Chasing Normal

Chapter 1

PEOPLE SAY, IT’LL GET easier. It’s going to hurt less. Just give it time.

I say, Fuck That.

If I hold a burning hot poker to my tongue, it’s going to hurt, a lot. Even after I take it off, it will still hurt for a very, very long time.

After the injury is dressed and scabbed and eventually healed, an ugly, thick scar will impair my speech.

I will feel it forever and it will affect how the world hears my voice.

Well-meaning friends, parents, bloggers and therapists insist I will heal, my heart will mend. I say, OK, but silently, I curse their misplaced optimism. When the gush of tears and figurative bleeding stop, when I can eat again, the wound in my soul may close. But I will never be the same.

I will feel this forever and it will affect how the world hears my voice.

I don’t wish to wallow. I probably will though. At the end of the day, I’ll lie down and try to ignore the room around me. Forget I am alone in the bed where we conceived our son. Forget I am inhaling dust particles likely made up of his dry skin. Forget I am staring at framed black and white photos of bridges I hate but he liked so I put them on the wall. Forget I am fighting off the impulse to open his nearly empty closet, sit on the floor and hug his dry cleaning bag as hard as I can. I want to wake up from this nightmare.

Gloria Gaynor was wrong. I will not survive this. Not intact anyway. Not without pieces of myself strewn, compromised and forgotten.

Chapter 2

WOULD IT BE CRAZY if I went all 1980s rock star and trashed my bedroom? I mean, if I just really broke some shit? My sister gently says, Stop moping around the house, when what she really means is Quit drinking so much or you’ll become a big mess of an alcoholic.

My friend says I should do whatever I want since I’ve become an unwilling divorcee. She says I can take three months to be a drunk, moping smoker.

But I have a son. He needs me.

I’ve read books and seen movies about single mothers who are lauded for being strong for their children. I always thought, well yeah, you have to be strong for your children in the face of any tragedy. Of course you’d forget about your own problems and be a fantastic mother. No matter what. And I am a great mother. I love being his mom more than I love my own life. More than anyone has ever loved anything.

Ever.

Yet, I am discovering, little by little, that forcing a smile for him is exhausting. Playing hide and seek makes me want to vomit, then take a nap. When I hear him wake in the morning, I don’t rush in to his room right away. The tiny face beaming at me is identical to his father’s. His face lights up when I walk in. It wants to be close to me and his innocent little heart truly loves me.

But I lie in my bed, listening to the baby monitor babble with his irresistible chatters and squeals. I dread going to him. I don’t want him to see me cry. Or sob. Or choke back tears, forcing myself to say, Good morning, when I really want to scream, Your fucking father is an immature, selfish prick who proudly admits that his needs are more important than yours! Want some Cheerios?

So to all those single mothers who were strong for their children, never had a breakdown in front of them and avoided talking smack about a jackass father: I am sincerely sorry I was flippant about your resolve. I assumed being a rock for your kid would be second nature.

It’s hard. It’s lonely. Most of all, it compounds this overwhelming feeling of failure.

So, it sounds appealing, but trashing my bedroom would make hide-and-seek even harder. I may feel volatile, but not to the extent of a coked-out lead singer who doesn’t have to worry about jagged edges scraping tender baby knees.

I did break a glass on purpose, so I suppose that counts. I think my mom cleaned it up. I broke it in the sink because, despite towering rage and swirling confusion and crushing rejection, broken glass all over the floor is never good.

Chapter 3

BRAD IS HANDSOME BY anyone’s standards. He’s just under six feet tall and smells wonderful. Even when he vigorously exercises, he doesn’t sweat much. He can also wear the same pair of socks for two days because his feet do not emit odor of any kind.

He has an appropriate amount of body hair, not a werewolf, not a hairless cat. He has knobby knees and dry elbows.

Brad knows how to dress. He owns more than fifty button-up shirts and twenty argyle sweaters. He replenishes his wardrobe whenever there’s a test of the emergency broadcast system.

Brad enjoys wine, filet mignon, beer, pizza, poker, running, Olympic figure skating, Beethoven and fast cars. He also drinks too much and chews Skoal Mint Tobacco.

He was raised in a nuclear family, the youngest of several older brothers. Everyone was seriously Catholic and got a seriously Catholic education. It was a blue-collar household where money was often tight and kids suffered from asthma while parents lit up cigarette after cigarette.

His childhood was superficially normal. So he wasn’t the victim of anything too traumatizing or abusive. In other words, a typical Midwestern upbringing.

I don’t really know where Brad went wrong. Somewhere between tee ball and bad sweaters and Space Camp and massive glasses, Brad turned into a real asshole. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first time I saw Brad, the Earth shook. I am not being dramatic. It shook and tilted the wrong way.

He’d had a car accident on the road near my childhood home. Traffic crawled, so driving by, I was able to survey the aftermath of a Suburban-meets-station-wagon debacle. Brad was unhurt, so he sat on a patch of grass on the side of the road while a gaggle of cops assessed the damage.

Not much happened in our hometown, other than a stop on the PGA Tour each July. Therefore a car accident with no injuries warranted every available emergency responder.

I was a passenger in my grandmother’s Cadillac. Being just as curious as the next passerby, I rubbernecked. We locked eyes.

A prolonged gaze was inevitable because we were moving so slowly, but also because I was stunned.

I cannot explain exactly what I saw. It’s like when alien abductees lose all recollection of alleged ass-probing events after being blinded by blaring spotlights attached to the UFO’s landing gear. I looked at him and something happened.

No, I did not psychically predict I was going to marry that guy and have his baby. Something in his eyes grabbed me though. It was like an intense, radiant heat emanated from his being and addressed my brain.

My mouth hung open, stupidly. My eyebrows dipped intently over analytical eyes. Who was this guy and why did I care? Stop staring!

I forced myself to look away, but I was speechless, thoughtless and gob smacked. When I could cohere again, a color guard team marched through my mind, wildly waving fiery red flags. They unanimously chanted, There’s something weird about that guy!

Did I mention I was on my way to cheerleading practice? I was fifteen years old.

Scoffing? I would be, if it weren’t me.

Remember that part in The Godfather when Michael sees Appalonia on the road in Corleone? His bodyguard snickers and indicates that his boss has been hit by the thunderbolt.

Yeah, it was kind of like that. I couldn’t get him out of my head. I had had boyfriends here and there, but it was Brad I wanted. I made it my mission to at least talk to him.

Brad was a year older than me, a sophomore at my high school. By casually asking around, I learned that he was on the ski team and we even shared some mutual friends.

While traversing the hallways between classes, I scanned the crowd for his face. Occasionally I’d spot him, and that deafening, dizzying thunderbolt struck me again and again. Finally, I got an introduction. Through pure coincidence, I started dating Mike, who I quickly learned was Brad’s best friend. This afforded me the maddening, yet thrilling opportunity for us to become better acquainted.

Turns out, Brad was cocky to the core. Ruddy cheeks framed a sharp nose poised above a hot-shot smirk. Wide, aqua eyes swam with intellect and arrogance. One eyebrow was always raised to a pompous, patronizing arch. He was skinny and leggy in a high school boy kind of way. Athletic, not beefy.

Famous for his battleship mouth/rowboat ass, Brad was the kind of guy who always knew what to say to shut someone up. He was loud, hilariously judgmental and magnetic as hell.

I was hooked.

****

My own back story differed starkly from Brad’s. Much to the dismay of my ultra-Baptist grandparents, I was born when my mother was fifteen-years-old. She wasn’t a slut, though. Just a clueless kid whose parents refused to discuss sex. Mom played the flute in the high school band and her boyfriend was a drummer.

Terrified, she hid her pregnancy for several months. When her slender, teenaged figure swelled with weight gain, my grandmother figured out the heartbreaking secret.

After I arrived, my mom and I lived together in her childhood bedroom. She finished high school on time and her drumming boyfriend unceremoniously exited our lives.

Then she got married. Then I got a half-brother. Then she got divorced. Then she got married again. Then I got three more half-siblings.

Through all of this change, I never once felt normal. I loved my mother and my siblings. My stepfather was a gracious, patient, sweet man. So if I’d really tried, I could have probably convinced myself that the situation was a good enough version of normal.

But I couldn’t.

If I ever decided to have children, I wanted to live in the same house with their father. I wanted us all to have the same last name. I wanted all of those children to look alike and to call my husband and me, Dad and Mom.

To quell my longing for conformity, I left the chaos of my mom’s kid-flanked house when I was in high school. I moved in with my grandparents and tacitly became their youngest child. We all had the same last name. It worked.

****

By the time I entered college, Brad and I had become good buddies … who may or may not have drunkenly made out once or twice. Also, my poor high school boyfriend Mike had developed a prescription drug habit. Though we occasionally hung out or hooked up, Mike and I were essentially over and I was pseudo-single.

Brad was fresh off a breakup from some Amazon who wore a lot of baseball caps and did a mean "Ride That Donkey" dance (bouncing up and down to the beat of 1990s hip-hop, smacking her own ass whilst straddling an imaginary beast of burden).

My first semester of college was a mess. I was too immature to be away from home, unsupervised and unstructured. I failed every class and maybe showed up to said classes a combined five times. Michigan State University was only about forty-five minutes from my hometown, so I retreated nearly every weekend. Believing my excuses about overwhelming laundry and homework, my mother picked me up in East Lansing on Fridays, drove me home and dutifully dropped me back off at my dorm on Sunday nights.

These trips home were good and bad … mostly bad. Good because I was able to relax and sleep in my own bed. Plus, less time at school meant less opportunity to contract mononucleosis. Bad because I never gave myself the opportunity to bond with my life away at college. Home was still home. High school friends who’d stayed in town for higher education, or eschewed it altogether, were there waiting for me. I met very few new people at Michigan State. I spent weekdays pining for the familiarity and comfort my hometown chums provided every weekend.

One of those hometown chums was Brad.

My mother picked me up on a Friday in mid-November and took me home. Some girls I knew were having a party. Three sisters whose parents were in the midst of a divorce almost always had the house to themselves. Their mom had moved out. Their dad drank his way around town and dated inappropriately younger women.

They lived on a cul de sac, which was jammed with vehicles on this particular Friday. Speakers blared and kids aged sixteen to twenty-two streamed across the front and back yards. There was no furniture left in the small, ranch-style house, so the family room had become a dance floor and the kitchen, a joint rolling station.

I stepped through the door, greeted with cigarette smoke and the occasional sweet waft of pot. Music was cranked to a riotous decibel and gyrating dancers sloshed beer on the white Berber. Montell Jordan nasally explained:

This is how we do it …

Scooting through bumpers and grinders, I made my way to the kitchen in search of booze. My stomach lurched when my eyes fell upon the spindly guy operating the beer keg.

Hey, hey! Glad to see you could make it!

Brad.

In favor of leaving home to attend college, Brad lived with his parents. He’d become a business major at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus. It was a small, commuter location located about an hour north of the real U of M.

Hi, I managed.

My heart thudded. I was sure he could hear it slamming against my chest. If not, he definitely saw my cheeks go crimson with lust and embarrassment.

I couldn’t say anything else. No feisty greeting or flirty joke. Nothing. A dry throat and lopsided tongue muted my typical sass. Brad wore jeans and a plaid button-up shirt that hung loose and untucked around his broad frame. Wiry as he was, his shoulders were powerful, wide and imposing. Sexy. A white baseball cap sat backwards on his head.

Waving a blue, plastic cup in front of me, he laughed, Hellooo? Do you want a beer? Are you still with us?

Did I seriously just zone out in the middle of a thundering house party, in front of Brad? Humiliating.

Yeah, oh yeah. Sorry. Yes, a beer. Thanks.

Ohhhh-kaaay, his big shoulders shrugged as he chortled at my disorientation.

By then the music had changed and Notorious B.I.G. was issuing his warning that more money resulted in more problems.

I didn’t want to hover, but I didn’t want to leave this kitchen either. If Brad had any idea why I was loitering, he didn’t let on. My body leaned casually, elbows on the counter. I drained my beer and did my best impression of nonchalance.

When the beer line died down, Brad turned to me, shifting his weight to his right leg. He’d incurred a severe knee injury while skiing two years prior. Although it had been repaired, recurring pain left him with an asymmetrical stance.

So, back in town again this weekend, his tone was characteristically mocking.

Yes, I had a lot of laundry, I raised my brows and responded, hoping his penetrating, aqua eyes wouldn’t detect my exaggeration.

Don’t they have washing machines in the dorms?

They’re expensive! I have, like, five loads to do and I hate being stuck in the scary dorm laundry room, I protested.

Here’s a little tip: do your laundry before it piles up to the ceiling and you won’t have so much.

Brad had a way of making a person feel very small and inadequate under the guise of good-natured sarcasm. I knew then that, messy and lazy would forever characterize me in his mind. With Brad, if you did something one time, you always did it, whether the designation was accurate or not.

Thank you, Brad, I nodded, cocking my head in defiance. I wasn’t aware of how laundry worked, so I am really glad I bumped into you tonight.

Sarcastic banter, I knew he loved it. A mental sparring match. Foreplay.

We went on like that for an hour. Beer after beer disappeared from our blue cups. His laugh became easier, my vision less clear. We were getting wasted, but before I lost the ability to foresee consequences, I noted he’d been standing exclusively with me. The rest of the party didn’t seem to matter to him. He’d abandoned his keg pumping duties. His gaze, his jokes, his flirting, his body language; all for me.

Hey, this beer sucks. You wanna go to my house? We can make mixed drinks there.

What about your parents?

Ha! He brashly waved my question away. My mom is on some shopping trip with her friends. She’s gone all weekend. My dad goes to bed at nine and sleeps like the dead. He won’t even know anyone is there.

So haughty, yet so enticing.

I let him lead me through the haze of capering bodies, into the chilly night and to his car. We still operated under the transparent delusion that we were just friends.

Sure, we’d gotten drunk and kissed a few times in high school, but we’d always dismissed it. Ignoring the sexual tension seemed like the right thing to do since Brad was still sort of friendly with my ex-boyfriend Mike. It was tacit. We both understood.

We pulled into his parents’ driveway, just a few streets away from the party. Quietly giggling, we crept through house and began digging through the liquor cupboard. I settled for a Bacardi and Coke and he stirred up a vodka concoction. Seated on the floor, we drank and talked for a full hour. We were drunker. My hand trailed slowly over impeccably maintained, lime green carpet. I’d later learn his mother was relentless in the art of carpet maintenance. With each sip of booze, the space between our bodies diminished. The conversation grew softer in tone, teasingly lurid.

When Brad leaned toward me, I was unprepared. Physically, I was seated at the wrong angle to receive a kiss. Mentally, I was completely hammered. Was this really happening? Additionally, I was concerned that I’d seize up at the slightest brush of his Cupid bow lips.

My body twisted quickly and our faces met, lips grazing lightly at first, then harder, one mouth forcing the other open eagerly. I panted audibly when his lips moved to the hollow of my throat. My head was reeling with alcohol, but I knew I wanted this. I allowed him to pull my inebriated body close, so our chests converged. His pounding heart betrayed his usual composure. The realization that my longing for Brad hadn’t been one sided clinched my decision. Following on tip-toe, I entered his bedroom.

In seconds, my sweater was on the floor. He clicked the door closed, careful not to make too much noise, then looked at me with confusion.

What?

Amused, he simpered and touched my burning skin. His graceful fingers traced my shoulders, the curve of my waist, my cleavage. I shivered when he circled behind me, gently swept my hair aside and lowered his moistened lips to my neck.

Losing myself in this sensual moment was deliriously easy until I caught my image in a full-length mirror propped in the corner.

I was wearing a fucking grandma bra. No wonder he was smirking at me.

God, why didn’t I wear something lacy and purple? Oh right, because this time, I actually did bring home five loads of dirty laundry and my sexiest underthings were wadded up in a basket across town!

In a silent frenzy, I cursed my failure to anticipate a possible shirtless interlude. How could I have known an innocent keg party would lead me here? But if I thought this beige, Lycra monstrosity would destroy the moment, I was very wrong. I felt Brad’s hands glide up my back, under the wide, four-hooked bra strap. Off it came in on quick pop. And, just like that, the object of my humiliation gave way to exposed breasts.

Somehow, his shirt had come off too, likely while I was preoccupied with my octogenarian lingerie, and his bare chest pressed into my back. A resolute grip on either shoulder whirled me around. Nervous energy bolted through my chest and I couldn’t force myself to meet his eyes. I was too scared to look head on at my friend turned scorching hot sex machine. Sure, over the years I’d found Brad magnetic. But this unauthorized interlude divulged a sultry, fervent Brad.

This compelled me to swoon. Yes, swoon, like some overheated Southern belle. Weak, rubbery knees, ears deafened by rushing blood and heaving breath … yep, I was swooning, both yearning and terrified to sustain the force of his gaze.

Lamps were extinguished and pants were removed. Just before the deal was sealed, I breathily inquired, Do you have a condom?

Aren’t you on the pill?

Well, yeah, but neither of us are exactly virgins. Shouldn’t we use something?

I was with the same girlfriend for almost a year. She and I are totally clean. We’ll be fine.

Of course I knew this was the 1990s, not the 1960s. I could have ended up with any number of sexually transmitted diseases. But, as idiotic as it sounds, his cogently pathetic argument was enough for me.

The sex was wonderful. What went on in that bed, that night, made the common fireworks analogy look like a wet campfire. Considering my meager experience, it was more than I’d ever expected from a casual hook-up. Hey, I was a kid, I didn’t know any better. Sleeping with him was like doing it with a Zeus/Incubus hybrid.

Keep in mind, I was only eighteen.

In spite of his virility, it was over far too quickly. I would have holed up with him in that tiny bedroom all night, shrouding my naked body in his JCPenney bedspread, performing the filthiest kinds of kink and deviance.

But it was not to be.

The lamp switched back on, bathing both our compromised bodies in soft incandescence. Brad had seen me in a bikini, but never nude. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I slouched, hoping to conceal any flaws. He approached me, his replaced boxers at my eye level.

You know, you look really … cute naked.

Um … thanks.

Cute? I could handle cute. Hot would have been better. Beautiful was probably unrealistic.

We finished dressing. He drove me home at three in the morning. When we pulled up to my house and stopped, I shyly turned to him. If we’d been a traditional couple, he would have kissed me goodnight. This was complicated though. We weren’t dating. We weren’t a couple. We were horny fugitives. Tonight’s romp had to stay a secret, lest we be branded assholes by our entire group of friends.

Over the duration of my relationship with Mike, I’d come to be friendly with all his buddies. Not just Brad. And in this group, it was just one of those things you didn’t do: you didn’t date your ex-boyfriend’s best friend. What’s more, you certainly didn’t fuck him.

As for Brad, he was breaking a rule to which most upstanding guys adhered: don’t fuck your best friend’s ex-girlfriend.

Ergo, we were assholes.

How does one handle a situation such as this, at such an immature age? Years of intense attraction had finally culminated with us committing the ultimate act of betrayal. I slept with Mike’s childhood best friend. He slept with his childhood best friend’s ex. It was just sneaky and wrong.

From tinny speakers, Lauryn Hill’s melancholy resonance filled the car.

Strummin’ my pain with his fingers, singin’ my life with his words, killing me softly with his song, killing me softly with his song …

Her voice reminded me of browning bread; warm and soft. The lyrics seemed weirdly appropriate.

I swallowed hard and leaned into Brad. The kiss wasn’t passionate. It was nervous. We were terrified of what our libidos had just done. The ramifications would be socially damning.

The kiss ended abruptly. Brad looked at me.

OK, well, I guess I’ll see you later, then?

Without intention, exasperated laughter burst from my lips.

Jesus Christ! What are we going to do?

Let’s just play it cool for a while. Still friends, right?

Shaking my head, eyes closed to this chaos, I agreed with a head-jerking sniffle.

Yes, still friends.

I didn’t sleep that night. I flopped around on my grandparents’ green leather couch and stared through the flickering television. The evening’s events were on a perpetual loop, branding my brain with their naughty deliciousness.

I was shaky and manic, consumed with possible implications. Frankly though, I realized I didn’t actually feel guilty about the act itself. I understood why he did. He was the guy. He was supposed to be loyal to Mike. I understood why I should have. In the pantheon of social norms, fucking your ex’s friends was just not cool … and kind of slutty.

Trying to feel bad about it didn’t work though. Any shameful minutia that might have danced around my loins disintegrated each time I visualized Brad’s angular frame moving rhythmically in the dark.

Chapter 4

WEEKS PASSED. I WAS back at Michigan State, for a longer stint this time. Brad and I had discussed the sex and decided it was best if we just chalked it up to years of curiosity realized.

Common sense begged me to stop dreaming about long-term possibilities. It was a fluke, one-time slip up. I was moderately successful in pushing him to a remote area of my brain, but he surfaced here and there, mostly when I went out to a frat party, swilled too much keg beer and drunk dialed him at two in the morning.

Brad was good-natured about it. When I sobered up, I’d send an apologetic email. He’d respond, telling me it was fine, not to worry about it. He was big brotherly, patiently condescending. I could almost hear him saying, "Awwww, how cute. I feel so bad for her." I put forth a sizable effort to stop making a complete ass of myself, quit throwing myself at him. Clearly he wasn’t interested.

Or was he?

Left to my own mental dichotomies, I became convinced that he must like me if he was willing to potentially sacrifice a long-lived, but dwindling, friendship with Mike for sex with me. His reputation as an upstanding friend to anyone was at risk and this, to Brad, was paramount. He was all about image, particularly his own. Considering what I knew of his personality and what had taken place between us, it stood to reason he must simply be denying his true feelings for the sake of his friendship with Mike.

Round and round this carousel twirled behind my eyelids. Months passed. The holidays came and went. Despite dismal grades and academic probation, I returned to Michigan State for my second semester. Having only seen Brad a few times over holiday break, I ached for him. I’d heard he was dating, partying, living his life.

I resolved to forget about it and live mine too.

I did an OK job until Christy died.

Christy was the girl everyone knew and loved. When people say something cliche like, she has a heart of gold, they are talking about this specific human being. She wasn’t popular in the traditional, exclusive sense. She didn’t wear designer clothes or treat nerdy kids like shit to garner an arm’s length following. She didn’t terrorize the high school as the leader of an expensive-car-driving, bitchy-girl gang. She didn’t boost her own ego by employing an arsenal of dirty looks and demeaning insults.

Christy was popular because she was genuine. People flocked to her bubbly demeanor, her enthusiastic, between-class greetings in the hallways. She spoke to everyone, smiled at everyone and laughed with everyone. She was sweetly self-deprecating, disarming anyone from the dorkiest dork to the snobbiest bitch to the sweatiest jock with her comfortable aura.

Christy was universally adored.

She and I were on the cheerleading squad together. The head coach was all business, no fun, no compliments. She was a drill sergeant, barking out, Straighten those arms! Yell from your diaphragm, not your throat! You people look like crap! Scary woman. I couldn’t look at her sideways without a dribble of pee threatening to leak out.

At one cheerleading practice, Coach Evil Bitch was in an especially rotten mood. Everyone was on edge. Would we do push-ups? Run until we puked? No one knew.

We were lined up in the practice room, preparing to produce our half-time cheer for the tenth time. We stood still, silent and breathless, waiting for Coach E.B. to give the go ahead. She looked extra evil that day. Her mouth turned down sharply and the crease between her eyes was a gulch of disdain.

What happened next was like some weird, foggy, slow-motion dream. Christy broke rank. With her petite shoulders back and arms swinging casually, Christy approached the coach. She stood in front of her, eye to eye. She showed no fear. The rest of us cowered. What in the hell was Christy doing?

Coach E.B.’s eyes were slits behind frameless glasses. Christy’s little fists came up to her ears. Her thumbs popped out like a hitchhiker trying to catch two rides. She started dancing, pointing her thumbs in opposite directions, making half circles with her arms and swiveling her muscular legs around like twisty wet noodles. Then came the singing, the best goofball impression of Tom Petty a sixteen-year-old could muster.

Oh, my, my, oh hell yes. Honey put on that party dress. Buy me a drink, sing me a song. Take me as I come ‘cause I can’t stay long!

Did Christy just blurt out Last Dance with Mary Jane to Coach E.B.? That song was about pot!

Then, as randomly as it started, it stopped. No one breathed. We were doomed, waiting at the gallows for execution. Huddled in a quaking mass of red and black sweaters and pleated skirts, we gawked in fear.

Christy simply stood there, smiling, wide, with all her teeth, unwavering.

Our coach completely lost it. Doubled over, the woman was snorting and choking on her own hysterical laughter. Off came her glasses when the tears rolled down her face. Mascara smudged, cheeks flushed, she was out of control. It took her nearly five minutes to recover composure.

Christy was a hero. When she finally returned to our cheer formation, we slapped her on the back and said, Way to go! We marveled at the nerve that performance must have required and envied our friend’s astonishing ability to pair congeniality with down-to-earth humor.

Coach toned it down after that and our lives were easier. No more push-ups. No more running until we were sick. She actually smiled more frequently and threw a few compliments our way from time to time.

Formerly grueling practices became enjoyable. Fun. All because of Christy.

After high school, Christy went on to major in journalism. In her sophomore year of college, she contracted bacterial meningitis and died. It was the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard of in my entire life.

She died during the second semester of my ill-fated freshman year. Her funeral drew throngs of friends, high school teachers, people who barely knew her but were familiar with her goodness. I sat in the back of the jammed Catholic church, too dazed to cry. When the funeral mass started, I watched as her mother faltered toward the casket, wailing, crying, No, over and over. Her other children surrounded her, holding her up. Christy’s father wasn’t crying. He looked more like he wanted to punch the crucified statue of Jesus in its face.

The whole thing was horrific and unfair and totally confusing. The grief they must have felt. The rage.

Watching this surreal funeral and the family’s overwhelming loss, I selfishly thought about how badly I needed a drink and a cigarette. After mass ended, I rode with a group of fellow mourners to a restaurant nearby. About twenty funeral-goers chain smoked and tearfully reminisced about Christy, her beautiful heart and her hilarious antics.

A waiter took pity, realizing we’d just come from something pretty awful, and served everyone booze without checking ID. I was polishing off my third Captain Morgan and Diet Coke when Brad walked in. It had been a while. He was in a suit. He was with a girl.

The table was already overpopulated, so I didn’t expect Brad to squeeze in next to me. He and his funeral date pulled up chairs at the other end. No eye contact.

Don’t worry, they’re just friends, a low voice told the side of my head. I jumped.

Rachel, a well-meaning gossip, gave me a knowing wink.

Who? What are you talking about?

Play dumb, I told myself. Whatever she says, deny it. I had only told a couple of people about Brad’s and my illicit sex, people I trusted.

"Oh, please. Everyone saw you guys leave that party together a few months ago. You were holding hands. We were all