Chapter 7
Her duvet covered her from head to toe. She was grateful to be back home, but she could not stop herself from replaying what she could remember of her time in California.
Shanda’s mind went over and over her encounter with Ralph, like a fugue. It had the same start, the same middle, and the same end, and still, she went back for another round. She alternated between cursing herself for her behavior, analyzing what she could have done differently, and breaking into tearless sobs. It was her first morning after having arrived home the previous day. She had gone straight to bed, slept, woke up, cried some more and slept again. She could hear the relentless wind as it howled and swirled outside, but she had no wish to even peek through the window. She was fine with the view of the underside of her duvet. For now.
She had envisioned and shaped her whole future with Ralph and now it felt as though the ground had been removed from beneath her feet. Shanda’s mind still stubbornly refused to contemplate a future without him. She felt caged by her own unwillingness to just let go, but she also felt the unbearable truth that their tie was now officially severed. She curled herself into the fetal position. How wonderful it would have felt to be back, safe inside the womb. To be reborn, to start anew. The world terrified her, and her own place in that world, terrified her. The confidence she had always felt about her future had ebbed, leaving her vulnerable and without a sense of purpose.
The apartment was ear-splittingly silent, something that Shanda had not noticed before. Her whole body felt sore and exhausted, yet her mind was fully alert and working at warp speed. It was odd, this feeling of disconnection from everything. She did not seem to care about the things that had mattered to her before she went to California. At the back of her mind, Shanda knew she was due back to work in four days, but the very thought that at one point she would need to wake up, seemed impossible.
She must have drifted off to sleep because the next thing she knew; there was a loud banging on her door. Shanda covered her ears with her hands and willed the noise to go away. Eventually whoever was out there would go away. The knocking continued for a while and then mercifully whoever it was, stopped. She returned to her mental cocoon, where she and Ralph still existed.
He had the most perfect hands, Shanda recalled. Long and slender and oh so gentle. Ralph didn’t want to be with her, and Shanda knew she would never find love like that again. Besides, the very thought of being with anyone but Ralph was unfathomable. Shanda knew she should eat, but she dismissed that thought as soon as it entered her mind. She should have begged him! Made him see how right they were for each other. The day passed in a blur of sleeping and waking. The door banged again. Shanda lifted her head towards the window and saw that darkness had fallen.
She heard Flora’s voice through the fog of sleep.
“Shanda! Are you there?”
Guilt flooded her at the realization that her friend was likely worried sick about her. On the other hand, her brain pulled her back to slumber, her limbs too weak to fight it. The voice came again, louder and urgent. Shanda shook her head and forcefully swung her legs over the side of her bed and she staggered towards the living room to the front door.
She turned the lock and opened the door.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Shanda blinked several times before her eyes opened enough to take in Flora and Tony standing at her door.
“Sleeping?” she muttered.
“We were so worried about you Shanda!”
Flora’s fingers were folded into fists and her eyes were blazing with rage and recently-stilled fear. It hit Shanda then, how unfair it had been of her not to text Flora. She lowered her eyes in shame.
“I’m so sorry,” she said and then burst into tears.
“Look, I’ll leave you two,” Tony stuttered. “You’ll be alright Shanda,” he added, and turned to leave.
“I knew this would happen to you! Damn Ralph,” Flora cursed as she took hold of Shanda’s arm and steered her into the apartment. “When was the last time you ate?”
Shanda shook her head. “I don’t know but I’m all right really. I’m not hungry at all.”
“I’ll make you some scrambled eggs; they’re easy on the tummy,” Flora offered. Shanda nodded.
When Flora left the room, Shanda curled up on the couch and closed her eyes. Thankfully, her migraine seemed to have gone, and she let herself drift off into a state of nothingness. It seemed as though only seconds had gone by before Flora returned with a plate of scrambled eggs and a glass of water. Shanda sat up and dutifully took the plate.
She looked at and smelled the food with rising nausea.
“Go on, get it down. Just try a bite. You’ll feel better, I promise,” Flora commanded.
Shanda took the first spoonful and closed her eyes as she ate. It tasted like cardboard, but it did not churn her stomach. She ate as quickly as she could, knowing it was the only way to get Flora off her back. When she finished, she placed the plate on a stool and sat back in her chair.
“So, I take it the surprise didn’t go so well,” Flora said as gently as she was able to. Even though her words were harsh against Shanda’s ears, and even though they stung her heart, Flora’s voice was tender and full of concern.
It was the kindness in her voice that did it. Shanda dissolved into tears again.
“He has a girlfriend, a girl to fool around with!” Shanda blurted out amidst sobs.
Flora sighed deeply. Shanda blew into her handkerchief and then proceeded to tell Flora all of what she could recall of the incident. It did feel good talking about it, almost as though she were exorcising that awful night from her mind by allowing it to spill from her lips. After Shanda had told her whole tale, she found that she could not cry again. There were no more tears left.
“Come on Shanda, you’re a strong girl. There is so much more to you than Ralph. He doesn’t define you. You’re a brilliant woman, and a talented musician. I promise you, your life is nowhere near over. You can’t let this destroy you. There’s someone out there for you. You have to believe that,” Flora encouraged.
Shanda wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know Flora; it’s just so hard and painful.”
Flora moved from her chair and sat next to Shanda. She put an arm around her.
“Don’t you think you’ve given Ralph enough of your years? Isn’t it time to focus on yourself now?”
Shanda remembered that first time when she and Ralph had met, and they had made out in her room, falling a little short of making love. It seemed as if it were years ago. Flora was right. She couldn’t keep pining over a man who obviously did not feel the same for her. It was unproductive, and it kept her stuck in a fugue of pain. Over and over. Shanda ignored the voice in her head that had, for years, been telling her that Ralph loved her.
She had listened to that voice for far too long.
“What do I do now?” she mused.
“Why, you live your life as you did before, but now you do it without fantasizing about Ralph. It’s time to face reality, Shanda. Ralph is gone. You’re beautiful and smart and you have the world at your feet.”
The words made Shanda feel wonderful, as if indeed she could forget about him and finally live her life for herself. She deserved that.
“You know,” Flora said pensively, “It might turn out to be a wonderful stroke of luck that you and Ralph did not get together.”
Shanda stared at her in shock but said nothing. Not getting together with Ralph would never, ever turn out to be a stroke of luck. Never. She still loved him as she did before she went to California. She just had to learn to live without him. She would learn to live with the pain of unrequited love the way a person with chronic back pain learns to work and live through the things that cause them to hurt. Still, she thought with a shrug, Flora was doing her best to cheer her up.
But hours later, after Flora had left, taking with her the spare key, the euphoria left Shanda and she felt as empty as she did before Flora had visited her. Who was she kidding? She loved Ralph too much. How in God’s name would she be able to move on? Already in her pajamas, Shanda retired to bed for the night and as she lay there, a thought crossed her mind.
What if Ralph had e-mailed her? Told her what a mistake it had been, that he wanted her in his life. With an agility she did not know she possessed, Shanda jumped from bed and ran to the living room where her laptop was. She flipped it open and turned it on, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for it to come to life.
Her heart beat hard when she saw an email from him. Damn! She had wasted all those tears when all she needed to have done was check her mail. She suspended her breath as she waited for the mail to open. When it did, it took a moment for the words to sink in.
Hi Shanda,
I hope you made it back to Oregon alright. I was really worried about you and how you left; we didn’t even get a chance to speak. I’ve thought about it a lot since you left and I can only guess at the reason you had come down to California. I’m sorry it had to end this way. I really hoped that we could remain friends, but I’ve come to realize that a friendship isn’t going to be possible. I will always love you but as we agreed, we must both hook up with other people and move on. I guess the timing never was right for us, was it? I wish you all the best, and I hope that one day we can truly be friends.
Take care,
Ralph.
Shanda covered her mouth with her hands. Her body shook and she was attacked first by cold, and then unbearable heat. She felt as if she had contracted a raging fever that very moment. The letter was so cold and so final. If there had been shreds of hope left anywhere in her heart, they were gone now. She knew without a doubt that there would never be a her and Ralph. He had never seen her as wife material, or even as girlfriend material. He hadn’t ever cared for her the way she had for him.
She curled into herself on the sofa, her eyes glued to the blurred words of the e-mail. The frantic feeling that had been with her all day was gone; instead, she felt a deep sense of sadness and loss. She felt as though she had lost someone who had been very special to her. Except that she had lost him a long time ago. And was only now processing the loss.
In the next few days, Shanda forced herself out of bed and, one evening, she even went across town to visit her mom. That visit, too, had been a monumental mistake. Her mom had changed. She had become unrecognizable from the matronly woman Shanda knew.
“What happened to your hair?” Shanda had asked her, staring at her spiked, dyed hair with horror.
“Why? Do you like it?” her mother asked, adopting a young girl’s voice. She had then leaned closer to Shanda and confided. “I have a new beau, his name’s Edward and he loves the new me.”
Well I don’t! Shanda wanted to shout, but she held her tongue. She had visited with the aim of bridging the gap that had grown between them, and maybe even confiding in her mom about what had transpired with Ralph.
“Have you heard from dad?”
“Who?” her mom asked, her expression puzzled.
Her memory returned after a few minutes and she shrugged. “Yes, he wrote me an email a while back, I haven’t gotten round to answering it. He asked about you. You should write to him. Anyway, where were we?”
Her mom had only been interested in herself and Edward. She was completely indifferent to Shanda and what had been happening in her life. Shanda stayed a few more minutes and then fled, her mom’s protests following her out the door.
“But I wanted you to meet Edward!”
“Another time mom,” Shanda said, before disappearing down the stairs.
Now she felt truly alone, except for Flora, who called her every other ten minutes. The meddling and constant calls from Flora were even worse than what an overbearing mother was capable of, Shanda now thought as she got ready for work. After staying cooped up in her apartment for days, she was looking forward to going back to work. She was tired of thinking about Ralph and what might have been.
She immersed herself in work; luckily, there was a new, big project from a chain of department stores. She only lost her focus once in the bathroom. Ralph had come roaring into her mind, the pain of the rejection hitting her afresh as though it were a new wound… Shanda locked herself up in an abandoned cubicle and tried to muffle her sobs. Afterwards, she washed her face and returned to her desk, taking care to keep her red-rimmed eyes downcast.
The nights were the worst. She prowled her apartment like a caged animal, unable to control her thoughts. In bed, Shanda tossed and turned and tried to keep her thoughts away from Ralph. It was like fighting an approaching tornado. Her strength was certainly no match for that of a natural disaster. Finally, she succumbed to the thoughts and let herself remember his sweet love-making and the way he had spooned her afterwards.
She had never fallen in love with another man and she now wondered whether she was destined to be one of those women who only fell in love once in her lifetime. The very thought was depressing and she promised herself she would go out often. She would even agree to the double dates that Flora was always throwing at her.
Sleep came at two in the morning and by then; her brain was so exhausted that four hours of sleep were not enough. When she woke up, tangled up in her bed sheets, Shanda felt as if something had shifted. It was as if she had come out of a long, dark tunnel to the other side, full of sunlight. Suddenly, the rest of her life did not seem so dismal. The future did not seem so frightening or restrictive.
She sang as she showered and then dressed for work. She was a survivor. She had lived through many personal tragedies in her lifetime, and she would survive this as well. She would not turn into the woman her mother had become—so desperate for love she was willing to change anything about herself to suit that man’s liking.
Out in the streets, she smiled as she walked, despite the bleak weather and the dark clouds that promised a rainy, dreary day. She couldn’t remember the last time she had smiled. A brown leaf flew ahead of her and she wanted to run after it and catch it in her hand, as she had done when she was a little girl.
The trees were stripped bare of their leaves, and people strode briskly without glancing at others. Shanda smiled again. She was not part of that group any more. There was sunlight in her heart again.