Just to Be With You (1)
Colorado Winter 1993
Wednesday, December 16
Her voice heldShe voiced no resistance. She talked, effortlessly using d in easy movements using words that encouraged me. I was – empty, eager, wantwanting. Her flow of emotionsemotional tone told me that she thought of me, often. The trepidation I had felt for days seemed now seemed unwarranted. She eased my soul, and I loosened my grip on loneliness and animosity. Susan had left me at camp so that I could focus on how she fit into my future. She spent the Ffall in the same introspection. No matter what Al had said, she and I had never been some simple, summer song.
She wasn’t another girl who I met along the trail. She was the pinnacle of my search for love. She held the keys to all my locks and formed a smooth picture within fromall the jagged jigsaw pieces.
She flirted with me and acknowledged that she had been silent too long. Our phone conversation ran like the thunderous mountain rivers— – loudly refreshing.
“Suz, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t wait anymore,” I excused myself.
“I get it. I had no idea where to start,” she admitted.
“Being with you feels natural and …” – “, I began.
“Needed,” she finished.
We spent several minutes moving through our memories. We reminisced about the carefree summer and our days of endless altitude. We bantered about who worked better in the kitchen, who could run the fastest mile, and how many mountains we had climbed. She recalled my unconscious episode as Eco-Man. and mMy own laughter brought life into Pam’s monotonous apartment. We forged a forgiveness within through the recollection of our best times. I heard her
Commented [JD1]: When you format this book, format it exactly like the first. Readers appreciate consistency. I mean, what if the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books all looked different?
Just make a note. You probably would have known that anyway. Please don’t be offended if I state the obvious. My mother says I’m do it all the time. Ha!
Formatted: Indent: First line: 0"
Commented [JD2]: Don’t indent the first word of a chapter. Weird, but true.
Commented [JD3]: For an em dash (long dash that indicates a pause), hold down the Alt key and type 0151.
smile through the phone. I imagined her on the porch of my cabin as we stood side by side, leaning over the railing. Our times together could be relived through her voice. I wanted her to sing, but the phone would only diminish her power and subdue her energy. I could wait.
“How is Rennie?” she hushed. “I heard that you all did Longs Peak.”
“We did. The hike was amazing. She went back to school. She might come back next summer,” I explained. “And to clear this up for you, we’re not dating.”
“Where are you now?” she directly asked.
“I’m holed up in Pam’s apartment, trying to figure out how to get out of here. She went back to Chicago for the holidays,” I described.
“Are you alone for Christmas? Why don’t you come down here?” she warmly invited.
“Like Christmas Day?” I coughed. “I’ve already committed to working.”
I liked my job and knew the best way to advance was to work through the holidays. I was unwilling to break that obligation. I mentally calculated positive and negative work scenarios.
Christmas Day with her would be amazing.
“How about the 28th?” I proposed.
“Sure, that will get all the Christmas craziness out of here and we can talk longer, just you, and me,” she ominously broke up the sentence.
“What are we going to talk about?” I apprehensively asked.
“So suspicious!” she chastised me with laughter. “I can’t wait to see you! I will be wearing new Christmas PJs, and we can snuggle up by the fire.”
She lured me into what I wanted to hear. She teased me poetically.
My Christmas would arrive a few days after everyone else had already celebrated. The anticipation tormented me but gave me hope for the entire season. Our
conversation ended, and I sat in the kitchen breathing relief. I replayed her voice over and over and over while I took my shower.
Work took me into a night shift routine. I worked twelve-hour shifts in the factory with a “three-days-on, four-days-off” schedule. I found my work engaging as I hustled from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM. I found my daily arrangement blissful. I was awake while the world slept and asleep while the craziness of commutes filled the roadways. Days and nights blurred while I worked and slept. I drove to work in the dark. I drove back to Greeley in the dark. I picked up every overtime shift that they offered. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day happened in a cacophony of computer fans, keyboard clicks, servo motors, the whir of pneumatics, and the press of hydraulics.
On Christmas Day, at my workbench, I opened my daily devotional. For the first time in a long succession of lonely days, I focused on the word of God. Appropriately, I read the birth of Christ. I spent a few minutes in personal confession, grabbed my tools, and went back to the manufacturing floor. Peace filled my mind.
The assembly line and chaotic nature of my work fueled my core. I thrived. I spent hours inside, under, and on top of broken machines. The job absorbed me and kept my mind occupied. My bank account appreciated the input, too. Plus, I made new friends. Two weeks vanished, and on the morning of the 28th, I dropped into bed.
Susan was in my dreams and sleep came in fits of anxiousness. I found myself somewhere between love and loss.
During the drive to Lafayette, I prepared for a series of awkward moments. Even with our relaxed phone conversation two weeks before, time away from each other generated uncertainties. I expected an anti-climactic reunion and suffered through unlikely scenarios. Where
would our emotions take us? Would this be the end? To keep her, was this the time to express my love for her? Would that just push her away? Images and situations ran faster through my mind as the distance to her house diminished. I practiced for an uncomfortable meeting.
I hadn’t even set the parking brake when she scrambled all my fears. She ripped open my door and jumped into the driver’s seat with me. She suffocated me with her touch, her hands, her kisses.
In a flurry of movement, I reciprocated when possible. There was no awkward moment. There were no elevated voices. She wedged into my seat with her body sandwiched against mine. Her unrestrained enthusiasm and uncontrollable nature filled my emptiness. All the feelings of loss, dread, and isolation disappeared.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” she gushed.
She unstuck herself from my seat then led me inside as we dashed through the cold. Over the course of the next few hours, I ate dinner with her family. Susan and I fell into patterns learned at camp. We poked each other in the ribs. We tickled and touched. We pressed our foreheads together and made faces at each other. We held hands, and at one point she bit me on the shoulder.
The family crowded around the kitchen table, and we talked through the evening’s dinner. We washed the dishes in tandem, nearly reliving dish room water fights. Every single moment in their house felt natural.
“Where are you working?” her father asked as I came back to the table.
“NCR in Fort Collins,” I explained. “I work on the machines that test semiconductors. The mechanics of the test machines always break down, and I rebuild or repair them.”
“I thought you were an electrical engineer,” he inquired.
“The job is a combination of electrical and mechanical. To be honest, I’m finding that
I’m better at the mechanical stuff,” I said
.
“Kevin, did Susan even tell you that we have a room for you upstairs?” her mother interrupted.
“No, Mom, we’ve been busy. I figured that I would tell him when he tried to leave,” Susan huffed.
I protested, “No Ma’am, I am not staying the night.”
“Nonsense,” she chided. “There’s no point in you leaving. It’s already late and we’ll have breakfast in the morning. I expect you to be here.”
I protested a few times. Her father explained that arguing was pointless against “the women.”
Laughing, her family sauntered to their respective rooms.
“Besides, I believe that you two will be up for several hours talking,” her mother finally pressed.
In minutes, we were alone in the kitchen. Susan raided the refrigerator and pulled out a tube of cookie dough. I sauntered over to the fire and crouched in front of the dying warmth.
“Well, if we’re going to be up for a while longer, I’ll add more wood to the fire,” I suggested.
I sat on the hearth and stoked the fire while she clattered in the kitchen.
“Are you going to put on your Christmas PJs?” I absently requested while still poking at the fire.
She ran from the kitchen and slid across the wooden floor on her padded slippers. The kitchen light was behind her; the firelight was in front. Her shape was silhouetted as she fought with her shirt. She held my curiosity and appeared to strip her clothes off right in front of me. She laughed as she fought with her clothing. I wanted to watch, but I closed my eyes. She threw her shirt at
me, and I peeked at her with one eye. Her flannel pajama shirt had been under the shirt she just threw at me. I finally understood her actions.
“I’m already wearing them,” she teased.
She blew me a kiss, suggestively smiled, and slowed her movements. She rhythmically moved to a soundtrack in her mind. She dipped and swayed to the unheard music as I watched in awe. Her bizarre striptease left one flannel layer on. She stretched above her head, showing off her bare midriff just above her hips. I craved to touch her flat, muscular stomach.
Her loose pajamas hid all her curves with an alluring sense of mystery. She shuffled her feet and pulled out of her slippers. She took her pants off one tantalizing leg at a time.
I admired every part of her, even covered up with flannel. She stretched to one side and dropped to the floor. She crawled over to me, slowly. I panted.
“You should feel how soft these are,” she suggested with one eyebrow raised.
I breathed heavily and felt unrestricted. In the confines of camp, we had never been able to completely play together. She laughed and hugged me. We toppled over backwards. Every part of her was soft. Where my hands touched her skin, I felt chemical electricity.
When she kissed me, I felt fire in our lips.
“I missed that,” she said as she stood up.
I stood up with her and demanded, “Wait!”
In response, I shuffled my own feet, pulled out of my boots and dropped my jeans. My own flannel pajamas remained. She laughed and pointed at her nose.
Once the cookies were in the oven, there was a procession of kissing on the couch. Her kisses were skillful, soft and deliberate. We controlled the fire in our touch and let the energy flow
through us. As the smell of the cookies wafted out of the kitchen, we sat apart on the couch and stared at each other.
“I have missed you,” I declared while rubbing her feet.
“I can tell,” she said, fanning herself. “And I have missed you, my love. What did you do last fall?”
“I went crazy at Camp,” I coughed. “Imagine me, brokenhearted, eating chili and baked cheese while lying on the table of the staff dining room.”
She laughed and teared up. I continued, “I was so depressed that Lauren and Gretchen called Sue to come get me. We went for a walk, and she gave me little pieces of advice. She helped me get through my worst time. She’s a great counselor.”
“Yeah, I have to tell you Kev, I was in a really bad place there in August. I was so jealous of you and Rennie and had no right to be,” she explained.
“I will give you that Rennie was a temptation, but over the months, well, my focus was always on you,” I explained. She smiled.
“I have come to terms with your relationship as friends now, but at the time, I couldn’t even handle that. You must have been crazy when I was talking about my dates or my boyfriend.”
“Yes,” I said flatly, “But I listened because I was with you. I have always wanted to be with you. When you left, I wasn’t even sure if we had a friendship. That tore me up.”
She moved across the couch. My back rested against the armrest of the couch. Her back rested against my chest. I massaged her shoulders and lightly bit at her neck. The fire in the fireplace made the environment more cherished than camp.
“Suz,” I started. “I want to make this absolutely clear. I do not want to be without you, ever again. I don’t care if you have a boyfriend or you date or whatever, I just can’t lose you like I did.
That was torture.”
“I talked to my mom a lot,” she said. “There were days on campus where I just cried. I was so tempted to drive up to camp to see you. I hated every bit of being apart from you, but I needed time and distance to sort everything out.”
“If you had come up, I might have actually done something crazy like go home with you,” I admitted.
“I will never do that to you again,” she paused. “Are you and Pam still together?”
“For now,” I explained and sighed. “I do not feel the same for her now than I did last year at this time. I think I learned a lot at camp about love and faith and what I really want from a relationship … and she’s not it.”
“Why do you stay?” she asked honestly.
“Convenience? Maybe. I’m not completely sure,” I said. “I think there was just too much change for me, and she represented the last known piece of foundation that I had.”
“You don’t love her?” she asked.
“No, certainly not the love that I once had for her,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get it back, make it like it was, and it’s just not there anymore.”
“Do you love me?” she asked openly and honestly.
“Absolutely, with all my heart,” I earnestly said. Saying the words released my tension. I dragged my fingers along her bare skin across her neck up behind her ear. She trembled. “The aching question I have now is, ‘How do I know if the love you and I feel is real enough to stand the test of time?’”
She sprung off the couch and rescued the cookies out of the oven. A few moments later, she returned with glasses of milk.
“It is amazing how much you and I think alike,” she said. “It is truly a gift what we feel for each other. What do we do with the remnants of our lives before we met?”
The word she used struck me. “Remnant.” She compared my relationship with Pam to a piece of discarded carpet. We both held traces from lives in our not-so-distant pasts.
She backed into my lap again. I felt her flannels in my hands as I massaged her arms and legs. I felt at peace.
“I take it that you are still dating …” I paused because I couldn’t remember his name.
“Matt,” she completed my absence of speech. “Yes, out of your same convenience, and I just don’t know what to do.”
“Well,” I meaningfully smiled. “For now, we go get the mail, we try to be normal, we act like adults.”
She smiled.
“I believe that we will know what to do when the time is right. We have time, right? Until then, I want this to continue,” I slowly explained and took her hand.
“We stay in touch. We see each other when we can.”
I nuzzled her hair with my nose, inhaling her scent. Her perfume hadn’t been with me for months. I adored the sensation. Time held the truth. Our relationship continued to be strange as we walked a tightrope of close, bonded friendship and undefined love. I refused to sacrifice time with her to change our relationship. We agreed to continue our dangerous liaisons with each other. I expected that our moral convictions would eventually erode
the multiple relationships. We would have to change, but at that moment in front of the fire, we were at peace.
Silently, we intertwined on her couch. I watched the firelight dance across her flannelled hips. Our kisses were subtle and reflected a good night with no words spoken. The real conviction was holding each other. We absorbed each other’s energy. There was balance. I treasured our cradled time together and drifted to sleep. These peaceful positions were our best selves.
When her parents opened the kitchen to start cooking, we were still asleep on the couch together. I vaguely heard the rattling of pans. I enveloped her tighter. She nestled up against me.
We stirred when the scent of cinnamon rolls and coffee filled the downstairs. She wiggled to wake me. In the comfort of our sleep, I concentrated to release her. She silently rolled off the couch and rested on her knees. She rose and met my eyes. She put a finger up to my lips, then to hers, suggesting silence. Blinking an acknowledgment, I managed a smile full of love. She stood up and leaned over to kiss me. Her lips were gentle. Waking up to her kisses wiped out the last traces of negativity from the fall. We mended our bond. After another full day with her, I returned to Loveland with a renewed sense of spirit.
#
In the present of 2017, my world changed. I had been unlocking past memories via present-day events. An event in my firefighting world triggered a memory from
my time at camp. In the beginning, memories of Susan appeared as haphazard and blurry.
Her presence at Dollywood demanded a clear picture of our history together. My observation role from the theatre balcony demanded more participation.
My experience inverted. Suddenly, the memories became clear, consistent and consuming.
Memories of camp, Colorado and Susan consistently infiltrated my daily routine. The present prompted a consistent flow of memories from 1992 that included my firefighting career. I lived in the past with Susan as she eroded my present.
