from myself than anything else.
I started to feel alive again. Long lost emotions filled me up these days. Guilt mixed with grief is a heavy burden to carry and now that all that extra baggage stemming from his accident never existed, all my self-destructive behavior at that particular time vanished right along with it. Almost like it had never happened, however faint memories still lingered in the back of my mind like a far away distant dream, but only just barely.
They were all hazy and fuzzy now and seemed to be fading away a little more and more each day, but never completely forgotten. I didn’t mind though, because they served as an everyday reminder of how my life used to be… hopeless!
If memory served me correctly, I originally spent the summer of 1990 partying and getting drunk off my ass just to cover up my turmoil, which lead to me do some pretty wild and crazy things back then that I’m not exactly proud of.
I slapped on a thick protective layer of skin, which could be best described as “body armor” to shield myself from the pain Jay’s death had caused. I withdrew into myself and regrettably started to push away those that cared most about me, but when I changed the past, I changed the present as well. I never started to build all those walls around me… yet .
Yes, I was sad because Jay moved away at the end of the summer that year, but that was the worst of it. I would take that trade any day. Him dying versus moving was the easiest choice for me to make in my whole entire life. I wouldn’t hesitate to make that same decision again because there was only one option, I had already experienced the alternative and I couldn’t survive that again. Jay was supposed to live and it was as simple as that.
It turned out that when Jay’s parents were in Vegas that weekend; they weren’t partying at all, as I had naively thought. His dad had a secret job interview with a big homebuilder out there. Clearly, he got the job. I only wish I would have known at the time, I would have clued him in that he was making a good, solid decision for his family. The fact that Vegas would soon have a population explosion that would surely keep him steadily employed for the next decade would ease anyone’s mind.
Jay and I decided against pursuing a long distant relationship. He knew I was such an attention whore and would not be able to provide me with my daily fix, so instead of breaking each other’s hearts down the road, we parted as friends… best of friends.
Therefore, I never became a complete lush back then. At least not in the 10th grade, I didn’t.
I didn’t drink myself into oblivion and kill half of my brain cells. Traveling back in time didn’t fix all my problems, but it did make a dent and that dent was all I needed to kick my butt into high gear, ultimately throwing myself back into my massage practice with a vengeance.
The plan was to buildup enough clientele to open up my very own spa someday. It had always been a dream of mine, but now for the first time, I could actually see it.
Getting ready for bed like any other night, I wet my face, washing off the days grime. A small headache formed on my temples, when I was hit suddenly with an eerie feeling of déjà vu. A chill ran down my spine as I heard Jay’s words in my head again “ That’s just me thinking about you ”.
Quickly drying my face off without re-hanging the towel, I flipped off the light and jumped into bed, pulling the covers all the way up to my chin as if I were a toddler scared of the dark.
It took awhile to calm myself. The feeling was just plain creepy. I’m being silly, I convinced myself some thirty oddball minutes later. Burying the side of my face into the pillow, my brain shifted to think about more enjoyable thing. More pleasurable things to be exact!
Sooooo folks, on that sexy note, I shut my lids, relaxed my mind, and allowed sleep to claim me…
I came to with someone’s hand waving around dramatically in
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