Chapter 27: Homecoming

September/October 1980, Milford, Ohio

On Sunday after I called Karin, I had my weekly ‘play date’ with Debbie V, and she helped me pick out a gift for Karin, as her birthday was coming up and I wanted to send it so she could get it in time. I spent the rest of the day with Beth, working on computer dating and programming stuff. Bethany had come over for a few hours in the afternoon and hung out with us. I also let Beth know that the following Sunday we’d only have a short day because I had a date and that the Sunday after that, I’d be heading to Don Joseph’s house.

The week progressed like normal, and I saw Elyse on Monday and Thursday. We had dinner and then hung out at my house. By mutual agreement, we limited our affection to kisses when she arrived and when she left. We agreed that we’d continue our Monday and Thursday dates, keeping things moving forward, but very slowly. There was no doubt that we both wanted to make love, but Elyse was being cautious.

Dona on the other hand, had made it clear to me that she wanted to move forward quickly. I kept thinking about Stephanie’s warning and how I’d handle the situation. If I did have sex with Dona, would she insist on being exclusive? If she did, what would happen with Katt, Bethany, and Debbie V? Did I want to be exclusive? The answer to that was no, because despite the strong feelings I had for Dona, I wasn’t interested in going steady with anyone. Well, anyone but Jennifer, and that wasn’t possible.

I did invite people to my party — Kathy, Mary, Beth, Brent, Larry, Ralph, Debbie V, and, of course, Bethany. I invited Mary to bring Ben if she could. I decided to invite Cindy and Erin as well. I also invited Debbie C. I knew Mom would have a fit about the two Debbies, but I didn’t give a damn. I’d have to talk to Bethany about inviting Dona.

Friday was Homecoming and Bethany insisted that we do things exactly as we had done for our Freshman year Turnabout dance, though she asked me to drive to her house beforehand so that her parents could take pictures. The limo would pick us up and drop us off at her house.

I showered and dressed in a new suit because the one I wore Sophomore year didn’t fit in the shoulders at this point. I grabbed my fedora and drove over to Bethany’s house. Her mom opened the door when I rang the bell and I went in to sit in the living room to wait for Bethany to come down.

Bethany came downstairs wearing her long, conservatively cut, ankle-length pale-blue gown with long sleeves. Her hair was styled with curls hanging down to frame her face, just as it had been two years previously. She wore only a hint of makeup, including blue eye shadow that was the same color as her dress. She went to the mantle and took down a box with an identical white flower with blue tipped petals and pinned it to my suit.

Bethany’s mom took an entire roll of pictures with her 35mm camera, including some in the backyard under a tree. She promised to provide me copies of the pictures once she had them developed. Once we finished, we went back inside to wait for the limo to arrive. Bethany’s dad reminded her that her curfew was 1:00am and I promised to have her home by then. The limo arrived to take us to the country club a few minutes later. We said goodbye to her parents and headed out.

“Steve,” Bethany said when we were sitting in the back of the limo, “there is one difference from last time.”

“What’s that?”

“After the dance and after we get ice cream, we’re going to fuck each other silly!”

“I remember how afraid you were to even dance close last time.”

“After that last slow dance, I wanted you to make love to me, but I was so scared.”

“Everything worked out fine.”

She smiled and snuggled close to me until we got to the country club. We sat in the same booth that we’d had two years ago and when it was time to order, we looked at each other and laughed, then both ordered lemon chicken. When we had finished, the limo took us to Milford High for the dance.

We found a table with Mary and Ben, Kathy and Joe, Brent and Beth, and Ralph and Janet, who was there even though she had graduated the previous year.

“I suppose every girl at this table is going to want to dance with you,” Bethany giggled.

“I think you’re right,” I chuckled.

The ten of us had a great time dancing and talking. Mary managed her usual very good timing, and we danced to The Biggest Part of Me by Ambrosia.

“Steve, I love holding you in my arms!” she sighed. “It’s too bad you aren’t more flexible with your rule.”

“Mary, you feel fantastic and you know I’d love to do it, but no, the rule is firm.”

“So is something else!” she giggled, grinding into my erection.

I hugged her tight until the end of the song and let her go with a quick peck on the lips.

I danced with Beth, but it was much more chaste, my hands on her waist and hers on my shoulders. Janet and I danced to a moderately fast song, and she kissed me on the cheek when we finished and whispered “Thanks!” Kathy’s timing was good and we danced to Longer by Dan Fogelberg. She pulled me as close as possible to dance.

I saw Debbie V with a Sophomore guy I knew only by sight. She didn’t ask me to dance, but I wasn’t surprised. We were keeping our relationship completely quiet. Only Stephanie and Bethany really knew about it, and I wanted to keep it that way.

I wasn’t surprised when Michelle Bateman asked me to dance. She too managed to get a slow song, You Decorated My Life by Kenny Rogers. I started with my hands on her waist, but she stepped closer and wrapped her arms around me, putting her head on my chest. I saw Bethany smirk as she danced with Michelle’s date at arms’ length.

“Steve,” Michelle whispered, “what will it take to get together with you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’ve been flirting non-stop with you since the start of the year!”

“Yes, you have,” I replied.

“Ask me out, please!” she whispered as she pressed her body hard into mine.

The song finished and as we parted, I told her I’d talk to her on Monday. I went back to the table to find Bethany.

“Enjoy your dance?” Bethany smirked. “I don’t know if you could get any closer!”

“She wants me to ask her out.”

“No kidding! She wants a hell of a lot more than that, though. She knows your reputation as a fantastic lover.”

“And how does she know that?”

“I’m pretty sure Cindy told her, and she asked Kathy, too, because word got around with the cheer team about you and her at the party.”

I chuckled, “You know what happened there, but yeah, Kathy did have a pretty good experience after that!”

“Just make sure she knows that you’ll screw her silly, but you aren’t interested in dating.”

“Yes, Dear!” I sighed.

Bethany slapped my shoulder gently and then pulled me to the dance floor. We danced the rest of the night together. The final song was Every Woman in the World by Air Supply. I pulled Bethany close, and she hugged me tight as we swayed to the song.

“Am I your fantasy and reality? Am I everything you need?” she asked softly, repeating the song’s lyrics.

“I love you very much,” I said gently. “Don’t push too hard. Please don’t try to force things.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, a tear rolling down her cheek.

When the song finished, we said goodbye to our friends and headed out to the limo to go to Graeter’s.

“Maybe we should just go home now,” Bethany said, another tear rolling down her cheek.

“Bethany? What’s wrong?”

“You. Me. Us. It’s my fault, Steve. It’s all my fault,” she said and started sobbing.

I pulled her tight to me and told the driver to take us to Bethany’s house. I figured we’d get right in my car and I’d take her to the apartment to talk so we could have some privacy. At Bethany’s house, we got out of the limo and I led her to my car, holding the door open so she could get in.

“Steve, it’s a bad idea.”

“Just get in,” I said firmly.

She got in the car and I closed the door. I walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and drove to the apartment. We parked, and I helped her out of the car and then walked her upstairs. We went inside and I led her to the couch to sit. I took off my coat and tie and hung them on a chair. I put on the kettle to heat water for tea and got out the can of mint tea. Once the water was hot, I poured it into the teapot and added the tea ball with the tea leaves to steep and brought it and two cups to the table by the couch.

Bethany was curled up on the couch, her head on her arm resting on the back of the couch. She was still crying, so I brought a box of tissues to the couch with me. I dabbed tears from Bethany’s face and handed her a fresh tissue to blow her nose. Her hand was shaking as she reached to take the tissue. She looked at me nervously, with a look of fear in her eyes.

Fear? I thought quickly and took stock. I’d taken her back to her house, then told her, practically ordered her into the car, and we were silent until we got to the apartment. She’d followed without protest. Warning bells rang in my mind! She probably was thinking that she’d led me on, telling me to screw her silly after the dance, and now that she’d decided not to, she probably thought that I wanted to take her anyway! And she was resigning herself to it!

“Bethany, please.” I said, I reached to touch her shoulder, but she drew back and I withdrew my hand. “I brought you here to talk. Only to talk. This is the most private place I know where we can talk. Just to talk.”

She nodded, dabbing her eyes, stifling a sob.

“Talk to me,” I said softly. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m wrong. I can’t hold back my feelings and you don’t feel the same way. Then I see you with other girls and it’s like a dagger in my heart. It hurts so bad, and it’s tearing me apart. I don’t know what to do. I want you. I want all of you in every way. Just you and me forever. But you don’t want me,” she said, starting to sob again.

“That’s just not true! I do want you. I just can’t make a lifetime commitment at this point.”

“No, you can’t. I know that. But can’t we just go steady? Have it just you and me and nobody else?”

“We talked about that, and we agreed we would explore our relationship, but also agreed I wasn’t going to be exclusive with anyone. You and I both know that if I did agree to be exclusive with you, that in your mind, it would be the same as getting engaged. I can’t do that. I can’t make that kind of commitment at seventeen.”

“I know, that’s why I said I’m the problem. Maybe we should just stop seeing each other completely.”

“Completely? As in not even be friends? Not sit together at lunch?”

“Yes,” she said softly, sobbing louder.

That was absolutely not what I wanted. If we went back to just being friends, I’d be fine. But I couldn’t handle losing her as a friend. I also couldn’t make the commitment she wanted. I was stuck with two very, very bad choices. If I did as Bethany asked, I would have to tell Jennifer and that would mean either ending any chance with Jennifer or, more likely, breaking up with Bethany when it was time for college. There was no way I could do the first one, and the second one would devastate Bethany. I couldn’t mislead her that way.

“Are those really the only two options? Make a lifetime commitment or never talk to you again? Are those two options what you really want me to decide between?”

She looked at me for a moment, tears streaming down her face. She knew for sure what I would do if those were the only two options. She knew I’d have to decide never to speak to her again. She gazed deeply into my eyes and composed herself.

“Steve,” she said softly, “make love to me. Make all the pain go away.”

I knew immediately that I couldn’t do it. She was asking for all the wrong reasons. I wasn’t sure which reason, but there were several possibilities, and all of them were wrong. It could be just delaying a decision, it could be trying to convince me through love to make a commitment, it could be her way of trying to seal a commitment or just a way to block out the pain of what she was deciding.

“Bethany, no. I can’t do that. Not until we figure this out. Do you want my answer?”

“I know your answer, Steve. You already told me.” she said, sobbing harder.

“Then ask a different question, Sweetheart,” I said softly, stroking her hair.

“Sweetheart?” she sniffed. “You’ve never called me that before.”

“I know, but it is what you are to me, and I felt it was right to say it.”

“It was. It was the perfect thing to say. You do love me, don’t you?”

I did. And because I loved her, I wanted to be with her. Partly for my own selfish reasons, but partly because I was afraid of what would happen if she were cast adrift. And that was exactly what would happen if we weren’t at least friends. I began to realize just how vulnerable Bethany still was. If someone was going to save this relationship, it had to be me. I had to find a way.

“Yes, I do. I’ve loved you for a long time. I need you, Bethany. I can’t lose you as a friend! That wouldn’t be good for either of us. I really need you. There is nobody that can do for me what you do. Not Stephanie. Not Jennifer. Not Karin.”

“But you don’t love only me.”

“That’s true, I also love Jennifer.”

“Yes, but she’s not the only other one,” Bethany said with a hint of anger.

Dona. That had to be the true source of the problem. But I hadn’t said anything to Bethany, nor had Bethany seen Dona and me together. That led to only a single conclusion. I was going to have to have serious words with Miss Stephanie Ann Adams.

“Bethany,” I said softly, “what did my sister say to you?”

“She told me that you were in love with Dona. That you guys fell in love at first sight.”

God damn it! First Stephanie said something to Jennifer about Karin, now she had said something to Bethany about Dona. I was confused at what Stephanie’s motivations were, but that wasn’t important at the moment. What was important was trying to fix my relationship with Bethany.

“Forget about Dona for the moment. I don’t know what Stephanie’s angle is; I’ll worry about that later. Right now, we need to find a way to be together, for both our sakes.”

“You really need me? You’re not just saying that to try to make me happy?”

“When have I ever been anything but honest and truthful with you? You know more about me than anyone, except possibly Stephanie.”

“More than Jennifer? You can’t mean that!”

“Has she been here for the last two months? Who have I talked to about everything? Who’s been my best friend and confidante? Who helped me when I was lost? It was you, Bethany. You were my rock of support. Just like I was yours back then.”

“I never thought about it that way. But it’s so hard.”

“I agree. Life is very hard at times. We’ve both suffered trauma. We’ve helped each other. We have a bond that may well be strong enough to bring us together forever. I can’t say for sure, but you know I think it’s possible. We’re High School Seniors and our lives are about to change dramatically. I want you to be part of my life, Bethany Michelle Krajick.”