Watching

A period of time goes by with Mr. Bain counseling Mya, and Mya whsipering secrets to Megan.

I continued to go in to see Mr. Bain on Black Days’ lunches. It was kind of weird at first expressing stuff like this to a teacher. I was feeling better every time I went in. He actually made me able tolerate my dad’s BS for another 2 years, for now. I know he’s not a professional, but he’s got more wisdom than any consoler I’ve ever met.

But, then there are those painful memories of Alex being brought up. The day I was able to give him a hint of what was going on, it went something like this:

We somehow got on the subject about Alex being my only back-bone.

“What ever happened to him?”

I looked away, “He . . . um . . . dumped me.”

“Do you know why?”

“Yeah, we got in a fight and he just couldn’t take it anymore. Quote.”

“Oh. May I ask why you two were fighting?”

I gave him a vague overview of it all. He told me Alex shouldn’t be flirting period if he doesn’t want to be accused of cheating. I agreed, but I came off way wrong.

“I’m just taking a shot in the dark here, and please stop me if this gets too personal, but did something happen between you two that made you attach to him enough to defend him like this?”

I knew exactly what, but I wasn’t sure how to word it, “We . . . um . . . he was my first time.”

He was unsure how to react, “Oh . . . um . . . well, uh, I’m not scolding you for doing that, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to do that in high school. We boys are not the best kind of people.”

I nodded.

“But, I think the best thing for you to do is find an outlet to express the things you can’t tell me.”

“Don’t you think writing is kinda stalker-ish?”

“No. If it helps you, it’s like therapy.”

True. As soon as I was home later on that day, I just sat down with my notebook and wrote like there was no tomorrow. I started telling my story about mine and Alex’s first time. Amazingly, my memory of it all wasn’t as fuzzy as I thought. I was almost positive it would be because that night I had a cold and I had ton of medication in my system.

But here’s my side of then:

Alex and I had planned on having our first time at a basketball game that Friday before his indoor soccer game.

The game was moved to , Thursday, at Fossil Ridge High School. Alex and I decided to go for it tonight. After dance class, I went home and changed and met Alex at Fossil Ridge.

Walking out to his car, I wasn’t as nervous as most people think. I knew what was going to happen, so I brushed it off as my meds making me mellow.

Once we were in the back of his truck sized Subaru, we were very unsure of what to do. (I can’t remember how we got undressed at all)

Next thing I knew he was over me and all I could feel was pain. I remember crying and wanting him to stop, but I knew the first time always hurt. The way we stopped was so awkward I don’t want to remember it.

We went to check the score of the basketball game so we had something to back up our story. I was still in pain as we went back to the car. As we did he hugged me from the side and said, “This was the best night of my life.”

That phrase stuck in my head every day since then. I wondered if it was still true.Unfortunately for me, the phrase never much applied. Just before school started, months after we broke-up, I miscarried our child. Though, I never knew I was until I miscarried, I found out it was a girl and named her Maria. I know she would’ve been beautiful. That’s all I think about when I think about her: what she’d look like, how old she’d be, her abilities at this point, and her personality. But then I go back to remembering how hard it was to sit back and let her die in peace. I wish there was more I could’ve done to save her. No one knows why she died. She would’ve been my whole world . . . and she still is . . .

But then I started to write about the recent situation. I wanted to keep everything else between us a secret, like our whole relationship and all, but I wanted to express my feelings to someone who was there with me no matter what. It was like self-therapy. No opinions, no diagnosis and to-does. Just me in my own realm. My own way of writing things down and throwing them away.

Writing the first few thoughts down was hard. I cried a lot; so much I thought my tears would drench the paper. But it was worth it, because for the first time in weeks I slept the whole night. I may have cried myself to sleep, but there were absolutely no dreams. Just peace.