Part 3: Love Me Two Times
Manny's schedule became a balance of keeping things moving forward with Craig while keeping the pot from boiling over with everyone else. Both efforts required her to keep pushing boundaries she never expected to cross in her high school career. She struggled with banishing the shame she felt for not slowing down the pace, but it was impossible at this point. Couples could not abstain from sex after they already had it. Either partner asking for that would be a blindsiding confusion because there would have to be a reason. Manny knew that if the roles were reversed and Craig asked her for a break, no matter what he said she would assume he was getting it on with Ashley. Therefore, she did not ask. She could only pretend to be more and more into it.
Everything they did always accelerated when they reciprocated, so Craig learned how to take more initiative to ensure their rendezvous left no time for talking. She dictated his patience by springing into his lap with only the weight of her gaze necessary to subdue him. Her sprightly brown eyes seemed to be saying, "You do what I say now. You belong to me." Which he wouldn't in his wildest dreams ever contradict her.
Everything Manny built that year to last the rest of her life turned to dust at the unfortunate Christmastime. She remembered it infamously as the day Craig broke her heart. He did it by making her choose to let him go, which was the most traumatizing choice a 14 year old in love had to make.
The poor thing calculated her downfall seconds after she kissed him that first time. She was deliriously happy while simultaneously crippled by despair that it had to be this casanova rather than another her own age. Upperclassmen dating lower were destined to move on to the bigger and better opportunities offered in their grade. Age difference of even one school year was metastatic cancer that could only be beat by miraculous odds. If somehow they made it to Craig's graduation, he would be off to some university while she was still dawdling in proms and plays. He would stop confiding in her gradually and then frustrate himself over their disconnect until his pity party rewarded him with sorority girls who existed to entertain unattached boys. The odds of him hooking up with a twenty-first century tramp in his dorm room were bottom out zero, but there would be other epiphanies that would make him lose interest in her. He might opportune on his loneliness to rekindle his bond with Ashley. She might even go to university with him! Better yet: he might find leisure in being a bachelor and revel in how simple life could be without a girlfriend tying him down.
She gave herself to him all semester believing wholeheartedly that all her efforts had conquered the impossible. Mind, body, and soul she invested to make their love so strong that she felt in her right to ask him to break it off with Ashley as her Christmas present. It was the most righteous thing in the world to ask, but double standards in society made her hesitate to demand what she deserved. "Loose girls" like her were not allowed to ask because they were supposed to acquiesce to the worthlessness haters pinned onto them. She could ask men for promiscuous sex- but would be out of her mind to ask one on a date. Months of being the other woman made her forget herself. Now was way past the time to demand Craig's respect outside the bedroom.
That had been the point all along: not capricious sneaking around just to see how full he could get off eating two desserts. Manny should have known he was not good enough to reward her with a real victory: just the false promise of one. The day of the talent show she had to hear it from Ashley that they were still together. Craig said it was only so they could perform together, but no girl could perform a love song with the guy that broke up with her. Manny knew it deep down. She also knew that nothing she had done was half as degrading as staying with Craig after all this. When she told him that final farewell in the hall, his voice was white noise to her retreating figure. He resumed telling her how much she meant to him, but he refused to say the L word at all costs. To do so would be to refer to it in the past tense, although she was standing right there before him! Not being able to say it was precisely what put them in this mess in the first place.
Sex did not make Craig fall in love; he fell in love with sex. The red flag in hindsight was a scarlet banner in 20/20.
She was so devastated she could not find it in her to fight for herself. Although it was her last chance to do so, she had too much pride to let his last memory of her be that she was too neonatal to face the preordained aftermath of an affair. A whole "till death do us part" was shot in the head by his gun. So she let him go. She checked all the boxes to be sure he was gone for good. She could not come up with any outstanding reason why he would come around to bother her again.
Craig had to be strong in the only way a guy can. He had to blame the women and surround himself with dudes who agreed they were not worth the trouble. He would be lauded rather than scorned, thanks to the upper hand double standards dealt for him. He was enthused about the journey ahead without Ashley or Manny.
It was now time for all of them to pretend. The trio knew that none of them were done with each other. Not even close. When they came back from winter break, interactions would spring forth into resentments or reparations. New relationships would be forged amongst the same people. What those relationships were, no one could begin to fathom.
By the time spring break set them free once more, two of the three lovers would be pregnant.
