letting her story begin, I told mine. "So I can't wait. It's not long until I am coming to see you if you think about it. I am excited about it because I miss seeing your face, Gwen. Then, in August, I am meeting up with Aaron at Silver Lake, then I will be there for a while. Probably until school starts."
Time to break the redundancy. Maybe I will lose my place in line, but sometimes the butterfly is worth chasing.
July 4
I arrived early in the town and spent all day with Gwen. There was something amiss about it all though. I would ask her a question about something and it was like she just shut me out. She would wave it off with a flick of her wrist and move on to another subject. That night we went to the fireworks show on the lake near her house. We snuggled together on a fleece blanket and ate hotdogs. It was a magical night, but no matter how close I held her it was still like she was a million miles away trapped in her own world in her intricate mind.
I think I have figured out why Gwen is trapped in her mind a lot of the times. Yesterday, when I arrived at her house, and I met her mother. Angela Rose, such a fragile looking creature with a hug like a bear trap and a smile like a beacon. And I met the sisters. Camilla and Naomi. They were both older and married. Camilla Rose-Lee was pregnant with three already running around her feet. Naomi Rose-Fairway was a lawyer with no children and no desire for them. Different ends of a magnet. All strong independent women who influenced my Gwen.
Angela's story is a sad one. This must be why Gwen shuts off some of her thoughts in her head. It must be why her feelings had been so slow to leak out of her. But the rush of her feelings when she finally let them go were enough to knock someone over. She was so powerful when she finally released.
Angela took me into a room to talk after Gwen had gone to bed. She told me a story.
"I can see the frustration in your eyes when my Gwen closes herself off about some things. There are things that she probably didn't tell you. It is her right to tell you but it's my story so I have a right to it too." She looked at me then with sad eyes and a sad smile. It almost broke my heart.
"My three girls were so sweet. But as soon as we had Gwen, I was done with having kids. I told my husband of fifteen years, Edward, that she was enough. He wanted to keep trying for a boy. I was thirty-five by then and I was getting too old to keep up with running and diapers. Gwen is seven years younger than Camilla who is, in turn, seven years younger than Naomi." She sighed. "By this time Edward was forty-three and working as much as he could. We were barely making ends meet."
"We had a fight one night when Gwen was about two and a half or so. Edward really wanted to go to Panama City and go to the beach. It was going to be a ridicules amount of money for all five of us to go. I told him to go and take Camilla and Naomi. They were nine and sixteen and they would both love it. I knew Gwen would never remember it as young as she was and there was no point in her going. I really didn't care for beaches so it made sense that I stay home as well. Edward got furious and accused me of not loving him anymore."
"After a week of furious glares and few word passed between us, he decided to go with the two girls and without me and Gwen."
I didn't know if I wanted to hear the rest I didn't know if I want to know what made her so sad.
"I got a call at the end of the weekend from Naomi. She said, 'Mom, me and Camilla will be home tonight.' She told me they had gotten on the bus that morning and had run away to come home. I asked her why they were doing it. She said, 'Mom, I don't want to tell you, but last night we caught Daddy with a woman in his bed.'" A tear rolled down Angela's cheek as she relayed her story. "He stayed on that faraway beach, he took his lover, and I was left alone to raise my girls."
"I remember the hardest time for me was at Naomi's wedding. She didn't have a father to walk her down the aisle. She asked me to walk her down the aisle. I never hated her father more than I did at that moment. The best memory in a girl's life should be having her father walk her down the aisle to the man she loves. Naomi and Camilla never got that chance."
I sat there for a while to stunned to say a thing. She finally excused herself and said goodnight to me. I laid awake for a while that night. I realized why Gwen was so secretive on her thoughts and feelings. I would have to have a way to prove to her that I was in no way like her father.
August 1
Aaron called me from the cabin his parents owned in Silver Lake. I was well on my way to the cabin. "Yeah, I should be there in an hour or so." It was two weeks before school and I was staying in the cabin until then.
I was a little worried about Gwen because since I had gone to see her, even when she had come to my house to visit me, it was like she was a world away. I sighed just thinking about it.
It was really sad. The more I thought about her, the more I realized that she wasn't even the same girl I had known. She cried more, but was still secretive and locked inside her mind about what she was crying about.
"Well," Aaron said, "you had better hurry down here the opening night party is about to start."
I sighed at the thought of another party. Aaron was always trying to make me social. "I'll try to hurry, see you then." I slowed my cruise control down to five miles under the speed limit just to make sure I was a little later.
The party was well underway when I finally made it almost two hours later. Aaron ran up to me and told me that I had a lot to catch up on with him, but we would save it for the next day when we woke up.
There I sat in a corner on an overstuffed armchair the color of a faded black tee shirt. My black tee shirt stood out a bit brighter than the chair, but I hoped it was enough to camouflage me. I sat there drinking a beer and watching the people dance and laugh.
It reminded me of her. How we met. How much I missed the her I met last New Year's Eve. How much we'd both changed.
I looked up from my hands, I had recently gotten into the habit of staring at my hands when I thought about her. When I looked up there she was. Or I thought it was her at first. A girl with the almost the same hair color, maybe a bit longer, with a few streaks of brown in the mane, in a pair of black jeans and a white shirt. When she turned, I noticed that her shirt had black words splashed on it just as the one Gwen wore at the last party. She smiled at me. She began to walk over to me.
"Hi," she said with a tilt of her head. Her voice was sultry and her eyes were a shade of gray that I have never seen before. "My name is Stacey."
I took her hand that reached towards me. "My name is Benji."
The rest of the night was spent talking to Stacey. At the end of the night a lot of people began heading towards the doors. Stacey and I had shared at least six beers and we had shared more than that amount in kisses. I didn't feel like I was in my own body by this point.
"Want to go upstairs?" I heard her ask, and I felt my head nod. My brain was screaming at me.
Don't do it!
She led me by my hand, up to an unoccupied room. She pushed me onto the bed and slowly pulled off my shirt. Or maybe it wasn't slow, maybe I had my life set in slow motion. Like it happens in movies when something really climatic is going to happen. She did a little strip tease for me taking off her clothes one item at a time and tossing them at me.
Stop this, Benji!
She tore away my jeans and began kissing all over me. Then she was in my lap, both of us naked. She was beautiful, but she doesn't mean a thing to me. I began to tell her lies about how much I wanted to be with her. I wanted to be with her forever, and, worse than that, I wanted to believe the words that I was speaking.
When I closed my eyes and let her do her thing, it was Gwen I imagined. The Gwen from the party, the Gwen I fell in love with, the Gwen that I missed so much.
I didn't love the Gwen now. She was beautiful, but she didn't mean a thing to me.
September 12
"Gwen, we need to talk."
It had been so long since that night. Did it really happen or was it a dream. I had been trying to put it out of my mind since we got back to school. Since I could touch and feel my love again.
"We can talk later. I need you inside of me, Benji." She kissed me long and hard then looked at me and pouted. "You haven't touched me like that since we have been back. I am beginning to worry about this."
"Really, Gwen, before you even kiss me again, we have got to talk about something. You won't want me or love me anymore after that."
She gave me a weird look then got off the bed and sat at the desk. "Talk."
"Gwen, while we were apart I felt like you and I no longer had a relationship. It was almost as if you didn't care about me anymore because when you came to see me, you barely talked, we barely even looked at each other. When I was in Silver Lake with Aaron, I did a terrible thing. After your mom told me the story of your dad, I wanted more than anything to prove to you that I wasn't like him, but I have failed miserably."
Gwen's eyes were filling with tears. "You didn't, Benji, tell me you didn't."
"I won't lie to you, because I love you, Gwen and there are some things I won't do to the one I love. To tell you lies would eventually hurt you more than telling you the truth. I want to make this as painless as possible for you." I didn't know if I could tell her. But I knew I had to. "Gwen, I had sex with someone while I was there. I know it won't help my case to say it didn't mean a thing to me and I know it won't help my case to say that all night she reminded me of you, and she reminded me of the night we met."
"No, no it won't help because if you had been thinking of me you would have stopped yourself."
And like a bolt of lightning, she was out of my door and my life.
Today, an ocean was created. The sky opened up and let a flood poor from above. Water filled all of the land around me and I was left on an island. It was a six foot square and only I was on it. Other people were overjoyed at the rain. They danced in the rain drops and got boats to explore in. Like some crazy spontaneous lake, they began fishing and swimming. To me, it was a moat, keeping me away from the world.
I am utterly alone on this rock, and even knowing it's my fault, I needed her to be closer. This ocean made me miles and miles away from the love of my life and I needed her to be closer to me.
October 31
I was driving down the road trying to get as far away from the celebrating masses that I could. Aaron's big bash had been thrown in my face as all of his other parties, but they brought painful memories now. All the laughing children and smiling parents were enough to make me sick. I just needed out of this life, out of this town. I needed to be anywhere.
There wasn't a soul on the road I was on. It was straight and open. Heading south. To California.
I needed to see her. If only from a distance.
God, I have become a stalker.
It wouldn't be so bad if she hadn't transferred to the college in her home town after that day in my room. If maybe I could see her walking to her classes or see her laughing with the friends she'd made while she was there. If only I hadn't told her, I could still be with her. Why did I tell her?
Because I love her.
Tears began forming in my eyes.
The rain started pretty light, but within five minutes it was beating on the hood pretty hard. I was tempted to slow down, but I had to get out of town. I had to get away from my pain.
I heard the sirens and saw the lights in my rear view mirror. "Shit." I pulled over to the side and I began to dig in the glove compartment. I knew I would need my title and registration.
The officer came to the window but instead of listening to him I nodded when the inflection in his voice cued for one, and my mind began to wonder.
Why do they call it a glove compartment? There are no gloves in there, but there are pictures of me and Gwen. I saw them when I was digging for my papers. Only souvenirs of better times before my life went to crap. Nothing to keep my fingers warm.
Why couldn't it have just stayed the way it was? There's no fault in how we drifted apart over the summer. The only fault was in how I handle the fading of our love. Now it's gone.
I took my ticket from the officer. I pulled off at the next exit to check into a hotel. I was somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Was I in Washington still, or was I in California, the state of my lost love?
I laid awake all night thinking about all the regret. Along with all the regret came disappointment. I became what I tried so hard to not become. I became a slime like her father, and I knew I didn't deserve her. Here I rest, where disappointment and regret collide.
November 22
Terrible news came my way.
"May I speak to Benji?"
"It's me, Aaron, what's up?"
"Listen, man, I don't know how to tell you this, but I call from Angela Rose today. She was calling everybody in Gwen's cell phone. I didn't know if you were still in there. I hate to tell you this," he stopped.
"Tell me, what's wrong with Gwen? Please tell me she's okay?" My mind was racing and wondering about her. Was she in the hospital, did she only have a few hours left? How could I have hurt her? Why did I let myself do the things I swore so strongly against? I wish she was in my arms right now.
"Benji, she's gone. She died last night."
My heart stopped.
One beat.
Two.
"What?"
"Dude, she's gone."
"What happened?"
Aaron explained all that happened to me. "Gwen went out with her friends that night to drink. She was pretty low, and they were trying to cheer her up. The ended up at one of the girl's houses where her parents were gone. Gwen drank one beer."
"Gwen isn't a big drinker."
"She started drinking a beer and she decided she was through."
"Like I said she's not a big drinker. She always says she'd rather have a coke thank a drink."
"No, buddy, she decided life was over. She told her friends that she was going to sit in the yard on the swing set to think. She told them she wasn't feeling up to partying. She took her half full beer bottle with her. While she was out there, she finished up her beer then she broke the bottle on the side of the swing set and slit her wrists. They got to her while she was still alive and rushed her to the hospital." Aaron choked up a little. He voice caught. "It was basically too late. Her mom was the last to see her alive. Her mom told her to ask for forgiveness, and she did. I only hope it was enough."
I hung up on Aaron. There was no good byes for tonight for him. I dialed her number frantically. I couldn't believe him. I had to know for sure.
It was her voice.
"Hey, this is Gwen, leave me a message!"
It was 7:03.
"Gwen, baby please call me. I love you. I love you. Come back to me, Gwen."
Come back to me, Gwen was my only plea.
I know it's too late, and I should have given you a reason to stay. Instead I gave you a reason to run. I gave you a reason to hate me and hate life. I gave you a reason to kill the best thing I ever had. The best person I had ever known. The only love I will ever have.
December 31
So this is the New Year? It's the same as all the others have been for me except more lonely and sad. Last year I hated the party, sitting alone in that corner. Until I met Gwen there. I would give anything to go back to that party a year ago. To get my year with Gwen back.
She made a resolution with me. The first I have ever made. Where most people make resolutions to lose weight or quit smoking, we made a different kind. Most of those resolutions are forgotten by Valentine's Day. The candy will make any girl forget to lose weight and the stress would make any guy smoke.
No, Gwen and I had a different resolution. To make it to the next New Year as happy as we were the last.
Maybe I made it. I wasn't so happy last New Year. I wasn't happy until I met Gwen and now that she is gone from me, I am back at square one.
But Gwen didn't get her New Year's resolution at all.