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Flashes of Truth
"I don’t know!" I said miserably, tears streaming down my face. Danny looked at me, as I sat on my bed gasping through my tears. "I don’t know.."
He wanted me to choose. Between him, and Gavin. For five years Danny had been the love of my life, until I was naïve, okay, STUPID, enough to take up with Gavin while Danny was away in the army right out of high school. All parties were aware of the situation, but we were foolish enough to think emotions would be kept in check. Gavin and I did fall for each other though, Danny came home, and things were all messed up.
Months of hurt and confusion, things went horribly wrong. Now Danny was prepared to leave and go to New York to be with someone else. He was giving me one more chance to tell him to stay.
"Do you want me to choose for you?" He asked. He had a history of playing Devil’s advocate so I thought this would make things easier on me. He would seal his own future, and it wouldn’t be my fault.
"Okay." I said.
"You’ll let me choose for you? All right." He kissed my lips to seal the deal, and held me at an arms length. Looked into my frightened eyes. "Come back to me. Lets work this out. Please?" I dissolved into tears again. I’d been back and forth between them so many times in the past almost year that I didn’t care who I was with almost just so long as things stopped. I hated to hurt either of them, I couldn’t bear it. It’s impossible to describe how I felt. I was frozen, yet in pain, I just couldn’t change things all over again.
"I can’t" I choked out after many tense minutes. "I can’t." Whatever he felt that day, he held it in. He was always good at that. Now it was time for me to leave for work. We walked out of my room like nothing was wrong. I got in the car, he began walking home. That was the last time I ever saw Danny.
Gavin and I still dated, amid hostile and uncomfortable communications with Danny and his girlfriend. Krys and I never did get along much but that was to be expected. I had hurt Danny so much, I feel I may never forgive myself. Two months after he left, he told me that for the sake of his new relationship, he and I couldn’t communicate anymore. Not for a long time.
These words were like a burst of clarity, the deep silence before all hell breaks loose. It hit home at last, Danny was not ever coming back, Danny was gone, lost to me. My closest companion ever, broken away. The shock and mental deterioration was like watching the Death Star explode. After over a year I am okay with saying I lost my mind for a while. I cried for days, I didn’t eat, I slept all day, and couldn’t sleep at night. Even after the crying I was in pain, angry, distraught.
Gavin came over the first few nights and held me as I cried, as I cried over another man. Amid the sadness, anger came out too.
"It’s your fault!!!" I told him over and over, pointlessly pummeling his chest with my fists. And he let me. Now he says I hit and scratched him too but I don’t remember any of that. I don’t know what to believe.
"I hate you! I hate this! I! Hate! This!!" I moaned, writhing in emotional pain.
After about two weeks I came back to reality long enough to realize that I was doing harm to Gavin too, and needed to get over Danny once and for all if anything with Gavin was ever going to work. We broke up just after July 4th at my request, and he spent the following four months trying to win me back. We were still friends, but I was terrified of being in a relationship. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. He wanted to work on things, he was so devoted to me, he didn’t care about any other girl, he told me. What he kept to himself was that he was spending time talking to other girls too, and when I found out, my faith in him fell apart. I wouldn’t talk to him. He began dating someone else just hours later. A lot of angry things were said. One night in December, when he knew my parents wouldn’t be home he came by the house. I opened the door surprised at who was there.
"Can we talk?" he asked, feigning humility outside the screen door.
"I guess" I replied. All the anger in me rose up at the sight of him and there was no one to stop me. As soon as I was outside I tried to hit him. Missed once, twice, the third time my left fist connected with his right eye. In shock, I stopped. I had never really hit anyone before, not like that. He swore, said something else, and I came at him again, but this time he was ready and caught me, pinning my arms at my sides. The sad thing is, I wanted to be held, even if it was because he was restraining me. Every time he’d let go, I’d start at him so he’d grab me again. In his anger he began to say every mean thing he could think of.
"Krys might be pregnant did you know that?"
"You know why no one talks to you? Its because everyone thinks you’re crazy"
"I never loved you, I settled for you."
"You’re crazy"
"I’m not the one with scars on my arms." I retaliated, referring to the cuts he’d given himself about a week before.
"You know that was because of Meg, right? Not you. It was never about you." He said. I went at him again.
"You aren’t going to hit me this time Ashleigh!" He said, "This isn’t like when you were upset over Danny and I sat there and let you hit me over another guy!" (As if I’d hit him hard at all. I’d been crying too hard.) At this point he had hit just about every weak spot I had. After a total of fifteen minutes standing in the front yard in my pajamas and bare feet dealing with this I went inside. Behind an armchair I collapsed in tears.
"What did he come here for?!! What did he want?! What did he want from me?!" Somehow I had the presence of mind to realize I needed someone there with me, so I called a friend.
Two months after that, Gavin’s girlfriend dumped him. Slowly we began to hang out again even though my parents didn’t want me to. (A message here boys and girls, listen to your parents. They ******** KNOW okay?) I even began to trust him a little. Not enough to date him again though. He wanted to work on things, but I was hesitant. We loved each other, or at least, I loved him, but agreed we’d date other people. This was in large part an effort by me to prove that I wasn’t using him, or keeping a leash on him. I wasn’t ready to commit to him so why should I expect the same. Trust was still a big issue. There really wasn’t anyone else to date anyway, until he reconnected with an old friend (who, come to find out, he’d made out with in the back of the arcade he worked at way back when he was trying to get me back by telling me about his devotion.) It was up to me at first.
"Are you sure you’re okay with this?" He asked me, "If you don’t want me to go, I won’t."
"No, no, go. I don’t want anyone to think I’m holding you back. I’m fine with it, really." I wasn’t. However, I let him go. After about a week of dates with her, dates where they stayed out talking until three am, he wanted to be exclusive with her. He’d broken my heart, again.
"I don’t want to hurt you, darling." Gavin told me, "Its just that things change sometimes. I don’t want to screw her over, you know?"
Yes, I knew. I knew I was always the one who got screwed over. I was the one he fell back on, I was the one he used. I made a choice, to take control, to take back my power. The only thing I could keep from him was what went on with me, my emotions, how I felt, what I did. So my choice was this, to not tell him if I was upset, or if anything bad happened. As far as he was concerned, things would be just fine. Peachy.
When he had begun staying out all night with her, I had begun staying up all night. Now for weeks sleep eluded me. From boredom I began taking six a.m. walks, as soon as it was light out. For a couple weeks I didn’t eat much, didn’t do anything much. It was all over, I could never conceive of trusting Gavin ever again. For this, I had let Danny slip away, and now he wanted to marry Krys.
In the weeks that followed, I met a couple of guys off the internet to keep myself busy. I even made out with one guy, just to prove that I could get another guy like that, but that left me feeling awful and dirty. I stopped that.
I felt like I no longer cared about being good, or diong what was right. It was all right here, right now. I wanted to be more free, like Gavin’s new girlfriend. I didn’t want to care so much.
Online, and on the phone, I had been talking to a friend from high school, Ricky. One night he convinced me to come over to his place to hang out with him and some of his friends. Danny had never liked drinking, so I had been against it too for years. So this night was the first time in a long time that I had really had much to drink. I met Ricky’s friend Jake, and we sat and talked and flirted and he was really nice. Then he got up for a minute, and Ricky sat down, and since I was kind of tipsy I sat on Ricky’s lap. I think that kind of bothered Jake but it bothered me too the next day. Jake felt that he had been too forward with me, and apologized for it the next day.
Marrapssa (10:19:22 PM): Hello, this is Ashleigh. I figured I'd talk to you before my conversation with Richard gets any more confusing.
nasariku (10:19:50 PM): hey
Marrapssa (10:19:59 PM): so, how are you?
nasariku (10:20:08 PM): i'm ok
Marrapssa (10:20:20 PM): thats good
Marrapssa (10:21:56 PM): did you want to talk to me?
nasariku (10:24:04 PM): actually... i kinda wanted to appologize for my behavior the other night. i'm not usually like that. and also just to let you know, whatever richard said about is probably a lie.
Marrapssa (10:24:14 PM): lol
Marrapssa (10:24:48 PM): I didn't really mind it, it was nice. and warm. and snuggly.
nasariku (10:25:01 PM): yeah, it was biggrin
Marrapssa (10:25:34 PM): heehee. And I don't know why I was sitting on his lap, I just was.
nasariku (10:27:09 PM): yeah, he confused me. he said he wasn't interested in you and then he was like getting jelouse when i had my arm around you and stuff. so i just left.

And then he also asked me out!
nasariku (11:00:12 PM): maybe we should hang out some time?
Marrapssa (11:00:18 PM): sure
nasariku (11:00:50 PM): what are you doing tomorrow?
Marrapssa (11:01:48 PM): I have a doctor appointment in the morning (have to convince them to take out my tonsils in a few months) and I'm not sure what time I get home from that, but then nothing until 6 when I have to be at work
nasariku (11:02:11 PM): where do you work?
Marrapssa (11:02:52 PM): the church that I used to go to except now I work there so I have less chances to really go... I do childcare during services and bible studies.
nasariku (11:03:12 PM): thats cool
Marrapssa (11:03:20 PM): yup yup. I love my babies.
Marrapssa (11:04:12 PM): yesterday I officially quit at teh library, yay! I did not like it.
nasariku (11:05:01 PM): why not?
nasariku (11:05:18 PM): library sounds fun razz
Marrapssa (11:06:40 PM): too tiring and stuff, I didn't like lifting all the books all the time, I hated the hours, and it was just too much for me to work two jobs.
nasariku (11:07:34 PM): when do you have a day off?
Marrapssa (11:08:12 PM): Thursday
nasariku (11:09:19 PM): want to go do something then?
nasariku (11:09:50 PM): i'm off work at 3pm that day
Marrapssa (11:09:55 PM): sure
Marrapssa (11:10:48 PM): what would you want to do?
nasariku (11:10:57 PM): ummm....
Marrapssa (11:11:14 PM): Just hanging around the mall is fine with me. I'm a mall rat
nasariku (11:11:44 PM): lol
nasariku (11:11:59 PM): i'm a professional mall rat

I really enjoyed getting to know Jake, he wasn’t really talkative but he was nice and interesting. He called me facinating, and when I asked if that was in a good way or a bad way he said a good way. And, he kissed me. That was a surprise. Then he asked me out for the following Thursday.
That weekend we were at Ricky’s again, and were drinking, again. I really liked Jake but didn’t want to come on too strongly so I flirted with Ricky too, but too much so as I drank more.
"I gotta use the bathroom." Jake got up.
A few minutes later Ricky and I began wondering where Jake was. Ricky went to go check.
"Uh, Jake’s gone." He said when he came back. I went and checked myself, and he was. "Maybe he went to go find Daniel." Ricky said, referring to the younger boy we’d sent out for food.
"Hey." Daniel popped up at the window just then.
"Is Jake with you?" We both asked.
"Um, no, I saw him on my way here though. Kind of scared me."
"Daniel, I’ll give you two dollars if you go bring him back here!" I said. So Daniel left, but never came back. I should have gone after Jake myself, talked to him, maybe things would have turned out better. I’m not sure why I didn’t. Ricky and I were still flirting, and as we became more friendly what I didn’t know was that Jake came back, and looked in the window. I’m not sure when, or what he saw but I know it probably hurt him, or at the very least bothered him. And I feel awful about that.
It got out of course, and Jake didn’t like me much after that. I realized that my resolve to be free and wild had resulted in someone I really liked getting a bad impression of me. I went back to being my nice self. A few bad things still happened, I made more mistakes, but I learned from them. Jake still thought I was who I had been when we met though.
I turned 21. Danny had been gone over a year. When I returned from my Las Vegas birthday trip I went online and saw his away message- "Getting married Monday, packing Tuesday, moving Wednesday." It was Monday evening.
"Mom!!" I called out.
I was back in the car. My father was driving. Danny was walking down the street. It didn’t make sense. But it did. Everything else must have just been an awful dream. I knew what to do now though.
"Daddy, stop the car!" I said as I threw open the door. I ran down the street and called out to him. "Danny!" and flung my arms around his neck as he turned around. "I CAN." I said.

If only God really gave us flashes of the truth like that. All but the last part really did happen, I’m sorry to say. I’m sorry to say I let Danny slip away. I’m sorry to say I’ve caused so much pain, been such a fool. I’d take it all back, but I can’t. We have to find the truth ourselves, and live with it all.