by Melanie Rose
Oh well… I did mention a moment ago that I wasn’t perfect, right?
What most people fail to realize is that my mother didn’t exactly raise me to be her sweet little princess. She didn’t teach me the first thing about being a lady or what it meant to have class. Luckily, I was born with those qualities ingrained deep inside of me already.
The lessons I learnt from her were how to lie and cheat, but most of all… how to manipulate. These were the three things that I had mastered over the years.
Not by choice, but by necessity.
I may look all innocent and naïve on the surface, but in truth, I was nothing more than a chameleon with a natural ability to adapt and blend into any environment and believe me… I have slithered my way out of some sticky situations unscathed.
Thanks to my parents DNA, I was a deadly combo of my mother’s vindictiveness and my father’s good heartiness. Therefore, over the years, I’ve had to learn to balance and master the war raging inside me.
Lord, help anyone that tipped my scale towards my mom’s side!
However, my greatest talent by far was the fact that I was a walking human lie detector. For some reason I’d always had the keen sense of reading people. My women’s intuition was stellar.
It’s amazing what some people will actually try to tell you or frankly… bold-face lie to you about, but I keep my poker face straight and go about my business like normal since people will tell you just about anything, if you’re silly enough to believe or listen to it.
I just silently laugh inside as they try to bullshit a bullshitter!
Nevertheless, people tend to waste their breath and say things that they don’t mean all the damn time regardless. Seems like I’m just going to have to face the fact that most individuals didn’t think along the same lines as me. I don’t tell people what they want to hear just for the sake of hearing myself speak. If I don’t mean it… then I simply don’t say it. What’s the point of wasting ones own breath?
Words are just words to me anyways. It was people’s actions that I went off of... I hear those suckers loud and clear and they usually told me everything that I needed to know about a person.
Having been burnt so many times that I couldn’t help but constantly protect myself whether it was necessary or not, I tended to keep people at arm’s length nowadays… it was a defense mechanism that I had picked up over time. I choose to not let people get too close to me, because I always found myself asking, “What do they really want from me... what are they expecting from me… or what are they trying to GET FROM MY ASS?” Someone was forever trying to get over on me, so I was constantly on the lookout for any possible warning signs.
Round and round we would go until they passed all of my tests. If they did manage to remain standing in the end, then they were worth keeping and earned a place in my life. It was gamble for sure. However, life was game of chess… and so; I always made it a point to remain five jumps ahead of my opponent, at all time, to be on the safe side.
Barely starting to wash my face, an eerie déjà vu feeling came over me again just like before.
Oh, shit!
Immediately, I thought “get to the bed” you idiot before you crack your head open on the toilet or something when your soulless body drops like a rock.
Flying to the safety of my mattress, I waited. I wasn’t scared this time and unbelievably, a part of me had been eagerly anticipating this occurring again.
My senior prom was where I ended up.
Why oh why did it have to be here of all the places to choose from in my past? Whoever was steering this ship has a strange sense of humor, forcing me to relive this particular part of my life.
Standing gracefully, in a floor length, stunning, dark maroon dress that my dad had custom-made for me I stood, radiant. I had carefully designed it to hug my body in all the right places without looking trashy. Surrounded by a ring of old friends with a red plastic cup in hand, I brought it up to my nose and sniffed.
Yup, spiked.
Gees, I used to be able to drink like a fish. It was typical to have a drink (or two) in my hands so I wasn’t the least bit surprised. The stronger the better.
But here’s the kicker though, people. Brace yourselves. My date for that evening just happened to be my ex-husband.
You heard me right. I didn’t stutter! My ex-husband Able.
We did have a good time at the actual prom itself. It was a little ways down the road that things turned ugly between us, but PROM had set it all in motion. What should I do now, I wonder. How should I handle this knowing how things were going to play out for us in the long run? Why couldn’t Tyce of come down from Alaska to escort me to this bloody thing like I had asked him to, instead of this idiot? My life would have been so different now if only… STOP! Just stop right there, Jazz. It’s not Tyce’s fault that I was so stupid back then.
Whom was I kidding? I only have myself to thank for killing all hope of a life with him, so Jazz get over it already and move on. Shaking it off, I got my head back in the game.
Now where was I…? Ah, I remember… senior prom.
Oh, joy!
I think I might try having a little fun with this one and give my ex what he has had coming for years. The tight circle we were standing in started to break apart as we all moved as a group towards the mindless mob of gyrating teenagers. I loved the music from the 90’s, shit I still listened to some it. Able lead me into the middle of the dance floor where the crowd was the thickest and began swaying to the beat.
Naturally, a slow song came on so he was trying to hold me close, but it was extremely hard for me to cooperate with that plan. Forced to concentrate, I centered myself as I felt my skin crawl when his encountered mine. Every inch of me wanted to pull away, jump back ten feet or just plain bitch-slap his ass, but I dug down deep and maintained my composer.
I’m not 100% sure, if I have the restraint to do this after all, people.
As the prom wound down for the night, the crowd became thinner and thinner. Most of the couples I knew were headed either to an after-party or to some sleazy motel to lose their virginity. My ex and I were headed for a combination of the two. An after-party at a sleazy motel.
Lucky me.
It wasn’t until after we arrived that he had the audacity to tell me that he had reserved a private room for us to enjoy later.
Boy pleez… I know who’s NOT getting laid tonight. That’s the first thing I’m going to change for sure. If I remotely see any of his private parts… I just might be tempted to cut the thing off.
I babysat every cup of alcohol that was passed to me. Looking around the room it was obvious that I was the only sober one left. I am embarrassed to think that I once felt comfortable and right at home in a situation like this. Where was my mind at back then?
I don’t know why I was even wasting my time with this dude; I knew exactly what I had to do and how drastically my present life would be affected as a result of it.
Tonight happened to be a major turning point in my young life. I could literally prevent the natural disaster that was headed straight for us before it even became a storm. Jay’s death had crushed me, but Able had broken me beyond repair.
I have to admit that I was a little hesitant or maybe even scared. What would I be returning home to if I actually went thru with this and changed the majority of the original plans for this night? What kind of person would I be if my life didn’t implode when I was barely eighteen years old? To not be put thru the ringer and hung out to dry. Who would I eventually become?
Totally unlike me, I decided to trust fate and leave it in her hands. That was a monumental leap because trust did not come naturally for me at all... way too much bad shit had happened for me to take that junk lightly. However, I knew that someone or something was at work here. Why else had I been blessed with the opportunity to redo my past mistakes?
This had better not make things worse for me, is all I’m saying!
Quickly stepping ou
tside of the crammed room into the cool, dark evening air when no one was paying any attention, I walked around the building to the front office of the Roxford Inn and ask the night manager on duty if I could borrow the phone. It was there that I waited until my SUV appeared in the parking lot out front. Carefully climbing into the passenger seat, making sure that my dress didn’t get caught in the door, we sped away into the night.
I didn’t even feel bad that I had just left all my former friends behind without any clue of my whereabouts. I wonder how long it will take their drunken asses to notice that I was even gone.
My non-licensed, fifteen year old little brother looked over at me from the driver’s seat. I stared back at him knowing he was chock full of questions. “What?” I said, shrugging my strapless shoulders.
“You look pretty darn calm for a girl who just ditched her own prom night!”
“I just saved myself a lot of gray hair. Trust me. When you get home can you tell dad that I’m at Maya’s please?”
“Uh, the parents won’t care where you are. They’re probably passed out at some luau right now anyways, knowing them.”
“What are you saying to me exactly? Did I miss something?” I asked very confused by his last remark.
“That I’m not about to call them in Hawaii just to tell them that you’re at Maya’s.”
Hawaii huh… that works for me because I’m definitely still not ready to come face to face with my dad yet. Guess there’s really no point of hiding out at Maya’s all night long after all, but I still felt the need to talk to her. “Can you take me home first then so I can get out of this thing? And I’m going to need a favor; probably a couple of favors before the night is thru if it is not too much trouble for you.”
I had always looked at Joel as my twin instead of an annoying little brother. I knew I could depend on him no matter what. We were a team. Even way back then, we had each other’s back. I told him that I needed him to man the phone. That everyone was going to start looking for me eventually and that he needed to tell them that, he had no idea where I was.
Let them worry! If it wasn’t the police or Maya, frankly, I didn’t care to be bothered.
Next, I instructed him that he is to prevent me from ever getting back together with Able at all costs and not to pay it any attention if I started acting as if I didn’t remember anything that I had just told him in the morning. He was to follow tonight’s instructions to the “T” for me, no matter what.
He looked at me like I was smoking crack, but didn’t question me any further. Instead, I asked him to trust me and that the less he knew right now, the better.
I was in my room getting changed when the phone started ringing off the hook. Joel played his role perfectly. Able was frantic with worry, but it served him right for not being the person he appeared to be. He was that shy, quiet type. A real snake in the grass! Be careful of these ones, ladies. I had to learn that the hard way so do not say that I never warned you.
Dressed in jeans and my favorite team sweatshirt, I scrubbed off all the heavy layers of makeup that my younger self had caked onto my face. I rarely wore foundation anymore because it made my skin feel like it couldn’t breathe under the added weight of it and I stayed far, far away from mascara since it had a tendency to smear, leaving me with not so pretty looking raccoon eyes.
It was only midnight, but I still wondered if it was too late to go over to Maya’s tonight as I had originally planned. If I were going anywhere else but there, I would have stayed home, but Maya had the coolest mom on the planet. She was more like a mom to me than my own mother was and wouldn’t have minded me coming over at any hour of the night.
Maya had been suspended from school for fighting and wasn’t allowed to attend the prom, even though she had already paid for her ticket well in advance. She was supposed to meet me at the after-party, but she was the second person I called from the motel office and told her not to bother… that I was coming to her instead.
I found her sitting out on the curb in front of her pale yellow house when I drove up. She wasn’t surprised that I had managed to travel back to the past for a third time now. The way she acted, you would think that this kind of thing happened all the time.
I immediately started to fill her in on my current dilemma. This was going to be a big decision for me and I was starting to truly second guess myself. I prayed that she could ease some of my fears so I didn’t chicken out altogether.
Taking my time, I explained to her that tonight I had gotten so wasted that I ended up having unprotected sex with Able against my better judgment, which lead to a lot more unprotected sex in our future. How things were great between the two of us for weeks after that… we all graduated then went off to party our little hearts out at grad-night, where we had the time of our lives celebrating my 18th birthday.
How we were all enjoying the freedom of having had finished school, when I found out that I was pregnant just a couple of months afterwards. “At first, Able was so supportive. He even went to all of my doctor appointments with me. I was three months along when he pulled a 360 and changed his mind about the baby.” I told her.
“That little fucker! What did he do?” she said pissed.
“He told me in a damn parking lot that he wasn’t ready to be a dad and asked me to have an abortion.”
“No girl… tell me he didn’t? How could he?”
“I know right! I was so heartbroken that I shutdown and did exactly as he asked. I didn’t want to trap him and I definitely didn’t want to be a single mother at eighteen either. We didn’t speak after that day, he completely abandoned me. I felt as if I didn’t have any other choice but to terminate the pregnancy. I knew my mom wouldn’t have helped me with the baby like any normal grandmother would have and my dad would have been so disappointed in me for throwing away my future.
My hands were tied. I can see myself heading into the clinic and having it done so clearly. He didn’t even go with me… he wasn’t there when it was finished… he didn’t even bother to call to see if I was alright afterwards, let alone help me pay for it.”
“That’s horrible, Jazz,” she said, placing an arm around me as my eyes began to moisten and redden.
“You want to know what the worst part was… the clinic gave me an ultrasound to check how far along I was before they performed the procedure. I was 13 weeks; I saw the baby on the monitor and even heard her little heartbeat before they sedated me. I was completely traumatized when I felt the baby move inside of me for the very first time. It was as if she knew what I was about to do.
They put me to sleep and when I woke up, I found myself in a row of beds setup along a blank wall. Maya, they were all filled with young girls our age. They made me get up to get dressed despite my protests of pain and blood splattered all over the white marble floor beneath me. There was… so… much… blood. They refused to let me leave because I was bleeding out so much. After getting dressed and drinking some orange juice, I was forced to literally endure them observing me for another hour. Girl, I was humiliated with a capital H.
When I finally did make it outside, the fresh air hit me so hard that I threw up in the bushes. Joel was waiting there for me so he could drive me home, but he had to practically pick me up and carry me to the car because I just wanted to curl up there next to my vomit and disappear from the world.”
“I swear, I’ll kill him with me bare hands the next time I see him,” she sneered.
“I tried to commit suicide later on that evening, but I was stopped right before I could hurt myself. For some unknown reason, Tyce called me at that exact moment just to check on me. I had talked to him the night before and told him what I was planning to do and he was simply calling me back to see if I was okay. He had no idea that I was about to kill myself… how could he? He saved my life and didn’t even know it.
That was the darkest day of my life by far and I have never really gotten over it. It still pains me to this day. Every year when everyone else comes tog
ether to celebrate Thanksgiving, I relive the anniversary of that horrific day. There’s no way I could ever block that memory out, because that day was perfectly named… Black Friday!
Nobody understands that I hate the person that I now see in the mirror everyday. It’s the face of a monster. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t regret what I did. I killed my own baby. Oh God Maya… I killed my own daughter for that PRICK!” I admitted reluctantly, burying my face in my hands as I finally released the secrets and horrors of that day.
“Where was I during all of this?” she asked me apologetically.
“I don’t remember… I was in such a dark place that I think my brain started blocking out bits and pieces in order to protect itself. I spiraled out of control, pushing everyone away, including you. Our friendship changed at that point… the closeness that we share right now becomes lost. We’re still friends and all, but it’s different… much different from how it used to be.
You see, Maya, I no longer trusted anyone around me. I became suspicious of everything. Paranoid that everyone was trying to hurt me… destroy me. I still have major problems with authority to this very day because of Able. I cannot stand it when people try to tell me what to do. I instantly get transported back to that time and I’ll be damned if anyone else makes or forces another decision upon me… EVER!
My drinking was at an all time high. I even slept with Tyce, Luke, and Able all in the same month trying to get pregnant again… believe it or not. I didn’t care who the father might end up being. The furthest things from my mind were the consequences and repercussions of my stupidity. The only thing driving me at that moment was a need to right a wrong. I needed to feel a little baby growing inside of me again, no matter what it took. That alone was the driving force behind my actions... Girl, I was obsessed. I used and hurt people that I cared for deeply in order to get what I wanted and I’ve punished myself for it ever since.
