“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”
When I was little, I used to stand in front of my dresser and pretend I was the wicked queen from Snow White, addressing my magic mirror. For some reason, I always preferred the villains to the Disney princesses (except Ariel because she’s red-headed and spunky, like me!), and I thought the queen was pretty bad-ass, especially compared to Snow White. The mirror attached to my dresser was even oval-shaped, which made it perfect for a magic mirror. I spent quite a bit of time playing in front of it.
The dresser was part of my mom’s old bedroom set, which became mine once I was old enough for a “big girl bed” and stayed mine until I moved out, at which point my parents bought me new furniture. That old bedroom set is still in their house, in the guest room, and though my old clothes have long since been emptied from it, it still carries the battle scars and “tattoos” acquired throughout its years in my possession. Stickers that I stuck on and couldn’t peel off… bits of spilled nail polish… and several carvings done out of anger and love. In a moment of teenage rage at my mother, I once carved “FUCK YOU” on the back in crude, miniscule writing – I was just angry enough to do it, but not too angry to fear my mother’s reaction if she actually saw it. To this day, I’m not sure she has.
But she surely has seen the carving around the corner, which reads “CAR + JRP.” Decoded, “Claire Aileen Ryan loves Juan Ricardo Perez.” JR Perez was my first “boyfriend,” in seventh grade. We passed love notes to each other in second period, held hands at recess, went to the Spring Fling together, and broke up two weeks later. But in that magical two weeks, I lived and loved enough to last a lifetime.
Just kidding. Actually, we barely spoke to each other. He was shy, and I had a retainer that made me lisp, so we mostly held hands and shared awkward smiles during our half and a month together.
By the time I got my first real boyfriend, I was past the age of feeling the need to carve my emotions into my bedroom furniture, so that dresser holds no lasting remnants of Jamie Turner. But there was a time when its mirror was almost obstructed due to all of the photos I had artfully tucked into its frame. Jamie was in most of them.
I stood in front of that mirror many, many times, giving myself one last once-over before going to meet him, my friend and first true love.
May 3, 1997
It was prom night, and, standing in front of my mirror, I really did feel like a princess. I wasn’t big on dressing up, normally, but here I was, squeezed into a gorgeous gown with layers of light yellow and orange chiffon flowing all over the place. My mom had taken me to get my hair done, and the hairdresser had twisted my usual ponytail into an elegant up-do. She’d used so much hairspray, I knew it would be a bitch to try and take down later, but I wasn’t worried about that now.
Leaning forward over the top of my dresser, I put the final touches on my makeup – one last smudge of eye shadow, a thick coating of mascara, another layer of lip gloss, and just a hint of glitter around my eyes and cheeks. The body glitter belonged to my best friend Dianna, who was obsessed with the stuff. “For prom,” she’d said on Friday, as she’d shoved a small pot of it into my hand. “It’ll look awesome.”
I didn’t normally like to look sparkly, but tonight, it did fit. On impulse, I added some glitter to my shoulders too and smiled at my reflection in the mirror. I looked pretty good. Hopefully Jamie would think so too.
I’d been crushing hard on Jamie Turner all year, but until he had asked me to junior prom, I didn’t think he had a clue. I had tried to keep it subtle; after all, he was my best guy friend, probably my second best friend after Dianna, and I wanted to keep it that way. I liked hanging out with him, even if it wasn’t as girlfriend and boyfriend, and I would kill myself if I messed up and ruined what we had.
Even now, I wasn’t sure where we stood. Had he asked me to prom just as friends, because there was no other girl he liked enough to ask? Or was he interested in me too? I didn’t know, and it was driving me crazy, but I had already decided that all I could do was act normal and go with the flow.
Yet when the doorbell rang, my heart jumped into my throat.
“Claire!” I heard my dad call, seconds before he opened the door. “Hey, Jamie, come on in,” his voice drifted up the hall, into my bedroom.
I couldn’t help but smile. My dad adored Jamie; in the three years since he’d moved to Tampa and become my friend, he had become almost like a second son, filling the void my brother Kyle had left when he’d graduated college and moved out for good. Jamie was always welcome for dinner at our house, and, in return, Dad and I went to most of his soccer games. We also had a running rivalry with Jamie during baseball season, as my family loved any Florida team, and he was a die-hard Cubs fan.
“I’m coming!” I shouted, abandoning the mirror and going to my closet. It was a mess, as usual – I was as much of a packrat then as I am now – and I pushed aside my Marlins cab and a couple pairs of flip-flops to get to the box that held my new prom shoes. They were heels, and I groaned as I stepped into them, knowing my feet would be killing me by the end of the night. I hated wearing high heels. But, for prom, even the most practical of us have to make sacrifices.
Grabbing my handbag off my bed, I walked carefully up the hall, trying hard not to trip in my shoes or step on the hem of my dress. I made it successfully and was met with a barrage of gasps and gushes from my mom and compliments and a big hug from my dad. Then they backed away, and I finally found myself face to face with Jamie.
I’d seen Jamie in nice clothes for choir concerts and church, but I’d never seen him in a tux, and the sight literally made my knees weak. He looked amazingly gorgeous, his dark curls gelled, his blue eyes contrasting brightly with his black tuxedo. I grinned when I saw that he was wearing a pale yellow tie beneath his vest; he had actually listened when I’d told him what color my dress was.
“You look like a peach,” was his greeting to me, as he grinned back. I took it as a compliment, knowing Jamie well enough to know that he rarely gave them straightforwardly. “This is for you,” he added, and behind his back, he conjured up a corsage that matched my dress almost perfectly, with its combination of yellow carnations and peach-colored roses. Dianna had to have helped him pick out that, I thought, but I didn’t ask.
Remembering that my boutonnière for him was still in the fridge, I turned, only to see Mom smile and hold out its box. She thought of everything way before I did. Grinning, I took it and offered it to Jamie. “Your boutonnière.”
“You’re gonna have to help me get that thing on,” he chuckled.
Laughing, I pinned the coral rose to his lapel, and he slipped my corsage onto my wrist. Nearby, the camera flashed, as my mom took pictures of the whole thing. Then it was outside for more pictures, until Dianna and her date arrived in the limo he’d rented for group shots.
Finally, after my mom had gone through a full roll of film, we piled into the limo and left, ready for dinner and dancing and all the magic of our first prom.
As it turned out, the prom itself wasn’t all that magical. But Jamie and I got our picture taken and danced to Celine Dion and Savage Garden, and as the last strains of “Truly Madly Deeply” faded, the real magic began.
“Let’s get some air,” he whispered, leaning close to my ear, and when I nodded in agreement, he took my hand and walked me out of the hotel’s ballroom and into a courtyard that was twinkling with lots of little white lights amid the landscaping. There were a few other prom couples out here, but they were making out peacefully, so no one paid any attention to us.
“Thanks for coming with me tonight,” said Jamie, turning to me, his face sincere.
I smiled, my heart beating fast. “Thanks for asking me,” I replied, though I wanted to say so much more. I wanted to tell him how much it had really meant to have him ask me, that I’d been hoping for this for a year now, that I’d fallen hard for him and hoped he felt the same. The fear of rejection and awkwardness had kept me from saying it all year, but in that moment, maybe because I felt pretty and desirable in my prom dress, I realized I felt bold enough to do it now, and if I didn’t, I might not work up the courage again for a long time. Swallowing, I cleared my dry throat and then added, “I’m really glad you did. I… I wanted to go with you… and not just as friends.”
The moment I said it, I hoped I wouldn’t regret it, and for a second, I almost did. The way Jamie’s eyes flashed, I thought for sure he was going to flip. He got this deer-in-the-headlights look, but just as soon as it had come, it was gone, and suddenly, his face was moving towards mine. Realizing instinctively what he was about to do, I lifted my chin and tipped my head, and when our lips connected, I swear there were fireworks. I swear. Maybe they were just in my mind, but it really was one of those moments, a moment I’d been yearning for for months.
And it was every bit as good as I’d hoped it would be.
Jamie was a good kisser, which wasn’t totally unexpected, because he’d had several girlfriends in the time I’d known him. He was popular in school, the soccer star who also sang in the choir and starred in the musicals, and I was kissing him. I know you’re supposed to kiss with your eyes closed, but I just had to open mine for a moment to make sure it was all for real.
It was.
When the limo dropped me off at home in the early hours of the morning, I was positively giddy. My mom was waiting up for me when I came in, barefoot (I’d ditched the shoes half an hour into the prom), and flopped down next to her on the sofa. We hadn’t been on the best of terms lately, my mom and me, but that night, all our differences were pushed aside, as I gushed all about dancing at the prom and kissing Jamie.
It was really late by the time I made it back into my room, still soaring on this incredible emotional high, and before I attempted to get out of my dress, I stopped by my mirror once again and peered into it. I didn’t look much like a princess anymore; my up-do had flattened, wispy flyaway hairs sticking out all over the place, and my eye makeup was smeared. But there was a sparkle in my eyes that hadn’t been there this afternoon, a sparkle that only Jamie Turner could put there.
Grinning at my flushed reflection, I relived the moment in my head. Our first kiss…
July 22, 1998
Sniffling, I studied my reflection through teary eyes. My blotchy, tearstained face was framed by an oval of photos, stuck in the mirror, photos from graduation, our senior class trip, prom…
He was in all of them, and my eyes were instantly drawn to his grinning face, which just made me cry harder. I wasn’t normally a crier, but just then, I felt like my soul was breaking, like my heart was being ripped right out of my chest cavity.
Dramatic, right? But I was eighteen years old and had just gotten dumped by my first love.
Out of nowhere.
How could he have done this to me?
I thought back to the conversation we’d had on his porch, amazed I could remember any of it because it had seemed like such a blur at the time, such a surreal nightmare. Bits and pieces of his words made it back to my memory.
“… I just think we need to start college with clear heads and nothing to tie us down.”
“You mean no ball and chain girlfriend to spoil your weekends of partying?” I spat. “Are you saying I’m no fun?”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all. I just think it would be easier if we came in with no ties back to home, so that we can meet new people and not constantly be thinking about each other,” Jamie said calmly. His calmness was pissing me off. When I fought with someone, I wanted them to get mad, as mad as I was.
“We could still meet new people! Good god, Jamie, it’s not like my entire existence revolves around YOU.”
But maybe it does, I thought now, staring miserably into the mirror. My eyes scanned the pictures again; he really was in virtually every one, except a couple of Dianna and me being goofy on our girls’ nights out. The last year had been the best of my life because I’d been dating him. For once, everything seemed in place, all my plans made for me. Jamie and I would enjoy our senior year, go to senior prom, graduate, spend an amazing summer together, and then start college in the fall. He was going to Florida State up in Tallahassee for a degree in actuarial science (whatever the hell that was), while I was staying in Tampa to go to UT and try to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. We would be far away from each other, but in my mind, it didn’t matter. We would make it work. We’d visit each other on weekends, whenever we could get away, and we’d still have Thanksgiving and Christmas and spring break and the whole next summer. We’d get through it, and after four years, we’d graduate and get married.
I knew it was a little soon to be thinking of marriage – my dad, even though he liked Jamie, would flip if he knew I was – but I just couldn’t help but feel that Jamie was “the one.” He was my best friend… and that’s the way I wanted it to be. I wanted to marry my best friend. Even though we’d only been dating just over a year, we’d been friends for four, and I felt like I knew him better than anyone.
That’s why the break-up came as such a shock.
“I thought we loved each other!” I screamed at him, as the angry tears started.
“I do love you, Claire, you have to understand that.”
“Well then, what’s the problem?? As long as we love each other and stay true to each other, distance can’t hurt us! What are you so afraid of, Jamie?”
What he was afraid of, I never found out. I thought he should be afraid of losing me, the way I was afraid of losing him and the relationship we had. But he didn’t seem to care at all. He was pushing me away; he wanted to get rid of me and go off to college a free man, able to fool around with any girl he wanted to.
Never mind the fact that he’d lost his virginity to me, and I to him.
I sniffed loudly. What a waste. I’d gone against everything the Catholic Church had taught me about premarital sex… for him? And now the asshole I thought I was going to marry (which made the whole thing okay in my mind) was dumping me.
I wanted to throw something and make the mirror shatter, the way I was shattering inside, but that seemed a little melodramatic, and I knew my mom would kill me for breaking her vanity, so I didn’t. I settled for slamming things around in my room instead, throwing the kind of tantrum I’d used to get what I wanted when I was little. Only this time, all I wanted was Jamie, and he wasn’t even here to cave to my tirade.
So eventually, I gave up and flopped down onto my bed, where I cried hard, cursing his name into my pillow.
February 14, 2001
I’ve never been a big sap about Valentine’s Day. I mean, I’m not one of those bitter girls who wears all black on February fourteenth and insists on a Girls’ Night Out with her friends just so they can spend the evening bitching about men and going “Yeah! Who needs ‘em?”
I’m not like that. Really. I like men. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are huge pricks. But some of them are pretty damn amazing too. I’ve been in love before, twice, and most of the time, it’s a pretty incredible feeling. So I try not to resent happy couples who go all out on Valentine’s Day, cause hey, it’s a nice holiday if you’ve got a good man in your life.
That said, I’m not the kind of girl who wears a bunch of red, lacy shit and demands flowers and mushy cards and teddy bears and chocolate on Valentine’s Day either. Well, maybe the chocolate. But usually I just raid Dianna’s boxes of it, cause she always buys herself some if she doesn’t get any from a guy, and she hates the coconut kind. I’ll eat ‘em, no problem; I’ll pretty much eat anything, even if it’s half bitten into.
See, I’m a pretty easygoing person. I don’t get all into Valentine’s Day, but I don’t loathe it either. It’s just a holiday that comes and goes every year, and I go along with it, and if I happen to have someone special in my life at the time, I get my own box of chocolates out of the deal. I think I have a pretty good attitude about it most years.
But not every year. Some years, when you’ve just gotten out of a serious relationship or when your life just sucks, Valentine’s Day is kind of a downer. It sure was the year after I broke up with Nick… partly cause I had broken up with Nick and partly because I wrecked my car and ended up with a broken arm that night. It also was in 2001. Not because I’d just gotten out of a relationship… hell, I hadn’t had a relationship since high school. That year, it was just because my life sucked.
As I sat alone in my room, I pictured all of my friends in theirs, getting ready for whatever they would be doing that night. Some would be getting all cute for their nice dates with their nice boyfriends. Others would be dancing around to loud music, getting pumped up for a crazy night with their girlfriends. And I would still be here, alone in my room, without the energy to dance or the ability to look cute, separated from it all.
That was how I had felt all year: separated.
It was a big change from last year. Last year, on Valentine’s Day, I’d hung out with my roommate Jenn and some other girls from our dorm floor. We had popped popcorn, ordered pizza, paid a junior to buy us a few six-packs of Smirnoff Ice, and sat around in some girl’s room watching bad movies all night. It was like a junior high sleepover, and it was fun. A lot of college was like that.
But now, things were different. And everywhere I looked, I saw the change.
My bedroom didn’t quite feel like home anymore. My true ‘home’ was my old dorm at school. But I hadn’t seen the inside of that place in months. All of the stuff from my dorm room was crammed in a corner of my bedroom, where it had been collecting dust since last May, except for the pictures and stuffed animals and other stuff I’d put back into place.
The mirror on my vanity, once laden with pictures of my friends from high school, then with my friends from college, now had a mishmash of photos tucked into its frame. All of my closest friends from all years of school were featured there, as well as my family. My parents, my brother, grandparents, cousins, pets… I had gotten nostalgic when I’d first come home from the hospital last summer and put them up, and there they remained. The people who really mattered.
In the middle, I could see my own face, my reflection staring back at me from across the room. And that was where the change was most obvious. My red hair was just starting to grow back; it formed a fine fuzz all over my otherwise bald scalp, like that of an infant. My head looked weird without my hair, and my whole face shape had changed. It was gaunt now. My cheekbones, which had never been that prominent, now showed, and below them, my cheeks were sunken in. I looked anorexic, although I wasn’t. I ate as much as I could, but it was hard sometimes. Chemo had been rough, and I was pretty sure I’d puked more times in the last year than I had in my entire life prior to getting leukemia. I wasn’t throwing up so much anymore, now that I was in remission, but my appetite still hadn’t returned to normal, and neither had my taste buds. Some foods, especially foods with a strong taste (a.k.a. the foods I liked), tasted different, weird, and I couldn’t stomach them anymore. If Dianna had come by and offered me a coconut-filled chocolate then, I probably would have gagged in her face. Without chocolate, I stayed skinny.
Dianna acted like it was a good thing, to have lost so much weight without trying, but I didn’t think so. My old clothes, now a couple of sizes too big, hung on me, and the figure I’d had before was gone. Now I was straight and boney and boyish, and the lack of hair didn’t help me any. I wasn’t as revolting looking as I had been a few months ago, but I sure wouldn’t qualify as “the fairest of them all” either, and the thought of anyone asking me out on a date for Valentine’s Day was laughable. Well, unless it was a pity date. But I hadn’t even gotten an offer for one of those. I hadn’t gotten an offer to do anything with anyone.
Most of my friends had been pretty great right after I got sick. They were really shaken, of course, and a few of them got weird, but my closest friends came around and were there for me. The ones I went to college with would come by the hospital and visit me just about every day, even though they were busy with term papers and finals. And when they went their separate ways for the summer, Dianna came home and hung out with me.
But after summer, when Dianna went back to school and my college friends came back to UT, everything was different. I didn’t go back. I’d agonized over the decision for weeks, but when it came down to it, there was just no way. I was still doing treatments, and the thought of adding a full course load to the mix was just too much. Besides, my parents wanted me at home, where they could smother me. I mean that in the best way possible, but seriously, my mom had never been so overprotective. And she’s a mother hen by nature.
So my closest friends settled into the apartment I’d signed a lease on without me, though they were nice enough to find me a sub-leaser. I went over to hang out with them a few times in the fall, but it was just weird. Awkward. Uncomfortable. You’d think it would be more weird to be lying around in a hospital gown with your friends all around you, but I think the aftermath was even harder. By then, they’d gotten back into the swing of school and crazy apartment life, which I was not a part of, and I got the impression that my presence was kind of a downer for them. I wasn’t supposed to drink, and I didn’t have the stamina to stay up late or do much of anything but sit on the couch, so I guess I was pretty much an official party pooper, though of course they were all too kind to say it.
But as the months went by, we started seeing each other less and less, and by February, with midterms approaching for them and a whole lot of nothing going on with me, they were pretty much non-existent to me. It was nothing personal, and I tried not to have any hard feelings about it; I understood. But at the same time, it was depressing. And so I moped.
I was moping then, that night, on Valentine’s Day, just imagining what they, with their normal lives, were doing. I wished my life could be normal again. It was getting there, but I had a feeling it would never be quite like it was. Cancer had changed me. I knew that even then.
So I was moping on my bed, staring at the reflection of my suffocating bedroom in the mirror, when I heard the doorbell ring. I didn’t bother moving. Years ago, I would have run to the door, expecting a friend or a neighbor, but most of my friends from back then weren’t around to drop by my house anymore, so I doubted it was for me. Through the closed bedroom door, I heard my dad’s heavy footsteps in the hall, as he went to answer it. The front door was pulled open, and my dad’s deep voice, slightly muffled, boomed, “Well, hey there! Haven’t seen you in awhile!”
I didn’t hear the reply, but a moment later, my dad added, “Come on in,” and another set of footsteps joined his. I listened nosily, wondering who it was he hadn’t seen in awhile, and heard them coming up the hall towards my room.
I should have guessed, by the friendly tone of my dad’s voice, who it was, but when he knocked and opened my door a crack, I really wasn’t expecting to see the person he had with him. But a second later, there he was, standing in my doorway, somehow taller and broader then I remembered him, even if it had only been a few months since he’d last visited.
“Claire? You’ve got a visitor,” my dad said, not bothering to ask me if I wanted a visitor, particularly this visitor, and I forced a smile.
“Hey, Jamie.”
Jamie Turner had been in my room once since he’d dumped me. That was last summer, a few days after I’d come home from the hospital, the one and only time he had visited.
I had been glad to see him then. Before the leukemia thing happened, he and I had just started being friends again – you know, talking without a whole lot of awkwardness and bitterness, hanging out without all the sexual tension, just being pals, the way we had been before we’d ever dated. It was nice. I guess a part of me still had feelings for him and missed the deeper relationship we’d once had, but I liked having him as a guy friend too, and I had been happy to patch things up with him. Our relationship finally felt normal again.
But then I had to go and get cancer, and that changed it, just as it had changed every other aspect of my life. Jamie didn’t visit me once while I was in the hospital doing chemo. I think he sent a card… and called me once or twice… a couple of brief, awkward conversations with a lot of pauses and ragged breathing, during which he’d told me how he wanted to come see me but couldn’t – school, intramural soccer practices, and his job were among the excuses he fed me. I bought them at first; after all, he was going to school way up in Tallahassee; it wasn’t as easy for him to get downstate for a weekend visit. But then the semester ended, and he still didn’t come – he’d decided to stay in Tallahassee for the summer and work, he told me; he needed the money. I realized then he was avoiding me, and although Dianna reasoned with me that he was probably just scared by what was happening to me, it stung. It really stung. If it had been him in my place, I would have been up to see him in a heartbeat. I know I would have been.
Of course, maybe I just have a warped perspective because it didn’t happen to him; it happened to me. And like I’ve said, it changes your perspective on everything.
So anyway… after avoiding me for weeks, once I got through the worst and was able to come home, he finally turned up. I thought maybe it was just the hospital that had scared him away, but nope. That one visit proved me wrong. It wasn’t just the hospital; it was me. Me and the disease that was now a part of me. Although he’d never admitted it – because I hadn’t really talked to him since – the visit had freaked him out. I guess it would be kind of upsetting, to see your friend, your one-time girlfriend, bald and gaunt and pale and completely lethargic from leukemia, but seriously, be a man and get over it!! That’s what I had wanted to scream at him for the last few months.
It was what I wanted to scream at him right then, as I sat on my bed staring up at him, not sure how to feel. A part of me really did want to get angry at him, and yet, the pathetic little nostalgic part of me was glad to see him. Isn’t that messed up? Yeah… that’s a problem with Jamie and me. He always does that to me, damn him.
“Hey,” he said back to me, short and quiet. He seemed hesitant. I didn’t blame him. He knew even then how bitchy I can get when I’m mad, and I guess he also sensed that I was mad at him. He had every right to be afraid. Ha.
But I kept my bitchiness in check. I was nice. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I guess that’s what you do with your close friends. You forgive them, even when they piss you off.
“C’mere. Sit,” I invited him in, scooting over and patting a spot for him on my bed. He came, and he sat, and my dad left us alone to talk. I’m sure my dad was hoping we would make up – my dad always liked Jamie, at least until he turned into an asshole.
I liked Jamie until he turned into an asshole. Ugh, but let’s not go there – that one’s for another time.
He wasn’t an asshole then. Even though he had hurt me, I knew that he hadn’t meant to, even before he apologized. And he did apologize.
The thing about Jamie is that he’s very capped off, emotionally. He’s like a two-liter that hasn’t been opened yet, all pent up inside, and he acts real laidback and calm, like he doesn’t care, but as soon as he gets shaken up, the pressure builds, and when you finally get him to open up, he explodes all over the place. Sometimes those explosions involve yelling, but in all honesty, he usually just cries. I know, it’s either really endearing or really pathetic; I’m not sure which. I guess back then I thought it was endearing. Now I’d lean more towards pathetic. Heh.
He cried that night, sitting with me on my bed. He’d brought me flowers, you see, for Valentine’s Day, but also as an apology, and with the apology came the honesty and the tears.
“I know I haven’t been here for you like I should’ve been,” he said, looking at me, his brow all furrowed and tears in his big blue eyes. God, I loved those eyes. They were really blue already, but the tears made them even more so – I hate to say it, but he was gorgeous when he was emotional. “I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave me, but I just have to say I’m sorry. It wasn’t personal; you have to know that. I just… I didn’t know how to handle what was going on with you. I didn’t know what to say, how to act… I know it’s not a good excuse, but I… I was just…”
“Scared?” I offered as he fumbled, using Dianna’s word.
“… Yeah…” he confessed slowly, looking away like he was ashamed. “I guess that’s it. I was scared.”
“So was I,” I replied, and I guess that could be taken as sarcastic and bitchy, but I really didn’t mean it that way. I was trying to be empathetic – of course I knew how he felt, cause I had been scared too. Too bad we couldn’t have shared that then, though. “It’s okay to be scared. It’s totally understandable. I guess I just… I wish we could have been scared together,” I finished, voicing that thought.
“I’m really sorry…” He couldn’t look at me now. “I know I made it seem like I was too busy for you, but really, I thought about you all the time. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And I prayed… I prayed that you would get through this…” He looked up then, hopefully, as if the fact that he’d prayed for me in Tallahassee would make it all okay.
Well, I guess it was a start. “Thanks,” I said. Then, smiling as another thought came to me, I added, “You should have known I would get through it though. If I can get through… I dunno, dinner with your mom… or pre-calc with Ms. Grant… then cancer shouldn’t be that tough to beat.”
I was trying to lighten the mood – it’s an ability I pride myself on – and even though he blanched at the word “cancer,” it seemed to work. He cracked a smile, anyway.
“I dunno, you weren’t so tough watching Scream that time.” He laughed, and I rolled my eyes, remembering the time he’d freaked me out with that stupid movie. Slasher movies freak me out for some reason; I can’t help it.
“Yeah, well, chemo is nothing compared to that movie,” I said sarcastically. He totally went pale. I guess that’s about the point in time when I realized that I had no problem talking about this stuff, but it made everyone else, especially people like Jamie, uncomfortable. I would milk that to mess with people in later years. I was glad to see him squirm; he deserved it.
In the end, I guess I let him off pretty easy. I forgave him. I didn’t trust him completely, as I once had, and it would take several more years before I did again, but he had my friendship, and he let me know that I had his too. He promised me that I could call him anytime I wanted and that he would be there if I ever needed him, and before he left, he kissed me. It wasn’t a romantic kiss, just a friendly one, a sweet and soft one, but it left my lips tingling. I felt like Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed – I hadn’t been kissed in so long. But after he left, I wiped my lips and vowed I would never let myself fall for him and be hurt by him again.
Ha.
I felt better though, about everything, after his visit. At least someone had thought of me on Valentine’s Day. And it was Jamie. And he’d brought me flowers.
I looked to my vanity, where I’d put the vase. A beautiful bouquet of red roses, not just a dozen, but fifteen of them! Apparently, fifteen was the proper number to give when saying you’re sorry. At least that’s what Jamie said. I didn’t know this, and he could have totally been making it up, but I liked thinking he had actually been thoughtful enough to ask a florist. In any case, he had to have spent a fortune on them. (I didn’t feel too bad about that though – after all of his time “working,” he should have had plenty of money to spend on me.)
The mirror reflected the bouquet, making it appear even fuller than its fifteen roses, their petals as red as blood. My face soon joined the reflection, not the fairest of them all, but, sadly, white as snow.
Then again, I guess that does make me the fairest of them all. :)
