Loved - A Novel Read online

  Afterwards, we took a formal tour of the school and the recording studio. The halls were lined with gold records: Reba McEntire, Tricia Yearwood, Vince Gill and so many others. I couldn’t believe that this place existed somewhere outside my dreams, that these could be my halls and that this could be my life. I thought about the students there, the large number of people who loved music as much as I did, who wanted to make a life out of it and how I wanted so badly to be a part of such a community. At home, I was the only person I knew who was like that.

  Paul took me to dinner and then to his house. My parents said I had to be back to the hotel by midnight. Paul and I put on a movie in his bedroom but we talked and kissed through the whole thing, my white halter-top coming off in a moment of passion. I lay on the bed in my jeans and bra, feeling exposed but not quite nervous about it. He lay next to me, propped up on one elbow as he ran his fingertips over my bare stomach.

  I felt safe. I trusted Paul. I hoped this might blossom into a relationship. I had enjoyed daydreaming about it but I didn’t feel any more invested than he seemed to be. I didn’t want any more from him than he was willing or able to give. We enjoyed spending time together, we respected and admired each other and the rest would happen as it happened. I kissed him again and then turned away from him to put my shirt back on, laughing lightly; he drove me back to the hotel where my parents were waiting up for me.

  One day in the spring, I got a letter in the mail that I knew was my SAT scores. I believed I was a smart girl but I didn’t work as hard as I could have in school and I had been so nervous and distracted the day I took the test. I tore open the top of the envelope with my thumb. I unfolded the letter and my eyes flew over the page for the place where there was a number printed.

  1110.

  I was in. I was leaving for Nashville in six months. I quit my after school job as a hostess at Applebee’s and didn’t participate in cheerleading or ballet for the rest of the year. This was my last semester of high school and I was going to enjoy it for all it was worth.

  May, 2000.

  One day, when I was driving my brother home from school, he told me that some guy in his class wanted him to tell me “hello.” His name was Chase. I didn’t know who he was but I was excited and surprised, even, that someone had noticed me. The next day Chase asked him to tell me “I love you” from him. I had to figure out who this guy was!

  Later that week, my brother and I were leaving the school parking lot when he pointed and said, “Hey, that’s Chase.” I followed his finger to a guy wearing silver pants and a black long sleeved shirt. He had brown hair with blonde streaks in the front, which on him managed to look more punk rock than preppy. He was walking down the sidewalk with a friend, talking and laughing. As we drove by, he saw me and started fanning himself as if to say, “She’s so hot.” He didn’t know I could see him.

  I was certainly curious. He was cute, he was different and he was interested in me. I wanted so badly for someone to know that I was different, too. Maybe he could tell I didn’t belong there.

  A few days later, I dressed up for an after school field trip to Pittsburgh with the French Club. I was wearing a turquoise and black paisley silk skirt and a sheer black shirt over a blue tank top. I liked to think I was on the cutting edge of fashion without drawing too much attention to myself but that day I was feeling a little extra bold. I put blue food coloring streaks in my hair, and though blue on blonde looks more like green, I went with it anyway. When I got home that night my brother gave me a note, folded into a small square.

  Kim,

  Before I start, let me say the green is beautiful in your hair. I realize I know nothing about you, but I know I want to. And I know I don’t know what makes you tick, but I plan on finding out.

  I don’t really know what to say. I mean, I guess it’s up to you for what happens next.

  555-0352 (ask for Chase)

  “I wanna be the last thing that you hear when you’re falling asleep.”

  I love the Counting Crows.

  <3,

  Chase

  Of course I would call him. He wanted to be the last thing I heard when I was falling asleep! Who says that? To someone he’s never even met! I was excited about the prospect of romance—real romance. With someone who quotes beautiful lyrics and wears silver pants and likes when I do something ridiculous like dye my hair green. Someone with whom I could be myself.

  I called him the next day after school. I was beyond nervous, my heart pounding so loudly I was worried he would hear it over the phone.

  “Is Chase there?” I asked the woman who answered. I waited for her to get him.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. This is Kim.”

  “Well hello!”

  “Hello.” I smiled. This was going well.

  I told him about the French Club trip. He told me about his guitar playing, the songs he was writing and how he hated school and found it completely pointless. I told him I missed doing theatre because I didn’t have a show that spring. He said he had seen me in the school’s production of Poe’s Midnight Dreary the previous fall before he knew who I was. He had a friendly voice and an offbeat sense of humor. I sensed complicated emotions swirling beneath his casual words.

  He invited me to a show he was playing at a small theatre in town. It would be the first time we met in person. I already had plans that night but I wouldn’t have missed this for the world so I rushed over, on my own, as soon as I could. I was late and when I walked in, he was alone on the stage, sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar in his lap. I was wearing my favorite shirt, a soft sea green knit, jeans and my silver fairy charm on a chain that I wore almost every day.

  He announced to the dark crowded room that he would play just one more song. Someone made a disappointed sound, to which Chase replied, “Dry your eyes, kitten.” Then he played a Black Lab song:

  She walks through the gates of the country, hands at her side

  And I smile as I watch her walk by

  Somehow I see there are ships in her eyes

  She’s better off now

  I was impressed with his voice, his song choice and his charm. I was smitten.

  We went on our first date a few nights later. We walked down to the lake and sat on a weathered bench by the dock. He anxiously picked at the peeling white paint. I was also nervous but I hoped I was better at hiding it.

  “So you grew up here, at the lake?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I have like a hundred cousins and all my uncles have boats. We spent our summers on the lake, swimming or tubing or watching the fireworks at the park.”

  “That’s so nice. You’re lucky. Our family is… Well, I don’t see anyone much except Mum and my brother. And my brother and I aren’t very close.”

  He put his arm around me and I rested my head on his shoulder, feeling the sun on my face. I didn’t know what to say back. “I’m sorry,” or “that’s awful,” seemed so cliché, so I just looked up at him into his big blue eyes.

  I’m sorry, I thought. That’s awful. But now you have me.

  Then he kissed me. Despite my nervousness, I felt very comfortable with him. It was as if it was a first kiss and a thousandth kiss at the same time.

  Back at my house, we watched my favorite movie, Playing By Heart. We were both more at ease now. Our kiss had broken the ice and we were beginning to settle into each other’s company. I didn’t want the night to end. I wanted to look into his eyes, kiss him and be with him forever.

  He nicknamed me Kitten and called me only that. We had so much to say to each other, like we’d been quiet our whole lives until we met. It was as if I had underestimated how hungry I was for a companion, how much I needed to be understood, to be pursued, to be seen and to be reflected in someone’s eyes. And he fed that hunger with his words, both verbally and in the letters we exchanged between classes when we passed each other in the halls at school.

  Kitten,

  So, Spanish sucks. I’m never going to Spa
in, so why am I learning this stuff, ya know? I’m thinking about you. How I just can’t seem to get enough of you. I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet. I can’t get you out of my head, and I think you shine when you smile. I haven’t felt this way about someone in a long time. All I can say is I’m looking forward to being with you as long as I can. I’m pretending I’m a pirate and you’re my treasure. Now, to enjoy the spoils of this find. Think about it. It makes sense. Seriously, it does.

  “Can I keep you?”

  Chase

  He had a hunger too, which he let show without fear. He wasn’t needy or whiny; rather, it came across more like he was in awe of me, felt lucky to have me and didn’t believe he deserved me. It was nice to be so treasured but I didn’t see it the way he did. I felt lucky to have him.

  I told Paul about Chase, of course. I wasn’t worried that he would be upset about it. I knew we were friends more than anything and that he wasn’t trying to create a commitment out of our relationship. He was just as understanding as I thought he’d be, happy for me even. We still talked on the phone once or twice a week about what he was up to in his work, about my upcoming move to Nashville or my final months of high school life.

  The girls and I had planned to go to Prom together, sans dates and I couldn’t think of a better way to enjoy one of my last high school milestones than to be with my best friends. I wore a pale blue Cinderella gown that laced up the back and a tiara, which sparkled atop a pile of curls.

  Chase joined me for the after party at Meredith’s house. All the girls changed into pajamas and all the boys seemed anxious. Chase got along with everyone but we kept mostly to ourselves, setting up camp on the floor in the den. It was the first time I had spent the night next to a guy but that didn’t occur to me. There was nothing outside of that room at that moment. We curled up together in my navy blue sleeping bag from the summer camp that I had outgrown and whispered late into the night. We had so much to learn about each other.

  “There are some things I want to tell you, Kitten but I’m nervous because I don’t want to scare you away. I already have no idea what you see in me. I have had a lot of turmoil in my life and the person that I am is the end result of everything I’ve done.”

  “You can tell me anything,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.” I put my hand on his chest.

  “I just, I wish there was a way for you to see inside me. I’ve never felt this way about anyone or anything. I’m happier right now in my life than I thought was humanly possible,” he said, his tone serious.

  He told me that his dad and his mom had split up when he was really young and that he had chosen not to speak to his dad anymore at an age too young for such a decision; he was now in the process of starting to cultivate a relationship with this man who was his father but who he hardly knew. He told me everything.

  “I used to play sports,” he continued. “I was actually really good. But in seventh grade…depression hit me really hard. It was hard for me to watch my friends change. In eighth grade, I lost a friend that was the only thing I still enjoyed in my life. We were inseparable for eight years then one day he...quit. The summer between eighth and ninth grade I barely left the house except to go to therapy, and when I hit rock bottom I tried to kill myself twice.”

  I brushed his hair from his eyes. He had just added red streaks to the front of it, where the blonde had been. He went on.

  “Looking back I don’t regret it but my life has never been the same. They put me on these pills to help me open up to people again. Then I didn’t have the energy to kill myself so I just kept marching on in my one-man army. Then I fell really hard for you. I was so happy that day. That was the day I found the gun. I remember being happier than I felt was possible and I didn’t want to lose that feeling so I thought about ending my life again. But I couldn’t do it. You were the reason I didn’t. You saved my life.”

  I just shook my head and then I kissed him. Truly, none of that scared me. I was girly and friendly and my family life was happy but many days I felt like I was on the inside what Chase was on the outside. I always believed I was a happy person with a sad soul. I felt like I had had tragedy in my life when I hadn’t. Somehow, without having experienced what he had, his scars resonated with me.

  “You wanted to know my story, now you do. I hope I haven’t scared you away,” he said.

  “You haven’t. You couldn’t. Nothing you do could keep me away,” I reassured him.

  We marveled at each other. I could see him. I knew who was behind those big blue eyes.

  It was an incredible feeling to be so important to someone, to be treasured. I needed him for different reasons than he needed me but just as much. He helped me to see ways in which I could express myself artistically. He showed me not to be so afraid to be different or to be misunderstood. We each wanted to see the world how the other did.

  From a very young age, I found myself to be completely preoccupied with love. Not fairy-tale love but passionate, devastating, haunting love. Now it seemed I had found someone who felt the same way.

  One day in school, I saw Chase in the hall on my way to third period Algebra and he gave me a note that he had probably written in Spanish class. I slid into my seat next to Meredith and held up my calculator proudly. She had a sheet of gold star stickers in her textbook. Any day that I remembered to bring my calculator she gave me a gold star. “Yay, Ims!” she said, using her special nickname for me, before she passed me my brand new star. I added it to the three others on the cover of my notebook and we laughed.

  As the teacher began to go over our homework, I opened the note. It was blank. I turned it over but still nothing. Then I saw it at the bottom of the page in very light pencil, a line from Playing By Heart: “Is it too late to say I love you?”

  Finally I remembered to bring my calculator to class but then I forgot how to use it. The teacher was speaking in gibberish and everyone around me disappeared. I may as well have been lazing in the field at home, under a dancing willow tree and dreaming.

  I was Faith Hill CDs, giggling with my girlfriends and reading books under a big sky. He was black fingernails, blue hair and Stone Temple Pilots, and I loved him.

  But I was leaving in the fall. Soon! I had to be honest with him about that. We only had a matter of months to be together before I would be starting college six hundred miles away and he would have two years of high school to finish. I didn’t know how we would make it work but we would have to find a way. Chase agreed that somehow we would survive.

  Kitten,

  May I say that you look absolutely beautiful today? My jaw fell off and my heart just about stopped beating when I saw you this morning. I still can’t believe you’re mine. You don’t need to worry about losing me kitten; this is real. I’m not going to let any distance between you and I affect love. We fit perfectly, ya know? No, really, we do. I love you, and not just in that nighttime television sort of way. Kitten, you are my hourglass. I could watch you for eternity. Just give me that chance.

  Zoro

  I didn’t let myself think about being afraid of what would happen. I just couldn’t put the two thoughts—Chase and college—together in my mind.

  We spent that summer in his bed, which isn’t at all how it sounds. We would just lie there and watch movies or talk for hours. We talked about his concern for his mom’s happiness, about music, about movies, about my need to get out of Westville and do something bigger, about his struggles with self-confidence and about the intense passion we felt for each other. We were both Scorpios so the entire relationship was very intense. We weren’t just testing the waters. We were swimming in an ocean.

  The passion was more physical than I’d had before and while we talked a lot about sex, Chase didn’t pressure me to go farther than I wanted to. I’m not saying we were angels but I drew the line and we left it there.

  One particularly overcast and humid day we were in his room deciding on a movie.

  “Muppets Christmas or
Muppets Take Manhattan?” he asked. I was quiet for a minute, watching him ponder over the videos stacked on the TV before snuggling further under the brown blanket. It was cold without him next to me.

  “Or we could always watch...”

  “Return to Oz!” I finished.

  “Ok, Ozma, that it is.”

  Chase was the first person I’d ever met who agreed with me that Return to Oz was amazing and not a bit creepy. He called me Ozma and I called him Tick Tock after two characters in the movie.

  He pushed play and crawled over me to his spot on the bed. He put his arms around me and turned me towards him. I didn’t really need to see the movie anyway. I’d seen it five hundred times.

  “You saved me, you know. I never thought I’d feel like this about anyone. I love you, Kit,” he said.

  His gigantic blue eyes burned into mine and I knew he meant it. It was scary and exhilarating. I wanted nothing more than to stay in that moment forever, swimming in his eyes and covered in his hands.

  “I love you, too,” I said and he kissed me.

  “Look, Billina,” said Dorothy on the TV, “these ones have lost their heads.”

  August, 2000.

  We had lost our heads. We had also lost all sense of time and reality and an eagerness to imagine the future. I saw Chase. That was all. I saw him and I saw us and nothing else mattered. When I spoke of Nashville or of my excitement for college, it felt like I was speaking of someone else’s life. Not my own. Not mine with him.

  But the truth was that I did have to leave. I was older than he was and it was my time to go out on my own. The truth was that it didn’t matter that I loved him. I could hope he would follow, that we would find our way to each other but I was leaving and my life was about to be very, very different.