Loved - A Novel (9 page)

              Brian came to Westville for New Year’s Eve. We stayed in and watched the countdown on TV. It felt wrong having him there in the world I came from. It was good for him to spend time with my parents and to see where I grew up, like boyfriends are supposed to do, but I felt like he didn’t quite fit. He was in the wrong story. Or maybe I was.

              I found myself relieved to drive him to the airport on New Year’s Day. I could hardly see through the snow when I got back on the road toward Westville. I drove slowly
and carefully, trying to figure out why I couldn’t let Brian in. I had compartmentalized him with Megan and the drinking, all tied together in some corner of my mind. None of that was the real me. Chase knew the real me. He had all the parts of me that Brian was missing.

              I called my parents and told them I was stopping at Meredith’s for a while. I called Meredith and told her that if my parents called looking for me, she should tell them that I had just left, and then call me at Chase’s and let me know that I was supposedly on my way home, at which point I would leave.

              Struck with sudden conviction, I drove as quickly as the bad weather would allow, white knuckles on the wheel. I drove through the swirling and dangerous blizzard straight to Chase’s house, where he welcomed me, tired, teary-eyed, and shivering into his warm arms. For those few stolen hours together, we were absolutely blissful. He held me and kissed me and everything was as it should be. I hadn’t lost him. He was still here and he felt like home. I could hardly wait for us to be able to sleep in bed together, to brush our teeth together, and to argue over which movie to rent at Blockbuster. I pictured us living in a small apartment in the city with exposed brick walls. We would have a bed on the floor and hardly any other furniture. There would be stacks of books and CDs in every corner, and the bed would never be made. There would be so much love in our little life together.             

              My cell phone rang and propelled me back to reality.  My parents had called looking for me, and Brian had been frantically trying to reach me to let me know that the plane had made an emergency landing in East Tennessee because of the storm. He had to stay the night in a hotel near the airport. I felt like a horrible person. My boyfriend was stranded in the snow and I was safe and warm in another man’s arms.  But I never felt like I was being unfair to Brian. It felt like I was being unfair to Chase and to myself by dating Brian. I was Chase’s and he was mine. I knew it should have felt worse than it did, but my happiness from the fact that Chase still loved me kept the guilt at bay.

              A letter came and in it, Chase called me Kim. He said he didn’t think this was a good idea, that it should be all or nothing and we had chosen nothing. He was right, we had—I had—yet I was hurt.  Even after what had happened on New Year’s Day, he was not willing to let me in and if he wouldn’t have me back, I might as well stay with Brian. If Chase wasn’t right for me, I would find a way to move on.

             
I rationalized that I was just being a silly little girl, thinking love was something sweeping and magical. I figured this was the way things were supposed to be and it was about time I grew up and thought logically about my future.

             
February 2002.

              It was Valentine’s Day. I hadn’t been feeling well that week so I was napping after class when Brian came in and woke me up. 

“Hey baby! I have something for you. Open this in a few minutes, okay?”  He put a card on my desk and he left.

I was groggy from a deep sleep and had to force myself to get up and put on a sweatshirt. I opened the card, which said how much he loved me and to meet him in the Business Center. I brought the card with me and made my way across campus.

              The school building was dark and quiet. I looked around the lobby thinking Brian would be waiting there for me but instead there was another card telling me to go to the fourth floor.

              I reached the 4th floor and found a card leading me to the classroom where we had first met. The card he had taped to the classroom door said to knock. I knocked twice. I could tell through the small window in the wooden door that the room was lit by candles. Brian opened the door revealing the classroom sprinkled with rose petals. Music was playing on a stereo and Brian was holding a red box. I started shaking. He had me open the box, in which a black velvet ring box sat on a bed of more rose petals. Suddenly he was on his knee and he was saying something to me but I couldn’t hear the words.

“Yes!” I said.

I believed my own lies.

             
March, 2002.

              I went to Atlanta to meet Brian’s parents and I learned a lot that I didn’t know about him. He had grown up in the smallest house I had ever seen, filled with tons of junk that had accumulated years of dust and had no purpose of which to speak. No wonder he planned to be a millionaire and subscribed to luxury car and boat magazines.

              His parents were fond of me and were very kind, but I never knew what to say to them or what to ask them about themselves. They lived so differently from how I grew up and from how I would want to live someday.
These are going to be my in-laws
, I told myself.
You’ll get more comfortable with them.
I ignored my inner voice for a second time and headed back to Nashville with Brian, staring at the shiny ring on my finger.

              The pastor at River had been encouraging new attendees to meet with one of the Church’s appointed spiritual guides to do one-on-one studies. I wanted to grow in my knowledge of the Bible and to strengthen my faith, so I asked to be paired up with someone.

              Coincidentally, I had met my guide before. Her name was Holly. Paul had introduced me to her on one of my earlier visits to Nashville. Once a week I went to her house to study
The River Book
, which is a Bible study book created by the church. Holly taught me the importance of memorizing scripture, about spiritual gifts and, generally, about getting closer to God.

              “Picture God on one plane,” she said one day, holding her palm out flat. “And you’re on another. And sin is the space in between. As you sin, the space between you and God becomes more vast.”

              I believed what she said was true but it bothered me how I always felt like Holly knew something about me that I didn’t want her to know. It was like she was trying to tell me how awful I was without mentioning it straight out. I felt guilty about nothing in particular when I met with her. I was so ashamed of my own heart.

              Finally, it was time for Membership class, the final step to becoming a member of River. Megan and I signed up and went on a sunny but chilly spring Saturday, Bibles and River Books in hand.

              The teacher spoke about the values the church viewed as important, the goals we should each have and the spiritual gifts God gave us. I had talked a little bit with Holly about speaking in tongues and felt that, although the church encouraged it, the idea wasn’t necessarily something I saw happening for me. The notion of speaking in tongues was brand new to me and so far from anything I had experienced as a Catholic. 

              At the end of class, the teacher asked the leaders to lay hands on the new members. The leaders began speaking in tongues and many of the new members, who only moments before had been sitting around me, wide-eyed and taking notes, began speaking in tongues too.  One of the men threw up his hands and yelled “Shundalah!” over and over. 

              I stayed in my seat and listened to the people pray over me. I prayed to myself,
God, thank you for your wonderful gifts. Thank you for your unending love and grace. But I don’t know why I’m in this room.

              When the praying and shouting ended, many of the new members were teary from their experience and were eagerly sharing their excitement with each other. Megan and I ducked out the door, walked as fast as we could without running down the hall, got into the car and drove home. The only thing we had to say to each other was, “I think we should find a new church.”

              One sunny afternoon I was laying in the dark living room watching
Cruel Intentions
, which I hadn’t seen in a while. Megan was at class. We only had different schedules occasionally. We waited tables together at a barbecue restaurant downtown, we took most of the same classes, and we went to all the same parties. We had even started dressing alike or as I believed, she started dressing like me. It was always me who would first adopt a particular style and she would pick out something similar. Then we would step out in our matching jeans and solid-colored V-neck shirts from
Express
. I had encouraged it in the beginning, enjoyed being looked up to, but it was starting to bother me. It seemed like she couldn’t do anything without my initiating it or without my permission.

              I remembered a recent conversation with Brittany, our neighbor:

              “Megan asked me if I thought she was prettier than you,” she told me with a look on her face that clearly said this amused her.

              “Really?” I replied. I was surprised. What an odd thing to ask someone. “What did you say?” I asked. It didn’t matter to me what Brittany had said but I was curious.

              “Well, I said yes but that’s not the truth.” We laughed.

              I wonder why she was asking that. What difference does it make? She’s pretty! Why does it matter who’s prettier? 
I thought, feeling suddenly glad to have the apartment to myself for a little while. I turned my attention back to the TV.

In the movie, Annette finds out that Sebastian slept with her to win a bet and she left to get away from him and from her humiliation. What she doesn’t know is that, despite the bet, he had fallen madly in love with her. He goes from place to place to try to find her, ending up at a train station.  This is a big moment in the movie. Annette is riding up the escalator and Sebastian is waiting there at the top. As he comes into view, there is this beautiful, slow, sad piano music playing. 

I am colorblind. 

Coffee black and egg white. 

Pull me out from inside. 

I am ready, I am ready, I am fine.

             
Who is that?
I know this song.  This means something to me
, I thought. 
Why do I know this song?
 

              I bolted from the couch to my bedroom and half-sat on the chair at my computer, typing, “I am colorblind” into a Yahoo! search. 

              The fourth result down read “Counting Crows Lyrics Colorblind I am colorblind...”

              The wheels on my chair slipped from the uneven balance of me sitting on the very edge of it, and the chair crashed to the ground. I barely caught myself before hitting the floor after it. Running on adrenaline now, I grabbed my car keys and wallet and drove like a maniac to The Great Escape, Nashville’s best known used music store. 

              Counting Crows were Chase’s favorite band. I had to have that song. I needed to know what it was saying to me. 

              I found the C’s in the pop/rock section and checked the song list on the back of each CD for “Colorblind.” There it was, on an album called “This Desert Life.” The man on the cover was wearing a black suit and a Charlie Chaplin hat. He had a fish bowl for a head and two goldfish for eyes. I paid $8.99 plus tax and had the CD playing in my car before I even put on my seatbelt.

              “I am covered in skin,” the melancholy voice said to me. “No one gets to come in. Pull me out from inside. I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding, I am colorblind.” My heart screamed,
Chase! Where are you, what have I done!
The voice sang on, “I am ready, I am ready, I am fine. I am fine, I am fine, I am fine.”

              I played it again. 

              I was not fine.

              I got home and put it in the pink stereo on my bookshelf headboard. I played it again.  Then again, and again.  I sobbed on my bed until my pillowcase, printed in pink kisses, was covered in tears and black mascara streaks. I let the whole CD play on repeat until I was in love with Adam Duritz and Chase and my head hurt and I finally fell asleep.

              Something changed in me then. The dam made of all my lies broke and the water of truth bubbled to the surface. I spent much more time alone. I sat in my pink room listening to
Counting Crows
,
Staind
,
Incubus
and
Our Lady Peace
. Brian had started disappearing for hours at a time, anyway, and Megan was seeing one of Brittany’s friends so she wasn’t around as much.
I swam in thoughts of Chase like a mineral bath, healing and rejuvenating. I began to see myself again, to know myself again.

              I didn’t know how to get out of what I had so deeply gotten myself into. There was a diamond ring on my finger but when I closed my eyes at night, I didn’t see the face of the man who put it there. I saw the face of someone else. It was someone else’s hands that I felt on me, someone else’s voice in my ear, someone who maybe didn’t love me anymore. Did he? Could I undo the damage I’d done? I started to think I was going to have to try.

              A few weeks later there was a commercial on TV for Nashville’s
River Stages
music festival that would take place during the first weekend in May. The headliners were
No Doubt
,
Incubus
and
Counting Crows
. I almost peed my pants.  I persuaded Megan and Brian to come with me to see my new favorite band, though both of them really only listened to country music.