Laid 2 Rest: Two Halves of a Whole

by Melanie Rose

  “That was Jazz’s sixth birthday party. We had a blast… you should have been there. It was very girly. My daughter is a big girl now according to her, you know. She hopes that you’ll make it out to see her soon.”

  Daughter??? Jay has a daughter. A beautiful six-year-old daughter.

  My eyes teared up as my mind spun out of control from processing too much information at once. I was in danger of extreme emotional overload.

  WAIT! What the hell did he just say again?

  “Jazz… did you just say Jazz?” I was confused. That’s my name. Man, I need a drink… a tall, strong one!

  “Yeah, Jazz! You do remember my daughter Jasmine Rain, don’t you? You’re scaring me, love. Now I know something is definitely wrong with you. Tell me what it is!” He demanded, practically shaking me.

  Being so out of it, I hadn’t even notice that he wasn’t on the couch beside me anymore. Instead, he was kneeling in front of me with his big hands gripping both of my arms. Hard!

  In that moment, I lost it completely; my mask of calm, shattered as fat tears started spilling from my eyes as I spoke in barely a whisper. “You named your daughter after me?”

  I don’t know how he even heard me since I had said it so softly. With one long finger under my chin, Jay brought my face up so I had to look him square in the eyes before he brushed my tears off to the side. I absolutely hated to let anyone to see me cry, but today my eyes betrayed me as they took on a life of their own.

  Just great! I didn’t understand what was happening, I was so confused… and had so many mixed emotions swelling up inside of me that I couldn’t rein them all in.

  Leaning heavily into him, I buried my face into his jacket, becoming vulnerable for the first time in countless years. His long, strong arms cocooned around me, pulling me closer to him. He just held me tightly without saying a single word. I felt so protected in his arms. The safest I have felt in a very long time.

  How could that be?

  Trying to pull myself back together, I straightened back up, breaking his hold on me as I wiped my face dry with my hands. It pains me to let anyone see me like this, but Jay managed to break thru all on my defenses, leaving me exposed. Something I wasn’t used to or sure how to handle anymore.

  Damn him!

  “Talk to me,” he pleaded.

  “I don’t know where to even begin.” And I didn’t. What am I supposed to say exactly? You died nineteen years ago, however yesterday, I traveled back in time and saved your life by sexing you up like crazy. That he wasn’t supposed to be alive right now, let alone, playing pro-ball and raising a six-year-old daughter. He would have my ass committed for sure if I said something like that. “You would never believe me anyways!”

  “Try me… you can trust me. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know.” I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did… with all my heart.

  “Well, what’s wrong with you? It’s almost as if you’ve lost chunks of your memory. Is that it? Were you in an accident recently that I don’t know about? Did you hit your head?”

  “You could somewhat say that… uh, I’ve been out of sorts for a couple of days (that was an understatement for sure). Maybe I’m working too hard. I’m not feeling like myself. My brain is just overwhelmed. Please don’t make a bigger deal out of this than necessary, alright.” By the look on his face, I could tell that he wasn’t convinced so I added quickly, “Hey, you want to get some fresh air?”

  Following me out to the backyard, we snuggled up in my hammock together. With my face lying across his chest, we just swung back and forth in the cool breeze as he rubbed my back lightly. “Isn’t that my job?” I said to him playfully.

  “Maybe next time. Today, I’m massaging you for a change, even though I could really use one. Running up and down the court is starting to take its toll on me. I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore, you know. My back and knees are really starting to hate me.”

  “Pleez… I’m never giving you another massage after what happened last time; you my friend don’t know how to behave. If you were one of my clients, I would have thrown your ass out of my house for doing what you did!”

  Where in the hell did that come from, I thought, perfectly recalling him throwing off the sheet during a massage session to revel just how happy he was about me rubbing lotion all over his body.

  Holy cow. Did I just remember something?

  “I’ll be good this time… scouts honor,” he said grinning while holding up two fingers.

  “The only problem with that is, you were never a boy scout, remember? So it doesn’t exactly count, now does it?”

  “Now that’s the Jasmine I know and love. I guess some fresh air was all you needed to rediscover your witty charm.”

  “That’s not true. Fresh air would have been irrelevant if you weren’t here with me. You make me feel so safe. I cannot even remember the last time I felt this way. Thank you Jay for being a part of my world.”

  “No need to thank me. That’s what friends are for,” he said, kissing the top of my head.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon talking and joking around and by the time he had to leave, I had most of the puzzle pieces filled in. It was a relief not to have any more blanks in my memory. He was my friend, my confidant. I shared all my hopes and dreams with him. None of my joys or fears ever went unnoticed. He cared for me, I depended on him and in many ways, he played the role a husband should in every way but one…. Physically!

  CHAPTER THREE

  A COUPLE OF WEEKS HAVE GONE by since that afternoon with Jay and my self-confidence had steadily increased ever since. At first, I thought that I had simply saved him by going back, but that wasn’t entirely the case.

  You see… he saved me too! More from myself than anything else.

  I started to feel alive again. Long lost emotions filled me up these days. Guilt mixed with grief is a heavy burden to carry and now that all that extra baggage stemming from his accident never existed, all my self-destructive behavior at that particular time vanished right along with it. Almost like it had never happened, however faint memories still lingered in the back of my mind like a far away distant dream, but only just barely.

  They were all hazy and fuzzy now and seemed to be fading away a little more and more each day, but never completely forgotten. I didn’t mind though, because they served as an everyday reminder of how my life used to be… hopeless!

  If memory served me correctly, I originally spent the summer of 1990 partying and getting drunk off my ass just to cover up my turmoil, which lead to me do some pretty wild and crazy things back then that I’m not exactly proud of.

  I slapped on a thick protective layer of skin, which could be best described as “body armor” to shield myself from the pain Jay’s death had caused. I withdrew into myself and regrettably started to push away those that cared most about me, but when I changed the past, I changed the present as well. I never started to build all those walls around me… yet.

  Yes, I was sad because Jay moved away at the end of the summer that year, but that was the worst of it. I would take that trade any day. Him dying versus moving was the easiest choice for me to make in my whole entire life. I wouldn’t hesitate to make that same decision again because there was only one option, I had already experienced the alternative and I couldn’t survive that again. Jay was supposed to live and it was as simple as that.

  It turned out that when Jay’s parents were in Vegas that weekend; they weren’t partying at all, as I had naively thought. His dad had a secret job interview with a big homebuilder out there. Clearly, he got the job. I only wish I would have known at the time, I would have clued him in that he was making a good, solid decision for his family. The fact that Vegas would soon have a population explosion that would surely keep him steadily employed for the next decade would ease anyone’s mind.

  Jay and I decided against pursuing a long distant relationship. He knew I was such an attention whore and would not be able to p
rovide me with my daily fix, so instead of breaking each other’s hearts down the road, we parted as friends… best of friends.

  Therefore, I never became a complete lush back then. At least not in the 10th grade, I didn’t.

  I didn’t drink myself into oblivion and kill half of my brain cells. Traveling back in time didn’t fix all my problems, but it did make a dent and that dent was all I needed to kick my butt into high gear, ultimately throwing myself back into my massage practice with a vengeance.

  The plan was to buildup enough clientele to open up my very own spa someday. It had always been a dream of mine, but now for the first time, I could actually see it.

  Getting ready for bed like any other night, I wet my face, washing off the days grime. A small headache formed on my temples, when I was hit suddenly with an eerie feeling of déjà vu. A chill ran down my spine as I heard Jay’s words in my head again “That’s just me thinking about you”.

  Quickly drying my face off without re-hanging the towel, I flipped off the light and jumped into bed, pulling the covers all the way up to my chin as if I were a toddler scared of the dark.

  It took awhile to calm myself. The feeling was just plain creepy. I’m being silly, I convinced myself some thirty oddball minutes later. Burying the side of my face into the pillow, my brain shifted to think about more enjoyable thing. More pleasurable things to be exact!

  Sooooo folks, on that sexy note, I shut my lids, relaxed my mind, and allowed sleep to claim me…

  I came to with someone’s hand waving around dramatically in front of my face.

  “Earth to Jazz,” the girl said, snapping her fingers as I strained to refocus my eyes on her.

  It was a girl named Leslie. I had completely forgotten that we used to be friends back then. Before our relationship turned sour.

  Wherever we were standing, it was pretty noisy from all the people jabbering and laughing around us. There were bright-colored lights flashing everywhere and loud music playing off to my left. It appeared to be some form of amusement park. No wait, it was smaller and a lot cheesier, more like a carnival of some sort.

  “Are you going to call him or not?” she repeated, clearly annoyed with me.

  “Call who?” I asked, dragging my words out.

  “Garret, we’re talking about that lying cheat Garrett! What the hell has gotten into you?”

  Garrett, who the hell is Garrett? I don’t know any freakin’ Garrett. Wait, I take that back. I do know a Garrett (a long ass time ago) and I believe I actually know where I just landed too, which was a major plus in my favor. This isn’t possible. This cannot be happening to me again, could it?

  I better be dreaming! The Sandman is definitely going to hear about this.

  Flexing my memory muscles, I said, “You want me to call Garrett because he’s trying to get at me, when he was supposed to be trying to get at you… right?”

  “Right. Tell him to meet you here and we’ll bust his punk ass!”

  Damn, this is sooo childish. Did I really act this way back then? I sure did, I realized quickly, because I knew how this whole scenario was going to play out. Garrett would in fact show up here tonight like a good little boy, the three of us would have words, we’d laugh in his face and then he’d walk away with his tail tucked between his legs.

  I am gonna scream if I went back in time for this stupid ass shit!

  There had to be something that I was overlooking. Think girl think. Racking my brain for a minute, I found it. Jackpot.

  I made the call and waited. Garrett didn’t live too far away from here, so I didn’t have to twiddle my thumbs for very long before he showed up.

  He was slowly making his way towards me, smiling as our eyes met. A smile I didn’t return as I continued to stare right thru him, searching the dense crowd for the arrival of the person that I was truly waiting for.

  He was still about fifteen feet away from me, but Leslie’s psycho ass had jumped the gun and was already in his personal space causing a scene. The crowd thickened around us as I continued to watch and wait… any second now, just one more sec… and there, there she was… just like I knew she would be.

  She was my calm in the center of the storm; all the noise around me went quiet while my vision zoomed in on her as if no one else existed around us. There standing at the front of the crowd was my best bud, Maya.

  There is a God.

  Knocking Leslie and Garrett out of my way, I grabbed Maya’s upper arm and pulled her away from the scene. I could have cared less about Leslie’s plan for revenge. I had my own agenda!

  Maya was fighting me a little bit; I guess I was dragging her a bit hard, but I didn’t release her arm until we were outside on the sidewalk, where it was far less crowded. Hugging her hard, relieved to have her by my side again, only to have her not hug me back. Instead, she pulled away with her hands up in surrender, declaring, “It’s not what you think, okay. I just rode…”

  Not letting her finish, I cut her off to put her out of her misery. “I know, I know. Girl, I don’t care about that. It is what it is. Besides, that’s not why I dragged you out here.”

  “It’s not?” she said a little surprised and confused.

  “No Maya, it’s not. I knew he would bring you with him tonight. That’s the only reason I called him in the first place. I need your help again.”

  “My help with what exactly?”

  “I need you to answer a question for me, alright?”

  “That’s it?”

  I nodded before asking her very slowly, spacing out all of my words. “Can you guess how old I am?” I said looking deep into her coffee-colored eyes, willing her to catch my meaning.

  That did the trick alright. Her eyes popped with understanding as she realized exactly what I was asking her. “You time traveled again?” she screamed at me, drawing by passers attention to us.

  “Shut up!” I snapped sharply, practically biting her face off. “Do you want to get us both thrown into straitjackets?”

  “Sorry, sorry this is just so unbelievable. I tried talking to you about it after your birthday, but you acted like you had no idea what I was even talking about.”

  “I probably didn’t. That’s good to know though. I guess it wouldn’t be smart to know how your whole life is going to unfold before you actually get a chance to live it.”

  “So, why are you here then? What happens today? Whose life do you save this time? It’s not mine is it?” she said, rethinking her enthusiasm.

  “Of course, it isn’t you and why do I have to save somebody. I’m not a super-hero, you know. I don’t recall anything bad happening today, so I don’t know why I’m here. Nevertheless, I must have changed something already because you’re not supposed to be talking to me right now. You leave with Garrett when he storms off.

  OH and by the way. You felt so bad for him tonight, that you took it upon yourself to console him and not only does he give you a lovely little STD, he gets you pregnant as well, but it doesn’t form right so you have to have surgery to get it out of you. So never, ever, EVER have sex with him! You hear me?” I scolded while shaking a finger in her face like a protective mother would.

  Man, I’m a mess!

  Maya’s skin took on an ugly greenish hue as her mind processed what I had just said to her. “Snap out of it already. Girl, trust me. I just saved your butt from a world load of DRAMA. You owe me. Big! I don’t know why you even liked him for starters, knowing full well that he was trying to hook up with me, but I’ll let that slide just this once.” I took a deep breath to steady myself then pressed on, “Can we please refocus on ME now?”

  “You can’t just spring that on me and expect me….”

  Cutting her off mid-sentence again, “Maya… Sweetie, we don’t have time for this. Please hold your meltdown for when I’m gone. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here. Last time it was a little less than 24 hours, so we have to get down to business and figure this mess out.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re ri
ght. So where do we start?”

  “I don’t have a freakin’ clue. What grade are we in right now?”

  “11th”

  “Who am I currently dating?”

  “I think you and Tyce are on another one of your little breaks.”

  TYCE! My high school sweetheart, Tyce. Ah, what I wouldn’t give to change a few things there... to fix what I had broken so very long ago. He was the one person that I would have really loved to talk to right now, but my gut was warning me that my attention was needed elsewhere. I wasn’t here to mend fences with him... well at least not today I wasn’t! That talk has waited this long so I guess it would just have to wait a little while longer. One day soon, I promised myself.

  “Tyce,” I said aloud, more to myself than to her while savoring the sound of his name as it rolled off my tongue. I knew somehow that he wasn’t the reason for this little jump back in time, but that didn’t mean that he never would be. Yeah right!

  Sorry people, but I am not that lucky.

  I saved Jay and that should be enough. Tyce was safe while left in the dark. If the truth about us ever came to light… how would he react, I wonder.

  “Oh hell, Maya… I don’t know why I’m here. I’m coming up blank; I am thirty-five you know. I can’t remember things as well as I used to. I purposely blocked out a lot of my past for a bunch of different reasons.”

  “Look, let’s go back inside, grandma. Who knows, maybe something in there will jog your Alzheimer’s,” she joked, wrapping her arm lightly through mines.

  We walked back inside the carnival arm-in-arm. We cased the joint and found no sign of Leslie or Garrett anywhere. What I did manage to find however, was far more disturbing.

  There standing only ten feet away from me was a boy named Tannon. Close to three inches shorter than me, light-skinned, with a smooth baby face, he was all decked out in tinted sunglasses (at night) and dressed in dark blue from his hat, all the way down to his shoes. He wore his jeans so baggy that I could not even image what kept them from falling to the pavement.