"The other reason would hurt me?" Mike nodded. "OK, so you told me that. Lay it on me. I need to hear it right now."
Mike took a deep breath and said, "You brandish Annie like a shield. She’s like your own personal little war wound. I hate to say that, but it’s true. Look, I know that what you went through with her was incredibly traumatic. But it was two years ago. You can’t let go because you wallow in it. If that weren’t the case, you’d have answered one of her letters. Shit, you would’ve opened one of them." I looked at him in shock. "If you answered her letters," he continued, "you might get closure. But part of you doesn’t want that." I just looked at him. "I’m sorry," he finished.
"Don’t be," I said. "I don’t know. If what you say is true, I’m not doing in consciously. I’m just not ready."
"I understand that," he said. "But if you don’t get yourself ready, you might be losing the second chance of a lifetime." He looked at Natalie.
"I can’t. I just can’t," I said pitifully.
"Suit yourself. Don’t say I didn’t warn you."
Just then, Natalie came up to me from the other end of the table. "It’s getting late. Can you get me home?"
"Sure." She seemed tense all of a sudden. "Are you OK?"
"Fine," she said with a smile that seemed forced. "Just tired. It’s been a long day."
"That it has," I agreed. "We can go." We said goodbye to the gang and took off.
We were silent on the way to her apartment.
"Ed," she said as we pulled up in front, "you get to school early, right?"
"Yeah. 30 to 45 minutes, usually."
"Good," she said. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "Bye. And thanks." And then, before I could say a word, she was gone.
She had a lot on her mind, it seemed-and I got the impression that she was going to show up early to school the next day to talk about it.
I had a feeling I knew what was on her mind. And it terrified me.
I had to get myself out of this, and right away. Before it got worse.
PART FOUR THURSDAY
I haven’t ever been more confused than I was Wednesday night.
First, I told him everything. He understood, and said words I was dying to hear. Then he took me to his house and gave me the experience of my life. He wasn’t treating me like a friend. He was treating me as more than that. Honestly, I loved it. There was something between us-I could feel it, and thought he could, too.
Then I overheard part of what he said to Mike. Not all of it, but I heard "can’t get emotionally involved" and then I heard the name "Annie".
And, then, on the ride home, he was noticeably distant from me.
I got home depressed. I tossed and turned myself into a fitful sleep. When I woke up, I was less depressed than I was angry.
Look, I said I was a ticking time bomb. And here he was, seemingly drawing me deeper into him-and then pushing me away. I saw what was coming-the big brush-off. Probably this morning. And I was so tired of people who I cared about letting me down.
As I walked to school, I calmed down a little bit. Ed’s not an asshole. I knew that. He had a reason. What I needed to do was find out what it was, and see if I could get around it. But I was still-you know-peeved.
OK, I had fallen-and fallen hard. This guy was everything I ever wanted. Patient, kind, understanding, smart, loving, funny. And he even liked my kind of movies. He was a true and loyal friend. He was even cute. I had a little daydream in the car yesterday, on the way to the Mariner-before everything started to come apart. It was of he and I watching Casablanca in the dark, cuddled up under a blanket, snuggling-and then making mad love after it. I NEVER daydream about sex. I mean it. That was the first. The first time I ever thought of it as something potentially other than a disaster.
And, to be honest, I never dreamed about watching old movies with anyone other than my lonesome, either.
If he was going to wreck that daydream, I at least needed to know why.
I got to the parking lot, sat down, and waited. He pulled up in front of me a few minutes later. I walked right over to his car and got in.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi. We need to talk," I said without preamble.
"I know. We do. Look, Nat, I don’t think I can be who I think you want me to be."
There it was-but I wasn’t having it, not yet. I drew on my peevedness. "Yes, you can, but we’ll talk about that later." He looked at me in surprise. "That’s not what I want you to talk about right now. This is what I want you to tell me: who’s Annie?"
All the color drained from his face. "What?" he squeaked.
"I overheard you and Mike last night. It wasn’t intentional, you were being loud at one point. I didn’t hear a lot, but I heard you say you couldn’t get emotionally involved-obviously talking about me-and then I heard the name Annie." I took a breath. "Let’s get it right on the table. I have strong feelings for you. And if you try to deny you have strong feelings for me, you’re lying. If this Annie person is what’s coming between us exploring those feelings, I have a right to know who she is. Look, Ed, you know how inexperienced I am. I’ve never felt this before. Do you know how hard it is for me to give in to it? And you refuse to-because of Annie. So, who’s Annie?"
He took a deep breath. "OK. You do have a right to know." Another breath. "Anna Magdalena Zipelski, if you want to get technical. Her dad, who died when she was five, was Polish," he smiled. "Known by all as Annie; and known sometimes, by me, as Zippy-that was my pet nickname for her." I giggled at that. He smiled, and then got serious again. "We met in middle school, sixth grade. She was immediately part of my regular crowd. The group that’s still my regular crowd. We didn’t know Jared well then, and Lily didn’t even live here-she lived in Boston until this past Christmas-but the rest of us were a gang even back then. Me, Mike, Amanda, Frankie, Maggie, Michelle Ingemi, a couple others. And, back then, Annie."
"We were friends for three years. I told you what happened freshman year with Marcia Ryerson." I nodded. "Well, after that, I guess Annie decided she wanted to comfort me. We got closer. About this time freshman year, I asked her out. She eagerly accepted."
"The first two months were bliss, absolute bliss. She was cute, vivacious, outgoing, and we had a great time. As you’ll find out, that was all a cover for some serious pain-but she dealt with pain differently than you do-she put on a happy face. I didn’t know it was just a face at the time. In fact, maybe it wasn’t-I think, for me anyway, it was genuine. Anyhow, we quickly discovered we were in love with one another, and it just got better. At the end of those two months, we made love for the first time. She was only my second. I was her first-so I thought at the time. I guess in any meaningful way, I really was her first. But I’m getting ahead of the story. Anyhow, we made love-and it was incredible. I talk about how much I like neat, unemotional sex with friends, but that’s because I try to drive Annie out of my mind. I won’t lie about it now-sex with Annie was glorious."
"It was exactly three days after that that all hell broke loose. We were alone, and we were kind of fondling, when I tried to put my hand down her pants. She stopped me. Said we couldn’t do that today. OK, that was fine with me, I figured she had her period, right? She told me later that she thought about telling me that she did-but, she said, in the back of her mind, she wanted someone to figure it out. So she told me, no, she wasn’t on the rag. No, I hadn’t hurt her three days ago. No, she actually was in the mood. So, why was she stopping me?"
"She told me she was stopping me because she didn’t want my hand in her pussy when someone else’s cum was in there." I gasped at that. "Yeah, that’s pretty much what I did. The world stopped. I thought I had another Marcia Ryerson. But I was wrong. I asked her, in a tone of horror, if she was cheating on me. And she looked at me with those big brown eyes and said, ‘Is it cheating if I don’t have a choice?’"