Chapter 30: Starting Over From Scratch, Part I

August 1981, Milford, Ohio

Stephanie and I went into Jennifer’s room and I shut the door behind us.

“You OK, Big Brother?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s been a crazy twenty-four hours, but I’m fine. She told me a lot of stuff, stuff that matters, but doesn’t, if you know what I mean. What really matters, in the end, were the lies and deceptions. From the time I met her all the way until yesterday! Four God damned years, Squirt!”

“I know. She told me the same lies. Did she tell you what I told her when I talked to her?”

“Yes. I know that you love me, Squirt, and you were looking out for me. You told her that she was wrecking my life and undoing all the good that Kara and Bethany had done. But you left something out. You left out all the good you did. I couldn’t be where I am right now without you.”

“I love you too, Big Brother. What can we do now?”

“Be her friend. She has a long, difficult road back. She’s going to need friends. She’s also going to need our love. And she has to know we love her.”

“I do love her. She knows that!”

“Does she, Squirt? I talked to her all day today. I’m not sure. We have to make sure that she knows. We have to make love with her.”

“What?!” Stephanie gasped. “You can’t be serious! Not after everything that happened! You said you’d never do it!”

“She needs me,” I countered. “I doubt that there’s anything that could ever bring us back together like we were before, but I can do this for her. I’m going to do this for her. It’s up to you if you want to or not. Either way, you know I love you more than anything.”

“Can I think about it? I know I told you I wanted this, but now, I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I can be with her and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be with you. I was even rethinking my request of that one last fuck. Things are different between us, Steve.”

“They are. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not drawn to you like I was before. Oh, trust me, thinking about your sexy body makes me hard, but it’s not the same as it was before. It’s an urge I can resist. I couldn’t do that before.”

“That’s exactly it. I still feel that urge, but I can resist it. Let me think about it. When do you need to know?”

“I think it can wait until Tuesday morning. If you can’t, or won’t, do it, then I’ll just take her to the apartment and make love with her. If you can, then we’ll go together. I won’t think any less of you, Squirt.”

“Thanks, Big Brother.”

I pulled her into a tight hug and when we let go, we exchanged a very soft kiss. I felt a flash of the old fireworks, but only a flash, and it faded almost instantly.

“Steve, did you feel that?”

“Yeah, just a glimmer. Talk about mixed emotions, Squirt. I want it back, but I don’t.”

“Me too. As I said, I’ll think about it.”

We headed down to join our friends for the party. Jennifer seemed to be in a somewhat better mood. After dinner, I managed to talk quietly with each of our friends — Bethany, Larry, Mary, Melanie, and Pete. I let them know that Jennifer was going to need serious help and support, and that even though we were a couple of thousand miles away, a card, a letter or a phone call would work wonders.

Everyone stayed until about 11:00pm. Larry took Stephanie home, for which I thanked him. Pete and Melanie went to her room, though I could tell from the look on Pete’s face he wasn’t thrilled with sleeping with Melanie at her house. I chuckled inwardly because I had slept with Melanie here on several occasions and I was sleeping with Jennifer, though with Jennifer, sleeping wasn’t a euphemism for sex. Pete was the epitome of conservatism, at least socially, and that, ultimately, was what bugged Melanie. In the end, they’d reached some kind of accommodation, and that gave me hope with Kara.

I pushed those thoughts out of my head as I changed into shorts and a t-shirt and Jennifer changed into her nightgown. We curled up in bed together and I held her tight. She fell asleep quickly, and I managed to fall asleep not long after. I slept soundly and when I woke up, once again I slipped out to use the bathroom. When I got back to the room, Jennifer was sitting up in bed, waiting for me.

“What are we doing today?” she asked.

“I’m losing track of days,” I said. “It’s Monday, right? I had planned lunch with Kara, but we can cancel that if you aren’t up to it.”

“No, I want to meet the girl who tamed Steve Adams. I heard from Bethany that Kara might be the one.”

“You heard right, I guess. But you know as well as I do that we can’t control the future and sometimes what we plan doesn’t happen, and quite often what we want doesn’t happen.”

“Do you mean Birgit or do you mean me?”

“Both, Jen. Both,” I said sadly. “Fate just loves to torment me. My solution, in the short term, is to take things one day at a time. When the time is right, I’ll take the ‘Leap of Faith’ and it’ll be my turn to torment Fate.”

“Where are we now, Steve?”

“You’re my friend and I love you. I guess that puts us back to December 1977. We start over from scratch. Well, not quite scratch, because we’re friends.”

“Then I guess next up is strip chess!” she giggled.

“Now, that’s the Jennifer I remember,” I chuckled. “If you’re cracking jokes, then I guess you want a nice breakfast as well. I don’t have to tell Mrs. Spencer what to serve you?”

“No. I’ve slept better these last two nights than I have in six months. I have a better appetite than I’ve had since my Prom. Let’s shower and go to breakfast.”

“Go on. The bathroom is free. I’ll take mine after you.”

“You won’t come with me?”

“I will if you need me to, but I think you’re fine to do that alone right now. On Thursday, you will be doing this on your own.”

“OK,” she said, donning her robe and heading to the bathroom.

She was back in just under ten minutes and dropped the robe to get dressed. She looked somewhat better, but that was mostly due to the fact that she was feeling better, and taking better care of herself. A couple of days of good meals had certainly helped her energy levels. I had no doubt that she had a long way to go, but this seemed like a good start. If she could stay away from the alcohol and pot, I thought she had a good chance of succeeding.

I had told Stephanie what I had planned to do, but I had second thoughts about it. My concern was even though Jennifer needed that affirmation of love, she might take it the wrong way. I still had a day to think about it, and because I hadn’t said anything to Jennifer about it, it wasn’t like I was leading her on. It was a tough decision.

I grabbed my stuff and went to take my shower. When I came back, I put my underwear on before dropping my robe, then finished getting dressed. We went to breakfast and Jennifer ate enough to satisfy me. With breakfast finished, we went down to the basement to hang out and talk. Melanie said she’d join us in a bit.

“How are you doing today, Jen?” I asked.

“Better. I guess eating and sleeping properly helps. I’m still pretty depressed and upset. I just wish I could fix things with you.”

“I know. I am sure I sound like a broken record, but until you fix things for yourself, you can’t really have any kind of relationship. Trust is a hard thing to recover. It took a while for Stephanie, Bethany and Kara to trust me to a point where they were comfortable, but I think there will always be some level of doubt in their minds. Once I failed them, what’s to say I won’t fail again?”

“That’s even more depressing! Are you saying you’ll never trust me?” she wailed, a tear running down her cheek.

“That’s not at all what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that it takes time. But even with doubt, there can still be trust. In other words, trust isn’t perfect. I’m not sure it ever really is, though until it’s violated, we often simply assume that it is perfect. Does that make sense?”

“I guess,” she sighed.

“You have a lot of people you need to re-establish trust with. Me, of course. My little sister. Your parents. To some extent, Larry, Bethany and Melanie. And you’ll need to reestablish it with Keith.”

“Keith? Why? I never want to see him again!”

“Because you’re embarrassed? Because you’re afraid you might have sex with him? Or some other reason?”

“Probably both of those, I guess, plus I’m pretty sure I was just using him at the end. Like I said, I thought having sex with him would just solve the problems between you and me. But I realize that it wouldn’t. I’d have felt cheap and dirty, like I did with Ted. I never felt that way with you. Now, if I went back to him, what would I say? Sorry, I just want to be friends? I led you on about sex?”

“How much did you really like him?” I asked gently.

“As a friend, he was OK, I guess. I really missed you and I needed someone to be with. He was convenient and seemed like a nice guy. After a while, he tried to kiss me but I put him off until the Homecoming dance. We kissed a bit then and I could tell he liked me, but I was still planning on being with you, so I didn’t let it go any further. Over time I was thinking more and more about our time in Chicago and got really worried that I’d come there, we’d be together for a year and then you would dump me for Karin.

“That’s when I hatched my stupid plan. So, no, I don’t want to see him again. I don’t think there’s a point. I’m not going to have sex with him and he’s going to school in Florida, anyway. It’s better just to let it go. I could never explain all of this to him. And if I didn’t explain, I don’t think he could understand what happened.”

I wondered if her issue was specifically with Keith, or with any guy. And I wondered about girls, too.

“Did you have any close female friends?”

“There was one girl. We got along for a while, but then we had a falling out.”

“A falling out? Over what?”

“Just stuff, it’s not really important.”

“What ‘stuff’, Jennifer?”

She sighed, “I made the mistake of telling her about Chris and Melanie and she freaked out.”

“Which only made you feel even more guilty about both of those relationships. I swear, judgmental people are going to fucking ruin the world! Can you imagine a world run by people like that, my mom and Mr. Blanchard? I guess part of the lesson is to be careful who you share those kinds of things with. I made a mistake kind of like that with Kara’s ex-friend Sandy. She’s the one who went to her dad and caused all the trouble between me and Kara’s dad.”

We looked at each other in silence for a few moments, I guess, collecting our thoughts.

“Do you really not have any close friends there, Jennifer?”

“No. I lived in Milford almost my whole life. I guess I don’t know how to make friends like I have here.”

“That’s something you have to work on. You already started with your future roommate. That sounds like someone who can be a friend.”

“Maybe. I’m just afraid the same thing will happen with her. I need someone to talk to.”

“You know that Melanie, Bethany, Larry, Stephanie, and I aren’t going to judge you. Hell, of that crowd, I’m the only one who hasn’t been with or wants to be with someone of the same sex! Jesus. Maybe there’s something wrong with me!” I chuckled. “Just be careful with your roommate until you have an idea of how she feels about stuff like that.”

“I suppose that’s the best idea. And no, there is nothing wrong with you, Steve. You just happen to be the straightest guy we all know. But why not? You’ve had sex with scores of pretty girls! Hell, they come begging for it!”

We both laughed.

Melanie came down to the basement and asked me if she could talk to Jennifer alone for a bit. I agreed and headed upstairs. It was still a few hours before I was supposed to head to Kara’s, so I decided to head home to swim and get some additional clothes. I told Mrs. Spencer where I was going and got into my car and drove home.

I found my little sister and told her I was going to swim and went to get my suit on. Stephanie joined me and we swam laps together. After our showers, she hung out with me for a bit while I put some new clothes in my overnight bag.

“I still don’t know what to do about tomorrow,” Stephanie said.

“Me either, Squirt. I’m having second thoughts because I don’t want to give Jennifer any thought that we’re getting back together. I just don’t think that’s in the cards under any circumstances. I didn’t say anything to Jennifer, so it’s not like I was leading her on or anything. She hasn’t mentioned it, either.”

“You still love her a lot, don’t you, Big Brother?”

“Of course I do, just as you do. But that’s not enough. You didn’t stop loving me in January, but that certainly wasn’t enough for Spring Break to happen.”

“True. I’ll let you know in the morning. Maybe you, Jennifer, and I can go to breakfast. Then we can hang out. That way we’re together when and if we decide to go through with it.”

I hugged my sister and headed back to Melanie’s house. She and Jennifer were still in the basement and, according to Mrs. Spencer, they hadn’t come up. I sat on the couch with a cup of tea and waited. Melanie came up around 11:00am and asked to talk to me. We went up to her room.

“She’s still holding out some remote hope that she can restore your relationship. I don’t think that’s realistic, but I think that’s what has her willing to take our help and see a counselor like you and I both did for our troubles. I think the best course of action is for you to keep that thought alive. I’m not saying you should mislead her, but don’t foreclose the possibility completely. Let things take their natural course and if you and Kara do end up together next Summer, then you can tell Jennifer. But right now, it’s best to let her believe that there is some chance, however remote. Most of all, though, she needs to know that you still love her.”

“I’ve told her that I love her. And I’ve been honest about the situation. I haven’t told her that there is no chance, but I’ve made it clear that she has to get help for us to even talk about such a thing. We’re heading over to Kara’s in a few minutes and I think Jennifer will have a clear picture of what she’s up against, so to speak.”

“And Kara knows all about Jennifer, right?” Melanie asked.

“Yes. Kara knows pretty much everything at this point. She’s talked to Joyce and Bethany at length about me.”

“And she’s still with you?! I have to say that’s pretty amazing, given her background and her dad.”

“I agree with you on that! But, it’s time for us to go. Let me get Jennifer and head out.”

I went to the basement and found Jennifer curled up on the couch. I wondered exactly what Melanie had said because Jennifer looked like she had gone backwards a bit. I also thought it might have to do with seeing Kara. That would, no matter what was said, make it abundantly clear where Jennifer stood. Once again, I was torn about what the right thing to do was, but in this case, I felt it was necessary. I took Jennifer’s hand, and we headed upstairs and out to the car. We drove the short distance to Kara’s house and Kara met us at the door.

I introduced the girls to each other, and we went to sit in our usual place in the den. To my surprise, Jennifer asked if it was OK to talk to Kara alone. Kara nodded, so I went to the kitchen to sit with Mrs. Blanchard while she prepared lunch.

“I’m even more confused now, Steve. You brought yet another girl of yours to see Kara?”

“Jennifer and I have a long history, but we’re not involved at all. I brought her here at Kara’s request. Kara and Jennifer know about each other. Don’t worry, please. Would I have left them alone together if I thought there was a problem or if I had told each of them a different story?”