Chapter 29: Remembering An Anniversary

December 12, 1981 (continued)

We pulled up to Jasmine’s. I got out, then Angie got out. Jasmine was waiting, wearing a yellow flowery dress — her favorite. We hugged, kissed, and she slid into the middle of the front seat. We climbed back in and headed for the mall.

“How’d it go? Still sane?” she laughed, looking at us both.

Angie laughed. “Not sure. We agreed to audition, after all.”

“Ooooh!” She smacked Angie’s arm lightly. “You’ll have fun. Lots of fun, if you want, and Gene isn’t opposed.”

Angie laughed. “We haven’t discussed it. Mayyyyybe.”

“I’d say no time like the present, but he’s not here and you’re going out of town anyway, so it can wait.”

“Good.” Angie leaned over and kissed Jasmine on the cheek. “I can do that, anyway!”

“So far, so good! OK, you two. Candice. What don’t I say?”

“I’d cool it on anything with you and me being too lovey-dovey. Probably anything ... um ... controversial, until you get a feel for her.”

“You mean sex?” she smiled.

“That’s on the controversial list. So would anything about anything really emotional. I don’t want to imply that she’s fragile so much as that we don’t know if she is.”

“OK. Obviously, it’s big, dropping out of school and doing freshman year over.”

We pulled up to the pizza place and spotted them. Candice was there, waiting, with a somewhat shorter girl whose long brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. They were nearly matching; dark blouses, knee-length skirts. Jasmine smiled widely. So did Angie.

“She’s cute,” Angie observed while I was parking.

“You didn’t think Candice would wind up with just anyone,” I laughed.

“No, definitely not.”

“She looks little,” Jasmine said. “And I mean, I’m little, she’s bigger. But you know what I mean.”

“They’re both freshmen. Sherry probably comes by it naturally,” Angie said.

“Did we look like that last year?”

“Um ... I certainly didn’t look even vaguely like that. And, Sherry’s a sophomore.”

Jasmine smacked my arm. “I didn’t mean it that way! But no, obviously you didn’t.”

“She is?” Angie said. “I missed that. She is little, then.”

We hopped out and went over. Candice and I hugged. Chastely. By now it was less of a struggle.

Less, not none.

Then everyone else hugged. Sherry hugged me, less chastely than Candice had. “So, you’re the guy Candice tells me about.”

“Don’t believe a word of it!”

Candice smacked my arm. “It’s all good stuff.”

“That’s what I meant!”

We went in, laughing, and ordered. It wasn’t too hard to find something we’d all eat. Then we picked a table and sat, Candice and Sherry on one side, Jasmine, me, and Angie on the other. The two of them holding hands; the three of us holding hands.

Candice laughed. “Too sweet! OK, y’all, this is Sherry.”

Sherry giggled. “Hi! I’m the girlfriend!”

Jasmine winked. “I’m the girlfriend, too!”

“And I’m the sister,” Angie chimed in.

“Which makes me the...” I said, fixing each person with a smile, “ ... ex-boyfriend, boyfriend, brother, and friend-to-be.” Sherry blushed and smiled, both, at that last bit.

“Keep that order straight,” Candice said. “I don’t need another brother!”

Angie smiled. “So, Sherry, tell me a bit about yourself.”

“I’m a sophomore, like Candice should be, except for her story that she’s supposed to finally tell me tonight.” She caught the looks on our side. “I know. I look like an eighth-grader. With boobs. Medium-small, but still. It’s just how I’m built. I’ll probably get carded when I’m thirty.”

I laughed. “Sorry, just thinking a lot of girls will envy you at thirty.”

“OK, you have a point! Anyway, so, Candice says you’re cool. Some girls at school are just, you know, lesbians of convenience. Not me. I’ve liked girls forever.”

Angie laughed. “I think it’s fair to say that everyone at this table likes girls to some extent.”

Candice blinked. “You’re open about it now? That was all, like, hush-hush!”

“I haven’t done anything about it, but yeah, everyone here can know. A lot of people don’t. I’m much more ... self-confident about it now.”

Candice took a deep breath. “OK, so, I’m ... not a lesbian of convenience, exactly, I’ve been where Angie was, but, yeah. I’m sticking with that team for a while. I really love Sherry and not just because we have fun in bed.”

“Though that’s a very good reason,” Sherry giggled. “Obviously, I know you like guys, too.”

“Guy. That one.” That came out sharper than Candice meant, I think.

Sherry blinked. “Is this...?”

“Yeah.”

“Um ... OK.”

Candice took both of Sherry’s hands, looked at her, then at us. “Steve and Angie know most of this. Why they know it will be really obvious. They don’t know all of it, and there’s a lot I’m not telling, and you’ll know why. Steve, Angie, you know the rules and when to tell me to calm down.”

We both nodded. Sherry bit her lip. “Look, if this is painful...”

“It’s painful, but it will be really good for me to open up about it to the girl I love, and to a girl that I ditched because, well, I ditched everyone, but she’s the one I regretted the most.”

Jasmine blushed. “Really?”

“We were great friends, then I dropped you like a rock. I wouldn’t have had friends except for Emily Parker forcing me to go meet the new girl,” she looked at Angie, “and then Angie being Angie and tossing me a lifeline without even knowing she was doing it, while I was looking for a lifeline without knowing I was doing it.”

Angie blushed. “I just...”

“I know, you were just you. That’s the special part. Anyway. I’m sidetracking myself. I’m going to just jump right in and say maybe the worst part first, then we’ll get into the rest. And, Steve, this part is going to hurt you a bit, but you’re too smart to not know the timing.”

I nodded. “I ... think ... I’ll be OK. And that’s on me to deal with, anyway. You tell it like it should be told.”

“Thanks. So.” She took a deep breath. “Part of what is giving me the courage to do this is a stupid anniversary. It’s been a year, I can talk.” She looked around. “A year ago, today, I decided exactly how I was going to kill myself.”

Sherry gasped, eyes going wider. “W ... what? You ... that’s why...?”

“That’s why. I didn’t do it today; I just made the plan today. Dad had Percodan from an old injury. Almost a full bottle. There was vodka in the house. A bunch of each and ... sleepy-time.”

Sherry almost spoke, then shushed herself. Jasmine was similarly wide-eyed.

“I made the decision weeks before. Thanksgiving Day. Again, sorry Steve. I know that tells you how many times I lied to you by omission. You know I was out of my head.” I nodded. “We were ... um ... talking about what we were thankful for. And Steve was top of my list, but then the ... thoughts ... got to me and said I’d be even more thankful if I was dead, because that’s what I really wanted. And I thought they made sense, and it was a good idea.”

Sherry was struggling not to speak. Candice smiled. I could see they had nearly a death grip on each other’s hands. I spoke softly. “Sherry, Candice? Your hands are going to regret it in a bit if you don’t ease up.”

They both jumped a bit and blushed. Just then the pizza arrived, temporarily breaking the spell. We didn’t dig in, just shifted a little.

“I know you want to ask. I’m not getting into details. My therapist says I shouldn’t, not to anyone else, not even to myself. But, my ... cousin ... messed with me. Physically, but much more mentally. For years. It, um ... escalated ... after Spring Break, 8^th grade. That’s when I dropped you, Jasmine. And everyone. I felt like I was unlovable. No, worse, like I was... tainted. I stayed clear of everyone until Emily Parker almost physically dragged me out to do things in the summer and then made me meet Angie. And, I hate to say it, but I hated her at first.”

Angie blinked hard and looked stunned, but Candice pushed on. “You were too nice to avoid. I just wanted to avoid everyone, and here you and Emily kept tempting me, and I hated that. I thought I’d drag you down. Instead, you lifted me up. Best decision of my life was letting you in.” She smiled. Angie got up and hugged her tight.

“So anyway, I’m trying to cut this short. Emily and Angie made me meet people, and part of me was absolutely desperate for friends. Angie spoke up for her brother. And, hey, a decent guy that really liked me? That was water to a girl in the desert. I ate that up. I dusted off my flirting skills, Steve responded, and we just ... fit together ... perfectly. And it was all great, until Thanksgiving, when we visited my cousin. Oh, the darkness poked itself in before that, every so often. Told me it was all a lie. But I could fight it until Thanksgiving.”

They sat down and Candice went on. She cleared her throat. “Thanksgiving ... he’d gotten bored with me. He turned up the negative. Way up. He wanted me to do it, and he poked and prodded and pushed just right to get me to think it was my idea. For him, well ... no evidence, right? His big mistake was telling me that my sister Cindy and his sister Meg were cuter and would be a lot more fun. I couldn’t do anything for me; I was too far gone. But Cindy and Meg? I could do something for them. But could I face anyone after it came out? The darkness said ‘no.’ And I let it say ‘no.’

“So, I made a plan. You know, Candice the planner. What to do, when to do it, how to make it clear Steve wasn’t the culprit. Shift every bit of blame off him. Let Steve and Angie know they weren’t the culprits, either. I wrote a note for the police and a note for Steve, set things in motion. It was perfect. I had my room set up to be barricaded, I had the pills and the vodka, I’d gotten myself grounded, threw a fit, made it clear I was not talking to the parents for days. No one would check. It was absolutely perfect.

“Then some little part of me said maybe I needed to hear a friendly voice. So, at the last minute, I dragged a phone in before I barricaded the door. Took the stuff, got to where I could just feel it, and called Steve.

“Two days later I woke up in the hospital, groggy, pissed, arms and legs in soft restraints, and ... I think I called Steve and Angie every name in the book and a few they haven’t made up yet.” She laughed softly. “I was pissed. You do not want to know how pissed. A month of planning, everything carefully arranged, and I told you in that note how angry I’d be if it didn’t work, and then you stopped me, anyway.”

Then she grinned. “Obviously, I’m better now. I know how to fight the darkness when it turns up, and I love you guys. And you,” she turned to Sherry and kissed her. “And I’d love to get to know you again, Jasmine.”