kerry. junior year of high school.
if the whole thing with brian left me feeling a little lost, then this escapade sealed the deal. kerry was one of the biggest mistakes of my life, and the epitome of Me Being Bad. i have no photo of kerry, and that's probably for the best.
kerry's girlfriend, lynn, was my best friend. she & i were in marching band together, and we spent all of our free time tooling around town in her old white chevy... i remember the blue leather interior like it was yesterday. lynn & kerry had been dating for quite a while, and there were rumors of an impending engagement.
sadly, whatever scent i had been giving off at that time in my life snared kerry, too. he started hanging out with me when lynn was working... we'd go to garage sales on the back of his motorcycle, or i'd visit him at work (he was an EMS in training). pretty soon he was wanting things to become physical.
big warning signs in my head were flashing "BAD IDEA! BAD IDEA!" but i felt helpless. one night, in a rainstorm, we had sex on my mom's front lawn and i felt like i had finally lost control over who i was.
both of us vowed to keep it a secret from lynn. i held up my end of the pact, though it killed me. a couple of weeks later, though, kerry caved in and i got a furious phone call from lynn.
"did you sleep with kerry??!?"
as if it were my idea.
so many things were flying through my brain... how did she find out? what do i say? did kerry confess? am i being entrapped? should i deny it? my heart was beating outside my chest.
in the end, my silence did me in. "the fact you're not saying anything tells me everything." she slammed down the phone and i never spoke with her again. i tried calling her back, but her mom always answered and told me lynn didn't want to have anything to do with me.
from what i heard through the grapevine, though, she & kerry went ahead and got engaged. i would have loved to hear his version of the story... what kerry told her that made her think that he was an ok guy to marry. i suppose he made me out to be an evil, conniving seductress, so hell-bent on sex that i was willing to betray my best friend.
and part of me wonders whether that wasn't true. just a little bit. but a bigger part of me realizes that i was just a mixed-up kid, making bad decisions.
Posted by xta at March 12, 2004 2:40 PM | TrackBack