Chapter 25: Becky

February 1978

I slept the sleep of the dead on Saturday night. I didn’t wake up on Sunday morning until I heard car doors slam as Mom, Jeff, and Stephanie left for church. I almost never slept past sunrise, usually being up earlier than that. I slept until 9:30am. I was emotionally, mentally, and physically spent by the events of Saturday afternoon and evening.

I ate breakfast, checked the pool chemicals, went for a swim, and took a long hot shower. I went to my dad’s office and asked to borrow a notebook. I decided I was going to keep a journal or diary.

I felt it would give me a way to order my thoughts and to go back and review my actions. It would have to go in the lockbox because I was going to write my innermost thoughts, my feelings, my ideas, my dreams. And I was going to write about sex.

I sat down at my desk and started writing about the previous day’s events. How I felt, what I thought, and about the intense lovemaking. I reflected on that. I had trouble even putting how I felt about that into words. I just wrote what came to mind. I filled three pages with my first entry. I’d need a room just to store my journal if that kept up.

As I was finishing, I heard Stephanie’s voice behind me. They’d just come home from church.

“Whatcha writing Big Brother?”

“A journal.”

“Oh, can I read it?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why? ‘Cause it has sex stuff in it? I know you do it, remember? I know you do it with Jennifer. I saw the way you kissed her last night.”

You know, I loved my sister, but I just might have to kill her.

“Look Squirt, some stuff you aren’t ready for. You’re only ten!”

“I’ll be eleven soon! And I know where babies come from and how they get made. And I know how good it feels when...”

I was not hearing this!

“Stop! I’m your brother. Please. I don’t want or need to hear this!”

“Do you think I can talk to Mom about it? What do you think she would say? She’d march me to confession to tell the priest what I was doing.”

I laughed. “Yes, she would. She made me go to talk to Fr. Buschmiller about Becky and Mary. She doesn’t know about Jennifer. And it needs to stay that way.”

“I know. I won’t tell. But if I have questions will you answer them for me? Please?”

What the heck was I getting into? That said, I didn’t have much choice.

“Yes, Squirt, I will. What questions?”

“I don’t have any now. But I will. Maybe not for a long time. I’m not ready for boys yet. They’re dumb. Like you.”

She stuck her tongue out and moved out the door before I could say anything.

Yeah, I’m dumb all right. She had that one right. I closed the journal and locked it in my box. I’d have to figure out a plan because the box was basically full.

Speaking of plans, I had to figure out what to do when I talked to Becky. Jennifer had said ‘Go figure things out with Becky’. That was easier said than done. But I knew Jennifer knew that. She knew I was torn. She knew I loved Becky. She knew Becky loved me. The only hope I had in the world right now was she had also said, “I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk about it.”

I lay on my bed listening to Q102. I was rehashing in my mind what I had put on three pages in the journal. What did I want? Did I really want Birgit? Could I honestly examine that relationship and say that it was not to be? No, I didn’t think I could. Despite my connection with Jennifer, despite all that entailed, if Birgit were here right now, I’d end everything else. For her, I could do that.

But what did that say about the situation with Jennifer? The more I thought about it the more I came to a conclusion that Jennifer was right. I had entered into the relationship with Birgit with my eyes wide open. With neither of us being anything but honest, open, and forthright at the time we made love. With no preconceived notions. No attempts on either of our parts to deceive. It was pure, it was spontaneous.

But that’s not what had happened with my best friend. We had sex on the premise that it was two friends enjoying each other, similar to my situation with Melanie. At least that’s how I had seen it. I now realized that Jennifer was trying to change the relationship in a way I wasn’t ready for. I didn’t blame her, mind you, and I wasn’t mad at her. The deception didn’t bother me for some reason. I guess maybe I understood why she had done it, at least somewhat.

The problem was that it had altered our relationship without me having a real say in it. Of course, as Stephanie pointed out, I was dumb. Jennie had told me that sex changes everything. We did it with very different goals in mind. And now I had to deal with the aftermath. No matter what I did, I was going to hurt her, me, or both of us. There was now a huge strain on our friendship.

That said, it was clear that there was something truly special between us. As I’d written in my journal, the intimacy was out of this world. My one encounter with Birgit was orders of magnitude less intense. But it had more impact on my heart. I couldn’t explain it. I tried. Half a page of prose got me nowhere. It didn’t answer anything. It only created even more questions.

This wasn’t helping me with the immediate issue of the day - Becky. ‘Go figure things out with Becky’. Those were my marching orders. Not that I needed them. I knew that I’d eventually have to figure things out with Becky. It was time.

If I honestly evaluated myself, there was no question I wanted her physically. I had dreamt about it. There was also no question that I loved her. I’d admitted that to Jennie, to Melanie, to Jennifer, and to my new journal. And most importantly, I had admitted it to Becky.

She loved me. She wanted me, emotionally and physically. But could she handle it? Could I? There would have to be clear, bright boundaries. The problem was, even if she agreed to those, could I trust her? I trusted Jennifer and it ended in near disaster. It still might. And there was the risk that the same thing could happen with Becky.

Even assuming that Becky was honest and could accept the limits I needed, could my relationship with Jennifer survive it? She said she’d accept it. But I wasn’t convinced that she could. If I moved things forward with Becky it might destroy everything that Jennifer and I had.

Was it worth it? Was it worth the risk? If it had just been about a conquest, the answer would be a resounding ‘No!’. That was the rub. I didn’t need her for sex. But I loved her. Again, not like I loved Birgit. Or Jennifer.

The love I had for each of the three had different qualities. Although in one sense I was sure that Birgit was my soulmate, in other ways I wondered. What if it was Jennifer? Or Becky? Or some other as yet unmet girl. Birgit knew the possibilities and the issues and was willing to risk everything based on her intuition.

That’s why she turned me loose. She had to know for sure. And she knew I had to know for sure. God, I loved her. I was glad that none of this interfered, really, in the long run. In fact, it was all part of the plan to grow and change and come together again in a lifelong commitment.

In the end, I really only had one option. To talk to Becky, to see where she wanted to go. To see where she was. The fortunate thing was that her parents would prevent any sexual relationship for at least a couple of months. So I had a reprieve.

Jennifer said that she could deal with the other girls, so long as I didn’t fall in love with them. I hoped that was actually the case. If it turned out she couldn’t, I wondered if I could devote myself solely to Jennifer. I had told her that I would if need be. But she told me to go figure things out.

I heard the doorbell and by the clock, I knew it was Mr. van Hoek. I grabbed my jacket and went to the door. Becky was there to greet me with a hug and kiss and walked me to the car. She could tell something was bothering me, but couldn’t ask with her dad in earshot. We just chatted off and on about mundane stuff on the way to her house.

“Let’s go to the garden. Just leave your jacket on.”

She led me to the garden. She slipped her arm around me.

“Steve, talk to me, please.”

We walked for a bit while I gathered my thoughts.

“You’re scaring me,” Becky said softly. “What’s bothering you? Why won’t you talk about it?”

“It’s difficult. I don’t even know where to begin.”

She started sobbing, “Do you want to stop seeing me?”

“Oh Becky no, that’s not it at all. It’s not. It’s exactly the opposite.”

“What?”

“We need to figure out how we can be together. You and me.”

“You mean, like make love?”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” I said gently. “You know things are complicated, and before we get to that point, we have to figure out a lot of things. Remember I said we had a lot to talk about?”

“Yes.”

“I want to find a way to be with you. Please trust me. But I need to tell you a lot of things, and then you have to talk to me honestly. I don’t want to hurt you, but no matter what I do it might happen. Even trying to avoid hurting you could hurt you.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“You know about Birgit. You know I love her. I’ve told you that. For 10 months and 10 days, she tried to avoid hurting me. But in doing so, she hurt me. She liked me from early on, but was afraid that a relationship with me would lead to a problem when she had to go home. But it pained me to be around her and not have her return my feelings. One time I thought she was showing some affection, the way she reacted hurt me. Badly. Because she was trying to avoid hurting me. Do you see how that could happen?”

“I guess.”

“With you, there are so many ways I could hurt you. I could hurt you if I stop seeing you. I could hurt you by continuing to see you but not making love to you. I could hurt you by making love to you. Do you see that?”

“I’m confused. You’re saying that no matter what you do you could hurt me?”

“Yes. Because I can’t predict how you’ll respond. How it will affect you. How it will affect me. Even if we think we know what we want, we can fool ourselves. The only way this has a chance to work is if we are completely honest.”

I took a deep breath, it was now or never. “So, my turn, then your turn. OK?”

“Yes,” she said in a barely audible voice.

“You know about Jennifer. You know that she and I have a special relationship. I was with her yesterday. We had a long, emotional talk about our relationship. It was intense. We got everything out on the table. And then she told me to come figure out where you and I stand and where we want to go.”

“Have you made love to her?”

“Yes. Honesty, remember. No games. No lies. No hiding. Honesty.”

“But you won’t make love to me.”

“First of all, I can hardly go ask your dad for permission to take you to your room to make love. They aren’t going to let us be alone together for quite some time.”

“Don’t be so sure of what I can arrange. You never know.”

“Becky, do you realize how big a step that is? What it means? Is that something you could do casually? Just because it feels good? With no emotional entanglements? With no love?”

“No. I can’t do that. With you, it would never be casual.”

“Then we can’t make love now even if you figure out how to make it happen. Until we figure out ‘us’ it would be just a physical act. Or we’d be telling each other lies. Or we’d be confused. Would you make love with me if I was in a serious relationship with someone else?”

“Are you?”

“Think about what I’ve told you.”

“Jennifer. I thought it was Birgit.”

“It’s both, really. Dealing with the Birgit situation is actually easier. I could be in a long-term monogamous relationship with someone while I still was in love with Birgit. She and I expect to be together some day, but we both know the difficulties. We also both know that if we put our lives on hold, we won’t grow and that could cause all kinds of problems down the road. So we both are going about our lives as if we were free, and we’ll see where we end up down the road. We know most High School relationships aren’t permanent. I’m not entering into a relationship with the intent for it to fail, but with the realization that the odds are it will.”

“So like, you could date someone and if it turned out they were a good match, the Birgit thing might never happen?”

“Yes. I honestly don’t know what will happen. If I got to decide, there would be no question that I wanted it to be with Birgit. But she’s been insisting all along that I can’t ignore life, that I can’t ignore all the relationships and experiences that come with being a teenager. And she can’t either. If we can both get through those and still feel the same way, then we’ll have a great chance. But if we don’t even try, by not dating other people, not having those experiences, it’ll ruin everything.”

“You’re going to have a relationship with Jennifer,” she said dully.

“Yes.”

“So then you can’t have a relationship with me.”

“That depends on you.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is your turn - you have to be as honest as you are able. If you are unsure or confused, say so. What is it you want from me? What do you need from me? What kind of relationship do you want? Tell me both perfect world and what you can deal with.”

She was silent for a bit.

“In a perfect world, I want you as my boyfriend, thinking of a long-term relationship. Marriage. Kids. I know, I know, I’m way ahead of the game. But you said perfect world. And in a perfect world, I would meet my soulmate now and never be with anyone else.

“Everything tells me that’s you. I knew as soon as I talked to you at that chess meet. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. Even when you were teasing me about ‘strip chess’ I was thinking about what it would be like. I told you that the first day you were here, when you teased me about playing, I was soaking wet between my legs before we got upstairs. My body was screaming for yours. I was already in love with you. I was so scared, though.”

This was an interesting revelation. But I didn’t interrupt her.