Chapter 9
Jess
Jess saved the alcohol for home, when she could grab a bottle of rum and sit in the dark of her studio apartment.
She lived in a quiet Southwest neighborhood, where the rent wasn’t too bad and noise pollution was a minimum at night. The views weren’t great, but who had the time to stare out windows when it was always raining, and she had somewhere to go? The night obscured the surrounding trees. If Jess were lucky, she could see the lights of other apartments shining through the mist.
She lay her head on her only windowsill and thought of Shannon.
Just because she had moved on, didn’t mean the memories didn’t still plague her. Shannon had been such a huge part of her college experience, after all. They may have only bumped into each other a few dozen times over three years, but they were some of the biggest memories Jess had. Most of the decisions she made in college were because of Shannon.Shewas the reason Jess became so outgoing, so desperate to meet new people. The off-chance they would bump into each other somewhere, work on a project together or heaven forbid,go out,was too desirous to ignore.
Jess had loved her. As much as a woman admiring someone else from the distance could love them, anyway. That didn’t magically go away. It faded. It lost significance. But it didn’tgo away.
She had been an idiot to think anything would have come from that night besides utter frustration. Shannon played her usual games of will she or won’t she. She alluded to things that Jess had firmly put behind her and had no intention of indulging ever again.Do you know how many years it took me to stop thinking about you every single day, Shannon Parker? At least four years.Another four for good measure.
“Fuck it.” Jess splayed across her bed. Had that woman almost asked her back to her place? Why? So she could fuck around with her some more? She had asked Jess if she had a girlfriend! Was this a terrible replay of college all over again? Perhaps some women really did continue playing those games their whole lives. Shannon seemed the type to have peaked in college. Old habits really died hard with those types.
She couldn’t stop thinking about that long-ago night. When Shannon invited her up to her room.
Even before that, though, there was the moment Jess first realized that loving Shannon Parker was a useless, heartbreaking endeavor. It was that memory that caressed her brain as she slowly drank herself to sleep, wondering why she had turned a woman’s invitation down after going without the female touch for way too long.
***
Memory #9
My housing situation at the start of senior year was a fucking disgrace. Housing had lost my application when I was abroad, which meant I missed every lottery and got stuck in a freshman triple with two whiny ass fuckheads who were away from home for the first time. After showing Housing the email they originally sent me confirming that they had received my application for the lottery, they promised that I would be moved to the top of the wait list. All I had to do was wait for someone to leave a single room or one of the apartments. A wait much too long.
I returned to school a week early, before the place teemed with teens and others returning right before Labor Day. The campus was eerily quiet. Peaceful at that time of year. I was already considering staying in that town past graduation, or at least seeing if I could get a job around there. It wasn’t a terrible place to live.
My temporary accommodations were across from the student union. I often went there and sat by the fountain to read or write in my journal. I had to admit, that after a few months of not seeing a glimpse of Shannon, I was ready for a fresh start. Sunshine and a quiet campus gives you that impression.
I saw her that day. She stood on the other side of the fountain, talking to someone on her phone while puffing on a cigarette. I still remember how scandalized I was when I first found out she smoked. I had caught her a year ago on my way out of the student union. We sat on a bench, chatting, her cigarette smoke blowing right in my face. I have a smoke allergy. I put up with the itchy eyes and running nose because I was that desperate to be in her presence.
That day at the beginning of senior year, she acted as if I didn’t exist.
She didn’t wave at me. Didn’t say hello. No smile of acknowledgment. I didn’t expect a lot. She was on the phone, after all, but at least a little nod of appreciation would have been nice. We hadn’t seen each other in so long. I hadn’t forgotten the tone of her voice or a single curve of her face. The shade of her captivating hair was as poisonous as it had been that bright day sophomore year, when I first beheld her beauty and wondered what it would be like to be her girlfriend.
Even though she didn’t speak to me, I still yearned for her. She could’ve called me a bitch to my face, and I’d follow her off the edge of the earth.
Why? Why did she do that to me? What about her made me snap my head around that day and want to cry?
I know now. We all have that woman who utterly destroyed us. The one who awakened us. The one we’ve compared every woman since to. The one who would never reciprocate the extreme emotions we felt, the insane rushes of lust that society warned us about. Shannon Parker was mine. I had long accepted I would never be that woman to someone else, because the stars had decided that before I was born.
She hung up and sat on the edge of the fountain. She still didn’t look at me, but I rehearsed things to say to her. We had both come back from study abroad. I wanted to hear all about Belgium. I wanted to know about the people she met, the food she ate, what had made her laugh, if she had ever felt so homesick that she swallowed her feelings and kicked through another day… I wanted to hear those things that made her human and fascinating.
I wanted to tell her about myself. She knew my name, but did she knowme?Did she know how much I could offer her? I wanted to write songs about her laugh. I wanted to write a whole memoir about what her eyes did to me. I wanted to keyboard smash journal entries about how much life a single glance from her gave me.
For some reason, the universe had made her sit next to me. For some reason, I knew it was useless to say anything.
After she finished her cigarette, she stood up and approached the nearby parking lot. A black convertible pulled up, driven by an older man wearing sunglasses and spitting gum onto the pavement. Shannon opened the passenger side door and hopped in. The convertible sped away the moment she reached over and kissed him on the cheek.
I wanted to throw up.
You know how it is. You love a girl. The girl doesn’t know you. You don’t know why you love the girl. All you know is thatshe’s the one,and you’ll never meet someone who does this to you ever again.
The girl is straight. All the girls are straight.
You spend all of college wondering why you’re the only lesbian you know. You wonder what it would be like to cuddle with a girl on the couch in the student café. You wonder what it would be like to have a cute girl stop by your room to offer you a kiss. You wonder why your friends have so much relationship drama at their fingertips, and you’re the one manufacturing a nowhere romance between you and some girl who won’t remember you the day after graduation.
