The One That Ran Away Read online

  Memory #14

  It wasn’t until I woke up that Saturday morning that I realized I had accidentally stood Jess up.

  Well, maybe not accidentally. Maybe I had gotten drunk on my own the night before with the help of Kelsey and a guy she introduced to me.

  A guy conveniently in my bed, as naked as the day his mother gave birth to him.

  What the fuck was his name? Kevin? Devon? Some kind of name like that? Or maybe I’m completely wrong on every account. Maybe his name was so different, and I refuse to remember it because it’s like admitting I really am a slut.

  “Fuuuuck,” I muttered, the hangover hitting me like a baseball to the side of the head. I wasn’t naked, but that didn’t mean we didn’t do anything the night before. A night that was a complete, black blur I would never get back. The last thing I remembered was getting out of class at four and going back to my apartment, where this guy and Kelsey sat around making Jell-O shots to celebrate the last night of freedom before the midterm march began. I probably accepted one because, fuck, who doesn’t want a Jell-O shot? Especially college-aged me! I’d take one now!

  Did I have another one? Did I eat dinner? Considering how bloated I was, I probably ate fast food takeout. God knew all I wanted to do was throw some of it up.

  I dragged myself to the bathroom I shared with Kelsey. She emerged from her room as soon I finished washing my face in the sink. Her chuckle implied she knew what had happened.

  “Have a nice night with…” Nope. Still can’t remember his name.

  “I don’t fucking remember,” I spat between my teeth and toothbrush. “I don’t remember anything about last night.”

  “Aw, I’m insulted. I remember everything.” She leaned against the doorway, a smirk to save the ages gracing her face. “Including everything we did together.”

  I dropped my toothbrush. “What?”

  “You really don’t remember, huh?” Kelsey shook her head, as if she were offended. “You got drunk before we had the chance to order dinner. Sooo much pizza. Anyway, you didn’t have cheese-grease down your throat for three seconds before you tried making out with me.”

  “What!”

  “I said what I said.” She crossed her arms in a huff. Her large, baggy sleepshirt showed off her lack of a bra. Somewhere, from the deep recesses of my drunken memory, I vaguely recalled seeing her nipples more than once the night before.

  Oh, fuck.

  “Yeah, so, we threesomed.” Kelsey gestured to us and the man in my bed. “All over your bed. Your idea, by the way.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope. You kinda checked out halfway through, though. Don’t worry. I made sure he didn’t mess with you.”

  “So you two fucked on my bed. While I was right there.” I scoffed. “That’s not a threesome. That’s like… a hostage, cuckolding thing. Wait.” My head hurt.

  “I bailed when I was done. If you want, though, I could help you get rid of him. Although I suggest you take a shower. You’re a little ripe.”

  “Oh my God…” I splashed more water on my face. “I was supposed to meet Jess last night!”

  “Yeah, about that. When I asked you if you were fit to go visit her, you said you’d rather fuck a cactus than be around her.”

  “I did not!”

  “How do you know? You say you don’t remember anything.”

  “What do I do? She’s gotta be so pissed at me.”

  “You probably broke her heart. Just think, while she was waiting for your date, you were helping me screw some dude. Pretty sure that’s what lesbians write about in their memoirs.”

  “Fuck off, Kels.”

  “Whatever. Let me know when you sober up.”

  It took most of the morning and half of the afternoon to reach a point when I could brave facing Jess. I didn’t have her number – a mistake, in retrospect. All I knew was what dorm she lived in. I didn’t know the number.

  Luckily, Jess lived in one of the smallest dorms on campus. As soon as I had showered, ate something, and thrown on some decent clothes I headed across campus, rehearsing what I wanted to say.

  Her dorm was deader than mine. Not surprising, since it was mostly a sophomore dorm, and they were probably likewise recovering from their partying wounds. I walked up and down the bottom floor, unable to find Jess’s name anywhere.

  I found her room on the second floor.

  I stared at the green letters spelling out her name, feeling sicker than ever before. Anything I had rehearsed was now gone from my memory. It took the last of my courage to rap my knuckles against the door.

  No answer.

  Maybe she was gone. Maybe she was still asleep. Or maybe she knew it was me, and she wanted nothing to do with my flaky ass.

  Like most of us, she had a whiteboard next to her door. I grabbed one of the markers and wrote a simple message that I hoped would clear things up.

  “Jess, sorry about last night. Please let me make it up to you. -S”

  I knocked once more to be sure she wasn’t there. After a minute of waiting, I headed down the hall and turned the corner the moment I heard the bathroom door open and close.

  My gut told me to turn around and face her in her towel. I didn’t. I was terrible at following my gut, because for some reason, I thought it was out to get me.

  ***

  Jess looked at the old, clunky bike as if it were out to personally kill her.

  “Oh, come on.” Shannon held the helmet out to her. “You’re not gonna die. If you do, the hospital is like… five blocks away.”

  “I feel so much better now.” Jess put her backpack down with a sigh. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You know what happened the last time I tried to learn how to ride a bike?”

  Shannon shrugged, helmet still extended before her. “You scraped your knee and Mom got you ice cream?”

  “I wish. I busted my leg open and my ex-boyfriend told me I was a wimp for being twenty-two and incapable of holding my balance on a bike. Bastard took the training wheels off before I had a chance.”

  The helmet smacked against Shannon’s leg. “Your ex tried to teach you how to ride a bike?” She didn’t touch on the detail that Jess was twenty-two, meaning she was either seeing this guy while still in college, or right after they graduated. Either way, it hovered dangerously close to one key event that occurred between them senior year.

  “Would you get on the damn bike already? You’re stalling.”

  “Sorry!” Jess snatched the helmet out of Shannon’s hand and stuffed it on top of her head. Shannon had to hide her snort of amusement when Jess’s head of brown hair was completely engulfed by a helmet one size too big for her small head. “How does this thing work?” The bike was pushed away while Jess looked upon it with disdain. “I know that the moment I get on, I’m gonna fall over.”

  “With that lack of confidence, uh, yeah.” Shannon held the bike by the handles to ensure Jess didn’t collapse like a sack of potatoes the moment she awkwardly sat on the seat. Oh, goodness. Look at that. Could Shannon possibly hide her disbelief that someone could look so done with bike riding already? Jess was akin to a pouting child on a birthday gone awry. There was a reason Shannon had conjured the image of Jess scraping her knee as a little kid. Sometimes, she really did look like a kid. “You have to trust your body to do what it’s meant to do. You know. Balance… and stuff.” God, here was hoping Shannon never had kids, or at least was never expected to teach them how to ride a bike. She would spend half their childhoods in the emergency room.

  “Shan,” Jess said through gritted teeth, her eyes narrow and the strap of her helmet digging into her chin, “I ain’t got no balance. You might as well ask me to start speaking in tongues. Hell, I might when I go down!”

  Shannon kept a firm grip on the handlebars to assure Jess that she wasn’t going down anytime soon. “I won’t let you fall, okay?” She hoped she could keep her word. Jess already had enough issues to keep her from fully trusting the woman who now
held safety in her hands.

  “Fuuuuck! Why am I doing this? This is stupid!”

  Shannon rolled her eyes. “You’re doing this because cycling is a practical skill in Portland. You also don’t have a driver’s license, so… you need a quicker way to get around for those days when the bus doesn’t cut it.”

  “I regret telling you that I don’t have a driver’s license.”

  “Why? Because now you’re in an empty parking lot looking like an idiot adult trying to ride a bike for the first time?”

  “I look like a what?”

  Shannon bent down, her teeth grazing Jess’s cold nose. “Gotcha.”

  “Whyyy are you doing this to me?”

  “Because it’s fun.”

  “Fuck you!”

  Shannon took a step back, bringing the bike an inch forward. Jess let out an ecstatic sob that was either fear or excitement. Shannon didn’t have time to figure out what it was as she led Jess across the barren Northwest parking lot only five blocks from her apartment.

  “Fuuuuck you.”

  She is seriously not having a panic attack already. Shannon thought Jess merely couldn’t ride a bike. Was she frightened of it? What kind of terrible experiences had she had before? On a bike? “You’re doing great, Jess. Look at you. You’re already halfway across the parking lot!”

  “Only because you’re helping me!”

  “You need to put your feet on the pedals. Do you have your balance yet?”

  “No!”

  “You’re doing great.”

  Shannon led her around the edge of the parking lot for the first few minutes. The dick in her wanted to let go at every turn, hoping instinct would kick in and Jess would soon find herself confidently pedaling like an old pro. Somehow, she managed to suppress the dickish side of herself and prevent Jess from tumbling to the pavement every time she let out a cry of fright and gripped the handlebars as if they were going to fly away from her.

  When Jess made it the whole length of the parking lot without flubbing her footwork or gnashing her teeth into her bottom lip, Shannon slowly lifted her palms from the handlebars and grinned to find Jess pedaling herself a few precious feet.

  “You’re doing it!”

  “What are you doing? Get back here!”

  Jess had pedaled faster than Shannon anticipated. Oh, shit. She was now on the other side of the parking lot, veering dangerously close to a white car parked near the dumpsters. The bike wobbled side to side as if it were about to topple over at any instant. The fact Jess cried out for Jesus to intervene didn’t instill much confidence into Shannon’s heart that this would end with anything but blood on someone’s knee.

  “Shannon, I swear to God!”

  Jess careened into the nearby bushes before Shannon had the chance to catch up and stop her. A shriek echoed loudly enough to send a murder of crows into the air. She had managed to avoid the car, but only by about two inches. Jess had decided it better to smack into the dumpster and catch her landing in the bushes.

  “Jess!” Shannon caught up to her a second later. “Are you okay?”

  “No…” came a muffled moan. “I’m dead.”

  Shannon pulled the bike away before bending next to Jess and helping her sit up. The helmet was lopsided on her head. They both agreed that it would’ve been a great idea to bring some knee and elbow pads, because Jess had definitely scuffed at least one of those.

  “See? You’re okay.” Shannon sat on the concrete divider between the parking lot and the bushes. Jess dragged herself to Shannon’s side and ripped the helmet off her head. “Everyone falls down when they try to learn to ride a bike. Doesn’t matter if they’re six or sixty.”

  “I really hope I can learn how to ride a bike by sixty.”

  “That wasn’t my point.” Shannon patted Jess’s shoulder. That head of light brown hung down as Jess wiped off her face and sighed into the crook of her knees. “Everyone falters when they’re learning to do something. Or, you know…” she sheepishly looked away before she caught a grander view of Jess’s cleavage emerging from her button-up shirt – the top two buttons had come undone in that cycling scuffle. “When you’re coming to terms about something.” Like how Shannon was a fan of cleavage. A fact she hadn’t been willing to accept eight years ago.

  Jess smoothed down her helmet hair. “Coming to terms, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  They sat in silence, Jess rubbing her sore spots and Shannon trying to forget what made her so uncomfortable in that awkward moment. That was a stupid thing to say. She knows exactly what I mean. Shannon couldn’t say what she felt. All she knew was that she wanted to smack her face against the pavement like Jess had crashed into the bushes. I couldn’t come to terms with what we did back in college.

  “Jess?”

  She sat up straight, arms crossed and knees bent. Her sneakers dug into the pavement as if it were quicksand. “Yeah?”

  “I’ve been thinking lately. About what happened.”

  “Not this again.”

  “Sorry, it’s… really heavy on my mind, you know?”

  “Sucks to hear that. Can’t say it’s been as heavy on my mind.”

  You’re lying. Shannon had recognized that look on Jess’s face the first two times they crossed paths again. I remember how you looked when I sat down at your table in the teashop. That look of wonder, of adoration… of instant love.

  She hadn’t seen it lately.

  I know you still want me like that. Shannon propped her elbows up on her knees and stared at the cold, white clouds settling in over Portland for the hundredth time that winter. Or was it spring now? Daylight Savings Time had started, but Shannon couldn’t remember which day was the first of spring. When did we used to have spring break? Did you used to think of me while you were home for spring break, Jess?

  She had thought of Jess, occasionally.

  Many times.

  Frustration, confusion, abandonment… those were the sorts of emotions flooding Shannon’s mind when she used to think of Jess Mills and what her role in life was. I thought you were a test, Jess. Someone sent by the universe to test who I was. She realized now that was a terrible way to think of someone. Jess was a person with as many hopes, fears, and desires as anyone else. She had been in the precarious position of a gay girl in love with someone she never dreamed she could have.

  The reason those thoughts used to keep Shannon up at night – and still did – was because she knew how it felt to be afraid of change.

  “The day after we… you know…”

  Jess heaved a mighty sigh. “Seriously, don’t do this. Please. I’m kinda begging you.”

  Shannon sat back. “Do what? I’m trying to explain…”

  “I don’t need you to explain anything.” Jess stood up, brushing the dirt off her knees. “That was a long time ago, Shan. I try not to live in the past too much.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means… I dunno. It means stop living in the past! I have. You should try it sometime. Really freeing. Makes you forget what epic cunts some people were in your past.”

  That was directed at Shannon, who felt it like a stab to her heart.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home. Thanks for this, I guess, but I didn’t know it would be more trouble than it was worth.”

  “I don’t think it’s…”

  Jess rounded on her, the fury of pain burning behind her eyes. “Don’t, okay? I know you mean well. I think.” She threw her arms down with a huff. “I’m not the same person I was back then. I’m not as eager.”

  “Eager?”

  “Desperate.”

  Shannon cocked her head in confusion.

  “God,” Jess said with a chuckle. “You’re really beautiful, you know that?”

  Shannon was too shocked to beg Jess to stay.

  Chapter 15

  Jess

  “I swear to God,” Jess said, face pressed against the bar, “the world wants me to die by her ha
nd.”

  Amanda shook the ice in her glass. The quiet murmur of a Southwest bar long after happy hour encouraged them to continue their half-drunken conversation of past loves and how they fucked everyone up. “It’s pretty messed up that you went through all of that in college, and now she’s like… randomly here getting all buddy-buddy with you.”

  “That’s the rub, man!” Jess popped up on her stool. “Women like her never want to be your friend, let alone your lover! Their role is to like… fuck you up. Make you realize crazy things about yourself. Give you a good story to tell your friends at the bar a few years later.”

  “Like now?”

  “Yes, duh!” Jess finished the rest of her rum and Coke. “Shannon Parker is the kind of ghost of horny pasts who is supposed to stay a ghost. You know, sometimes I swear I saw her around town. Not really, you know? Just women who kinda reminded me of her. Because you never forget the first woman who fucked you the hell up.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” Amanda wanted to cheer to that, but Jess was in no condition to pick up her empty glass. “Anyway, what do your cards and horoscopes say about her? Don’t tell me you haven’t asked them.”

  “’Course I asked. What do you think I’m asking them every few seconds?”

  “Every few seconds, huh?”

  “The most I can get out of anything is that I need to be cautious and I’ll always be disappointed by everything. Like… duh! Be careful! Disappointment around every corner! Who fucking knew?”

  “It’s almost like that stuff ain’t real, huh?”

  “It’s just supposed to be advice in the end.”

  “Advice for what?”

  “Life.”

  Amanda’s eyes remained on Jess as she ordered another drink. I never drink more than one. I barely finish the one I do get at bars. Jess didn’t abhor alcohol, but she was a super lightweight who honestly could not stand the taste. She wanted more Coke than rum in her drink, for instance. That she was already on her second drink meant Shannon Parker happened. Only a woman of that caliber could send Jess into this sort of tailspin.

  “What happened, exactly?”