13. September 1995, Part III“You never gave up on me.”“If you want me, I’m here.”
SEPTEMBER 1995, PART III
“YOU NEVER GAVE UP ON ME.”
E arly on the morning of September 15 th , William drove his motorcycle all the way to Santa Barbara and rented a motel room. Julia had told him she would return to her dorm around noon, so at eleven-thirty, he parked his motorcycle across from Anacapa Hall, took off his helmet, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
At two o’clock, he pulled a sandwich out of his saddlebag and ate it, growing more and more worried. Had something happened to her boat? Had he gotten the day wrong?
Finally, at close to four o’clock, he spotted her approaching from the end of the street. With some guy.
He watched them approach. They certainly were very friendly with each other. At one point, she touched his arm, laughing at something that must have been very funny indeed. He laughed too, and paused a moment to grasp her by the shoulders. They kept walking, oblivious to William and everything else around them, then stopped in front of the dorm. Julia whispered something in his ear, then flashed one of her bright, beaming smiles at him. They wrapped each other in a hug. Pulled away and looked each other in the eyes.
William cranked the ignition with a roar. Spun his motorcycle around in a U-turn and parked it next to the curb, right in front of them. Only then did they notice him. Along with everyone else passing on the sidewalk.
“Will!” Julia’s face lit up at the sight of him, but he didn’t notice because he was too busy glaring at her companion. Some bearded dude with curly dark hair and glasses. At first, the guy looked him up and down, his eyes lingering on the motorcycle, as if impressed.
William dismounted and came to stand right in front of him, invading his space. Glaring down at him. Whoever he was, he was barely taller than Julia. The anger itched at William’s fingers now, compelling them to flex – compelling him into action. He wanted to tear this prick limb from limb. How dare he put his hairy hands on the best thing that had ever happened to him?
A crowd gathered, no doubt anticipating a fight. At the animal territoriality on William’s face, beard-dude shrank back a bit. Glanced back and forth between Julia and William.
“Um… I think I’d better go now,” he said.
“Yeah. That would be a good idea,” William snarled.
With one last wary look at William, Beard turned around and walked as fast as he could in the direction from which he came. Their disappointed spectators began dispersing – until William turned to glower at Julia.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
She scowled right back. “What are you talking about?”
“You told me you were getting back to your dorm at noon. It’s four o’clock. I’ve been waiting here since 11:30.”
“How was I supposed to know that? I thought you were coming tomorrow. That’s what you told me when we talked last weekend.”
It was true – he had told her that, because he was planning to surprise her a day early. How silly of him to imagine he would be a welcome surprise.
“So,” he gritted out, ignoring her answer. “Who was that?”
“That was Kevin,” she replied, a note of strain in her voice.
William was shaking now. “I knew I should have trusted my instincts. But I didn’t want you to think I was a jealous prick.”
Glaring, Julia refused to answer.
“So it’s dinner with Kevin tonight?” He nodded down at her ring, keenly aware of the eavesdroppers who still hovered. “Why are you even wearing that thing anymore?”
“Will.” Her voice trembled with barely-contained fury. “I’m late because I was at the bank, trying to get the ring back from the safe deposit box. I didn’t want to damage or lose it during my internship. Oh, and by the way – when we disembarked, we got a visit from Kevin’s fiancée, Nicole. Trustee of a little affair out of New York called the DeSmet Family Foundation. It was a grant of theirs that made our research possible this season, so we all figured the least we could do was have dinner with her tonight.”
She waited until it sank in. Waited for the evidence to show on his face. Then she turned and ran into the dorm. Too late, he ran after her, and the door locked behind her.
He stood frozen in shock for a moment, then pounded on the door and shouted her name; but no one would let him in. So he ran back to his motorcycle, jumped onto it. Sped to the nearest pay phone he could find, and dialed her dorm room. Let it ring until it wouldn’t ring any more. Found another quarter in his wallet, but this time the phone was off the hook. Sped back to the dorm to knock on the front door again, but this time a campus police officer made him leave.
Nauseous, not really seeing the road ahead of him, he drove back to his motel room. He picked up the phone and tried her number again, but the phone was still off the hook.
Unable to eat or sleep, he tried her number several more times that night, but each time got a busy signal. As soon as the sun rose, he drove back to her dorm, and parked out front.
Finally, at ten o’clock, she came out. The baggy dark circles under her eyes betrayed that she hadn’t gotten any more sleep than he had. She froze on the front step when she saw him.
“I just want to talk,” he pleaded.
She glared at him. “Then you’re going to have to do it right here, in a public place.”
Aghast, his voice came out in a wheeze. “I would never hurt you.”
“I don’t know. They say it only keeps on escalating.”
His forehead creased. “I would never, ever hurt you.”
“You looked pretty hell-bent on hurting someone yesterday.”
“I could have hurt him, if I had wanted to. But I didn’t.”
She had no immediate response for that, but after a moment, she came down the walkway toward him. “How am I supposed to face Kevin or anyone at my dorm again, after the way you embarrassed me yesterday?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Kevin is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. He’s the only person down here who gets me, who likes me exactly the way I am. All these people down here? I’ll never fit in with them. The other people in my internship? They think the only reason I lasted at all is because I’m sleeping with Kevin. Which I’m not, by the way, so don’t even start.”
“I know that.”
“You need to get a life.”
Her words landed like one of Jimmy’s sucker punches to the gut. “What?”
“You always have some excuse for why you can’t do the things you want to do. You can’t make a living as a fisherman. You don’t have the personality to be a photographer. You’re not good enough to be a poet or a songwriter. All just excuses, so you don’t have to try and then maybe fail.”
His brows knit together. “What does this have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if you found something besides another person for your life to revolve around, you wouldn’t freak out when you see me with someone who happens to have a Y chromosome.”
His pride wanted him to be angry, to tell her how presumptuous she was, assuming that his life revolved around her. But wrenching though it was, he had to acknowledge that there was a grain of truth in what she said. He did feel like he’d been living in a holding pattern since she left – just living for the next time he would see her. Maybe he had been too needy – too clingy.
Still, he wasn’t sure whether to let his pride or his humility win, until he saw her coming toward him, wrestling the ring off of her finger.
“No,” he said, springing forward, trying to stop her from taking it off.
She wrenched herself away from him. Glared at him, and took it the rest of the way off. Held it out to him.
“Please, let’s go someplace private to talk,” he repeated, conscious of the people walking past them who either stared or tried not to stare. “We can’t talk about this here.”
“What’s the matter, too proud to say it in front of everyone? You didn’t have too high an opinion of my pride yesterday.”
“Please,” he begged her. “Just come with me. You have to know I would never hurt you.”
She said nothing, just held out the ring.
“I’ll take it, but only if you come with me and let me talk to you. If you still want me to keep it after I talk to you, I will.”
He watched her feelings do battle on her face as he continued to beg her, “Please.” Finally, reluctantly, she nodded, and he took the ring. Put it in his pocket. Led her to his motorcycle. She put on her own helmet and refused to let him help her onto the back.
He drove her to the motel. Let them both inside his room and invited her to sit in a chair. Knelt in front of her on the floor, and put his head in her lap.
Without lifting his head, he said, “My life doesn’t revolve around you. But you’re the most important part of it.”
“Stand up,” she ordered.
He didn’t stand, but he lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “I know you’re afraid I’m going to hurt you. But it’s not in my nature to hurt people. Think about Kevin yesterday. I could have hurt him when I had the chance, but I didn’t. Why in God’s name would I ever hurt you when I wouldn’t touch him?”
“No, you don’t hurt people. You just bully them with your six feet four inches and your big loud macho motorcycle.” But even as she said it, he could see her anger circling the drain.
He grasped her hands. “When we shared those two classes together in our freshman and sophomore years, I always loved the spunky way you shut down those assholes. The ones who called you Horsey Face, and Mosquito Bites. ‘You really can’t take your eyes off me, can you?’ ‘I hate to break your heart, but don’t start picking out curtains yet.’ The whole class would laugh, and sometimes the guys would talk a little more smack just to save face, but then they usually moved on to someone else.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” she interrupted.
“Because at first, that was the only thing I admired about you. But then there was your smile. I never noticed until you started coming in to Cardone’s. You kept turning that smile on me even though I did absolutely nothing to encourage it. In fact, I think I did everything in my power to discourage it. But that smile… You just never gave up on me. And then there you were, turning that smile on some Cat Stevens doppelganger with glasses.”
In spite of her best efforts, he could see her anger circling the drain. Squeezing her hands, he begged, “Please don’t let this be it. You have to know how wrong that would be. Think of everything we’ve been through the past two years.”
When she still didn’t respond, he put his head back in her lap. His mind and heart were a cacophony of panic and heartbreak as tears pricked at the back of his eyes.
He was going to lose her.
But after a minute, she put her fingertips in his hair, caressing his scalp. He looked up, his forehead creased with anguish. The eyes that met his were grave now, with no trace left of anger.
He reached into his back pocket, pulled out the ring. Grabbed her hand, slipped it onto her finger and held it there, as if to keep it from coming off again. He scooted forward and pulled her forehead down to touch his. Laced his fingers through hers.
Her breath was coming quick now, and he felt his body responding to it.
It was an exquisite contrast, the almost transcendent joy of her forgiveness, coming so close on the heels of almost losing her. He waited for her to lift his mouth to hers before he moved up to her, gathered her up. He helped her undress, taking time to kiss every little part of her body that he uncovered. Snatched his clothes off as fast as he could. The endorphins surging through his body made her weigh nothing at all. He lifted her like a feather, wrapped her legs around his waist. Moaned with the sheer joy of being inside of her. The sounds she made, the way she thrust back against him, demanded every ounce of his focus to not come right then and there.
He spun her around, laid her down on the bed. He stayed on top, delaying the inevitable as long as he could until he needed to see her. Flipped her around on top of him. Held her hands, let her push back against them as she moved fast on him, breathing raggedly.Felt the explosion coming and jammed her hips down, his body bucking, practically howling with the intensity of it.
Completely immobilized, he watched her lay alongside him, run her fingers down his torso and back up again. She kissed him on the mouth, more and more insistently. As soon as he could, he pulled her up onto his mouth, let her brace herself against the headboard. Sucked and flickered his tongue over her the way she had always loved. It had never bothered him one bit that he could taste his own release mixed with her arousal. Within less than a minute, she bore down on him with a string of shouted profanities and flooded him with her orgasm.
But the tension in her body told him that she was far from done, so he flipped her around onto her back, draped her legs across his shoulders. Lapped at her, curling his fingers inside of her. Made her come again and again until her body could give nothing more.
By then, he was already hard again, but he let her float for a while in the afterglow. As soon as he dared, he climbed on top of her and let her rest while he tried to satisfy his seemingly insatiable need.
Food became a secondary concern. When low blood sugar made it unavoidable, he ordered a pizza so they wouldn’t have to leave. He sat her in his lap, both of them stark naked, and laughed with her at their attempts to feed each other pizza. They lost patience after one slice apiece, and made love right there in the chair.
When the sun went down, and their bodies were tapped out, he held her against his side, kissing her mouth, massaging her hair.
He whispered, “You have every part of me. My heart, my body and my soul. And you always will.”
“I love you so much,” she murmured. But as he floated off to sleep, he wondered why she said it as if it caused her pain.
“IF YOU WANT ME, I’M HERE.”
A week later, William called Julia to begin making plans for her birthday in October. But as he floated the options to her, her replies came back distant and distracted.
“What’s the matter?” he prompted gently.
“I’m not going to be able to get away for my birthday,” she said. “I have too much work to do if I ever want to recover from this.”
Alarmed that she might be sick or hurt, he asked, “From what?”
“I got bad feedback from my internship.”
His heart plummeted to his feet for her. “Oh, Julie. I’m so sorry.” But when Julia said nothing more, he added, “If you want to get together another weekend, we can.”
“Will…”
Something in her tone filled him with dread, and his pulse ratcheted up accordingly. He feared he already knew where this was headed. Whatever she said in the next few moments was going to alter the entire direction of his life.
“Will,” she said again. “It was a mistake.”
He felt the world spinning. He knew exactly what she meant, but desperately said, “What?”
“I’m sorry.”
With increasing panic, he demanded, “Julie, what was a mistake?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“I want to hear you say it.” When she still said nothing, he prompted, “Is it Kevin?”
“It’s not Kevin.” Drawing a deep breath, she added, “I told you already. I need to focus on school if I ever want to recover from this.”
“And I told you already, I won’t get in your way.”
“My uncle once talked to me about you,” she said gently. “He told me that if it’s meant to be, the details will work themselves out. Well, the details aren’t working themselves out. I can’t offer you the time and attention you deserve and still do what I need to do. Not without completely losing the person I am apart from you.”
God, he was so tired. Tired of trying to understand, of trying to make something work that felt so one-sided at this point. A couple of minutes of silence ensued, and Julia did not try to interrupt it, as if she knew he needed time to absorb the finality of what she had said.
Eventually, he asked, “Are you still wearing the ring?”
“No.”
All of the air evacuated his lungs, carrying his voice along with it. Quickly, Julia added, “I’ll give it back.”
“I don’t want it. Do whatever you want with it,” he snapped. After another few minutes spent gathering the last shreds of his composure, he added more gently, “I’m not going to stalk you, Julie. If you want me, I’m here. If you want me to come to you, just say the word.”
Her voice cracked. “Okay.”
Even so, a month later, he mailed a package to her dorm in Santa Barbara – a shoebox, chock full of his poems, songs, and photos. A final Hail Mary pass.