Forgive Me (11 page)

People are shuffling all around me, some sitting, some kneeling, and all taking cover in some way. And the thunder bellows. It’s a deep, guttural growl that lasts five, maybe six seconds. The next one I’ll time. It almost blocks out the siren. Almost. The sky brightens as an incision of lightning cuts from the sky to the ground.
Jason
.

And the siren keeps sounding.

“Pardon me,” I try to regain some control over the situation. “I’m from New Jersey,” I say to the man that brought me to the back of the store. “What the fuck is happening?” As the question leaves my mouth I can hear my words over the siren and they are filled with panic.

“Tornado,” he says. My phone dings with a text.

In the middle of a fucking tornado! Why in God’s name would anyone live here?

I reply and look down at a baby who is obviously troubled with the sirens, or is it the deafening thunder and fear of death filling the air? It’s hard to tell, but he’s screeching, and it seems appropriate. I feel like screeching, too.

The thunder begins again and I count this time. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four thisisfuckedup, five whatthecrazyhell, six Oklahoma. I stop counting. What a horrible way to spend what may be my last minutes of life. I block out the baby crying and imagine my mother and father in their last minutes. I know they were laughing. They made each other happy. They made it look easy.

The thunder roars and I search my mind for stories of crowds huddled together in Walmart who miraculously survived tornados. Not surprising, I can’t remember one story of tornado survivors. I sit on the floor, next to the screeching baby who also, not surprisingly, has a seat open next to him, and I put my head between my knees, my hands covering my head. Not for protection, for lack of any idea what else to do. It’s my version of surrender.

“Annie,” he says, gentle in my ear as he pulls me toward him. I’m splattered against his chest and I meld there, unwilling to move. “Annie, are you all right?” I hear him ask, and then I hear nothing. The baby stops screeching and the people stop talking as we all listen to nothing. The sirens have stopped. I pull away from Jason to hear for myself.

“What does that mean? Why did they stop?” I ask him, searching his gray eyes for answers.

“It turned. It’s not going to hit here. Not now.” His words and his arms around me should soothe me, but adrenaline trapped in confusion is coursing through me and I can’t calm down. I beg Jason to get me out of here with my eyes and he takes my hand and leads me to the door. I can see Harlan is sitting in his truck at the front of the store, a light rain falling in front of lightning striking a few miles away.

“Do you have the keys?” he asks, his gentle voice scaring me. I reach into my bag and pull them out. My hand is shaking as I hand them to him. Jason watches the keys clanging, puts his arm around my shoulders, and walks me to his truck. He helps me in and I buckle my seatbelt without thinking. We ride back to his loft as the rain comes. It’s nearly impossible to see out the windshield, but I’m looking through my side window searching for the tornado. Is this life? Surviving from one storm to the next?

Jason pulls into his driveway as the rain slows. I open the truck door as he puts the truck in park, and walk away without a word. I can feel him watching me as I leave him behind. The door is unlocked. I left it that way. It was maybe an hour ago, but it seems like days now. I pull off my wet shoes and place them just inside the door and walk into the room, committing every inch of it to memory.
Am I not coming back?

I hear Jason’s footsteps on the ground outside and him opening the door. Without turning around I know he’s here. A chill runs up my back. The answering machine on the floor catches my eye.

“Why don’t you have a phone?” I ask without turning around.

“What?” he asks, confused.

“Why do you have this old answering machine, but no phone? You can never answer a call, just get a message.” As soon as I say the words out loud I understand.

“It was here when I moved in. The landlord pays the phone bill. I just never got rid of it,” he says, and circles around to stand in front of me. He is so very beautiful. His rain-drenched black hair is curling around his face, one curl framing his gray eye as it peers at me.

“Does this happen here a lot?” There’s no need to define it. He knows.

“We get some bad storms, especially in the spring and fall, but the sirens don’t happen that often. It’s Oklahoma, though. We get tornadoes.”
Is this some source of pride?

“So you wrestle animals and live in a city where sirens go off and people take cover?”

“And you work a shift that a man with knife scars has to walk you home from so you’re not robbed.”

Touché.

Jason takes my hand and opens it, placing it over his mouth and kissing it, and I stare at him emptily. My hand looks so tiny in his, so breakable.

“Does this feel wrong to you?” he asks, but I can’t pinpoint any feelings other than want.

“It doesn’t feel wrong at all, but I think it is.” Jason kisses my palm again and the chill flows through me. “I never wanted anyone the way I want you.” I watch as he moves his lips to my wrist and kisses me there, too. “We rarely speak. Is that because we have nothing to say? No harmony?”

Jason pulls my arm up in the air as he grabs me with the other hand and pulls me toward him. My breath catches and he places my hand behind his head. He kisses my neck and I surrender my contention, lifting my chin to the ceiling. I shudder in Jason’s arms as his hot breath flows over my neck, following his tongue from my ear to my throat.

“There’s nothing that needs to be said, Annie.” Jason’s lips never leave my neck. “I think we have perfect harmony.”

“The distance between us isn’t only measured in miles,” I say, questioning how we can ever reconcile our two very separate lives. Jason roughly grabs my face with both hands. He startles me, but I’m certain there’s not an ounce of fear in me. Jason Leer will never hurt me.

“You’re wrong, Annie. I’m right here.” He kisses me and a fire wells up in me. I force myself upon him, pushing him back against the counter. I pull his t-shirt over his head and stare at his bare chest. My own heaves with anticipation. I run my hands over the front of him, stopping at each nipple. My eyes devour his chest and his thick neck as my breathing is paralyzed, still lost in the tornado siren and Jason Leer, and of what I’ll sacrifice to return to New Jersey.

“I’m going to leave my heart here,” I say, and the truth in my words leaves me cold. My fears the last three days bubble up and choke me.

“I know,” he says, and kisses me with a gentleness I didn’t think existed in this cowboy. He lifts me to him and I wrap my legs around his waist and bury my face in his neck. Jason carries me to the bed and places me on top of the covers like a porcelain doll on a glass shelf. He pushes my hair away from my face and kisses me, igniting something inside me that cares nothing for my well-being, and I reach down and grasp his hard-on in my hand. At the very touch of it, I want him naked. I pull off his belt and unbutton his pants; my tongue in his mouth the whole time.

Jason moves between my legs. He reaches up to pull me forward and grabs my arm roughly. Without a word, he loosens his grip and moves me with a kinder hand to my back. He’s coddling me, the girl scared by the storm.

“Don’t waste your gentleness on me. I like you rough,” I say, and his wicked smile dances from his lips to his eyes.

“I know you do, Annie.” He pulls me to the edge of the bed and slams into me. He raises both my legs to the ceiling and watches as he penetrates me again, and again, and again.

“Roll over,” he commands and I respond with immediate execution. Jason drags my knees to the edge of the bed and pulls me toward him. He bends his knees slightly and comes into me from behind. At this position, everything is touching everywhere and I arch my back and lift my face to the ceiling. He moves his hands to my breasts and pulls me to him using each one for leverage. His hands on them burn as he squeezes my nipples between his fingers.

“Come for me, Annie,” he says, and slaps my ass. It jars me from euphoria and reminds me of the No-No Zone. He’s nowhere near it. Jason’s pace intensifies as do the spasms deep within me. I can no longer hold on and I convulse, lowering my face to the bed for support, as Jason continues to take me. My chest shakes and he comes, and I know there is no sensation in the universe that will equal coming with Jason Leer.

I
t’s been four days since I left Oklahoma. Having to leave Jason to go through security was the only reason I was able to get on the plane. I would have never been able to walk away from him and onto the jetway. We talk on the phone. I text him, which he hates, and e-mail is apparently out of the question. I am in love, and separated from, a guy from 1965.

I’m a shadow buying books, cleaning our house, and reading as much as possible to get ahead in every class. At this rate, I’ll be the most miserable 4.0 to ever come out of here. Sean came up for lunch yesterday. I think he wanted to see for himself that I came back from Oklahoma as promised. I’ve lost my parents and now I’m 1,500 miles away from Jason. There’s not much to be happy about.

Julia and Violet completely disagree. They are insisting I go out tonight. It’s some of our roommates’ first night back in town and they’ve gathered everyone they can find. Maybe I should have kept my job. Maybe it would have done me good to be there. There’s only one thing that will do me good. It’s seeing Jason in six weeks.
Six weeks.
What the fuck?

I put my bag on the floor and see the envelope on my bed. It’s Jason’s handwriting leaping off the paper. Without even opening it, it is enough, enough to keep me going for the next six weeks. I lie down and tear it open.

That should at least get him to take it out of the box. The picture of my box closely trimmed with a J shaved in it should get him to use it. I hope so. It was more maintenance than this body has ever seen, and not all that easy to pull off. Poor Violet had to make sure it was straight. Now that’s a good friend. My mother would freak if she saw that picture, but I’m not completely reckless. It was from my neck down; all boobs and bird.

“Charlotte, you ready?” Violet screams up the stairs as I place a stamp on Jason’s letter. I place it in the mailbox on the front of the house with half of it hanging out, and head downstairs to where a small party has gathered. Smoke creeps up the staircase and I realize I’m late. The benefit concert at Kirkpatrick Chapel starts at seven. We need to get a move on. I enter the room, and the circle of smokers, at the perfect spot to be next in line for the joint.

“A whole joint. How very Salem County,” I say, and look across the room at Noble. He knows exactly what I mean. It’s always a bowl, or a one-hitter, or some other nifty concoction here, but in Salem County we roll it ourselves. Noble smiles back as Wes and Julia start rustling the crowd to get a move on.

I’ve paid little attention to what we’re benefitting tonight. Somalia, maybe. My favorite band is playing and I would see them anywhere so when Julia asked, I gave her the money for the tickets. The joint is passed again and now Noble helps Julia get us moving. One more hit and I’m not going anywhere.

Fall is officially upon us. The leaves have turned and are already beginning to float to the ground with the mid-October breeze. The first to land crunch under our feet as we walk the two blocks to Kirkpatrick Chapel.

“What is this thing we’re going to again?” I ask Julia, who’s slipped her arm through mine.

“It’s a benefit concert. There were only five hundred tickets sold so it should be intimate.” Julia says this with an air of romance. All five hundred of us are filing into the chapel at the same time. I haven’t been here since my first days at Rutgers. It’s probably similar to what it looked like in 1873 when it was built for Rutgers students to worship.

We walk through the double doors held open by ushers with buckets soliciting additional donations and the rose red walls engulf the chapel. White pillars stretching to high ceilings highlight the dark wood floors and the wooden pews. We file in, moving as close to the front as possible. It hits me that Kirkpatrick is the first church I’ve been in since the death of my parents. A cold air runs across my neck and I remember my grandmother’s warnings of “catching a chill.” I think I just caught one.

Within minutes of us sitting down, the lights fall and the band plays their soulful drums and harmonica-filled songs. I’m in the middle of the pew, flanked by Julia and Violet. Noble, Wes, and Sydney make up the rest of our group. More people file into the church and plead for everyone to squeeze together. We’re all standing now so the number of people in the pew no longer matters. The acoustics in the chapel are eerie, designed for an organ, but equally moving with this blues rock band.

All I can think of is my mom. She would want me to go to church. I’m not sure this counts. But I haven’t done anything she’d want, have I?
I have.
I came back to Rutgers. I’m studying. I just happen to be in love with Jason Leer. The one guy she specifically told me not to love. The very last piece of advice she gave me before she died.

The music and the lyrics are too much and I find myself fighting back tears. I lean over to Julia. “I’m thirsty. I’m going to find a drink.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No. I’ll be back in a few. Save me a spot,” I say, and try to appear unaffected. I slide past Noble and Wes and rush out of the chapel as I hear the last of the harmonica lightly sounding. I walk down the hill and rest my head on my arm, leaning against a tree that has probably been here since 1873 too, and I cry. I cry for my mother bleeding in a car, I cry for my father dying before he had a chance to say good-bye, and I cry for me on a tree, unable to tolerate a song about prayer in a chapel, so filled with hate for our heavenly father.
I am so going to hell.
This makes me cry even harder, which a small part of me recognizes as a good sign.

“Hey,” Noble says as he turns me around to face him. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?” His kindness aggravates the crying and I cover my face with my hands, too embarrassed to face him. Noble pulls my hands away and pulls me to his chest. He’s so tall my face hits square in the middle of it and I wrap my arms around his back and hold on for dear life. “Charlotte, please tell me.”

“I haven’t been to church since my parents died and…”
And what, Charlotte?
“And I miss my mom.”

“Charlotte, I’m sorry.” I try to keep it this side of a sob as I unleash my utter sadness right into the center of his chest. He rubs my back and never says a word. My violent sorrow eases and Noble pulls my hair from my neck and lays it on my back.

“Noble, I’m sorry. I know I am a tremendous buzz kill.” Noble keeps petting my hair.

“No, no. Crying girls are fun.” No one can kill a party like I can; one more thing to feel guilty about. I try and catch my breath and calm a little.

“Noble, what do you think we owe the dead?” Noble’s hands still and he lifts his face to the fall sky.

“What do you mean?”

“My mom didn’t want me to be with a cowboy. She told me the day she died
not
to fall in love with a cowboy, that it’s not safe. That it’s not what she wanted for my life,” I say, and wipe the last tears from my face. Relief courses through me at sharing my mother’s words with someone else. Noble is searching my eyes for more information. “She was specifically talking about Jason.” My heart breaks at the words released to the world. “So I’m just wondering what you think we owe the dead.” He’s silent, trying to find an answer to a question he would never have to answer if he wasn’t burdened with my friendship.

“I don’t think you owe the dead a thing. Not one thing more than you owe anyone else in this life. But Charlotte, you owe yourself to be happy.” I consider his words. “Judging from the way you’re running from churches you think you owe them a life without Jason Leer.” His words cut me and I pull back a little. Noble’s reflex pulls me to him again and I lay my head on his chest, considering the debt I’ve imposed on myself.
What if it’s not a debt? What if it’s intuition? What if she’s right?

“You’re going to be an amazing boyfriend someday.”

“Someday?” he asks, not sounding insulted at all.

“When you’re ready to settle down. You’ll have to stop chasing girls.”

“Who’s chasing who?” Noble asks, and I laugh. He’s right.

“Such the victim,” I add with fake compassion as Noble pulls me onto his back for a piggy back ride.

“Let’s go to Olde Queens Tavern. I’ve had enough church,” he says, as he starts to carry me down the hill.

“You’re going to miss the concert.”

“I know, but I’ll miss you if I go back in,” he says, and I ride the rest of the way to Queens in silence.