Life Begins (13 page)

I know my liking Jack is not going
to make sense, but maybe I don't want a man that is anything like
my father. I can see some of the women that have slept with my
father doing it because they thought that he was attractive. My
father is just one of those sporty manly types that girls tend to
be attracted to. I’ve always just kind of looked at him as a middle
aged asshole, but I can look at photos of my parents and see that a
girl could possibly find him attractive. It’s just that I’ve never
really been attracted to men like my dad because of how my dad is.
I've always just been a little bit screwed up by my parents to act
the way that I should have acted to be the kind of person that Jack
would need ideally as a lover. Although, everything I did that was
hurtful to Jack made complete sense at the time that I did it. I
can't really pass it off on my dad being an asshole. I think a
large part of it had to do with just my personality. It's more fun
to blame it on my parents, though. You can believe whichever you
want. I would just rather tend to believe that I have acted poorly
because of my relationship with my father than because I am a
natural born bitch.

Anyway, back to our parents and
how me and Jack got to be neighbors. Our fathers met when they were
in college. They were roommates and became best friends through
that experience. I can't really see them living together or
becoming best friends. Jack's father would tell me stories about my
dad from that period in their lives. Maybe I shouldn't have heard
them, but he knew that I liked them. It made my father human. He
made him out to be a much more tragic character than I would have.
And as much as I would like to think that my father has some sort
of decency to him and could be a tragic character, I still just
think that deep down inside he's an asshole. Even Jack's father
can't paint a picture good enough for me to see him as anything
else.

From the stories I have heard,
they were two totally different men, even back then. My father
enjoyed sleeping around and doing just enough studying to pass.
Jack's father was more interested in studying than girls. I think
my father tried to hand off some of his used women onto Jack's
father, but he turned them down. I once overheard a story about our
fathers from the college days. My dad was drunk at the time. Jack
and I were upstairs. Our parents thought we were nowhere near them
where we could have heard the story. Anyway, my father is talking
about how he used to bring a girl back to the dorm, f#ck her, and
then ask Jack’s dad if he wanted to screw her while she was still
in the room. Jack’s father always turned down these offers, but I
was a little bit surprised that he would tell this story in front
of our moms. I mean, I’m not surprised that my father told it in
front of my mom, but I was a little surprised he said it in front
of Jack’s mom. Jack’s dad just smiled through the story and put his
arm around his wife. It was really very sweet.

I think his dad was kind of like
how Jack is. He doesn't seem to play the field or want to use
somebody just to have the experience. There is something sweet
about that. My father will flirt with anything female just because
it is there to flirt with. Jack's father and Jack have to feel
something for the person. I know that not every pretty thing that
passes by makes Jack turn his head. It's not that he doesn't value
a pretty girl. He is just more discerning about true beauty. You
know, I honestly believe him when he says that I am the most
beautiful girl that he has ever seen. I'm not going to tell him
that. As soon as a guy knows that you believe him with something
like that, they stop trying to convince you otherwise. I like
making him pay me compliments when I feel insecure. He is always
able to come up with something new to say about me. I'm not going
to ruin that.

It’s just that… I think there is a
part of Jack that wishes he could be a player like my father. As
good and decent as his father was, there is just something cooler
to a young man about being more like how my father is. I know that
Jack feels inadequate as a lover. A lot of times when we have
discussed our relationship, he brings up questions as to whether or
not he is pleasuring me in the right way. He wants to make sure
that if he’s not that I take the time to tell him and then tell him
what he could do better. It’s really very sweet.

You know, it’s very odd what
attracts you and why certain people get together. I mean, Jack's
father seemed to show very little interest in girls until the day
that he met Jack's mom. His mom is like a cross between a hippie
and pixie. His father told me the story of how they met. He saw her
from across the room at a party one night. He walked up to her not
really knowing what he was going to say to her. He stuttered and
stammered for a moment before she said, “Well, at least you didn't
come over here with some stupid pick up line. What's your name?”
They started talking after that.

His father told me that it was
because of her that they even got together. He thought she was the
most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He didn't know why he
approached her that night. There was just something about her that
attracted him like a moth to a flame. Instead of killing his spirit
that night, she ended up saving him forever.

Jack will never tell you this
story. It goes against everything that he believes about himself. I
think he honestly wants to believe that he is the first person to
have ever been in love and to have loved as great as he loves me.
But I know that he learned to love the way he does from his father
and the stories he grew up hearing. I think I know these stories
better than Jack does. He spent the majority of his childhood
trying to write his own story with me as the female
lead.

When Jack was writing about his
birth, he wasn't kidding about being a virgin birth. I don't think
he can deal with the idea that his parents were ever sexual and
felt the same things that he feels. It brings up too many issues
that Jack's wonderfully brilliant mind would have to think about.
And if you look at how he finally ended up describing his birth,
you realize that he decided that he was delivered by a stork. Jack
has to think about his parents as if they are Barbie dolls. They
look like regular people, but they aren't anatomically correct. I
am pretty sure that Jack is severely grossed out by the idea of
coming out of a part of his mother's body that he enjoys so much on
me. That is why he is also hoping that he was never breast fed. To
accept anything like this puts his parents as real humans and not
as the plastic Barbie versions that he would like to imagine them
being.

Jack has a very odd relationship
with his parents. He always has. His father always acted more like
a teacher than a parent in the sense of how you would expect one to
be. Jack would get in trouble as a child and then get to choose his
own punishment. They would discuss what he had done wrong, why it
was wrong, and why Jack had done it. Sometimes there wasn't even a
punishment. It would all depend on the severity of the offense and
whether Jack appeared to have learned the lesson.

I'm not really surprised by this
in a lot of ways. It was just so totally different than how I grew
up. Of course, Jack's father loved him. I don't want to say that he
loved him more than he loved his wife, but he loved them both in
equally epic amounts. He would have done anything for both of
them.

And Jack's relationship with his
mother is just as odd, but in a different way. Jack acts more like
the grown up in their relationship than his mother does. And it's
different than how I act like that with my mother. I mean, my mom
was a drunk for a large part of my growing up. I had to take care
of her, but my mom still acts like the mother in the relationship.
Jack's mother still acts like an overgrown hippie. She would have
no problem with me spending the night with Jack in his bedroom.
When I asked Jack why he always comes over to my place to spend the
night instead of me coming over to his bedroom, he told me it was
because he didn't want his mother to make us breakfast in the
morning. It's one thing to be doing things you shouldn't be doing,
but you don't need to have your mother encouraging and supporting
the bad behavior.

I don't know if Jack really feels
guilty about spending the night with me. I mean, we have never
really done anything. Well... I mean, we haven't had sex. That is
the only thing that really counts as bad behavior for people our
age. The rest of the stuff nobody thinks about. All they ever talk
about is teen sex and get excited about it. I think teens could be
giving each other hand jobs and blow jobs, and nobody would seem to
care. All they think we think about doing is having sex. But
actually there is a lot of stuff that you can do that leads up to
having sex without it ever really being counted as sex. Anyway,
Jack goes back and forth on whether he feels guilty about the stuff
that we have done. I think he has a hard time grappling with what
he feels and what he thinks. He is a very intellectual guy. He
thinks about a lot of stuff that I just don't think about or even
care about.

I have always kind of wondered if
it is because of his parents. I mean, I know that his father would
talk to him about morality while his mother was more of a free
spirit, but this seems like just such a deeper conflict than that.
I think he may have listened to his grandmother's version of how
his parents got together. According to her, his father had a chance
of becoming a great lawyer. He gave it all up to be with his wife.
I don't think Jack wants to regret giving up a chance to be famous
to be with me. He doesn't want to have the same regrets that his
father had.

I'm not supposed to tell him this,
but his father didn't regret getting married and having Jack. They
were what made his life complete. As much as he enjoyed being a
lawyer, it never satisfied his soul in the way that his wife and
Jack did. You know, that's why his father never told Jack what his
purpose in life was. It has kept Jack with this expectation of
greatness, but his father said that this was one lesson that every
man had to learn for himself. He swore me to secrecy and said that
Jack would make the right decision.

His father was a very smart man. I
miss him because he was the only good and completely decent person
I ever met. Jack talked about him being able to see into the
future. I don't know about that. I know that he was perceptive. He
knew things before you told him. He knew what you were feeling and
never judged you for feeling it. He only helped you talk through
everything so that you could make sense of it all and make a
decision that you didn't feel bad about. Jack’s a lot like that,
too.

As for Jack's purpose in life,
while his father never told him, he did reveal such things to me. I
have had to hold these things inside and never tell Jack. It was
something that I promised his father. I can reveal it here because
nobody is going to read this, especially Jack, until it will be too
late for it to really matter. I guess Mrs. Dunn is going to read
this, but she is going to be so shocked by everything else that has
already been written in the previous pages that anything I will say
here will be overlooked and forgotten.

Anyway, Jack's father believed
that Jack was born so that I could be born. If he made Jack think
that was the end of the purpose of his life, he did this so that
Jack wouldn't become conceited. He has a way of doing this on his
own. While he is a gifted writer (He attended the Governor's Summer
Institute for Writers the summer between our sophomore and junior
years. He was the only screenwriter accepted. He says that means
that his scripts are as good as the poets and novel writers of our
generation. He says that is really significant because most
literary people don't value films as much as literature. Jack has
always enjoyed being looked down upon and then proving that he is
the best at something.), his father doesn't think that is his true
purpose in life. It is just something that he is good at like his
father was good at being a lawyer.

According to his father, Jack is
supposed to do more than just to make sure that I was born. He's
supposed to save me. Here's the thing. I don't really want him to
save me. I mean, I'm okay with him saving me in terms of giving me
the Heimlich if I'm choking or something, but I think his father
was talking about another kind of saving me. It was more of a
salvation kind of saving me. As much as I love Jack, I don't want
his salvation. We can't last as a couple. I know this. And I don't
want Jack to give up any chance of a career he might have because
he thinks his purpose in life is me.

I guess I'm kind of glad that Jack
has never known what his true purpose in life is according to his
father. If he did, he would try to marry me right now, or at least
right after high school. I'm not ready for marriage. And I don't
think I want to marry Jack, even though I do love him more than
anybody else. I think I will always love him, but we aren't really
compatible as a couple. I think we both know this. We're just too
attracted to each other and know each other too well to not be
together. We're like best friends that just want to f*ck each
other, but we both know that as soon as we do, what is special
about us will disappear.

I appreciate his father thinking
that I need saving and all, but I'm a pretty messed up person. I
will only end up bringing Jack down to my level. I think it is
better if I let him go so that he can be the kind of man his father
was. If he stays with me, I will only end up making him like one of
my parents. I don't think I could live with myself if that
happened.