Waiting. It had always been the hardest part. When I was in the hospital I had to wait for my prognosis. Life or death. The scales of justice teetered back and forth on that one everyday. Believe it or not waiting for the day I would be released from that white curtained prison was even more difficult. It'd been months and things weren't looking bright. Dad said the house wasn't ready yet. It had to be made "wheelchair accessible." And that's exactly what my entire life had become.
I had my wheelchair accessible friends. My wheelchair accessible vehicles. My wheelchair accessible classrooms. My wheelchair accessible day trips. My wheelchair accessible girlfriend. No, not Hazel. She failed the test of wheelchair accessibility, I guess. When I came back to school for senior year, so did someone else. Someone new and refreshing, but old and comfortable at the same time. Ashley Kerwin. She'd spent her summer in England becoming a woman. Sure, I felt like a jackass when we first started talking. Especially because that summer was spent with none other than Craig Manning himself. Everyone else had significant others to spend their time with. We had each other. He'd tell me stories about him and Ash, writing songs for the Kevin Smith movie, and how they were supposed to be together this summer. He told me how he tried to follow her, and when she was less than thrilled, he knew it was finally over.
As annoyed by some of Craig's stories I would get, I had to admit that he was right about a lot of things. We had a lot in common when it came to Ashley. She was both of our first loves. She was also our first heartbreaks. I sometimes compared what Ash and I had to her relationship with Craig, but I knew it was no contest. In grade 8, the most you are looking for is a girl that will show you how to kiss and come to your basketball games. Grade 11 is a more advanced playing field. Craig never came out and said exactly what happened, but I'm pretty good at putting two and two together.
It gave me a little pang. Maybe it was jealousy, or maybe it was the final nail in the coffin of defeat. Until that time, I never regretted not going through with it that day in her room. I always thought that the mental connection we had and the fact that we were both able to tell each other we weren't ready had meant more than anything physical that could have happened. Even if the night did end with blowing up condom balloons.
Eventually that summer came to an end, and so did my friendship with Craig. It was too hard to pretend to be loyal to him while I went after the woman he loved. We'd say hellos in the hallway, but even that had a tinge of awkwardness to it. We'd gone from best friends to perfect strangers. It didn't matter to me though, because I'd finally got the girl.
The day I started to walk was the day that I talked to her again. I don't want to make some miracle of a situation out of any of this. It's not like they told me I would never walk again. They figured with the right amount of physical therapy that someday I would be able to. I'm not saying I get up and go outside to shoot some hoops and then take a walk in the park. I can barely get from room to room, and I use a walker. Nowhere near as pimp as the chair, but it does its job.
That was that and Ashley Kerwin was my girlfriend. It took me three years to get her back, but I did it. Even though people always tell you those high school relationships don't matter. Even though they think even less of the ones in junior high, to me she has always been the only one. Somewhere in the middle things got confused, but they sorted themselves out.
She applied early decision. With her spotless record and perfect grades it was hardly necessary, but she did it anyway. I wasn't ready then. At least not to make that kind of decision. My parents weren't sure if they wanted me to go away. Didn't think I could handle it or something. Kind of funny, actually. After everything I'd been through it would be a piece of cake. Not alone though. I knew I couldn't do it alone.
We spent every Saturday for a month working on my application. She proofread my essay. She talked to Hatzilakos about things like egging a certain teacher's vehicle and hacking into school computers being removed from my record. She even got Kwan to write me a recommendation. I never thought I'd see that day.
She was accepted back in January. No one had even fathomed her not getting in, except herself. From the day she applied in November until January 14th, she was a ball of worries. It didn't matter how many times people reassured her, she was certain that she wasn't good enough. I told her a million times that any college would be lucky to have her, but it never seemed to sink in. I would say that at that point half the battle was won, but it wasn't. I'd seen this half of the situation coming from a mile away. The hard part would be me. That's how it usually was though. Jimmy Brooks, Complications Extraordinaire.
I felt nauseous every time I went to check on the mail. Sometimes I thought I'd collapse, and everything would be reverted to right after I got out of the hospital. I'd be back in the chair permanently, I wouldn't have Ashley, and I'd be dependent on living vicariously through the stories of friends. It never happened, of course. I lived. I waited. I was used to it.
April. Ashley had sent in her deposits and housing forms. I haven't even heard back, except for the wonderful postcard stating that they received my application. She came home with me everyday. Closing her eyes and crossing her fingers every time I opened up the mailbox. The first two weeks we heard nothing, but by the fifteenth of the month, I'd gotten something.
It wasn't big, but it wasn't small either. I knew what big meant (that Ashley and I would be together for the next four years), I knew what small meant (She'd dump me as gently as possible), but I had no fucking clue what a moderately sized envelope meant for me.
"Jimmy, just open it. Please."
She didn't look as confident about all of this as she usually did. Still, I couldn't rush into opening my future. I knew that college is a time for experiencing new things. It's probably best absorbed with no strings attached. Knowing that you can be whoever you want to be. The fact that Ashley had even considered spending it with me had meant everything.
"Promise me something, Ash. That you won't stay with me because you feel bad. That if this isn't good news and I'm not coming with you next year, you will only stay with me because you want to. Not because you don't want to hurt me, or because you know how much I love you. Only if you love me like that too. Only if I'm the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing you think about before you go to bed. And not because you are worried about me. Because I can get by, you know that. I'm stronger now. I know that it's easier when you have no strings, and I'll understand that. If we are meant to be like this, we'll find each other again. We've done it twice...I have no doubt it can happen again."
She did the girlfriend thing where she promised that she would never dump me for some big bad College guy. She told me that last summer she got that space that she needed, and that she was happy right here, right now.
Opening that letter wasn't the hardest thing I've ever done, not even close. It didn't stop it from hurting though. When you get those kinds of things, only the important words stick out. All the others are a blur. Your eyes shoot straight to the accepteds and rejecteds. Or what I got.
Waiting list. Ashley hid her disappointment well, and spoke positively about it all. I read the letter over and over that night. Twenty percent of those on the waiting list usually get in. I was no newcomer to beating the odds, but this time it wasn't about my willpower. It wasn't about how much determination I had. It was about what some stupid school thought of me, and there was nothing that I could do to change what was inevitable.
The next day in school I ran into Craig. Literally, actually. After he'd determined I was okay, we made a bunch of that awkward small talk.
"So, yeah graduation is soon. Excited to be finally getting out of here?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'll miss it though. It's been a good four years. What are you doing next year, man?"
Admitting defeat to others was even tougher than accepting it for yourself.
"I'll probably just stick around here, you know. Take some classes at the community college, work on getting a job. What about you? Moving somewhere to work on your music?"
"Actually, uh, I didn't get into my music school. It kind of sucked, you know. I'll probably end up being one of those freeloading musicians until Joey kicks me out. Look...I've got to go, but we should catch up some time."
I hate to say that Craig seemed happy when he found out I'd been staying around here, but that was the vibe that I got. He knew Ashley, probably as well as I did. He knew what happened when she had to leave. She was a pro at cutting off all connections, not leaving her heart back where she was from. He knew as well as I did what her leaving meant.
Still, I had to wait. I had to wait all summer to see if I'd be going with her. And knowing that summer could be the last one spent with Ashley made me appreciate it even more.