Page 53 of The One That Ran Away
I left a piece of my soul in that room that night. I left a piece of who I was in the depths of her body, and I prayed to God it would take root and stay with her forever.
***
Rain was soon to fall in downtown Portland. Jess stepped out of a café on the inner Eastside and sniffed the air, wondering how long she had before the raindrops came.I can’t feel rain and not think of that night.It was all she could think about ever since she told Amanda how far things had gone with Shannon.
Jess was frozen on the sidewalk. The memories surged into her for the hundredth time in the past month. She remembered when she didn’t used to think about it so much. When she had solidly moved on from the mind games Shannon played with her senior year of college.
Normally, Jess would hop the bus at the stop only a few blocks away. It conveniently took her straight home to her studio apartment in outer Southwest, and it wasn’t like she would be riding a bike around there anytime soon.Yay. Another fun memory to have when I need it least.Except she didn’t go straight to that bus stop. Instead, she headed toward the Burnside bridge, because she had too much energy and wanted to burn some of it by crossing a damned bridge on foot. She didn’t care if it rained on her. She didn’t give a shit if the loud buses and cars crossing the bridge during rush hour overstimulated her. She barely heard them as she trudged against the bridge, walking into wind and a light flurry of sprinkling rain.
Someone slightly bumped into her on their way by. Jess had her headphones on and kept her head pointed down against the wind. The only reason she knew who bypassed her was because of that electric touch sparking between them.
“Oh. My. God.” Jess wanted to laugh, but the wind drowned her out. The rain now pattering against the top of her head almost put out the last of her life’s fires. “You have got to be kidding me. What the fuck.”
Shannon pulled down the scarf wrapped around her face. “What in the world? What are you doing here? On this bridge? Right now?”
Jess couldn’t hold back the laughter anymore. She let it fly free, like a bird tossed into the oncoming storm. “You know,” she said over the wind and rain, “sometimes I think there really must be some force at work out there. It’s the only explanation for how we keep bumping into each other, even when I don’t want to see you!”
Rain slicked off Shannon’s jacket. Jess wasn’t privileged enough to have a rain jacket. The water instead seeped straight into her sweater and the button-up beneath. “That explains why you haven’t returned my messages,” Shannon said with a smile. How could she smile at a time like this?
“You’re right. Because I blocked you.”
“Well, that’s rude.”
“Would you shut up?” Jess slapped her hand against the railing, the waters of the Willamette River trembling with the winds. She couldn’t see where the rain went from that high up. “Why do you keep torturing me like this?”
Shannon matched Jess’s laughter with her own. “Oh, yeah, I’m totally doing this on purpose. You think I knew where you were today? Honestly, Jess, I could throw the same thing back at you, only about college. Weren’t you stalking me back then?”
“As if!”
“Same principle applies, then.” Shannon shrugged. “Must be fate, huh?”
“You’re so nonchalant about it now. What about back in college, when you flaked out on me after fucking me?”
Shannon appeared shocked that Jess would bring that up here, now, on a bridge in the middle of Portland, a city they never had in common – until they did. “That was a long time ago. Why is it so strange that I might want to try again?”
So she admitted it? “When did you get the grand idea to try again with me? Before or after your most recent boyfriend dumped you?”
“It’s not like that.” Shannon brushed her wet bangs out of her eyes. Her hair had lost most of its luster when it became wet. Was this what she looked like in her most natural state? Jess thought she had witnessed it when Shannon was naked in her own bed. No. This was it. Take away the appeal of her hair, and… damnit. She was still perfect. Only now she looked like the prettiest wet kitty to hop down from her perch to taunt Jess.
How dare she?
“Then what is it like?” Jess asked.
“I dunno, Jess. You tell me.”
“I’m the one who got dumped, you bitch!”
Shannon stepped back with a gasp. Was she going to do it? Deny that she haddumpedJess?I never thought we were a real couple, but you fucked me over like we were.Jess knew her fair share of romantic rejection. If she was lucky enough to make it to a date, then the date usually ended with rejection.You were one of the only people to make me feel acceptable.Men had the power to make Jess feel desirable for a night. Women could validate her for the rest of her life with one well-timed kiss.
The most influential woman in Jess’s love life looked away, crestfallen. The wind kicked up again, tangling her formerly feathery hair.Wet kitty? More like drowned rat.
“You’re right,” she said over the sound of rain. “What I did is inexcusable. In my defense, though… I wasn’t ready for something like that. I was barely ready to face who I was.”
“Who the hell were you back then?”
Shannon’s eyes slightly widened before she pointed her head down again. “Selfish. I ran away because I was too selfish to understand what I was doing to you. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to hurt you, okay?” Her desperate visage begged Jess to believe her. Perhaps, even, to forgive her. “You were always so nice to me. I never met anyone who wanted to get to know me like you did. I was so used to people being, you know… people.” Shannon sighed. Her jacket was soaked through. Rain fell down her cheeks like tears. Likewise, Jess’s water-laden jeans grew heavy against her legs. “Men wanted to sleep with me. The kind of women I attracted as friends were … theworst!I always felt so pointless! I ran away because I didn’t know how to handle someone genuinely interested in me.”
Jess snorted the rainwater dripping down her nose. “Honestly?” she said, in utter disbelief that she was about to brand herself with the very thing Shannon hated most. “I also just wanted to fuck you.”
