CHAPTER 11
Cory
She left an hour ago, but I stayed here, beckoned by memories that haven’t yet released me even ten years later. This place haunts me, calls to me at night, scratches the outer edges of my confidence and public image with a persistent jagged fingernail. Remember where you came from, Cory. Remember what you’ve done, Cory. Remember what you’re trying to hide, Cory.
Remember.
Remember.
Remember.
All I want to do is forget, but nothing will let me. Not memory. Not distraction. Not my career. Not even the passage of time.
I’ve spent the past hour strolling through the park, plagued by a sense of restlessness wrapped in angst and disbelief. I can’t believe she just left me here with those cutting words: Maybe no one really cares about you. Has anyone asked how you’re doing? I would hate to be you.
That last one was insane. No one would hate to be me. And of course the answer is yes. People ask about me all the time—reporters, critics, fans. And as far as the wreck, I remember Sal asking how I was doing right after it happened. At least I think I do.
Don’t I?
Didn’t he?
And this makes me angry. At first her words hit a nerve that stung deep under the surface, at a place impossible to soothe. But now I’m stuck here questioning myself and that makes everything worse and consequently makes me mad. I keep reminding myself that her words were shrouded in grief, but then I forget and get mad because how dare she talk to me like that and then just drive away. No one just leaves me. No one would consider it. And more than that…
No one feels sorry for me.
Not ever.
She’s wrong. I have friends, lots of friends. I have family, lots of family. All of them need me, want me, worry about me. At least some do. I’m sure of it.
A lone drop of sweat slides down my cheek and drips onto my shirt. June in Missouri is sweltering, something I’d forgotten about when I packed nothing but black T-shirts, pullovers, and jeans. I try to ignore the sticky heat and keep walking, my feet automatically taking me down a familiar path as though I traveled this part of the park only last week instead of ten years ago.
Images flash through my mind in a reel by reel rewinding of time. There’s the massive elm tree that shades a concrete picnic table and an ancient charcoal grill my family and countless others used for cookouts over the years. I can almost recall the scent of hamburgers and hotdogs searing over the flames, can almost hear the high-pitched persistence of Kyle as he asks how much longer. I’m back there playing on the old metal swing set to the right of the grill, listening to the call of my mother telling us to be careful because that thing is covered in rust and might give you a disease if you cut yourself. I can envision her sprawled out on a patchwork quilt, reading a book while her boys played and her husband prepared dinner. I can smell ketchup and mustard, baked beans and Lay’s Potato Chips, beer and Diet Coke, chocolate chips cookies and store-bought fried peach pies.
The sensation is almost too much. I look up at the sky to clear my head. Memories recede for a moment but then dislodge themselves again, wanting their share of attention. I concede, allowing them the slightest amount of room. A mistake. You know what they say about memories: give them an inch, and they’ll take over your life.
All at once, I’m remembering.
Water in cloudy shades of blue and uneven patches of warmth. Smooth-edged rocks skimming in uneven lines. Muddy-brown feathers, matted and brittle. Squeals and kicks and gasps for more air.
I remember the pond.
It’s in front of me.
I’m standing at the edge.
I’m assaulted with nothing but a long list of internal accusations and what-might-have-beens.
The one place I didn’t want to see, but my feet had other ideas. Unfair how they play tricks when the mind is preoccupied.
I used to wonder what was in the bottom of this pond—what sort of unsightly debris might be lying across the murky bottom. Unseen things; that’s what we used to call them. Mysteries of the deep, that’s what we used to be fascinated by.
Until I discovered that my childhood fascination held nothing but nightmares.
* * *
I stare at the water until everything around me becomes bathed in yellow.
The sky. The grass. The water. The air.
It’s all I can see, it takes up every corner of my mind.
The day I turned fifteen, everything in life took on that hue. All these years later and the color is still there. Sometimes I can trick my mind into thinking it’s gone completely, but then it comes back in a wave and washes the little landscape of my life in a muted shade of ugliness.
My first kiss was yellow.
My worst day was yellow.
Even my fame is yellow, or it’s at least stained with it—a permanent bruise resting just above my ego, crowding out my happiness, pushing aside my confidence.
Yellow is all over me.
* * *
Springfield isn’t actually my home; Strafford is my home, a tiny blip of a town just east of here that people pass on the interstate but rarely visit. Now there’s a McDonalds off exit 88, but when I grew up, there was no mall, no chain restaurant, and no grocery larger than a five-and-dime. That last fact was the bane of my mother’s existence, so to alleviate it, every Tuesday and Friday she would make the half-hour drive to Springfield and make a day of it. In the summer, my big brother Kyle and I tagged along. Not to shop, but to be dropped off at local skateboard park—one situated on the outskirts of a much bigger city park. The park quickly became our favorite. We skated until our legs were sore, then fed ducks until our bags of stale bread emptied and their squawks of protests became too annoying to listen to. We walked for miles, skateboards in hand, searching for four-leaf clovers, loose change, hot girls. It was always a game; who could find the best clover, the most money, the prettiest girl.
The day I turned sixteen, I won that game.
Her blonde hair was gathered into a messy ponytail that sat off center just above her neckline. Wet strands clung to her forehead and cheeks from the sweltering day—a day much like this one, muggy and stifling. Her bare legs dangled over the bank, and an impressive cluster of mallards floated beside her feet, each waiting for her to toss another bread crumb their direction. There were so many of them, but she wasn’t nervous. Her calm demeanor was the first thing I noticed—after the legs, I mean. I watched her for a long moment, working up the courage to approach. Back then I was shy, awkward, my complexion a little questionable. To this day, I still can’t remember when my confidence kicked in. If sixteen year old me was any indication, this career shouldn’t have been anywhere on my radar.
After three long minutes, I worked up my opening line and plopped down beside her on the bank.
“You an LSU fan?” One leg over, then another. My sneakers scraped against the concrete in an uncomfortable slide, but I could do this. I kept telling myself I could do this.
Her eyebrows pushed together. “What?”
I nodded in her direction. “Your shirt.”
She looked down, pulled the hem of the t-shirt away from her body and studied it.
“Oh, this is my mothers. I borrowed it because I like the color.”
I couldn’t help a grin. Girls. “Yellow looks good on you.”
This time she blushed. The freckles on her nose darkened. The heartbeat inside my chest doubled. “Thank you.”
An hour later, I knew her name was Angela, yellow was her favorite color, she was in tenth grade like me but four months younger, she loved to paint, she was addicted to Dr. Pepper, she talked with her hands in big open circles, she had a Julia Roberts-sized laugh, and she was an only child. I knew plenty of Angelas at my school, but none this pretty or interesting to talk to.
After we said goodbye, I spent the better part of the next week practicing the sound of her name as it rolled off my tongue, whispering it over and over as I slowly drifted to sleep. After seven long days, I showed up to the pond again hoping she’d have the same idea. She didn’t disappoint. Every Thursday for the rest of the summer, we sat next to each other on the bank sipping the cans of Dr. Pepper I never failed to bring. Kyle quit coming after he realized I was no longer interested in skateboarding.
Over the summer, I learned more about her. Little things, like she was deathly afraid of wasps and couldn’t sleep without a nightlight. And big things, like she had an uncle who had crossed more lines with her than anyone knew. From the time she was little, he was a trusted babysitter—playful and fun in public, yet stealing her innocence under the cover of nighttime.
It all came to fruition when Angela turned twelve and the uncle got caught. When I met her, the man was on his third year of an eight-year sentence and she was in her second month of counseling. It took her parents that long to admit she needed help.
It took me only a few hours to be certain of it.
Overall and despite her confession, it was a happy summer. I was a teenager and more interested in the pretty girl than the pretty girl’s traumatic past. We had great talks, great walks, made great memories.
Until I ruined everything.
Toward the end of August—one week before the start of school—I couldn’t take it anymore. My curiosity had climbed to an all-time high, something it had been working toward for weeks but that I had somehow been able to ignore. That day I couldn’t. I knew she was wary of affection; I knew she had a problem with trusting people, especially boys. But up to that point I had never kissed anyone. And I was sixteen. And somehow stories of insensitivity and violation took a backseat to my raging hormones. So as she was involved in a story about a particularly nasty wasp sting that resulted in her current fear, I leaned in to kiss her. She was talking dramatically about the pain of her mother pulling the stinger out of the fourth knuckle on her left hand, and for some reason I decided it all translated to romance. So I kissed her.
I missed her lips by an inch.
My hand, however, landed exactly where I intended.
Right between her legs, right where her denim shorts met the hemline of yellow cotton shirt, just like I’d seen it done at the movies.
The kiss lasted only a couple seconds.
When she jerked back, her hard stare remained much longer. I couldn’t see anything past the look in her eyes. Dark. Haunted. Betrayed. Angry. After a long moment, a single tear trailed her cheek. She swiped at it with the back of her hand, then wondered aloud why I had to ruin everything. Before I could defend myself, she stormed off, leaving me in the company of my own remorse.
I looked for her again and again for the rest of the year.
She never came back.
Not for over a year.
That’s when I discovered that the saying is true: you never fully forget your first love, even if they no longer resemble the person you remember.
By then her hair was darker, her body more womanly, but I recognized her immediately. She stood by the pond—her body was angled toward the water, her arms hung unmoving by her side, her hair tied in a wispy knot behind her head, her shirt was still yellow.
It wasn’t until I approached her that I noticed she wasn’t herself.
* * *
Two hours.
I’ve walked these sidewalks for two hours; one hundred and twenty minutes in a place I hate, in a location I thought I would never visit again. But visit I have, and more than anything else, I need to leave. I want to leave. I have to leave.
I’ll suffocate if I don’t. I’m already finding it nearly impossible to breathe.
Even my apology to Sam seems foolish now. Email. I could have emailed. An email wouldn’t have led me here. An email wouldn’t have asked such careless questions. An email wouldn’t have driven away. An email wouldn’t have left me alone with my guilt and memories.
I find my rental car and climb behind the wheel. The plan had been to stay in Springfield a couple of days. To see my parents and brother and spend forty-eight hours sleeping in, letting my mother fuss over me, and catching up from a year of being unavailable to everyone.
I never told them I was coming.
They’ll never even know I was here.
But of course the stoplight won’t cooperate with that plan. The car has barely stopped rolling when the inevitable happens. I can’t believe I made it this long. A cluster of six teenage girls are talking on the sidewalk to my right when one of them spots me. I see it the moment it happens. The eyes of a girl with long, blue-tipped hair go wide. She frantically taps on the arm of the blonde standing next to her. There’s a collective head-swing as all turn toward me.
Mouths open.
Feet move.
Voices shriek.
Hands knock. Pound. Bang on my windows.
Fingers pry at the door handle.
Thank God the doors are locked.
Except the light is still red.
With a weary groan I reach for my cell and dial, knowing I’m not going anywhere until someone comes to remove these people. The girls have multiplied into a crowd of shop owners, two librarians who came out to check on the commotion, a few random passersby, and one mail man holding a stack of envelops in his hand. I press two fingers to my temple and slump in my seat as something that feels an awful lot like a migraine grips my forehead. I close my eyes in an effort to shut out what is often an exhausting side-effect of my career. Yes, it’s the career I wanted, the career I worked for. But nothing prepares a person for this, especially when that person is just trying to quietly visit his hometown to make amends with a grieving girl.
It takes only minute before the sirens sound in the distance, but it feels like an eternity considering my car is now rocking back and forth. But now that I hear them, maybe I can do my part to settle things down. I sit up in my seat and give everyone what they want: a wave, a grin. When I crack my window and slips of paper begin to slide inside, I even give an autograph. Seven autographs. Sixteen autographs. I lose count of how many autographs as papers go in and out of the window.
Finally the police gain control of the situation, dispersing the crowd and setting up barriers so that I can safely drive away. This is so routine it’s almost comical. I crack my window a little more to shake hands with an officer, only to be greeted with another slip of paper. With a sigh, I sign and hand it back to him, then close my window one final time.
The guy struts a little as he walks back to his cruiser.
I should feel relief, and I do.
But not because the crowd is gone.
I’m relieved because the further I drive away from the pond, the more I convince myself that the memories can’t get to me. That I can escape them. That I will finally put it behind me.
I stare straight ahead and drive away, hoping that one day soon I’ll start to believe it.