Edited by Barney R. Messed with by me. All mistakes are my fault.

She wanted it all.

I am on my way to court to witness the end of my marriage. It is a trip I never thought I would have to make. I, like almost everyone who gets married promised ‘til death due us part’ or words that mean the same.

Jess (Jessica) McKellar and I had been dating, engaged, or married on and off since my junior year in high school. I am Art (Arthur) Tompson, now 34, and am a financial planner. Jess is 31 and an administrative assistant to her boss. We were married before she had joined that company.

We have had a sporadic relationship in spite of its longevity. I have been with her and only her since I was 17. Jess has broken up with me twice before, once during the summer between my junior and senior years in high school.

Then she did it again after her graduation and before she started college.

Jess was a sophomore when she asked me to go to the St. Valentine’s Day, also called the Sadie Hawkins, dance. I had seen her when she was walking the halls of our high school. She was a petite, very pretty girl. However, before she asked me I had never spoken to her. The tradition for that dance at our school was that the girl needed to ask and that unless you were dating someone you accepted the first invitation from a girl for this dance. I gladly accepted.

When I went to pick her up, I was blown away. The pretty girl was transformed into a beautiful young lady. On the way to the restaurant, I learned that Jess was the oldest of three sisters. Her family had moved into the area during the Christmas break. Her father had been promoted to branch manager of a nationwide wholesale lumber products corporation. She had moved four times in the last eight years. Her sisters, Jean and Julie did not take the moves as well as they should have, and Jess felt she did.

When we got to the restaurant and got to our table, I pulled out Jess’s chair for her. I got a surprised and wide-eyed look as she sat down.

When we got settled in I explained that my father was a firm believer in gentlemanly behavior. I opened doors, held chairs, said sir and ma’am, thank you, and please. I also saw in my home life how people who care for each other acted. Being polite did not mean that you were denigrating the person you were being polite to. It was a show of respect and affection. It also almost always paid off in the end either with returned respect, or surprise and smiles.

Once we arrived at the dance, Jess introduced me to her school friends. They seemed to be surprised that a junior was at the dance with a sophomore. Her friends were either with classmates or unaccompanied.

During the evening, I danced with Jess most, but I also danced with her unaccompanied friends. The other guys saw that so almost all of the singles were asked to dance.

When I took Jess home after the dance, I received a very nice thank you for treating her friends well and for paying attention to how she was feeling. I got a hug and a promise of future dates. Then she got up on tiptoe and gave me a wonderful kiss.

We dated every weekend until the week before the junior prom. I had asked Jess to go with me and she told me she would. A week before the dance she said she could not go. When I asked why she said she had been grounded for something she had done or not done at home.

I did not go to the prom. A week later school was out. We dated that first Saturday, and Jess seemed to be in a bad mood. About halfway through dinner, she asked me angrily to take her home. I paid the bill, and we left to go to my car. Once outside, Jess went off. “I heard about you going to the prom you cheating bastard, I never want to see you again.” Then she slapped my face.

I was flabbergasted. First I had not gone to the prom, and second I had never dated anyone but her.

That was the first time she dumped me. What really frosted my cookies was I was not guilty of what she said I did. She accused me of going to the prom with someone else when she told me she could not go. To say I was mad was an understatement.

Before I could think to ask who had told her; she stormed back into the restaurant. I knew she needed a ride home, so I went back inside and saw her near the hostess stand talking on her phone. She saw me and angrily waved me away.

I went to my car, drove over to her house and ask her mother if I could talk to her. I explained what had happened at dinner. I asked her to tell Jess that even when she finds out the truth, I did not wish to talk to her because she never gave me a chance to explain that she was lied to.

School started up again, I saw Jess walking with one of my classmates. He was a real braggart and a physical abuser of his past girlfriends. If she was with him, the question of who told her I was at the prom was answered. I had stopped Bob Welch three times when he was slapping a girl around. He was not one of my besties.

I knew a couple of guys who could help me to warn Bob to never abuse Jess. I did not want a physical confrontation, and if he treated her right, it was her choice to be with him. She had obviously decided that I was not ‘the one’.

I talked to the friends of Bob, and they told me Bob was bragging about stealing Jess from me and told the guys the sex was great. I told them that if they believed his stories, then Bob would not be afraid to just talk to me.

“Tell Bob, that all I want to do is talk to him. I will be near his car in the parking lot after school.” I stressed; “Just talk.”

I was walking to my class after lunch when I heard shouting coming from one of the side corridors. It sounded like Jess had good mad on. Then I heard the sound of a slap.

Jess was on the floor crying and Bob was standing over her with his fists clenched.

“You’re my girl now bitch, so just because you believed me about your former boyfriend, asshole Art, you are still mine. Next time you threaten to leave, it won’t be a slap.” Then he turned around and saw me.

I saw the swing coming and just ducked so that it hit me full force in the forehead. I saw stars for a second, then the world went black.

I woke up in the ambulance. My head felt like three NFL placekickers were using my head for a football. My neck seemed to be restrained somehow. The attendant told me to lie still, and when I asked about my neck he said it was a precaution because I had obvious head trauma. Then I was out again.

When I woke up this time, I was in a hospital room. My parents and my sister were in the room with me. Shari, my sister, had obviously been crying. My parents were upset that I was hurt. I was no longer restrained, unfortunately the placekickers had been replaced by the punters.

About this time, a doctor came in and asked everyone to leave for a few minutes. He introduced himself as Dr. Lee. He examined me, announced that I would live for at least another week, and said that he would get me something to turn the jackhammers turned off. Then he got serious, “You have a major concussion, so I am keeping you here for at least 48 hours. There does not appear to be any other problems but we are being very cautious. Also, for about a week, I would stay away from mirrors. You have a spectacular bruise on your face. You look like a badly groomed raccoon.”

When the doctor left, he talked to my parents outside the room. Before they came back in, a nurse showed with my meds. Finally, I was allowed to sit up by raising the bed back. Before my family came in, Jess and her mother came in. Jess was beautiful as always but had a handprint bruise on her face.

“Art, I will leave if you want me to, but please let me say some things to you.” She looked at me expectantly.

“And why should I listen to someone who did not let me defend myself against a lie that lost me a friend? Jess, I can understand you being mad thinking I went to the prom, but did you even think once to question the person telling you the lie.”

She had a guilty look of embarrassment on her face, and she looked down at the floor without comment.

I went on; “Jess I still have very strong feelings for you, but I will not be accused of something and then not allowed a chance to refute the charges, even a murderer on trial gets that opportunity. Please just leave, I have a major headache.”

Jess and her Mom turned around, Jess with tears in her eyes and they left.

I just laid my head back on the pillow. Mom came in and looked at me with fire in her eyes. I held up my hand, “Mom, I love you, but don’t start, when I get out of here I will tell you what caused Jess and I to break up, and I was not at fault, she decided that others were to be believed before a guy she had been dating for the entire school year. I do not need that level of disrespect and mistrust. End of that discussion.”

Then I added, “Right now I am tired, hurt, have a monster headache, and the drama queen comes in and wants to talk. Where was she all summer? One othe...”

Then the alarms went off and I was out again. I came to a few days later. It seems my anger caused such a spike in my blood pressure that a damaged blood vessel my brain broke and my body shut down to prevent more damage. Then the two extra days were medically induced because the surgeon wanted everything to stabilize.

Jess’s mother came in to visit me the day I woke up. She asked “Please accept and read this letter that Jess wrote after she told me what caused the breakup last spring. She will not be dating anyone, even you until she learns the value of trust and of friendship. What you said to her cut her to the bone, I think she knew that she screwed up when you stopped at the house and talked to me that night.

“Please read the letter.” Then she bent over my bed and very gently kissed the stitches and whispered, “Be well Arthur Tompson, I know you are a good man.” Then she turned and left.

I took the letter and put it in the drawer in the bedside table. Then I promptly forgot about it.

Dr. Lee came in later with another person whom I assumed was a doctor, as he had the uniform and the arrogant walk.

“Art, this is Dr. Kinchelo, he is the brain surgeon who fixed the leaking blood vessel in your brain. He would like to examine you for a follow-up and to check your recovery progress. May we do that?”

I nodded, and the surgeon asked me to close my eyes and tell him where he was touching me. He went over both legs, and both arms, my chest, and back. Then he asked me to try and stand and walk a couple of steps. He warned me I would be dizzy at first when I sat up, but to let him know if it did not go away or dramatically lessen in a few seconds.

I felt all the touches, and the dizziness disappeared in a few seconds. I did my parade. The Dr. smiled and said; “You are recovering very quickly, other than having a bad hair day and some recurring headaches; which should decrease in frequency and severity over the next few weeks.”

Then Dr. Lee said; “We are going to keep you at least another day, no school for two weeks or more, then no driving, no running, no strenuous exercise for the next two or three weeks after that. You will be coming back here once a week for the next two months for follow-up. We will let you progress based on the assessments at the follow-ups.”

I was discharged from the hospital the next day. While packing up, I opened the drawer on the bedside stand. There standing out like a dog caught digging in your prize rose bed was the unopened letter.

I opened it. It wasn’t very long.

The letter did not solve all of our problems, but it seemed to indicate that we might recover and get back together.

I did not get back to school for two more weeks. Then I spent most of the first semester catching up. Then Christmas break came, and Jess came to mom’s house to see me. I was not prepared for how deeply my feelings for her still were.

Even in a sweater and jeans, she was as breathtaking to me as she had been since I discovered her. I reached for her hand and only let go when we sat down to eat. After dinner, we guys went into the living room to watch ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’. I sat on the couch and was there alone when the girl talk in the kitchen finished. Mom went and sat on dad’s lap, and Jess sat on mine. I put my arms around her, and she leaned back and put her head on my shoulder. She then promptly went to sleep.

Mom touched dad and when she got his attention, she pointed toward us. Dad gave me the eye to the sky look. Mom had ‘the cat that ate the canary’ smile. I just ignored them and enjoyed the feeling of my friend in my embrace.

We dated all through my senior year and that year we went to prom. Jess decided that that was the night that she was going to surrender her virginity. I know it is something of a cliché, but we had a wonderful night at a local hotel. Jess was definitely a virgin. The hotel maids can attest to that. She was also extremely responsive. I was very quick on the trigger when I lost my virginity, but with the resilience of a teenager, I was ready again in a couple of minutes.

Like most guys; even though I had never had sex before that night, I read a lot of porn and studied a lot of sex manuals. I thought that Jess deserved better than a ‘60 second man’, so I started kissing her ears, neck, breasts, stomach, (she is ticklish.) and down to her sex. I licked through her lips until her clit rose up proud. Then I sucked gently on it, and Jess erupted. After a second orgasm, I started to tongue the entrance to her ‘juicy grotto’ as some of the porn I had read called it. I had a delicious creampie of my own juice and hers mixed.

Jess grabbed my head and told me to lay down on my back. I did and she rode me like I was Justify in the Derby, and when she was done; I felt like I had raced for the whole mile and a quarter.

I graduated and enrolled in a local university. My plan was to get a degree in financial planning and to get certified as a financial planner.

My dates with Jess did not turn into endless sex, but about once or twice a month we spent the night together. We also managed a few afternoon delights’ in between.

Jess had always been a good student and would get upset with less than an A on any assignment. Once her junior year started, we had to slow down a little. She had homework, and I had HOMEWORK. We survived, but the only times we were truly comfortable and not rushed was when we were on the three main breaks in the school year. During Thanksgiving, Christmas break, and Spring Break the loving was not rushed, or desperate. Of course, the summer break was very good. We did go to the Junior Prom and I took her to a couple of dances put on by the university.

Her senior year started and Jess sent out about 10 or 12 college applications. She was accepted at several, but not the local university. We made plans for a long-distance relationship. Jess was not sure how well we could work it out. She graduated, and suddenly she seemed to develop mixed feelings about us.

Two weeks before she was scheduled to go to Georgia to start college, she took off. She never said anything to me to indicate that she was leaving early. When I went to pick her up for a surprise dinner date her mother told me she had left for college. She also told me she did not take her phone or her laptop. Her mother said she just left in what seemed like a panic.

I was hurt but looking back I could see that Jess had been backing off on the relationship before she left. She had several times asked me if I was comfortable with the idea of the change in our relationship.

About six weeks into my college junior year I got a letter from Jess. I almost sent it back unopened but decided that that was petty, so I left it on the hall table for a couple of days before I opened it and read it.