1999 Revisited.
“This is our last goodbye. I hate to feel the love between us die, but it's over.
Just hear this and then I'll go. You gave me more to live for;
More than you'll ever know…
This is our last embrace. Must I dream and always see your face?
Why can't we overcome this wall? Baby, maybe it's just because
I didn't know you at all…
Kiss me, please kiss me. But kiss me out of desire, babe, and not consolation.
You know it makes me so angry 'cause I know that in time
I'll only make you cry… this is our last goodbye.”
Jeff Buckley, Last Goodbye
* * * * *
Deep breath… Exhale. “I’m really determined to do this,” I tell myself. “I’m really going to follow through with it.” My inner monologue continues to alternate words of doubt and encouragement, sometimes overlapping one another. I’m quick to question my actions. “Was this a mistake?” But before I can articulate an answer, I’m out the motel room door and speeding my rental up the on ramp of I-435. “What ever possessed me to do this?” Oh, yeah…
I came back to
I pulled into Molly’s driveway as the sun started to set. Zach let me in and we both went upstairs to find Molly – where else – laying in bed like a goddess on a throne, surrounded by her personal affects and loyal subjects, myself included. Pretty soon, we were joined by another young couple I had never seen before. This was typical though. Molly’s circle of friends changed as often as the weather. It’s a wonder I was able to hang on for so many years. Not just hang on, but become close.
The new faces sat across from me. I sat at the foot of her bed, surrounded by piles of sticker-coated, perfume-laced notebooks and dirty, mutant stuffed animals. The five of us engaged in short, meaningless conversation for a little while, then out came the bong. This wasn’t just any little glass pipe. Molly was an artisan. She took a tall, plastic drink cup, a two-liter bottle and some plastic tubing, and configured a stoner’s trinket that put all others to shame. As awestruck as I was by its appearance, I was even more surprised by the feeling like I had seen it before.
Come to think of it, I had been here before. Two years earlier, I had this experience. It wasn’t like “déjà vu” though. No, this new sensation was stronger. Similar in almost all aspects, yet it still felt slightly different. I knew shortly I would be offered the homemade hookah, and…I would accept it. I took it before, and I would take it again.
So I hit it. It was my first time to ever indulge in illegal drugs, so why not something as commonplace as marijuana? I took a second hit and looked up to the calendar. Through the smoke, I read “1997.” What happened to those two years? Was I really here again, or was I imagining it? With the THC affecting my head like it did the first time, I wasn’t quite sure.
* * * * *
I bowed into peer pressure. The cops that used to speak at my school talked about it relentlessly. “Beware of peer pressure.” They passed around that catch-phrase like it was a miracle cure. And now where did it get me? Sitting in a car all by myself outside of a dealer’s house in the middle of nowhere at
I came back to visit yet again. I don’t know what I was hoping to accomplish. The uncomfortable tension and emotional distance between me and Molly just seemed to expand. The entire time we were upstairs conversing, it was just little more than a feeble attempt on my part to avoid bringing up the subject of what happened upon our return from San Francisco, and the fleeting but passionate kiss we shared at the airport. That was months ago though. I’m sure we’ve matured enough to move beyond that by now, right? But deep, down inside me, I knew I wasn’t ready to let go. Molly could tell that as well.
As I got ready to leave, she followed me downstairs. I was frustrated, and I didn’t want to leave anything unresolved. So like the persistent dolt that I was, I put on my coat and looked back at Molly.
“Can I have a kiss before I leave?” I asked forlornly. She leaned in and complied rather obediently. It was tender, but all to brief. I asked her if I could kiss her again, but she explained that she didn’t think it would work out the way she thought I hoped it would. Basically, she pushed me away…again. It’s amazing that I didn’t get the message the first time. Well, on second thought, it’s not so amazing.
I should have known better than to make the first move. A stupid move – one that I knew from the start would not be reciprocated down the line, but I blocked all of that away long enough to ruin our close friendship by kissing her. We just returned from an amazingly wonderful trip to
“Close your eyes,” I said softly.
We both knew what was coming. I leaned in and welcomed her lips into mine. The kiss was long, passionate. We both became lost in the moment, and I my head I kept repeating, “Oh my god, am I really kissing her? Am I really kissing Molly?” I was. I didn’t want it to end because I knew what would come next – awkwardness and the mystery of an unknown outcome. At that point, our friendship changed. We both knew it. Whether it was for better or for worse, things between us were going to be different.
Later on, I would end up blaming my reckless spontaneity on the pot-laced brownies and Rice Crispy treats we scored along the Haight from a guy named “Batman.” It turns out that wasn’t the case at all. I just wanted to blame a natural loss of built up inhibitions on drugs or jet lag or whatever I had at my disposal. Those things were all working on me…on both of us. As Molly lay on my bed shedding tear after tear, something she hardly ever did around anyone, I prodded her for more information on her earlier comment.
“What do you mean by ‘you wish you could fall in love’ with me?”
“Just that,” she replied. “I wish I could, but I can’t. I’m not who you’re looking for, Evan. You don’t want this. I’ll only end up hurting you.”
“No, you won’t. I want this. I think you do too,” I suggested.
Molly said nothing, and eventually the subject was dropped. I fell asleep in my apartment bedroom that night while she went to bed in the living room. She was only a room away from me, but it might as well have been the other side of the world.
She flew home the next day, and all morning long from my place to the airport, neither one of us acted like anything happened the night before. I walked her to her gate and we waited in uncomfortable silence until her name was called to board. However, I couldn’t let her get away again without at least knowing what would happen with us.
“Do you regret what happened last night?” I asked her.
“I don’t regret anything,” she said.
“Even the kiss?”
“I wouldn’t have kissed you if I didn’t want to,” she told me. “Besides, a kiss is just a kiss anyway.”
I couldn’t tell if what she said was promising or misleading. My lack of experience in this area was showing, at least to me.
Finally, they called Molly’s name and it was time for her to go. I helped her grab her bags and we looked at each other one last time before she went back to
“Can I have a kiss goodbye?” I asked.
She obliged, and I was instantly transported back to my bedroom the previous night. I hated to let her go. We embraced and held each other close for what seemed like an eternity, but eventually…
That was the extent of it. I sat outside in the cold car while everyone else was completing the transaction and just reminisced. With my eyes shut, I was taken back to our first kiss at my apartment in
“Wait a minute!” I exclaimed to myself. “That’s not Molly!” I shouted. I wanted to hold on to this memory more than anything else. Leaning forward at the rave in 1999, I gently pressed my lips against hers…my wife, Laura. It was our first kiss, and I wanted to get myself out of where I was! I wanted to hold on to anything I could take with me of Laura. Curse my mind! Why was it doing this to me? The kiss hadn’t even happened yet. I was still in that damn car outside the dealer’s house back in 1997.
“I can’t do this,” I mused aloud.
“Yes, you can. Kiss her again,” said the voice in the seat next to me. I started to not trust my mind. There was nobody in here with me, but I saw a girl – short, black hair with a leather jacket. “When did you get in the car?” I asked her.
“I’ve been here, Evan” she said.
“Do we know each other?”
“You know me,” she insisted, “but you probably just don’t know it. I’m Angel.”
“You’re an angel?” I asked suspiciously.
“No, I am Angel,” she clarified, “but I can be like a guardian angel if you want me to. It’s up to you.”
“What do you mean?”
She changed the subject realizing I would follow. “You enjoyed that kiss more than any other one you’ve ever had. Kiss Laura again.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “How can I kiss her again? I was only imagining it.”
“You weren’t imagining. You were projecting. If you don’t do it again, it will never happen later for you. That second kiss meant everything to her. You must think about it again and kiss her if you want to end up with her later. She’ll make you happier than you can ever dream of.”
A dream. This sure felt like one. I just couldn’t undertand how going from outside here waiting for Molly would impact what I did down the road with Laura, but I never hesitated to comply. For some strange reason, I trusted what Angel was telling me. I closed my eyes once again, and immediately I was back at that rave where we had just kissed. I could tell by her face that she enjoyed it, so I leaned forward and did it again. I stayed there with her head in my lap, her lips to mine. Our world stopped. The pulsating music had slowed to nothing and all the other ravers had disappeared. For those few seconds, Laura and I were the only two people in the universe.
I felt like I was back in the car with Angel, but my mind was still secure in that memory of my first kiss with Laura. “You’re there already, Evan,” I could hear Angel say. “Now just fulfill the event.”
* * * * *
“You have quite a diverse portfolio,” the admissions counselor said.
“Thank you.”
“Tell me,” she continued, “when were you planning to enroll at K.C.A.I.?”
“Hopefully this fall,” I told her.
“Well, once you get back from the tour, stop by and I’ll help you with your application and any financial aid information you might need.”
I kept telling myself that the portfolio review and tour of the Art Institute was why I really returned to
As we rounded the corner of the design building, I stopped. Across the campus lawn was the dorm. Even though I felt like I was checking the place out for the first time, it seemed as though everything was very familiar. I zoned out and flashed forward to December of that year. I was already a student living on the third floor of the building in front of me. Laura was there too. It was dark and cold, and we were returning from the rave where we shared our first kiss. I could have sworn I was watching it replay to me as an outsider because I was seeing everything objectively. I could see Laura and I strut up the sidewalk to the dorm as snow was falling through the trees, light reflecting off of every single flake. It was the first snowfall of the season, and it was beautiful. It was the defining visual image from the earliest part of our relationship.
In a flash, I was able to recall all the memories Laura and I had in my dorm room. We would gather there with our friends to watch movies, play pseudosensual games like Truth or Dare, at one point even falling asleep with her next to me. It was also where we experienced the first intimate experience for either of us: our first time. We created a history there. What surprised me though is that I knew of it, even though I was still anticipating the experience months in advance.
Our tour group returned to the admissions office where I collected my portfolio work and more information about the school. It was time for me to leave. I hopped back into my rental car and drove away knowing that this wasn’t the last I would see of
© 2004 by Evan M. Parris
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