Howie
Having Georgie back again was like the best gift anyone could give me. Most of my friends from high school had left, going off to whatever city it was that their school was located in, including George. She had decided to go to Ball State University in Indiana. I myself stayed at home and went to Valencia Community College - I, unlike George, being unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. I decided that a two year degree would be my best bet. I liked the idea of staying home near my family, plus I was convinced that if I just stuck around a little longer I’d hit it big somehow. I’d been to dozens of auditions and I was a regular at most casting calls. I knew there was some sort of gold to strike here in Orlando, I just wasn’t sure when or where I’d hit it.
All these reasons made perfect sense on the grand scale, but in the middle of the year when I got calls and letters from all my friends that had gone away while I studied at home I got pretty down sometimes, especially when I talked to George. In the very beginning of the year she called me every day, saying nothing but how miserable she was and how much she missed everything. “Why can’t I just major in high school?” she’d moan. “I’m so lost here.” But after the first few weeks her calls got fewer and farther between. Suddenly it was me making an attempt to talk to her, usually barely catching her as she flitted from class to class or out with friends. Not only did I feel lonely, I felt stagnant. George was off making a brand new life for herself, apart from what we had in common here, and I was stuck in the same place.
That was why it was great to have her back, not just because she was only a few minutes away, but because - at least for the summer - she couldn’t keep moving on without me. I wanted it all to go back to how it was when we graduated; hanging with the same crowd, at the same places. That was how that summer went, too, like nothing had changed, and I loved it.
May passed in a blur and it seemed in the blink of an eye it was already late June, which meant that everyone was already starting to talk about their college worlds again - everyone except me, of course. I tried to just face facts that it would happen, but as I listened to conversation after conversation about everything I had no experience with I got more and more depressed. What was hardest was the idea of Georgie leaving me. I just couldn’t bear the idea of watching her leave me to go off into that world that I wasn’t a part of. All our lives George and I had been together in all that we did, both big fish in a little pond. It seemed like just yesterday the world had been put back in order for me and slowly it was being taken apart piece by piece. I thought about going away to school myself, but it just didn’t seem right for me - if I did, I’d be away from not only everyone I was already separated from, I’d lose my family too. I needed to find a way to reestablish what I used to have at home, in high school. The problem was that I had no idea how to do that.
The solution, though, came out of nowhere. I was at the mall looking for a birthday gift for my dad when a familiar face caught my eye. At first I wasn’t sure it was who I thought it was but once she turned from the display she was looking at I knew.
“Jessie?”
She looked over and I saw her for the first time since last fall. It was Jessica, the girl I had dated for three years in high school. Her dark, unruly hair, which was usually pinned back, fell over her tan shoulders to her back and her deep brown eyes were wide with surprise, then recognition. She was still beautiful - not that I ever thought she wouldn‘t be, but I enjoy my constants. “Howie!” she exclaimed, a smile starting to spread across her face as she opened her arms to hug me. “How are you?”
“Great,” I answered as I held her for a minute, then stepped back. “How are you?”
“Wonderful. How’d school go this year?”
That had to be the most frustrating part of being in college - it was the first thing anyone asked about. I shrugged. “Not bad. How was UNLV?”
Now it was Jessica’s turn to shrug. “It was...not what I expected.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. She nodded. “Why’s that?”
“A lot of reasons. Mostly I just really couldn’t...” She shrugged again, looking embarrassed. “I couldn’t take being that far from home.”
I smiled at her. “Trust me, I completely understand. Are you going again this year?”
“No, actually I’m transferring to Central,” she told me.
Something in me woke up about then, telling me that this was important. “Oh, so you’ll be around?” I asked casually. Jessie nodded again.
“Yeah, I’ll be here again.” We just sort of looked at each other for a moment, and I’m pretty sure we were both wearing that ‘well whaddya know about that?’ type of smile. The thought of Jessie being here again made me happy. It wasn’t that I was glad that things didn’t work out for her in Nevada, but it was nice to hear that someone else in the world felt the same as me.
“Maybe we could get together some time,” I suggested. She nodded, her smile widening.
“I’d really like that. The number’s the same...you still have it, right?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Call soon, OK?”
I nodded. “I will.” This time I held my arms out and she came to me. As I hugged her again I recognized her perfume - Sunflowers. I had bought it for her on our first Valentine’s Day and she had worn it ever since. She was still wearing it now. If I closed my eyes (and I did), for just a second it was like everything was right in the world again. When we parted she kissed my cheek and we said goodbye and I wandered off again, my head in a cloud.
Jessica and I hadn’t parted on bad terms at all, amazingly enough. Once she decided that she was going to UNLV and I decided that I was staying here things got strange - we still loved each other, but I knew that I just wasn’t cut out for a long-distance relationship. Once we talked I found out Jessie felt the same way. We talked a lot about it and finally came to the decision that we would just make the most of our last few months together. The night before she was headed to Nevada we got together one last time and that was the last we had seen each other. It was the last time we had talked, too. We had never really been just friends (she had transferred to our school sophomore year and we had started dating shortly after), and knew that it would probably be too hard to start a friendship after three years of being boyfriend and girlfriend. It had been so simple, so mature - just another person I had to give away. But it hadn’t been painless, not at all. I had missed her. And now she was back.
It hadn’t been uncomfortable seeing her, it had been nice. Really nice. “It was more than nice,” I muttered to myself as I drove home that afternoon. It was a piece of my life back. We had only broken up because of the distance. Now there was no distance. Now Jessie was here and I was here and I wanted more than anything to get my old life back. There had been interest in Jessie’s eyes and I knew that things could still work between us.
As stupid as it sounded, as soon as I realized that I could very well get back together with Jessica some of the trapped feeling that had been settling in on me started to lift. I started to sing along with the radio - loudly - and thinking about things to come. George was coming by in an hour and we were going to head out to get some food. Thinking about Georgie brought that sinking feeling back, but what had happened earlier that day made me look past the general she’s-leaving-that-sucks point and wonder what I could do to improve things. I missed her tons. She was far away. I couldn’t go to her. ‘But,’ I wondered, ‘would she come back home, to me?’
It seemed like a long shot - George was happy in Indiana. She had made her niche and fit in and had a life. She loved Ball State. How could I possibly get her to come back? I didn’t even have a plan of attack. I didn’t know a thing about Indiana or Ball State, let alone her “college friends”. Where would I start?
Once again I guess I jumped the gun worrying because an opportunity came out of nowhere. George and I ended up at Denny’s that night and right after we finished chucking sugar packets at each other she gave me her hopeful, wide-eyed look.
“Uh oh,” I muttered, rolling my eyes at her and smiling.
“Uh oh what?”
“Uh oh, I’m afraid to hear what you’re going to ask me.”
She blinked. “What makes you think I’m going to ask you anything?”
I watched her carefully. “You’re not going to ask me anything?” George shook her head. “You sure?” A nod. “All right.” I looked down at my menu again.
“OK, I have a huge favor to ask of you,” I heard a minute later and raised my eyes again.
“But you just said you didn’t.”
George shrugged. “I lied. I have a huge favor to ask of you and you can say no because I know you don’t really like to do this sort of thing but I have to ask, OK?” she spilled.
“Um, OK.”
She took a deep breath. “Next Friday I have a meeting up at school and I really don’t want to drive by myself. I asked Katja to go but she’s busy, and so’s Beth, and I know you don’t like long car trips and that you always bow out of-”
This was it! “Sure,” I cut in. George paused, open-mouthed, then lowered her eyebrows.
“What?”
“I’ll go. I’ll ride with you.”
She looked amazed, with good reason - I pretty much hated road trips, as she well knew. “You will?” she confirmed. I nodded. “Wow. OK, cool. Thanks.”
“No problem.” I felt like thanking her - what better way to plan an attack than to actually stake out enemy territory? The war metaphor seemed a little drastic, but it suited my mood perfectly. After all, I was on the verge of winning my first battle - hopefully the first of many.
Chapter 3
