Tough Love (19 page)

Gently, he guided my body down and lay on top of me, our lips meeting passionately. My fingers tangled in his shaggy auburn hair as his hand traveled under my shirt to the familiar skin that belonged to only him.

He broke the kiss just long enough to whisper, “You are so soft,” and then we were at it again. Kissing. Touching. Loving. Our bodies moved together in rhythm. I was his. He was mine. We were solidifying our promise, making love in the most literal sense.

In those moments, nothing else mattered. Not my parents, not Damia, not even Brendan’s HIV status. We were lovers. I believed in him and the future that he was putting together for us. I was convinced that our love would be enough to see us through. I knew, in the logical part of my brain, that having unprotected sex with him was playing with my life. But in the heat of the moment, it didn’t make any difference.

I wanted to lay there with him forever, but reality was threatening on the other side, and we both needed to get back to it.

Over the next couple of weeks, our future seemed more and more possible. Work was going well for him; we even had a little money to go out to dinner, just the two of us. We celebrated Christmas with each family and then attended a New Year’s Eve celebration at his parent’s house. He tried to ignore that my deadline for returning to school was getting closer with each setting of the sun, but I knew there was a decision to be made.

MORE THAN ONCE I tried to muster up the courage to speak with Mom and Dad about my plan. I already knew how the conversation would go, so I went through the motions of returning to AU for the spring semester. I made it a point to say goodbye to Bear and Allie. I helped my parents buy supplies and snacks for my dorm room. I packed my bags. I even staged a public farewell with Brendan, neither of us letting on that I had no intention of staying gone.

The courage to actually tell my parents my plan evaded me until my parents and I were more than halfway back to school. We were at Pizza Hut in New Haven, Indiana to eat lunch when I took a deep breath and jumped off the proverbial cliff.

I strategically waited until Daddy was in the restroom.

“Mom,” I began. “I don’t want to go back to Anderson.”

Always the level headed one, Mom kept her composure, taking a sip of Diet Pepsi while processing.

“I see. And why is that?” she asked.

I could have lied, but what was the point? My parents were not clueless about this. I had not kept much from them when it came to my relationship with Brendan. They already knew the reason, but she wanted to hear it from me anyway.

“I don’t want to be away from Brendan.”

Dad returned to the table at that moment and heard my words. Even without knowing the question, he was able to guess the topic.

“You want to quit college?” he asked, several emotions ringing through his tone.

“No! No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’ll go to UT or Bowling Green State University.” I turned to my mother. “You always said BGSU had a good teacher program, right?”

“Yes, but…” she tried.

“Okay then, see?”

Our dialogue continued for several more minutes. I was surprised at the openness and maturity of our conversation, even with so many emotions involved. My father, who had worked so hard to see us kids go to college, who valued education because he never got one, kept his cool while we talked it out.

At the point in our debate when both sides had presented their case, I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I told my parents that I would do what they wanted, no matter what. I might not be happy with their decision, but I would go along with it.

I took my time, reflecting on the promise I’d made to my parents. I suppose I could have blamed it on my desire to be a good girl, or my Christian faith. Heck, I could have even come up with some story to make them hate Brendan even more. The truth was, though, that I wanted to go back to AU. I missed the beautiful campus, the friends that I’d made, the whole college experience.

But even more, I wanted an out: a way to get away from Brendan and a reason to make it happen. More importantly for me at the time, I did not want him to know it was my decision. So I blamed it on my parents.

When I returned to the table, the decision process was over: I was expected to return to Anderson and do my best as always. Mom surprised me with a caveat, though.

“Go back for this semester. Only. And then if you feel like you still don’t want to return, we’ll support a transfer to BGSU. Sound fair?”

I nodded, fighting to hold back tears. If I had to guess, they probably thought I was crying in defeat. But the reality? It was in victory.

That semester at AU, I became somebody else. Somebody I was not proud of; somebody that no one wanted to be around. Not even my family.

It wasn’t a transformation that happened overnight; it was a slow fade, but little by little, I became more like Brendan. A liar. A cheat. A keeper of secrets.

I started losing friends, too. Rosie and Kristen, two of my closest girlfriends, sent me a letter through inner-campus mail stating that, although they loved me, they could not continue to support my life with Brendan. They said the best thing they could do was to keep praying for me, but no longer spend time with me. But rather than receive the message that I know they intended, I made up my own justification for their note. I had a boyfriend when neither of them did; they were jealous.

And it wasn’t just them. The whole campus was different as the rumors about “this freshman girl named Janessa” having a boyfriend with AIDS. I went about my days pretending the sting didn’t hurt, that it wasn’t festering just under the surface, threatening to burst open. I had made a promise to my parents and, no matter how bad things got, I intended to give it my all.

Everywhere I went I could hear the whispers and feel stares on my back. I felt like an outsider while in my classes, but the worst was in the dorm. Between the rumors and the fear, nobody knew what to say or how to say it. So rather than speak to me about what was happening in my life, how I was feeling, most of the girls on my floor just ignored me altogether.

Thankfully, my Resident Advisor Annie and her roommate Jo were still in my corner. Not that a handful of the other ladies weren’t, but Annie and Jo weren’t afraid to show it. Colleen and June, the girls across the hall, continued to support me as well, with short notes of encouragement just when I needed them most.

As if all the heartache wasn’t dreadful enough, I was having a very hard time being away from Brendan. I hadn’t seen him in two months, and I missed him immensely. Having sex at Christmastime took our relationship to the next level, but it also heightened our co-dependency. Living without him was proving to be very difficult.

When Colleen and June saw the depression getting worse, they asked me to join them for lunch at the campus hangout one Saturday. The sunshine on that early March day felt wonderful as I lifted my face to the heavens, soaking up the vitamin D while it was available. You never knew when the central Indiana weather was going to change, so we took advantage of the warmth.

The Haven was empty when we got there, except for the few people working behind the counter. We all selected our favorite type of personal pan pizza and settled into some seats close to the door. Our conversation flowed over several topics while we ate; the one exception to those topics was Brendan. The girls did not want to bring him up, for fear things would get worse, but honestly, I didn’t want to talk about him anyway. Knowing we were apart was too much to handle, I didn’t want to discuss it, too.                 

We were joking about the changing weather and looking out the windows when I began to daydream. In my mind, Brendan was there, walking toward me on one of the pathways that lead to where I was sitting. He looked so good, wearing one of my favorite shirts and a pair of faded blue jeans. Oh I wished he were real…

“Janessa,” Colleen whispered. “Isn’t that Brendan?”

Wait a minute
, I thought,
what are you doing in my daydream? How are you able to see him too?

And then it dawned on me. It wasn’t a daydream. Brendan was there. He was
here
, in the same place I was. I could see him!

I dropped my pizza and bolted for the door, not stopping until I practically knocked him down in my running pursuit.

The next few minutes were completely wonderful and unreal. They were full of “What are you doing here…”s and “Oh my…”s and “I can’t believe it…”s.

Finally I realized I didn’t know how Brendan had even gotten there. Did he borrow my mom’s car? I couldn’t see her allowing him to use it for a three-hour drive like that, but then again she knew how depressed I was getting.

The mood settled down enough that I could ask.

“I got a car,” he told me. “Remember at Christmas I told you that I was hoping to get something and come see you? Well, ta-da!” He held out his arms to the sides to say
here I am
. I hugged him tight around the waist and he kissed the top of my head. “Can I come meet your friends?”

“Yeah, of course! Sorry, I’m just so excited to see you.” I took Brendan’s hand in mine, and we walked back inside to the table. I introduced him to Colleen and June, explaining that they lived across the hall from me.

We exchanged pleasantries and small talk for a few minutes before they made up a reason to excuse themselves and leave us with time to get reacquainted.

“You hungry?” I asked him. “I can go buy you a pizza or something.”

“Yeah, actually, I am. Thanks, baby.”

We took some time to catch up while he ate, and then I suggested we go for a ride around the greater Anderson area, so I could show him the campus and town. I pointed out the armory where we held all of our dances and a couple of restaurants often visited by students at AU. After we’d seen everything I wanted to show him, we drove south of town and did some exploring, turning whichever way we wanted to. Eventually we ended up at Mounds State Park.

“Oh, wow, I forgot all about this place being here,” I said. “Lots of kids talk about it, but I’ve never been out here.”

We parked and got out of the car. I had no idea how long he was planning to stay in Anderson, but I fully intended to make good use of the time we had. Plus, the weather was too nice to just drive around. We went to a nearby bench and sat down.

I laid my head on his shoulder and let out a contented sigh. “I still can’t believe you’re here. What a wonderful surprise.”

“I can hardly believe it myself. I wasn’t sure it was going to work out. Your mom knows I’m here, and I was worried that either she would tell you, or that something would come up and I wouldn’t be able to make it. But I did, and now I’m by your side where I belong.”

He leaned down so we could kiss.

“Mmm, your lips taste so good,” I told him without breaking our seal.

It’s funny how the boundaries you’ve had in place for so many years are no longer important once they’ve been breached. Within minutes, we were ready to return to his car so that we had some semblance of privacy while we had sex.

We stayed at the park until dusk, only leaving so I could get some homework done. According to Brendan, he wanted to stay for a few days, but I still had responsibilities, the first of which was to figure out where he was going to stay during his time in Anderson.

“You can’t stay with me. No guys allowed in a girls’ dorm,” I reminded him.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Could I stay with Donny?”

I almost choked on my own laughter. “Are you serious? He would kill me if he even knew you were here. That’s definitely not an option!”

“Crap. And I don’t have any money for a hotel.”

I thought for a minute. “Hey, I have a credit card. We can use that, at least for tonight.”

“Are you sure, baby? I mean, I don’t want you to have to spend your money.”

“Well, what other options do we have? None, right? Motel 6 it is,” I said.

After I’d thought about his words for a while, it occurred to me that spending my money was exactly what he’d intended. He came to Anderson with no cash, no means to get any cash, and no job. What else was there for me to do?