Never the Same #65 A Reunion Under the Milky Way

Kirk never expected the visit he experienced on an extraordinary evening

 

Cue: “Hide” https://youtu.be/Njx5-QCG9xM?si=XhPpnMm6qLrknltJ

            `          

When Kirk fell for Dee during high school, he fell hard. In her presence he felt like he was under the influence of a strong drug; he supposed later that it was the drug of love or lust; nevertheless, Kirk had acted out of his mind over her to an extent that drew mockery from his buddies. After they split, he knew that he’d never feel the same with anyone as he did with Dee. Dee changed Kirk’s life twice. Once as a teenager in love and later when she revealed her future to him. This is that second instance. So what was it about her? And him?

 

Cue: “Under the Milky Way” https://youtu.be/mA54NBtPKdI?si=QxqogCcUfRwpdXJ4

 

On a warm, midsummer evening Kirk hung out at the house pretty much killing time, tired from work, tired from maintaining and racing his car. Little did he know that on that particular night, an encounter would occur that would forever change his life in ways that were less than obvious.

Sitting there in the house, his younger sister entered the house appearing a bit�"Kirk couldn’t place her expression�"maybe expectant, concerned, or perhaps wistful?

“Ah, Kirk, someone’s out front to see you.” She paused with ‘the look’ and then walked away without another word.

Kirk stepped off the porch. He paused. The exceedingly huge night sky caught his eye. A vividly clear sky with stars shining brightly; the cosmos glittered. The bright, thick Milky Way spread across the expanse at a steep diagonal from horizon to horizon. Kirk thought the evening’s beautiful heavens appeared�"elysian, significant, auspicious. Why did he notice the sky on that particular night? Why would he remember?

Kirk wondered who’d drop by at that hour, figuring it was just one his buddies stopping by but stepping out around the corner of the house, he spotted a Mustang. He didn’t know anyone who drove a Mustang. With a mix of wonder and suspense, he strolled up to the driver’s side window that was down.

 

***  

“Hello, Kirk,” said a soft, familiar female voice that chilled Kirk to the bone.

Kirk knew who she was without seeing her face. It was Dee, his high school sweetheart, his proclaimed love of his life, the girl he once thought he’d spend the rest of his life with, and be very much in love with forever.

Kirk ‘s heart soared, pounded, melted in his chest. He had no idea what to feel, what to say, how to act after two years since their break up. He had prayed that she’d come back to make up with him. Were his prayers answered? Is that why she came back to see him now? His brain spun on the passionate possibilities, his heart pounded with the promise of loving touches, the physical embraces, her warm humming kisses. His emotions soared on a love long-lost possibly rekindled.

“Hiya, you! It’s certainly been a long while, huh?” Kirk said, and immediately kicked himself for an utterly stupid greeting and not something more�"romantic.

“Yeah.” Dee looked down maybe downtrodden. “Far too long for someone you care about.”

“I, I always thought I�",” Kirk’s mind spun caught off guard. “I would never see you again.” He swallowed hard.

“Well, I had to come to see you�",” Dee said, pausing but obviously not done with her statement. “Before I leave�"I’m leaving in two days.”

“Really? Where to?”

“I joined the Navy.”

“YOU WHAT?!” Kirk exclaimed.

“Yeah, I signed up a few months before graduation with a date in two days after graduation to ship out. I�"just�"needed�"to�"get�"away from here. Too many mistakes, too many bad memories.”

“I know what you mean�"Dee.” Kirk just had to say her name out loud, and it gave him a chill seeing her there sitting there in front of him.

Dee opened the car door and the interior lights lit her profile, her face, in a pale glow.   

What transpired from there became absolute dreamlike.

 

***

Cue: “Cherish” https://youtu.be/b9tAdPN3FZ4?si=6TabsKq1VXMC52r9

 

Sitting there was Dee, still Dee the girl he had loved, but she was a couple years older, more mature, filled out, a woman, not a girl any longer. Her hair was cut much shorter than he remembered probably in preparation for Navy boot camp, but despite the changes in her appearance Kirk’s heart fell for her all over again.  

“I’m leaving my past behind�"my self-centered, shameful past. You, Kirk, are not part of that unhappy past. You are a past, a path I should stayed on, not strayed from.”
Kirk started to say something, but Dee held up her hand wanting to continue.

“When I did, what I did to you, behind your back, I didn’t even think it was wrong. Because I didn’t think. I know that now. I’m so sorry. I had my head in the clouds because boys kept hitting on me when you were gone to college, not around. I think�"maybe�"because of how we, you and me acted together for all to see�"I knew you were in love with me. But I was just a child, a confused, selfish child. I just wanted to have fun�"maybe, ah, not be in love with a boy who cared so much for me.”

“I had thought the feeling between us was mutual,” Kirk said low, “until the end.”

“Maybe I felt that in a way, in love, but I’m sorry to admit this�"should I even say it?” She paused for a couple moments. “I wanted more excitement�"someone more exciting. It ended up being several someones?” She stared at Kirk with wet eyes. “I am soooo sorry Kirk,” she said sincerely with tears glinting in the interior lights. “When I realized too late what I did, leaving you, I wanted to take you back, but, but it wasn’t something that came easy for me. I think you had moved on.” She sat there and took a deep, deep breath. Her chest heaved.

“From day one, when we broke up, my parents told me that I had made a huge mistake in leaving you. My sister, my brother they all said I was a fool for breaking up with you. Those comments only made me more steadfast in my decision not to take you back. I pushed back, I wanted to be in charge and not take anyone’s suggestion. I knew I hurt you bad, but I didn’t want to look back, only forward.”

“I can understand all that,” Kirk said, looking down. “I guess.” He wanted to say more, but held his tongue.

Dee looked down at Kirk’s hand he had braced on the edge of the slightly open door. She laid her hand gently on his and gazed up into his eyes long and hard. Kirk’s heart skyrocketed with her touch�"her gaze. He curled his hand around hers gently squeezing. With sad wet eyes, he looked into hers. She smiled.

“Come on in, sit down with me for a while,” Dee said.

“Okay,” was all that Kirk could manage. He didn’t want to let her hand go, but he did. He slid in next to her and closed the door. The light went out.

“So, how have you been these, what, these couple years?”

“Good. Got a good job.”

“Mechanic, I imagine,”

“Hmmm, hmm,” Kirk didn’t want to elaborate. “So, how’d school go for you now that you graduated?”

“Should have tried harder, you know,” she paused. “Too much messing around. Not like that you’re thinking. Just didn’t concentrate hard enough.”
            “Me too. I wish I got into something other than mechanics.” They were silent a few moments, searching each other faces. “Got a specialty lined up in the Navy?”

“Yeah, imaging systems. You know electronics, video, cameras and such.”

“Sounds interesting. Good luck with that.”

“Hmmm, hmm,” she said. Kirk found her looking at him with an expression she had held for him long ago that he now recalled. “So are you still seeing Bonnie?”

“Oh, we, ah, No. I ended it.”

“That’s too bad, she sounded like a very nice person. So it ended kind of like what I did to you�"in a way.” Kirk didn’t think the two breakups had anything in common at all; he thought maybe she carried a guilt to think along those lines. They were silent for a few moments.

 “So�"are you single again?” Dee caressed his hand in a very exciting way.

“Well, kinda’ sorta. I’ve been going with a girl, off and on.”

“You guys�"Serious?”

“Ah, well, no, not really. How about you? Any current, ah, boys?”

“No. I cut all my ties with anybody I had a thing with, but I still wanted to come and see you.”

Kirk wasn’t quite sure how he took what she had told him, but Dee seemed relieved by Kirk’ declaration and what she revealed about herself. She smiled, put one arm around his shoulder to lure Kirk closer. With the other hand, she touched his chin with the crook of her finger and pulled his face around and toward her. She leaned in and kissed him ever so softly. Kirk experienced a comforting reminiscent sensation recalling that it was exactly how he kissed Dee the very first time and every time thereafter. His head went into orbit over her using his original move!

Kirk didn’t need any convincing to lean into her and kiss Dee long and passionately. Her lips felt like velvet on his, feeling like a lingering kiss from yesterday, a warm, reassuring feeling like a favorite soft pillow, like it hadn’t been years gone by. He had almost forgotten that she hummed when kissing, a sensation that sparked his utmost emotional memories. They kissed over and over, staring into one another’s eyes in between, the kisses becoming more passionate with every single one.

“It’s been so, so long, Dee,” Kirk said. “I dreamt I’d be with you forever. You remember? Then later, after we�"I thought sometime, somehow, we’d get back together. I hoped it would happen anyway.”

“I really knew you felt that way, but�".” She shrugged; then, laid her head on his shoulder. She nuzzled and kissed his neck. In his ear, she whispered so very softly, breathlessly, “Kirk, spend the night with me.”

***  

Cue: “Precious and Few” https://youtu.be/_ziffFQh3EQ?si=KdecO3TMZlpPodQw

 

Since his breakup with Dee, Kirk had wished, prayed and dreamt that a reunion with Dee would happen this way. Thing is, the reunion portrayed above was indeed just in Kirk’s dreams. Yes, Dee came over to say goodbye and to tell Kirk that she had joined the Navy, but that was the only truth, the rest of the encounter was only Kirk’s romanticized daydream of how a reunion might unfold and fulfill his long-held dreams.

During the real encounter with Dee, Kirk remained cold and standoffish only answering in short, taciturn responses. After he watched her red Mustang taillights fade away, he kicked himself for at least not giving her a kiss goodbye knowing that he had been stupid and stubborn and perhaps, maybe, the visit could’ve become a reunion. All the time passing since their breakup, Kirk thought there was always a POSSIBILITY of a reunion between the two high school lovers in their small town, but now with Dee going far away in the US Navy there would never be a chance of seeing her ever again. He had tossed the chance away forever.

In the pitch dark, Kirk sat down there on the cool dewy lawn under that brilliant Milky Way thinking of his devoted loving time with Dee in his high school days.

He had to say it aloud to the stars that twinkled above because he had refused to say to her face, “I love you, Dee. I always will.”

Kirk could never be sure if he was truly in love with her or in love with the passionate high, but whatever it was that he felt, it was indeed connected to Dee. He understood in his heart that he would never again feel what he had felt with her. He still loved her, but on the other hand, he could never forgive her.

He shed a few tears knowing that his hopes and dreams he held for so long were dashed, truly obliterated by his own stubborn bitterness. Nevertheless, later with tears, he stared at that secretly kept picture of Dee and him at Niagara Falls. When there, they whispered that they’d go back there for their honeymoon. In his bitter desolation, he tore the picture into the tiniest pieces, not unlike the sprinkling of stars that shone so brightly that night.  

Undoubtedly, Kirk would never see Dee again, but as you will see later, this nocturnal encounter with her would trigger a change in Kirk that would unquestionably leave him Never the Same for the rest of his life.   

“Goodbye Dee. Godspeed.,” Kirk whispered into the night. “May you be blessed in your travels.”

 

Cue: “Dawn: Dawn is a Feeling” https://youtu.be/x2ZzvgsdEms?si=DFBfXtPyo2IH4enH