Our Story pt. 2

I held onto the hope that he would show up at my Grammy's doorstep in the morning to give me one last hug. Just to know he was as desperate to see me one last time as I was him would be enough for me to hold onto for a long time. But he didn't show, and neither did Rachel. I got onto the plane, sick and numb. Crying hysterically the whole way.

When I first moved up I was sick with grief. I cried myself to dehydration. My mom says I wouldn't eat, but I don't remember that part. I got my period within two weeks of itself, I'm sure just from the sheer intensity my sadness. I would spend most of my time editing old photos on photoshop, learning new things on the program daily. I'd stay up late into the morning online just hoping to talk to anyone back home. I wrote incessantly in my journals, cataloging every mundane moment to try and get the thoughts and feelings out. How could my parents take me away from him when he was just starting to care, after all this time. How could they sequester me from everything I knew in my life. It was exshasting to be that miserable.

I tried to contact Jared in any way possible. I tried letters, myspace, and msn. Not a whole lot was received back on my end, though a lot was sent from it. It felt like my absence wasn't something greatly affecting him and that hurt. Still I looked for stars and dandelions to wish upon. Any chance to bewitch him into realizing that he loved me. If I just knew that he loved me, that could carry me through everything.

Rachel would call and write, and she'd send glimpses into how life was moving on without me in Ohio. It hurt too, but at least she cared enough to fill me in and check in on me. Especially after she found out I was trying to hurt myself for attention. The stories of Jared were what I cared about most, and they were always too short. Lyzzy supplied me with a few as well.

The summer was spent exclusively with my family. At age sixteen, that was definitely not ideal. I was dragged along many camping trips(I hate camping), to all sorts of deserted places across the state. I saw eagles, I saw rams, I saw bears and moose. Nothing peeked my interest though. My headphones stayed glued into my ear canals, and I listened exclusively to either Mindless Self Indulgence(Jared's favorite band, and quickly becoming one of my own), or sad sappy mope music. I won't lie though, I did enjoy four wheeling.

When we weren't on mini-vacations into the wilderness, it was just my Mom, my little 5 year old brother and I. For weeks straight, every day we would go to the library then the grocery store daily. I think she just couldn't stand to sit in the house all day with the angsty teenager, or maybe she was trying to bring me out of my mope. I drove my family crazy but I couldn't help it. Neither of us could understand each other. They didn't get why I coudn't just get over it, and I couldn't get why this had happened at all.

I tried desperately to get a job. When that failed due to my age and inexperience, I went online selling dolls I made. Rachel would also send me funds from time to time from her job at the chinese restaurant. I wanted nothing more than to go home, even if it was only for a week. It was fated not to be. Summer finally and suddenly came to and end, and within a week the leaves changed and the air grew cold.

I dreaded the first day of school. I was terrified. I got no sleep that night, and got rained on waiting for a bus that never came. I got lost, and sat alone at lunch. When I got home that day, my mom asked “How did it go?” and I instantly burst into tears and ran into my room.

My junior year and I knew no one, like so many times before. Something would happen to me in class and I would go to find them in the halls to tell them. Realizing they weren't there and that I was alone would crush me every time. So often I would see dopplegangers of him and Rachel, I my eyes would light up. I'd go to call their name, but it would stop upon my lips as I remembered they were 3,000 miles away from me. My heart felt like it would crumple up to dust. I'd never felt so alone.

Most of the fall and winter passed by slowly and in the most forlorn way. I made some aquaintances, but no one I really connected with. No one I could really be myself around. When I finally did make a friend who got me, her dad passed away and she moved back to the states. I really started to think there was a higher power out to make me miserable for a while. All I had was my music, and I clung to it desperately. I was especially thankful my favorite band put out a new record that spoke to how I was feeling. The songs quickly became my anthem.

Then it kind of dawned on me in December, that all this had to be happening for some reason. I knew I wanted to be a stronger person, and I figured that this was the experience to change me. I finally sucked it up and kicked myself in the butt. If I had to be here for an undetermined amount of time, I had to make the best of it, because being miserable was clearly not working. There were a handful of kids I'd seen around school. Ones who wore band shirts that I loved and had rainbow colored hair. Ones I admired from afar but never had the guts to talk to. I decided to fake it till I made it.

I pretended I was confident. I pretended I was cool, and that everyone wanted to be friends with me. I walked with my held held higher, and quit looking down at my feet. I followed those kids out of the classroom and into the hallway to talk. I befriended them all, one by one.

Suddenly everyone thought I was cool! Suddenly I had lots of friends and was being invited to hang out. I had things to look forward to, and people to talk to. They thought I was funny and interesting and best of all, they liked my taste in music. They even admitted they had seen me around school in my Mindless Self Indulgence shirt(take a wild guess why I bought that one) and wanted to befriend me too! All the while I was gaining my new attitude, here and there from time to time, little notes from Jared would pop up in comments on myspace and msn. Always boosting my confidence. He would just say hello but sound sound so excited to be speaking to me. He was always in the back of my mind.

Other boys took the foreground, because they were actually flirting with me(something that I was definitely not used to coming from a town full of farm boys and useless jocks). Yet there was always this nagging voice in my head that screamed “but what about Jared!?”. Any feelings brought about by possible new beaus were met with utter conflictions. How could I feel such loyalty to a boy 3,000 miles away, who'd never come out and said his true feelings to me. Still none of them were serious enough to return all of my affections, and the end of the year drew near.

I was a new woman. I had grabbed my teenage angst by the balls and taken it for my own. I had made the friends I wanted and had flirted with boys I wanted. I was cute and I knew it. I finally had the confidence I wanted. I had a new best friend named Christal, who could make me laugh until I peed my pants(which actually happened once). I was on top of my world for once.

My Grammy came up as summer 2007 began, the first time I'd seen her in a year. The plan was that she would come up to visit, then take my little brother and I down to vacation in Ohio for two weeks. I could barely contain myself the whole week she stayed with us. I was restless, with school being out and the trip hanging over my head. No boys had lasted into summer, and my mind was dripping with 'what ifs' and Jared. Would I see him? Would he want to see me? Had we changed too much? What if my friends and I don't have anything in common anymore? I wrote in my journals incessantly to try and get the thoughts and feelings out of my brain and onto paper.

Finally we flew down. It was quite a trip down too, seeing as we got stuck in Vegas and had to spend the night. Upon arriving at last, the first few days in Ohio were spent catching up with my girlfriends. I had no was to contact Jared other than the internet as he had no phone line. Rachel and I stopped by his house one day and knocked but received no reply. I was starting to worry I wasn't going to see him at all. 

Then Zach called and we planned a picnic. Zach and I drove to Jared's in his hot shit red camero(seriously, that car was the coolest). We knocked on the door for a while but no reply, just as Rachel and I had. I began to lose hope, but still we kept knocking determinedly. Finally he came to the door. I was stunned, mesmerized just like when I saw him at Derby Days. He looked mostly the same but he'd grown his hair out. We hugged and he invited us in.

After he ate some Arby's, he decided to ditch his plans with his mom to come hang out with us and go on a picnic. We picked up Ryan and headed to Fort St. Clair. We goofed around there for a while and then we went into Richmond and wandered around the mall and Hastings. We went back to Ryan's and watched awkward animes(some of which were pornographic and being the most innocent 17 year old I had my face in Jared's chest through most of it. Which obviously was much more enjoyable).

It was well past midnight, probably off into 4am. Zach brought Jared and I back to Jared's house where we all spent the night. We were all in Jared's bed, Zach against the wall, Jared in the middle, and me on the outside. Being sleep deprived and wired, we all got a bad case of the giggles and suddenly everything was hysterical. We laughed and talked for a while until we finally got really tired.

Zach rolled over and fell asleep, but Jared and I were still pretty giggly. We were going on about nothing when all of a sudden something wet touches my cheek. I recoiled in horror, when I realized he licked me. “Gross!” I whispered hoarsly. Of course I had to get him back! I slobbered up his cheek then he got me again. I went in again spitting as I did, then he went to lick me again then our tongues touched. Again I recoiled, this time in shock.

Thinking quickly, I realized this is actually when I want to be happening. This had to be a what he was intending. Slowly I leaned back in to where we were and out lips met. I had no utter idea what I was doing, but I just tried to follow his lead and be fluid in motion. It was a little clumsy, and not quite what I'd always imagined, but still perfect to me.

My head was swimming, just trying to grasp the moment. I was so tired yet desperately clinging to consiousness. The kiss only lasted a few moments, and then we cuddled up really close to each other. I had never been so happy in my entire life. That unattainable kiss that had been hyped up my entire life was finally mine. All the waiting had been totally worth it. It was with him, with Jared. All those feelings that had never gone away were growing more rapidly than ever.

We curled up together and fell asleep. Around 9 am, Zach left and we kept sleeping. At some point in the night someone opened the door but I was too afraid to look and find out who it was. I buried my head in Jared's chest and pretended to be sleeping. Jared just said "...Hey!" with a smile in his voice, to which there was no reply except the door shutting.

Some hours later, we woke up again and started talking some more. Evenutally we got tired again and he pulled me close and wrapped his arm around me. Then he took my arm and draped it over his chest. I drifted off to sleep again.

"WAKE UP LOVE BIRDS!!!!!!! :D!!!!!!"

I dove my head into a pillow, to hide from the buring ceiling light. After a second we both sat up startedly to see Mike and Jon making faces at me like "ooooohhh YOU GO CADY!" and pointing and snickering excitedly. They tell me it's 5 in the afternoon to my complete astonishment.

"It's FIVE?!"

"Yeah."

"It's FIVE o CLOCK?!"

"...yeahhhh"

We hurriedly got up and went downstairs.
I then experienced my first walk of shame, though there was really no shame to bare. It was just extremely awkward.

Mike, Jon, Jared's older sister Alanah, his little brother Seth, and his dad were all down in the living room, watching us come down the stairs. I sat down and tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone, especially Mike and Jon's giddy faces. Jared's dad emerged from the bathroom, waltzed over and sat down in front of me. He looked me dead in the eye as he lit up a cigarette.

"So what exactally are your intentions with my son?"

My heart stopped cold in my chest. I inhaled sharpley and tried to control my eyes from getting to wide from shock.

".....Ummm..." I was terrified and had no idea what to say. Was this the moment to spill my guts about my undying love for his son?

"Because I walked in on you two all snuggled up this morning, and I've never seen him snuggle with a girl like that before." he smiled with a sideways glance to Jared, who like me was trying to avoid any eye contact. He was milling around in the kitchen, probably embarrassed enough to keel over.

"..." I didn't know what to say and could only muster a nervous smile, even though him saying that made my insides explode with even more happiness.

"The last person I saw him snuggle with was either Zach, or Ryan, or Mike"

I couldn't stiffle the laughter that followed, and neither could anyone else in the room, save for maybe Jared.

He finally stood up to walk into the kitchen, allowing me to breathe at last, and as he ambled past Jared he muttered loud enough for all of us to hear, "I was gettin' worried about you for a while there...".