Chapter 1
Jack
I am relieved that I only have one class with Rachel this year. She sits up front with a gaggle of girlfriends. I sit way in the back where I can bolt out the door as soon as the class is over.
There was a girl from my history class that went to every one of my swim meets. She was a very attractive girl with honey colored hair. She had bigger breast than most of the girls her age.
The girl’s name was Robin and her eyes were the color of the sky on a crystal clear day. The third Friday that I saw her at the meet, I asked her if she would like to attend the school dance with me that night. She quicky said yes and then blushed.
When the dance was over at 10pm, her father was waiting to take her home. I was surprised when her dad offered to give me a ride home. Of course I said yes. It would save me a mile of walking.
Robin’s father asked a lot of questions.
How old I was. What church did I go do. What did my dad do for a living.
I got a sinking feeling that Robin’s family was well off and maybe they would see me as riff raff.
It was quiet the rest of the drive to my house.
Again, I felt like her dad was checking out the type of house we had and the type of neighborhood we lived in.
When I told Robin that I would see her at school on Monday, she had a sadness in her eyes when she said, “yeah sure.”
Over the next five weeks, Robin and I sat together in the classes we had together. We ate lunch together and I sat on the school steps while we waited for her mother to pick her up from school. She came to my swim meets. But we did not go to a dance again.
It was mid-May when Robin had her 18th birthday. I was flattered when she invited me to a birthday party at her house. She told me that the rest of her friends coming to the party were from the chess club and the 4.0 GPA club.
It was a two mile walk from where I live to Robin’s small mansion on Knob Hill. I was right, her family is well off. When I rang the door chime, a butler answered the door.
“Would you be a fella named Jack?” the butler asked. “That would be me,” I answered. “Please wait here, there will be someone to see you in a few moments.
It was five minutes later that Robin’s mom came to the door and stepped out on the massive front porch with me.
“Look sweetheart, I am sure that you are a wonderful guy and come from a good family. But you are not the kind of person that Robin needs in her life,” she told me straight out.
“Robin is going to go to Harvard after high school and become a reputable lawyer like my husband and I. She has a very bright future. To be blunt, a person like you could only drag her down,” the woman assessed me.
The vase with the dozen red roses fell out of my hands and crashed onto the porch shattering all over the place. I never said a word to Robin’s mom that night. I just turned and walked away to make the two mile walk home.
In retrospect over the years, I have wished that I had told her to fuck herself. I regret that I had not pointed out what a bitch she was. But I was a good boy back then. I was polite and did what my family expected me to do.
When mom heard me crying in my room that night, she came in and rocked me in her arms while I sobbed and told her what had happened. When I finally settled down, my mom said the woman was right. That I did not fit in with those people. “You are so much better than them,” she told me.
I felt a little better after the talk with my mom. But I still felt a deep sadness inside as I fell off to sleep. I really busted my ass at my morning swim training working off the anger that has replaced the hurt.
Robin came and found me at lunch and tried to apologize for what her mother had said. “Look Robin, there is nothing you can say that can undo what your mother said to me last night. There is no apology that can cover that.
“I have a wonderful mother who held me last night and helped me through the hurt. But I feel sorry for you Robin. I will get over this hurt but you are going to be stuck in the cage your family has put you in for your entire life.”
“Last night they chose who you cannot see. They have chosen the University you will go to. They have chosen the courses you will take and the degree you will earn. They have basically chosen your whole life for you,” I told her. “They will even choose your husband for you someday,” I added.
There were tears running down Robin’s cheeks when I stood up and left her. But I felt like the weight of the world had just been lifted from my shoulders.
John was being his normal asshole self that afternoon when I got home from school. “I heard that you were turned down by the cutest girl in school. What happened? Were you not man enough for her?” he taunted me cruelly.
After all the shitty things John has done to me over the past years. After stealing my very first girlfriend…the first love of my life. After what had happened Friday night at Robin’s house, I snapped.
I did a snap punch to his chin that broke his jaw and broke three teeth. John was down on his knees trying to hold his jaw together. “If you ever fuck with me again, I will beat you to death,” I growled staring directly into his eyes. I could see fear in his eyes.
Dad was none too pleased when he had to take John to the emergency from to have his jaw attended to. When they were gone, mom pulled me into her arms and hugged me. “It was about time you stood up to that bully,” Mom told me.
I wouldn’t find out until years later that mom had called Robin’s mom that week and gave her an earful. Telling her that a civilized woman would never break a teenage boys heart the way she had. “You may be some sort of fancy lawyer. But you are one stupid bitch,” mom told her.