Off Season

by B. Allison Miller

  “Jed...” my voice cracked. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you love me?” Jed persisted. I raised onto my elbows and Jed sat up.

  “Jed, you’re my best friend. I love you but...” how could I explain my feelings for Jed? I loved him, but not in a romantic way. To me, romance seemed silly and sappy, fleeting and fickle. Jed was a part of me, but I didn’t get butterflies when I was around him. Wasn’t that what romantic love was?

  “But what?” Jed looked into my eyes. His chin trembled for a second. His gray-blue eyes were so serious. I thought he might cry. Despite his feelings, I couldn’t lie to him.

  “I don’t think I love you in that way.”

  “Mandy, we just...you don’t love me?” I’ll never forget the hurt in his voice.

  “I love you as a friend, Jed. I always will.”

  Jed turned from me. He bent his knees and wrapped his arms around them. He hesitated before he spoke again. The words came out harsh and cold. “Mandy, I decided to join the Marines. I’m enlisting as soon as I turn eighteen. You might not ever see me again.”

  “Jed? What are you talking about?”

  Jed shook his head and fumbled for the car keys. “I’ll take you home.” His voice was gruff.

  “Jed. Don’t...” I tried to protest, I wanted to explain how I felt. I wanted him to tell me why he was joining the Marines when we had already made college plans, but he’d already jumped out of the truck bed.

  Jed didn’t speak to me on the drive home. He didn’t walk me to the door of my parents’ house. The following week, he didn’t talk to me at school or come to my house to read or hang out. He just disappeared from my life. We graduated from high school a few weeks after prom, and I celebrated without my best friend. I called Jed on his birthday, in fact, I called Jed every day after the prom, and he wouldn’t answer my calls. He enlisted the week after his eighteenth birthday.

  PRESENTLY, I TOOK A deep breath, gathered my courage and I slid into the booth across from Jed. His gray-blue eyes met mine. He’d changed so much since he was seventeen, we both had. I took a sip of my drink. Delilah must have known that something was up because she’d made my G&T extra strong. I swallowed, set my drink down, and then I spoke to Jed.

  “I think you know what I want to talk to you about, Jed. But in case you are unclear, I want to talk about prom night, and what happened between us.”

  Jed nodded and took a sip of his beer, then held his hand up to ask Delilah for another. “Another for Mandy, too please,” he called. It was going to be a boozy evening.

  “Tell me what happened, Jed, from your perspective. Because I really want to know what I did that was bad enough for you to ghost me for years.” There, I finally said it. I finally told Jed how I felt.

  “You broke my heart, Mandy,” Jed’s voice was low and raspy.

  “No. I did not. I shared something intimate with you and you dumped me. You were my best friend, Jed. Why did you shut me out?”

  Jed shook his head as if in disbelief. Then he hissed, “Because you used me, Mandy.”

  “No. What are you even talking about?” I was utterly confused. When we were seventeen—almost eighteen—Jed and I shared something that I thought all seventeen-year-old boys wanted. We’d had consensual sex, and Jed’s reaction was to ghost me? What was I missing?

  Jed cleared his throat as if he was going to speak, but then he took a sip of his beer instead.

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to interrupt Jed. I had already waited too long to hear his explanation and I didn’t want to scare him off. He disappeared for a decade the first time. I couldn’t risk losing him for another.

  “When I saw you sitting all alone at that table on prom night, I wondered what happened to your date. Shit, I don’t even remember that guy’s name.” Jed scratched his chin and looked pensive.

  “Mike. His name was Mike Petersen,” I replied. Mike Petersen, worst prom date ever. I have no idea what happened to Mike after graduation.

  “Right.” Jed took another sip of his beer. “The rich kid. I was glad to see him gone.”

  Delilah brought our drinks to the table, set them down, and walked off without saying a word.

  “Mike got a bit handsy with me the minute we got to the school. I told him to leave me alone, and he went and hung out with his guy friends all night.”

  “He was an asshole, Mandy. What I told you that night was true. I heard the rumors about why Mike asked you out. I didn’t want to see you get hurt.” Talk about irony.

  I interrupted, “I was glad to see him go. You kind of rescued me. You asked me to dance, and we had a lot of fun. Then you offered me a ride home. Remember, you said there was a meteor shower that night?”

  Jed shook his head as if he was communicating ‘not yet.’ I could see that he wasn’t ready to talk about what happened next. I was confused as to why Jed was still so hurt by what happened between us so many years ago. I wanted the hurt to end and the healing to begin.

  He spoke again. “You know I was always in awe of you. Ever since that winter when my mom died. Remember, my dad used to drop me off at your house, and your mom would look after us? We would play all day, read, and help your mom cook dinner. I lost my mom, but I joined your family. I couldn’t help but notice how great you were. Mandy, you were so tough, so fun, so pretty. You could always say the things that I couldn’t say. You made me forget how awful my life was. My dad is a good guy, but he wasn’t great at the warm and fuzzy stuff. I still needed that. I always had the feeling that Dad didn’t know what to do with me. He was lost without my mom. You became the center of my world. I fell in love with you when we were ten.”

  “No, that can’t be right. We were just a couple of kids. We didn’t even know what love was.”

  Jed reached for my hands, “I did. Ever since then, I knew, I knew it, Mandy, that you were the love of my life.”

  “We were just kids,” I protested again.

  “Maybe, but I loved you. I knew that I would always want you in my life. Somewhere along the line, we became best friends, and I wasn’t sure you could ever love me. Mandy, you ‘friend-zoned me.’ And then in high school, in our junior year, we agreed to go to CU together, remember? You and me in Boulder getting our degrees? We were going to start a cool life together, and I thought maybe.”

  “Yeah, but you backed out, and said you were enlisting after we...” I stopped myself. “What was that even about, Jed?” At the time, I’d been so hurt when he broke the news to me. It was like a slap to my face. That night after Jed told me that he was going to enlist the minute that he turned eighteen, I was crushed. I didn’t know at the time how much my life would change because of that moment. I can’t tell you how many times I cried over that memory.

  “You broke my heart, Mandy. After we made love, we were lying there in the back of the Ranchero. I decided then to ask you to marry me,” Jed’s face grew pink. “I know it sounds crazy and stupid now, but I was so happy. I was so in love with you. I guess I didn’t know how to separate sex from the love I felt for you. I told you that I loved you, and you couldn’t say it back to me. I couldn’t face going to CU with you knowing that you didn’t love me. I started to think that you had sex with me so you would be experienced when other guys asked you out. And I knew they would. You were, you are so perfect, Mandy. I knew I was losing you.”

  “What? Jed. Did you really think that’s what I did? You thought I used you? I thought it was what we both wanted. We were both so naïve for our ages. I thought we both wanted to break out of our shells and be like the other kids. Having sex was your idea in the first place.”

  “Mandy, I was completely honest with you on prom night. I always thought that we would be each other’s first. That night when you told me that you’d never been with anyone? I thought it was because you were waiting for me too.”

  “But you kissed other girls by then. You told me.”

  “Yes, a couple, but they didn’t mean anything to me. I never went
any further than that because I was waiting for you. You meant everything to me. You took me by surprise when you said we should be together. I thought that meant you loved me. I thought we were going to be a couple, and be open about our relationship. I misunderstood your intentions. And I hated us both for being so stupid.”

  I shook my head. “I was confused about love. I thought I don’t know. I thought my virginity was some big burden that I needed to get rid of before college. I thought that when I finally did have sex, it would be scary. Being with you made sense. I thought you wanted to just get it over with too. I cared about you more than anyone else, and I trusted you. I thought that because we were friends, we couldn’t hurt each other. But then after it happened, you ghosted me. You did hurt me. I felt used by you too.”

  “I wanted to disappear. I’d spoken to a recruiter at school in May, and I don’t know, the military seemed like a good way to get away from everything.”

  “Away from me, you mean.”

  Jed lowered his eyes. “You don’t get it, Mandy. Things couldn’t be the same again—not when I was in love with you and you just thought of me as your friend. It was too hard. I couldn’t face you.”

  “But you enlisted, Jed. You went halfway around the world. You couldn’t get away from me soon enough, and you wanted to hurt me. I could tell. You didn’t answer my calls. You left and you wouldn’t even write to me. I waited for four years to hear from you, and nothing. And when you got back to Colorado? Nothing. You broke my heart too, Jed. I might not have been in love with you, but I loved you.”

  “I’m sorry, but I needed to get away from you, to get perspective. I needed to meet other women and see if I could fall in love again. I needed to try to forget you. I thought I was finally pulling away from you. After three years in the Marines, I thought I’d finally let you go. I got engaged, did you know that?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t known. That was something that my dad hadn’t bothered to tell me.

  “Yeah, I met her about a year before I was getting out. Do you know what happened?”

  “No,” I whispered my answer. I felt like rocks had lodged in my throat. It hurt to swallow.

  “I saw it. I saw your accident.” Jed shook his head and took a long pull from his beer before he spoke again. “It was a fluke that we were even watching the competition on base. I walked into the room, and your competition was on TV.”

  “Oh.” I gasped. I didn’t know that Jed had seen my accident. The life-changing event that ended my snowboarding career was televised and many of my friends and family saw it. I’d seen it too—after it happened. Someone showed footage of the accident to me when I was in the hospital recovering from my knee surgery. I didn’t remember most of what occurred. It was like an endless tumble through whiteness where every sound and motion around me stopped except the hurtling of my body and the sound of my pulse in my ears. My accident was horrific to witness. My dad was at the event with me the day that it happened, and he had accompanied me to the hospital. He still doesn’t like to talk about it. I was lucky I hadn’t broken my neck or been killed. I think in some way, my dad felt responsible for my injury.

  “When I saw your accident, I realized that I could have lost you forever. All I wanted to do was leave the base and be with you, and I couldn’t. I had a panic attack that night.” Jed lowered his head. “That’s when I knew I was still in love with you. I knew that no matter who came along and no matter what happened, you would always be the love of my life. I broke off my engagement. I knew I couldn’t marry someone else when I was still in love with you.”

  My heart lurched. How much time had Jed and I wasted, hating each other because we couldn’t communicate our feelings? Years and years. I felt sick.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you, Jed.”

  “I’m sorry that I hurt you too.”

  I stood up and slid into the booth next to Jed. I left a respectable distance between us. I didn’t wear his hat. I didn’t tease. I just wanted to be nearer to him.

  “There’s something else I want to talk to you about, Jed. My parents. You go see them?”

  Jed nodded. “They were like my second set of parents, Mandy. Your mom...”

  “Is dying.”

  “Mandy, I know she’s different, but she’s still there. She misses you.”

  “I know.” I lowered my eyes. Jed knew I hadn’t been visiting them. He went weekly. “I haven’t been a good daughter. I went to see her this week.”

  “I know. Your dad called me after you left.”

  “She’s changed so much. It’s hard to see her like that. I know I’m being selfish.”

  Jed exhaled. “They know that you are having a hard time accepting things. They aren’t upset with you, Mandy. They just want to see you.”

  “Jill thinks that we should visit Mom together. She thought it might make the visits easier for me.”

  “It can’t hurt,” Jed replied.

  I nodded. “So, yeah, would you be willing to do that?”

  “Sure. I’m going back over in a couple of days. Your dad wants to play chess. I’ll let you know when.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I guess we should discuss my imminent torture? The movie tonight.” Jed frowned a bit remembering the terms of our wager. I won, and he was supposed to attend a bloody double feature with me that night. The thing is, my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

  I shook my head and looked at Jed, “No, I changed my mind. We aren’t doing that.”

  “You don’t want to go to the movies with me?” Jed frowned.

  “No. I thought we could go to a normal movie instead of the double feature. One at a reasonable hour. I get to pick the film, of course.”

  “Of course,” Jed offered me a smallish smile, “What made you change your mind?”

  I lowered my gaze and thought about what I should say. I could pretend that nothing was wrong, but maybe pretending was a bad idea. Perhaps it was time for Jed and me to start being honest with each other. I took a deep breath and set my hand on his thigh. “Jed, it’s not just hemophobia, is it?”

  Jed’s jaw dropped a bit, then he snapped his mouth shut. He hadn’t expected me to say anything about his problem. Maybe he didn’t realize that I noticed something was very wrong. I think he was used to hiding it.

  “I promise, I won’t give you a hard time about it. It’s PTSD or something, isn’t it?” I turned my face towards him.

  “Or something.” Jed looked straight ahead, refusing to meet my eyes.

  “Jed, why did you tell me that I caused your hemophobia?”

  “I’m sorry, Mandy, that wasn’t fair of me. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

  “But why? You must have had a reason for saying it.” I wanted to know. I sensed that Jed and I were back on track to becoming friends again—maybe something more—we’d cleared the air about our past, we apologized, and the truth is, I was starting to have feelings for him.

  “Remember when you broke your nose when we were sledding?”

  “Sure. I remember everything.” I remembered the accident well because A. you never forget the first time you break your nose, and B. Jed and I had disobeyed our parents and we had gone off into the woods to sled ride. I’d hit a tree with my sled and I broke my nose. It bled like crazy—causing the snow on the ground to turn slushy and red. Jed tried to help me by pressing his gloved hand to my nose to stop the blood flow, but he fainted when he saw all of the blood. I was stuck in the woods with a bloody nose and an unconscious friend, and I didn’t know what to do. Luckily, a man walking a dog nearby found us, and he pulled us out of the woods on our sleds. When we returned home, our parents took pity on both of us. They decided that we were traumatized enough by the accident and the fainting that they didn’t need to hand out punishment to us for disobeying their rules.

  “That was the first time I remember ever losing it like that. It wasn’t long after my mom died.” Jed lifted his beer and took a long drink. Jed’s mom died in a horrific car accid
ent a year before my sledding accident. I hadn’t made the connection before. “My mom’s death hit me hard. I remember hearing the details—what happened to her—I wasn’t supposed to know how violent her accident was. Then seeing you like that—injured and bloodied? I didn’t have the life skills to handle it.”

  I nodded, keeping my thoughts to myself.

  Jed continued. “My therapist thinks that when you got hurt, and I didn’t know what to do, I felt helpless. I didn’t know how to help you. I became overwhelmed, panicked, and hyperventilated. I fainted. Now whenever I get triggered, I have an episode. It’s like my body taught itself to shut down when I get into situations that I don’t know how to handle. I don’t usually faint. Sometimes I get dizzy or nauseous. You saw how I was.” I noticed that Jed’s face was flushed with new embarrassment or maybe frustration.

  “You were a little kid, and there was a lot of blood. I’m sorry that I made you feel that way—helpless.”

  Jed shook his head. “No, Mandy. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s more than that. My therapist thinks, that because I always thought you were mine, I felt guilty. I let you down. I was supposed to be able to take care of you.”

  He always thought I was ‘his.’

  “It wasn’t your job to take care of me, Jed,” I grabbed his hand in mine.

  “I thought taking care of someone was how you showed them that you loved them. And I loved you, Mandy, even back then when we were kids. I know you don’t believe me, but I knew it. I always have.” Jed didn’t meet my eyes. Do you still love me?

  I didn’t speak; I was too busy digesting this bit of information. He didn’t know how to take care of me when we were little. When we were teens, Jed tried to help me in another way, and that had backfired too. I remembered how hard he took my admission. I loved him but not in that way. Poor Jed. He signed up for the military to escape from me, only to return home and get stuck with me all over again.

  “By the time I got into the Marines, my hemophobia was pretty much gone. It wasn’t until I went overseas and...I saw things.” Jed stopped speaking. I could tell he wasn’t ready to talk about his time in the military. “Anyway, things started getting bad again after I watched your accident on TV. I finished my tour and came home, went to college, got a job. I never told anyone that I was having trouble. I guess I was able to hide it pretty well for a while.”