Stompin' Grounds


So I sit here, on a lonely Saturday nite at 1:00 am typing up a paper that I have yet to completely configure in my head, but hoping that the rest will come to me eventually. I've just returned from a nite spent with my family at the first Halloween party of the year where they all had to keep quiet about where Jake was and couldn't say too much about my choice of gothic costuming for the nite, a nite that ended with Tori, my best friend, and I for the first time in a long while conversing about a movie we had just seen as opposed to our non-existent 'Love' lives, but a nite not truly ending there. The nite continues now, as I sit here, unaware of all that is going on in my head and unknowing and uncaring of whatever is going on around me.

Presently, I sit in a closet turned make-shift computer room in the home I grew up in, typing into a screen that sometimes writes back, but most times with the wrong answers. It's dark, save for the two vanilla candles burning on the shelves above me. I hate vanilla. Old books, Disney Classics, and family movies cover the bookcases that surround me, along with dust built up from fourteen years of use. My puppy, Noah, an extremely obnoxious Golden Retriever, rests upon my feet under the desk while slivers of light creep through the door that separates me from the family on the other side. It's silent, save for the dull roar of the television in the next room. "Event Horizon" is on. I've never seen it. I won't. I close my eyes, trying to block out the images in my head so I can write this paper, so I can live sanely again. Sometimes the silence and darkness is just too much though. This is one of those times.

I close my eyes to think, but his face is glued to my eyelids. His voice echoes through my ears. No matter where I am, what I'm doing, or who I'm with, I close my eyes, and Jake is there; I plug my ears and hear his voice. I open them again, and he is gone. So this, I am seeing now, is a story of the visions of Jake that fade in out of my head, my life, and my Heart, and the interactions with.

~*..*~

His first appearance in my life was one I never thought would stay with me as long as it has. I guess you could describe it as the one-nite-turned-6-month stand, minus the sex for at least four {months}.

- - -

Heather was the first friend I made in college as opposed to friends I was forced to make (i.e. the roommate). Her fiancé, now husband, Walter, and his best friend, Jake, were getting their very own apartment on the same day that Heather would turn the big 1-- 9. Heather, unknowing of what would happen that nite, invited me along to celebrate her birthday and the move in with her family, Walter, and Jake. I was much obliged.

I Loved to spend time with them. Heather's family was the family I never had and Walt and Heather represented a Love I had never known. Heather and Walter would be the perfect couple, if one were to ever exist. It was a Love that I had never been witness to, and I admired it from afar. And then there was Jake. He changed my whole life, without even knowing it.

~*..*~

Even this isn't the real beginning. I should start at the very first time I laid eyes on him. Something in me knew then, but I let it go. I continued until I couldn't stop, and then I nearly killed myself in the process.

- - -

I wouldn't call Jake and I's first encounter a meeting per se, it was more like an experience. I was at Heather's, as usual, on a Friday nite after class, and she and Walter were getting dressed up to go to a game at the Union. Jake was on the phone trying to make me feel like I didn't know anything about the game, as I attempted to help Heather into costume. We were complete strangers at this time. He was humorous, clever, and over the phone, a doll. I heard his voice on the other end and, there was just something about it. He wasn't belittling or patronizing, but he certainly walked that line with great skill and ease. Very intriguing, but the conversation was cut short and we hung up. We were going to pick him up. He already had me thinking. The balls were rolling.

The three of us, Walter, Heather, and I, squashed into the front seat of Heather's '79 Olds. We pulled up to Jake's house as he walked out. A 5'8" boy wearing a long black trench and sporting thick black hair strutted out to the car. I was entranced. I let him in the car, and resumed my place in the front seat. Mind you, we all knew at this time that no one else was going to be picked up, yet we all still sat in the front seat. It did call for some amusing conversation. Then Jake started talking about vampires and gaming. He was under the impression that I knew NOTHING of the game since I wasn't gaming, but I had had my share of game talk before. (Tori gamed on line, and personally, I was intrigued by vampires as well.) We shared a few sentences and after 15 minutes in the car, I had a new crush. Sometimes I wish it had stayed that way, but most of the time I'm glad it didn't.

I ran home that nite. Tori was picking me up to take me home for the weekend, and I was nearly an hour late. But I had an excuse. "I met the most intriguing boy," I told her. That was as good an excuse as any. That was that though- until April 15th, Heather's birthday.

~*..*~

We did what we could in the area of moving Jake and Walt's lives into the new place and eventually took a break to go to Heather's and do the birthday thing. As we were leaving, I was volunteered to ride with Jake, as though we needed two vehicles in the first place. Stuck together, we clicked. The rest of the nite was bliss.

I can remember at some point in the nite Heather and I were left in the car outside of Wal-Mart while the boys went inside for accessories. We took this time to discuss what was going on. It was obvious that Jake and I were doing slightly more that just "clicking." My crush had surfaced again, and it was flaming this time, yearning to be something more than just a small brush fire. However, I never imagined anything would EVER come of it. We were both too shy, and months had passed since the last time I saw him. I never thought a nite would branch an eternity.

- - -

Finally, after errands and birthday shenanigans we arrived once again at the ole empty apartment at 1204 Apple Tree Lane. We were ready to celebrate. We had all the alcohol to prove it.

Heather and Walt immediately went upstairs to take a shower, leaving the two of us "googley-eyed younguns" downstairs all alone to fend for ourselves, and our hormones. I fixed a drink: ¾ vodka and ¼ OJ in a 20-ounce glass. I needed something to get me out of this shyness. He fixed his. I had mine gone before he took a third sip. It was common knowledge that Jake was drunk after a single beer, so I had to keep busy. I fixed another: same, more vodka. Gone. He still had half a glass. We were sitting on opposite ends of the sofa. No TV, just the two of us and a couch. He told me to go ahead and get another drink. I thought I was fine until I stood up and almost fell on my ass. Still, I went to fix yet another concoction. This time it was Bacardi and fruit punch. Let's just say I made no dent in the fruit punch with that one. Mine was gone again. I finished his. I felt ill. I laid my head down on the back of the couch, too afraid to do anything else, and drunk enough to know that I couldn't control much else either. We were both too shy to know what we were supposed to do alone in an apartment with liquor and body parts. I lay down further, somehow reaching his lap. He ran his fingers through my hair. I smiled. Finally, he leaned down to kiss me.

Liquor brings out the truth in our hearts, but it also leaves you uncontrollable and without fear. Fear is what kept me shy until now. It was gone. Long gone.

I can't honestly say I remember much after that. Only bits and pieces surfaced as the hours passed by the next morning, but I knew we'd done something. We had connected. I cried in his arms, and he held me, and he cried in mine. He told me how it was all Fate, for us to meet. How it had been in the cards. He said we were Soul Mates. He said he knew this was supposed to happen. I believed him. I wanted to believe him.

- - -

The next morning 'Talia and Jake' were a couple. Perhaps that was the problem. There was no transition period from friend to Lover, but I don't regret it, not usually. I take every moment of it and remember, because now, those moments make me who I am.

--a girl who knows Love does exist, just maybe not for her. --a girl who knows that everything happens for a reason, she just hasn't figured hers out yet. --a girl who is trying to overcome her silence because she's afraid that could have been the cause. --a girl still yearning, and still empty-handed, but with an ounce of hope within the memories of when they were happy. --a girl that relies on those memories. . . of his praise, and his smiles. . . is that who I am? I try to figure out why I say this experience has defined me as a person, and I can't figure it out, I just know it has.

~*..*~

It was the end of school for me, so our relationship was soon going to have a huge obstacle in its way-180 miles and Talia with no license. But we made it. We managed quite well in fact. For three months we never went more than two weeks without seeing each other for at least 3 days at a time. Some would say this was a bit much, but for us, it wasn't nearly enough.

Perhaps a month or so later I began to realize that I truly Loved Jacob Leonard, and I told him so. He told me he Loved me too, and we continued our relationship over the distance. My phone bill went upwards of $200 a month as he spent every last day off and spare moment to come up and get or see me. I traveled to LARP's with him, just so I could be with him on the drive. I stayed at his apartment while he worked, just so I could sleep in his arms in the morning when he came home. I watched Jackie Chan on Friday nites, just so I could lie in his embrace. I missed my kids' (cousins') birthdays, just so I could have some extra time with him. (Now, I begin to wonder if it was all a one-sided relationship and I was just blind the whole time, but It wasn't. I don't want to believe that. I won't believe that.) Two months, three months, four months, five months pass us by, and I think we're happy. I think we're in Love. I think that the good always out does the bad, so I think we're ok. I evidently think wrong, because two weeks ago, a little less than a week before our six-month anniversary, Jake tells me it's over.

~*..*~

For two weeks I sat in my room- unmoving, unchanging, better off dead. I let myself go. I didn't care if I lived or died. I didn't leave my dorm room for days on end except for occasional trips to the bathroom to relieve myself of lunches and dinners from days ago or when the girls on my floor became slightly more than worried and drug me into a neighbors' room to consume massive amounts of bad alcohol. I put up a front when Mom called, telling her everything was fine, and how I was better off without him, that he would realize he lost something in all of this- me. I told Tori I was ok and called my ex-boyfriend for some sort of sympathy . . . or Love. I didn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I laid in bed watching daytime television and reading horror novels about lives that were better off than mine. At least they had the chance to die an exciting death. My tears ran dry as I laid in bed thinking about our times together and how everything in my life reminded me of him, analyzing why he'd done this to me over and over and over. . . . .

- - -

One day I actually woke up at a decent hour and showered. I put on clean clothes and makeup, and brushed my hair that was slowly falling out. Why? I had a date with Heather and there was some off chance that I would see him. I did.

It was only a shadow through a window twenty feet away. I cowered in the passenger side seat of Heather's Olds as she went into the apartment to get Walter. They were leaving in four days, and this would be the last time I would get to see him, unless I rode to the airport the following Tuesday. When Heather came back to the car with Walt in hand, I started to get out in order to let him in. She nudged me back in, telling me they were watching. "They?" I thought. What the fuck?! I turned around and low and behold, there stood the silhouettes of Jake and Andrea, the girl I didn't want to believe he was with now. The girl I had no choice but to believe he was with now. The girl I hated, despised, and admired for stealing the Love of my Life. So I stayed in the car. I sat down and glared inside and smiled out because I didn't want them to know I was falling apart inside. I didn't want them to watch me die. So I went home to return to my hermitage- no sleep, no food, no class, no life. I was ruining it all, just because of him. Because I'm selfish and I didn't want him to be with anyone else, except me. And I couldn't deal with reality. I refused to.

But I was to see more than just a shadow before I hit rock bottom. I was to see him at the airport wishing Heather and Walter off as Andrea stood by his side. Through mild {e-mail} correspondence he had told me Andrea was/is just a friend who's been there for him. I have trouble believing this simply because I KNOW something more exists between the two of them. Whether they've acted upon it or not, I do not claim to know. Nonetheless, I saw him. And the same awkwardness happened when he walked by me at Heather's that day as did the day he walked in my home to tell me it was over. He was a stranger. I did not know this man. I now wonder if I ever did. Yet, I still Loved him. I could still see that sparkle in his eye and could tell when he was about to tell a joke or speak in that horrible Brit accent that I adored. I could still see why I fell in Love with him, and why I was still there. But I'm told that's what got me here in the first place, among other things.

Yes, being in Love with Jake and telling him so is one of the two things he said that tore us apart, the other being my silence. Both are true things, but both are things I never thought would break us up. I am in Love with him. It's uncontrollable. I think every human being on this earth can vouch for that. I didn't think that would be a problem for someone who said they Loved me too. And yes, I have realized that putting up with my silence had to be hard, but I was working on it. It takes time to break habit, but I was making progress. I was beginning to let him know when I was angry with him; I was working on it. He knew that. But it wasn't enough. People have told me that it's hard to "work" on a relationship. I guess it's just easier to give up. And then I think, if you have to "work" maybe it wasn't meant to be in the first place.

These thoughts ran through my head as I waved goodbye to Heather and Walt and watched them board a plane I would never see again. I thought of how with them leaving for Hawaii, I would never know how he was, or where or why. I looked over to him, wondering where he might be in twenty years and I realized where I wanted him to be and where he would be were two totally different places. I didn't think I could accept this. I was in denial. I refused to accept it because he was my first True Love, my first almost-but-not-quite six month relationship, my first Lover, my first listener, friend, and confidant of the male species that also functioned as a cuddle toy. I told Jake everything I could, more than I ever could confide in anyone else. I let Jake see sides of me that no one else even knows exist. I allowed Jake into my life because I thought he wanted to be there. And I know all things must come to an end, but this wasn't the end I bargained for. I'm wrong for saying this, but I never wanted it to end. I still don't.

As we drove away that evening, airport behind us and Bloomington ahead, I sat and cried behind mirrored sunglasses in a car with a total stranger. I cried because I knew it was the last time I would see him. I cried because I still didn't understand what had happened, and I didn't know if I ever would. And I thought maybe I didn't want to, because not knowing left some glimmer of false hope I couldn't/wouldn't let go.

I came home that nite to an empty room with the stale air of a chilled corpse surrounding me. It was going to be another one of those nites where the easy way out I always spoke against was going to be a-tapping on my shoulder. I almost didn't win this time. Wednesday morning I awoke at 4pm in a cold sweat, covered in blankets and feeling like I had just drank an entire mini-fridge full of hard liquor.

It was rock bottom time. I knew I really didn't care anymore. I had really let go and let my selfishness take complete control of my so-called life. The phone rang and I ignored it. Someone knocked on the door and I didn't answer. The alarm went off, and I left it there, beeping for five hours.

I had lived. I had survived. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. This wasn't what I had panned- or had I? Was it all a ploy for mindless misguided attention? Or did I really not give a damn anymore? I decided it was the latter and that nite downed two bottles of pills to assure I would never wake up again. Once again, I was deceived and I woke up to my grandmother pounding on the door Friday morning, unaware of what she was about to walk in on.

She's still unaware. I should win an Oscar for that performance. In the five minutes I had her waiting at the door I threw on nice, new, not black, clean clothes, makeup to color my paling complexion and ran a comb through my greasy hair for the first time in three days. I opened the door to an anxiety-ridden face that brightened as she laid eyes on what appeared to be her new and improved twenty-year-old granddaughter.

The ride home was all but relaxing, but I made it to the front door tearless. As for the first step into the house, I wasn't so lucky. I broke, again. So, now they know. Not everything, but something, and that's plenty. They knew he broke me and that was already too much for me.

~*..*~

The first step is admitting that you have a problem. I do. I have a problem with Life, with Love, and with myself. That's why I'm here, home, to prevent my solutions, because I suppose those are problems too. So I sit here where it's "safe," and think about what has happened and why, mostly how, but there are no answers. I've come to the end of my paper with no true conclusion, save for mass confusion. I don't know what's happened, and I don't know why. What's even more enraging is that I don't know what's to happen now, nor do I care.

Again, that's why I'm here; safety, in numbers. Even though I sit alone in front of a Packard Bell at 3 am, the people filling my house have constant worries and anxieties shuffling through their heads about whether or not I'm going to be alive when they wake up. My mother wakes every thirty minutes to make sure I'm still breathing, my grandmother wakes me up every morning and keeps me busy all day long so as to not allow my mind, nor my hands to wander, my brother has called ten times tonite just to make sure I'm not crying, Tori stays up with me all nite until she can't handle not sleeping anymore and leaves with a heavy heart and bad dreams, and Dan, a man I've never met, and most likely never will, makes me promise to call him if I ever get the urge again. He prays for my well being. I cry.

They care. I don't. I can't, because as silly as it sounds, he was my only reason for caring. But they give me hope. This place that I'm able to escape to on the weekends gives me a glimmer of life if I choose to take it.

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