want to leave either,” he said, bringing me back down to him on the blanket.
I nestled closer to him and squeezed my eyes shut, tears streaming out of them one by one. Eventually, I stopped pouting, even though I was still upset. So our last night together was spent in a tight embrace under the dark starry night filled with the pain of him leaving, the dread of not seeing him every day and the bleeding of my broken heart.
The first week after he had left for college was absolutely awful, to say the least. I didn’t know it was possible to cry so many tears, but it was and I did.
“Kate, I know your heart is broken, but he’s just two hours away at college, and you’ll see him in a couple of days.”
Aaron left on Sunday and it was only the Wednesday after when my dad finally sat me down to have a good talking with.
“You don’t understand Dad!” Burying my face into my hands, I began to cry again.
“Kathleen Marie!”
Uh oh!
When Dad used my full first name AND middle name that meant I crossed the line.
Looking up, I knew by the irritated look in his eyes that he had it with my over-dramatization, so I wiped my eyes and decided to quit my sniffling around like a baby.
“Why don’t you go wash your face and I’ll take the whole family out to eat.”
“Okay,” I said, getting up from the kitchen table.
As I was walking out of the kitchen, I overheard Dad tell Mom, “I’ll never understand girls. Kellie has been at college for two weeks now, and she hasn’t said one word about missing her.”
Mom’s laughter ran throughout the entire house.
“Aaron!”
Wednesday turned into Thursday, and Thursday FINALLY turned into Friday. I had been sitting on our front porch ever since I had gotten home from school waiting on my Knight in Shining Armor to come and rescue me. When I noticed the white Ford Taurus driving down our street, I jumped up from the front porch and began running towards it. Aaron barely had the car parked and I already had his door opened. He seemed more excited than I was to finally be together again.
“Oh my God, I missed you!” he said as he tightened his embrace around me and whirled me around in a circle.
“I missed you too!” I said.
“I love you so much!” he said in between the nonstop kisses.
“I love you so much too!”
Our weekend together was wonderful, and when he left on Sunday to go back to college, it wasn’t as painful as the weekend before because I knew I would see him soon. Since I was only a junior in high school, Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me spend the weekend at Ohio Northern by myself. The weekends Aaron didn’t come home, Kellie would take me up there to see him. She and I stayed with one of her high school friends, who also went to school there. We would hang out with Aaron and his friends the entire weekend, which was wonderful!
While most kids our age were having sex, Aaron and I were not. Other than the one night when I almost caved into the desperation of him leaving for college, we decided to wait for when we were both completely ready to give ourselves to each other. We kissed a lot, and many times that got pretty heated, but he would always stop before we went too far. Most of my girlfriends were surprised we hadn’t had sex yet, but I didn’t care or let it influence our decision to wait. We knew we would marry one day and be with each other for the rest of our lives, so we felt there was no need to rush into anything.
Soon, before we knew it, the weeks turned into months and the months turned into years and I graduated from high school and was ready to embark on my own college adventure.
It was June 1st and my eighteenth birthday. The weekend was busy with all of my friends’ graduation parties, and Aaron and I had just left Liz’s house.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said with a grin when we were in his car on our way home.
“What is it?” I asked intrigued.
“You’ll see.”
A few minutes later, we were pulling onto his grandparents’ street. My curiosity was getting the best of me as we parked the car and tiptoed to the backyard. We rounded the corner and in front of me was our blanket laid out neatly on the grass with a dozen candles circling it.
“When? How?” I asked, wondering when he would have found the time to come do this considering we were with each other the entire evening.
“I left Liz’s party about ten minutes before I knew we were going to leave to come and set this up.”
“What about Grandma and Grandpa?”
“They take their hearing aids out when they go to bed. They’ll never know we were even here,” he kidded.
Standing in front of me, he brought me to him for a kiss. “Happy birthday.”
“Thank-you,” I said, pulling him even closer inhaling the heavenly scent of his cologne.
Our kiss went on forever and I cherished every second of it. I loved him so much and it was wonderful being with him. I slowly slid my hands down to his pants and started to unzip them. He stopped me.
“Kate, are you sure you are ready for this?”
I nodded my head “yes”.
Taking my hand, we made our way to the blanket where he gently laid me on my back and began kissing my lips first, then my eyes, cheeks, ears and neck.
“I love you so much,” he whispered before softly unbuttoning my shirt. I pulled his shirt up over his head and within seconds our naked bodies were one. He held my hand the entire time and showered me with gentle kisses and many “I love you’s”, and when we were done, we laid wrapped in each other’s arms savoring our first time of becoming one. It was the sweetest, most touching moment of my life.
But now, all of these years later, as I lie here, I wonder how something so sweet and sacred could be the exact thing that he almost did with another woman. Again, tears burned my eyes over the thought of him sleeping with Angie. Just thinking about it made me feel very disgusted with myself. I couldn’t get into the shower quick enough. Turning the water on as hot as it would get, I scrubbed my entire body as if it had been invaded.
With my hair soaking wet and the towel wrapped around me, I went to the medicine cabinet to take some sleeping pills. For just a split second, I had an urge to take the entire bottle, but I quickly snapped myself out of it and forgot about such an absurd idea.
Chapter 4
The next morning, I awoke to Aaron sitting on the edge of our bed staring at me. My night was restless and I knew by his red, swollen eyes that he hadn’t slept much either. Before he could utter a word, I darted into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Leaning on it, I slid to the floor and buried my face into my hands. The thought of being moments away from hearing about what he “almost” did with Angie pushed me over the edge
