It was even secluded enough that, if you were two teenagers in desperate, heedless love for each other, you might come here, to quietly make love and spoon in the evening, talking about futures that would never come to pass while learning how to pleasure one another. You still might dream of it to this day, waking up, raging hard and her scent alive in your memory.
I stood outside our grove, but I didn't go in. To go alone, now, as an adult felt like sacrilege to me. There were few places or people that I still found sacred, but this was one of them, and Kerry another.
Of course, no pleasant memories could exist without unpleasant ones. I looked up to the bridge that ran over the thin strip of wooded parkland and the river itself. It was covered in corrosion, but strong, and I still felt a shudder of fear at it. I was always a sensitive child, but was fearless in the face of violence, or the threat of it. Heights, though? They got me. The floor of the bridge was basically a thick metal grate, and the pedestrian walkway, added much later, was much thinner. You could see straight through it to the river below, and it shook and trembled as you walked across it. The railing was just under waist height on me today, and even as a small child it seemed unsafe, low, as if you could just tumble over it and fall the fifty or more feet to the water, rocks, and death.
If it weren't for following Kerry, I'd never have crossed. If I was doing something for her, it seemed like I possessed an endless reserve of courage. Today, I decided to walk across, just to prove that I still could.
I got about halfway and then looked down, testing myself, perhaps foolishly. The walkway creaked and shuddered and whined in protest of this outrage of a person walking upon it. I saw the river through it, relatively low after a dry year, although still deep. It would fill back up with the fall rains and the spring thaws. For now, it ran slowly, its surface barely disturbed by motion.
My mind wandered. I saw myself going off the bridge. Not in a tumble, like an accident, but purposefully. I saw the river's water rushing up to meet me. I felt the cold shock of the water and then the impact of the landing on hidden rocks. In my imagination a strange and unsettling peace came over me. I came back to myself with a jolt.
I finished and walked back across the bridge. That was enough fear to face for one day.
Kerry and I had broken up on a day like this, but it wasn't like with me and Shanon. It was quiet and sad and we'd made love for the last time, long and slow, and then we'd gone back to our different colleges. For that matter, it was kind of a secret that we were even together, but that didn't make it ache less.
We'd kept in touch after that, always hanging out when both of us were in town. After we both were done with college, she'd even visit me regularly in the city and I would go see her on the east coast. Things changed when I started to see Shanon, though.
Kerry was still polite and answered emails, but it was all pretty formal, almost professional. This was a weird shift from the friendly girl who always had time to talk me or who called me any time she needed someone to listen or to share good news.
I don't know why her attitude changed. We hadn't been even slightly romantic or fooled around in years, not since she met and then married her husband, Bill. I thought that he was the wrong kind of guy for her but they both seemed happy and he was a decent person who loved her by all accounts, so I kept my opinion to myself. There was some jealousy there, but it was more of a nostaligic thing then something serious. She visited me in the city both with and without her husband with some regularity.
But, like I said, all that ended when I met Shanon. I guess we got serious with each other pretty quickly, finding kindred spirits and all that. What a joke that turned out to be.
I could lie to everyone else, but deep in my heart I knew that there was something wrong with me. Something that wasn't seen easily, but after being with me long enough, any woman became aware of. I mean, I had depression, but I stayed on top of my treatments and managed it well. I wondered if women sensed it somehow, saw that I was defective on the inside. It was weird. I never really had problems meeting or talking with women, or even too much difficulty finding a partner for sex. I wasn't ugly, and I could be funny. But commitment? I didn't fear it as some people did, but it always seemed to backfire on me, ending poorly, leaving me feel broken or worthless.
I guess maybe it was for the best that Shanon had cheated. She probably would have regretted it dearly if she had married me.
I was not really in a good place at that moment, and was fairly certain that I would not have any romantic success in my future. What should have really worried me at that moment, but didn't, was that the idea of dying alone was starting to feel like a certainty, and perhaps sooner rather than later.
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Then - First Kiss
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A lot of people can remember when they met their first love, but I can't. Not because she wasn't memorable. Far from it, I've always thought she was at least pretty. Instead it is because we grew up together. I think we really started playing with each other in kindergarten but we probably 'met' when we were toddlers at church. It's just that kind of small community.
So, from almost as far as I can remember up to when I left for college, she was my best friend. She was definitely a bit of a tomboy but I also didn't have a lot of hang ups about doing shit boys weren't supposed to do, like share emotions or talk about clothes. I just couldn't be bothered wondering if something was masculine or not. It helped that I'd always been a little bigger than most of my classmates. Bullies tended to shy away from you the first time you beat them up.
Kerry was tough and adventurous and never gave up. She was about a year older than I was but we ended up in the same year. Throughout our time together she kept her light brown hair short, either something like a bob or in a ponytail. She wore a ton of baseball hats because she didn't like spending any time on styling it and her mom wouldn't let her cut it any shorter.
Her mom was kind of something else, too. If Kerry was a tomboy growing up, then her mother was kind of the epitome of professional femininity. She worked in sales, not the small time local stuff, but as a traveling dealmaker for a paper and office supply company. She signed huge contracts and was pretty busy. Kerry didn't have a father.
To be more specific, Kerry's mom got pregnant, and since she never discussed the father, it was just assumed that it was the result of a one-night stand on the road somewhere. She always acted like Kerry was planned. The town's gossip mongers were pretty brutal, however. Even in the nineties you could still be considered "immoral" as a single mother in a small town.
Naturally this blew back on Kerry. I'm sure the bullies made her cry but she never showed it. For my part I wasn't all that big on fighting on my own behalf but I was more than willing to back her up on the few occasions that she threw down. Most of the time, she was beating up a mouthy girl who didn't expect trouble. Once or twice I may have thrown punches on her behalf when a boy tried to get on her case.
So we grew up together. Best friends. We watched the same cartoons, played Yu-Gi-Oh, beat each other up in fighting games, and generally were just kind of there for one another. It was just a friendship though, until high school. I think everyone, both of our mom's included, expected us to start dating once we hit puberty but we never did. This relieved her mother a great deal, who was very kind to me, but seemed to think that I was not a good romantic match for her girl. We each had our crushes, but on other people. It was a little weird for our various girl/boy friends at first, but it became clear to each of them in turn that we were, in fact, only friends.
Besides, I don't think I'd ever cheat, although I'd been tempted before. I know Kerry wouldn't. She'd had plenty of opportunities that I knew of, lots of handsome guys hit on her once she hit high school. When I asked if she was tempted, she just said, "Sure, but tempted to fuck isn't the same as fucking."
I should probably mention that she was (and still can be) as foul-mouthed as any ten sailors combined, but you just kind of got used to it. You have to understand that at this point in my life I almost never swore. It was something that Kerry teased me mercilessly about, but my mom would never have permitted it and it was easier to be on my best behavior all the time then risk her wrath. Dad was big and yeah he could be scary but I'd take him over an angry church mom any day of the week.
The first time I really noticed her romantically was when we were in middle school, in early spring. We were playing Street Fighter 3 (3rd Strike, of course) and I was beating her ass, as was typical. She dominated me in Mortal Kombat, though.
