Chapter 36: It's Nice Not to Be So Alone

Mary Anne

April 30

I've been thinking about Jeff again. I hate when I let myself do that. He was such a selfish pig. I thought that after poor Stacey's encounter with Teddy (and our beating the crap out of him), I'd be over Jeff. Of course, though, I'm not. A tiny little bit of my head keeps insisting that I should just call him up and make up. Maybe I backed out of that relationship too fast. Then, my better sense takes control…

I don't know how Stacey does it. She's abused over and over by Teddy and she still manages to stay strong enough to say no to him. I'm starting to wonder if, in a moment of supreme weakness, I might end up calling Jeff, apologize for walking out on him, and beg him to take me back again. I know it sounds stupid, but I was really starting to miss him. Or maybe it was just the thought of him I was missing. No, maybe it was the thought of having a boyfriend that I was missing.

I didn't know who I could talk to about this situation. I hadn't told my father about Jeff and neither had Sharon. We decided that night that it would be our little secret, especially since I was finished having anything to do with him. There was no sense in worrying my father over nothing.

Although she hadn't said anything, I just knew that Dawn was holding back an "I TOLD YOU SO," which made it impossible to talk to her about anything of this. It was easy for her to be so choosey about who she dated. She's gorgeous and any straight man would love to be with her. I'm pretty, but nothing extraordinary.

It was harder for me to get involved, too. I always wanted more than any of the guys dating me seemed capable of giving. I thought that Jeff was going to be different and, until I caught him cheating on me, he was. He was compassionate, he called me when he promised to, and he was always telling me how sweet or pretty I was. In a lot of ways, he was a great guy.

That just made getting him out of my head such a huge problem.

36

"Morning, sleepy head!"

I opened my blurry eyes and squinted at the face hanging over me. I groaned, rolled over, and slipped my glasses on. I sat up and stared at my stepmother.

"Sharon, what time is it?"

She checked her watch. "It's quarter after."

"After which hour."

"Eight," Sharon said with a sheepish smile. I let out a loud groan and flopped back down onto my pillow. I felt her weight settle beside me, but refused to give her the satisfaction of knowing that I was slowly waking up already. "Remember you agreed to go out with me this morning."

"What? When… oh, right." I slowly sat up and sighed. "We're going birthday present shopping for Dad. That's right."

"And, remember that you wanted to wake up early so that we could go over there before the crowds start getting too big." It was a Saturday. Apparently, everyone gravitates to the mall on Saturday. Anyways, Dad's birthday was tomorrow, which is why I went home during this week before finals. "Now, come on, Mary Anne. Don't make me pick out something for you to wear."

I held up my hands in supplication. "I'm up. I am up."

I got out of bed and waited until I heard Sharon tromping back downstairs and start messing around in the kitchen before beginning to change. Dad must be at work (he's turning into quite the workaholic nowadays) otherwise he'd have yelled for Sharon to be quiet. My stepmother is a singer in the kitchen. Nobody really understands why.

I pulled off all of my clothes, slipped into my tattered old robe, and padded across the hall and into the bathroom. I stayed in the shower a little longer than usual. I had been up late the night before, trying to get some kind of conversation out of Kristy. She seemed a little morose and tired which worried me. She left Stoneybrook to start feeling better. The change of scenery wasn't helping her at all, it seemed to me.

When I finally got out of the shower, I trudged back into my bedroom, drew the blinds tightly shut and dropped my towel onto the ground. I slid into my bra and panties and stared into my closet. There weren't as many options for spring as I thought. I must've donated too many this past August.

After a while, I picked out a loose, flowered skirt. It was yellow but with pretty little dots of blue and pink flowers on it. Kind of conservative, but I've always been a conservative with the way I dressed. After another while, I picked out a light, flowing blouse, a pair of kitten heeled white sandals, and a green and blue floral scarf tied around my hair to keep it neat. Once I opened the shades and looked outside I congratulated myself on selecting the wrap. The wind was going to whip my hair in every possible direction it could.

I hurried downstairs and sat down just as Sharon was spooning hot oatmeal into our breakfast bowls. It smelled like cinnamon and heaven. I closed my eyes to breathe in the scent more deeply and Sharon giggled.

"Not everything I cook is scary, Mary Anne," she insisted. I scooped up a spoonful and, after blowing on it, put it in my mouth. I sighed.

"Your oatmeal is the stuff legends are made from," I told and she laughed.

"Oh, just hurry up," she said, eating from her own bowl. "I want to leave in a little bit."

"Don't rush me, Sharon, otherwise I will get a bad stomach ache and ruin this whole trip."

36

"What do you think of this?" Sharon asked, holding out a tie. It was red and sparkly. I shook my head.

"No way."

Sharon laughed. "I was just thinking about buying him a gag gift this year. I mean, he really doesn't get any stupid things, does he?"

"I don't know if he likes getting stupid things," I said hesitantly. Sharon threw the monstrosity of a tie into our basket. I looked up at her in surprise. She shrugged.

"Well, he's getting the ugly tie for sure then."

We continued to walk slowly through the men's department, trying to decide what to buy and what not to buy. After we had selected three nice, button down shirts (one of which had a bit more flair to it than Dad usually wears, but something I had seen a lot of professionals wear, Jeff included), several pairs of socks (apparently, he was wearing all his good pairs out), and a gag shirt with a picture of Will Ferrell on it. I didn't recognize the character, but we both thought it would be a riot to watch Dad walk around in it when he was off from work.

Just as we were starting to go into household items, I caught a glimpse of my old ex-boyfriend Logan. He caught my eyes, stared for just a little too long, and began to walk this way. I moaned.

"Sharon, it's Logan," I said, nudging her. "I'm going to make a run for the bathroom, you tell him I have the bubonic plague."

"He's too close and why would you be out in public with that?"

I glared at her. "Just do it!"

"Too late," she said, spinning back around to face Logan. I forced a smile on my face and relaxed a little when I saw how genuine the smile on his face was. He reached out his hand and took mine. I'd forgotten how gentle he was.

"Hi, Mary Anne. What are you doing here?"

I smiled. "Shopping for birthday presents for my dad. Want to help? We could use a male's opinion."

Logan let our hands fall to our sides and shrugged. "If you don't mind?"

"I invited you, Logan. If I minded, do you think I would've said anything?"

"Point taken." We both glanced at Sharon, who had been eyeing something a little farther into the house hold items displays.

"Do you think your father would like a new blender?"

36

"All set to go then," Logan told Sharon as he finished helping us load everything into the car. We had had a lot of things gift wrapped since we probably wouldn't have time and since we didn't want Dad to be able to see in full what we had purchased for him. Logan rubbed his hands together and looked at me expectantly. "Hey, Mary Anne, I was wondering about something."

"Yeah?" I asked, holding my car door open. Sharon started the car, winced at the volume of the radio, and quickly turned it down.

"Do you want to go do something?"

I nodded. "Sure. When?"

"How about right now? I don't have to work this weekend." That's right. Logan went to Hartville College which lay twenty minutes on the other side of town from Stoneybrook College. "It'd be nice to catch up with you, especially since we all had such a good time."

I looked back at Sharon and she shrugged. "Sounds fine to me. Go ahead, Mary Anne. It's better if I'm in the kitchen alone anyway today. I have the perfect surprise dinner for your father tomorrow." I stared and she shrugged again. "You'll all like it."

I looked back at Logan. "All right. Your car is parked…?"

"Right over there. The red Camry. See it?"

I nodded even though I didn't know what he was talking about. "All right. Sharon, I'll see you sometime tonight."

She suddenly scooped up her purse, fumbled around in it, and pulled out a few crumpled bills. "Go ahead and buy yourselves lunch this afternoon and save enough to buy a pizza for dinner tonight. Nobody will be in the mood to cook dinner."

I took the money gratefully from her. I knew that this money would mean no weird vegetable pizza or hippie tofu take-out like the last Saturday night I was at home. I nodded at Logan. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah," he said as I closed the door to the car. We waited until Sharon was out of the parking lot before heading towards his car. "Is there any place you want to go?"

I thought about it for a minute or so as we sat in the car in silence. Suddenly, I perked up. "SMS!"

"The middle school?" Logan asked hesitantly. "Really?"

"Oh, come on. You and I had some good times at SMS," I reminded him. He grinned.

"Better times at SHS." I slapped weakly at him, giggling. He put the car in gear and headed back towards Stoneybrook.

36

We never made it to Stoneybrook Middle School. We actually got distracted and ended up in a little park along the main road from Stamford and Stoneybrook. It was so warm and breezy and the flowers and leaves looked so beautiful that I made Logan pull over.

"God, I feel like such a hippie," I laughed as I spun in circles until I was so dizzy I fell onto the ground. Logan, who had also been spinning on my command, crumpled down not soon after. "I like it!"

"I might puke," he panted and when he saw the look on my face starting laughing again. "I'm kidding, M-A. Calm down."

M-A. Logan was actually one of the people that I allowed to call me that. Several people had tried before and after he did, but only was really the only one allowed to call me that. Plus Dawn and Kristy. Only three people. I missed hearing it, now that I thought about it.

Dawn was far away in California and wasn't writing much anymore. I wasn't sure if that meant she was busy in a good way or busy in a bad way. I didn't want to think that she just didn't feel like writing to her. I was her stepsister and one of her best friends. We were so close and I had sent two letters, three emails, and a handful of instant messages to her and only one email was answered. I hated that she had fallen under radio silence.

Kristy was also far away. I suppose I hadn't thought much about it until now. She had come to represent Stoneybrook after her pregnancy. While I knew she was suffering, part of me wanted to tell her to get over it. I wanted her back home and I wanted home to feel like home again.

I could feel tears in my eyes and Logan clucked his tongue.

"Are you crying?" he asked in a big, overly exaggerated voice. I grinned. The best way to make me stop crying was to make me laugh and I was glad that Logan remembered that. He smiled gently. "What's going on?"

I groaned. "Everything, Logan. Just everything that has to do with love, for starters. I started dating this really good looking doctor-"

Logan held up his hands. "A doctor? Isn't that a little old?"

I slapped at him. "No lecturing or else I won't finish my story." Logan zipped his lips and leaned back down onto the grass. "Anyways, we dated for a little while before I caught him in bed with another woman maybe a half hour after he left me." I left out the sex part. Logan and I had lost our virginity to one another and it felt wrong to talk about having sex with another person in front of him.

He sighed. "That is crappy, M-A. Same thing kind of happened to me, too."

"Is she a bitch?" I snapped and Logan blinked.

"No, she actually isn't. She was in the process of getting a divorce-"

"And, I'm dating people too old!" I retorted. He rolled his eyes good naturedly.

"She is only 22. Married at 17 to her high school sweetheart. He cheated on her, so she started to go out to find someone new while the divorce was in the process of being finalized. We started dating and I thought that we were really going to be serious. Then she tells me that dating me made her realize how much she missed her soon to be ex-husband. She went back to him and, as far as I know, they decided to give it a second chance."

"Wow," I breathed. "We are both so romantically dysfunctional."

Logan nodded then paused for a moment. "I heard about what happened to Stacey."

I sat up quickly. "What? How did you find that out?"

"I've been shadowing at the police station while I work at getting my criminal justice degree. I've been focusing on domestic violence and rape cases this semester and I saw the creep that they brought him who hurt her. He kept trying to tell everyone that she was a slut and wanted it."

My fists clenched in anger. "That bastard. Who the hell does he think he is to do this to her?"

Logan smiled grimly. "I told him that and told him never to go near her again. He told me that I couldn't threaten him and I told him that if I ever caught him hurting her that he'd really pay for it."

"How would you catch him?"

"I gave Stacey a panic pager. If someone or something threatens her, it will immediately send out an emergency alert to all squad cars and my pager, too." He showed me and looked up at me seriously. "Stacey is a good girl. I told him that he would face a lot of angry people if he so much as thinks her name again."

Without thinking, I reached over and hugged him tightly. After a moment, he returned the hug. Gradually we pulled away from one another with, no doubt, identical blushes on our faces. "Sorry," I said.

He shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we haven't spent much time together since we broke up in our freshmen year. I keep forgetting what good friends we were before all of the other crap like sex and romantic relationship stuff got in the way."

I nodded. "I miss that, too."

He held out his hand and I immediately grasped it. "Let's agree to have an official romantic woes meeting once a week so that we have to spend more time together."

I laughed. "We should also have an official lunch hour once a week to catch up on other things, too."

He nodded seriously. "Good. You know, I don't think I've had an actual girl for a friend since you and I broke up. Everything else has always been romantic."

I nodded in dawning realization. "You're right, me neither." I released his hand. "I'm glad you ran into us today and that we got to talking."

"No, M-A, you ran into me," he said, his eyes mischievous.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening together and Logan didn't go home until around 9 pm. Dad approached me.

"Are you and Logan getting back together?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Nope, Dad, we're just getting back to being friends again."