Moving On

by Ryssa Foust

  “But we had a really meaningful date, there was a real connection. I know I didn’t imagine it.”

  Jenna snorted, “You slept with him didn’t you.”

  “Maybe.” Sasha responded defensively.

  “So much for you to learn about me my dear, this is why I tell you to date more often. If you slept with him its even less reason for him to call you!”

  “It just felt right, I wouldn’t do that with just anyone.”

  “I know you wouldn’t hun, I’m just teasing you but you really should go out more then it wouldn’t matter if some random guy didn’t call you back.”

  “I don’t have the time for dates, I would rather focus on school and my volunteer work then obsess about a guy.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jenna grinned at her friend, “And what do you think you’re doing right now?”

  Sasha’s face flushed a bright red and Jenna laughed giving her friend a hug,

  “Oh Sasha don’t be so uptight! Throw caution to the wind, enjoy your youth, your beauty and that smoking hot body! Don’t be scared of getting hurt, if you get hurt so what? That only toughens you up.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work.” Sasha said stiffly. Sensing that her friend wasn’t in the mood to be teased Jenna changed tactics.

  “You know there’s an art therapy session being held at the university centre tonight, you should check it out. It might help take your mind off things.”

  “Yeah maybe I will.”

  “You know what it’s a pretty quiet afternoon so why don’t you go home? I’ll cover the rest of your shift.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jenna nodded, “Yup absolutely. Go home and rest or something.”

  “Thanks, you’re the best!”

  Chapter Four

  Sasha spent the next few hours studying diligently and trying not to think about Julian without much success. At 6:30pm she finally gave up on the books and wandered around her apartment trying to find something to do. She had no intention of actually going to the session but the prospect of spending the whole evening on her own with nothing to do wasn’t overly appealing either. So she decided to go to the class.

  By the time she arrived class had already started and the room was packed with students. The teacher looked up and without pausing her talk pointed vaguely to the far left side of the classroom. Sasha dutifully went as indicated and found one last station that was still empty. As she went closer her eyes widened with shock to find Julian next to the empty seat.

  She opened her mouth to say “What the hell Julian?!” but realized just in time it would not only be very undignified but it would also be very disruptive. Throwing him a cool glance she sat down next to him fighting hard to keep her emotions in check. She was pleased to see that he had the grace to look abashed.

  Being careful to not look at him Sasha concentrated on listening to what the teacher was saying.

  “Today we are going to tackle on my personal favourites, wheel pottery. This is an extremely soothing project and the goal is not to create a perfect piece of pottery but to relax and allow all the negative energy to flow out through your fingers. Now I want you to turn to the person next to you as they will be your partner for this specific project.”

  At her words Sasha groaned silently with despair because this meant Julian was her partner! She began to debate whether it was too late to leave the session but before she could make a move Julian was standing before her looking a little sheepish.

  “I guess we’re partners huh.”

  “I guess so.” Sasha responded with a voice as cold as ice.

  “Look Sasha I…”

  Not wanting to listen to any words of justification or apology Sasha cut him short.

  “Look Julian I came here to do this class and as far as I’m concerned you’re just a student I was partnered up with so I don’t wish to discuss anything else.”

  “But I just want….”

  “No, nothing else.” And without another glance his way she began to read the instructions the teacher had handed out. The rest of the class passed in silence. At the end of the session Sasha felt utterly exhausted, she had spent the whole session feeling stressed and nervous and had gone to painful lengths to avoid making any kind of physical contact with Julian, which was no easy feat given it was a pottery class on a wheel!

  The minute class ended Sasha packed up her bag quickly and left. Running footsteps behind her told her that Julian was right behind her.

  “Not interested Julian.” She said before he had the chance to say anything and kept walking. She only stopped walking when she felt his hand on her arm.

  “Will you at least let me explain?” he said gently.

  She turned around impatiently,

  “What do you want Julian?”

  “I want to explain.”

  “I don’t care what your reasons are for not calling me, you don’t owe me anything.”

  “I know I don’t owe you anything but I want to explain, will you please hear me out?”

  Too weary to argue anymore she stopped arguing and waited for him to continue. At length he cleared his throat and started to speak.

  “So you know how you volunteer at the student mental health centre?”

  “Yes.” She replied unsure of where this was headed.

  “Well I use their services.”

  “Okay that’s not a crime Julian.”

  “No, you don’t understand I use their resources because I have some problems.”

  “Out of all the things that Sasha had been expecting to hear that wasn’t one of them.”

  “Oh.”

  “Exactly, oh.” He said ruefully.

  “I don’t date because I don’t want to involve anyone in my problems and I am afraid of hurting people. But with you I had to ask you out and when we spent such a wonderful evening and night together it freaked me out.”

  He moved a moved through his hair and sighed,

  “And that’s why I didn’t call because I’m scared of how I feel for you and what it means for us.”

  “Julian, I had no idea.” Sasha said unsure of what else to say.

  After an awkward silence she looked at her watch and mumbled something about needing to go home. Nodding his head Julian smiled at her wryly and didn’t try to detain her.

  “Goodnight Sasha.” He said softly as she waved goodbye and hurried away.

  Chapter Five

  All the way home Sasha’s mind was racing with what Julian had told her. She felt so confused! On the one hand she really really liked Julian but on the other was she ready for another emotionally charged roller coaster of a relationship? Similar to what she had lived through with Josh?

  After tossing and turning for most of the night she finally fell asleep and had disturbing dreams where Julian was actually Josh and he kept begging her to not leave him alone…

  Her broken, restless sleep was disrupted by the ping of her phone. With groggy eyes she reached for her phone. It was a text from Julian.

  “Good morning, can I see you today?” he had written.

  Feeling a little wary after their encounter from the night before Sasha didn’t know what to say. Thinking long and hard she finally responded with a simple “Hello.”

  “I’m sorry if I freaked you out last night.”

  “You didn’t freak me out exactly, I’m just confused I guess.”

  “Then please meet me, we can go to and talk properly.”

  Reluctantly she agreed, Sasha loved the lake so it was hard to turn down the tempting offer and she figured it might help to talk things through properly.

  “Great! Pick you up in an hour.”

  All of Sasha’s trepidations disappeared soon after they arrived at Lake Wauburg. Julian was once again the funny, charming and sweet guy from their rock climbing date and Sasha in her turn found herself shedding all her inhibitions and being entirely herself around him. All the anger, fear and concern which she had been feeling the last few days seemed
to have washed away, it was impossible to be upset faced with endless stretches of golden sand flanked by sparkling clear water on one side and freshly cut green grass on the other.

  “Thank you for agreeing to come today.” Julian said.

  Sasha smiled at him and answered honestly, “I almost didn’t want to.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m thanking you. So what would you like to do first?”

  “Anything you want.” Sasha replied but her eyes strayed longingly to the water.

  Catching the look in her eyes Julian tugged her arm playfully, “Come on, let’s go into the water.”

  Unable to resist the temptation and swept away by his exuberance Sasha laughingly agreed and started to run towards the water calling out, “Last one in is a rotten egg!”

  “No fair!” Julian shot after her, “You got a head start!”

  “Chicken? Too slow to catch me?” she called back peeling off her clothes as she went until she was wearing just her black one-piece bathing suit.

  Julian picked up the pace and chased after her until they were both in the water, when he finally caught up to her he dragged her down into the water laughing.

  Sasha bobbed up pretending to be indignant and tackled him as payback.

  Soon they were busy swimming and playing games like two carefree children. Sasha couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so complete and so happy. When they were tired of swimming Sasha realized she was ravenously hungry.

  “I should have packed us some food.” She said to Julian apologetically as they dried themselves off.

  He grinned at her and without a word ran towards the car. Sasha felt alarmed, had she done something wrong? She watched curiously as he soon came back carrying a big wicker basket in one arm and a folded blanket on the other.

  “What is all this?” she asked in amazement as he spread the red and white blanket on the grass in the shade and began to pull out food from the basket.

  “My lady, this is your picnic lunch.” He said spreading out his arms wide to demonstrate.

  Sasha giggled and shook her head unbelievably,

  “I can’t believe you did this! You really thought of everything.”

  “I wanted today to be perfect for you.” Julian replied, “I also have this.” He said showing her a camera.

  “Pictures?” Sasha asked smiling.

  “Yup, pictures for our kids to look. Say cheese!”

  Sasha laughed at his silliness and posed for the camera with pouty lips before digging into the delicious spread prepared by Julian.

  While they ate Sasha decided to tackle the subject they had danced around all day, Julian’s illness.

  “I won’t bore you with the details of my childhood but to say it was a troubled on is an understatement. Child Services put me in a foster home when I was barely five years old because my parents were in no position to take care of me. God they could barely take care of themselves! They were either drunk, high on drugs or too busy yelling at each other. I don’t think they even noticed when they took me away. Certainly they never tried to find me or get me back. I bounced around from home to home feeling like I never really belonged. I guess it was only natural I turn to drugs and alcohol myself. Then when I was in my late teens I was embroiled in a pretty traumatic incident, which led to me being hospitalized. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder then. “

  “What happened then?” Sasha asked kindly.

  “Well I didn’t accept it at first and I rebelled against everyone but when I ended up in the hospital for the third time I realized it was time for me to take my life and my illness seriously. Now my priority is taking care of myself and being able to stand on my own two feet and be stable. It’s also why I don’t mix too much with the college crowd, I can’t be around that and I feel that they don’t understand the not drinking or doing drugs and then I met you, I heard you give the speech in class so I asked you out and after our date I knew I was hooked. It was like I found everything I have ever wanted. “

  Listening to him speak Sasha felt ashamed for having doubts the night before. How could she want to turn her back on his just because he was going through some problems? What a hypocrite she was turning out to be!

  Grateful to him for opening to her she leaned over and kissed him.

  Stunned by the kiss it took Julian a few seconds to grasp what was happening then his hands moved up her body and he pulled her close to him and kissed her hard pushing his tongue inside her mouth taking in her sweet taste.

  “I think I’ve suddenly had my fill of Lake Wauburg.” Sasha murmured against his lips as desire spread through her body.

  “You mean?” Julian asked her hoarsely.

  She nodded, “Home?”

  That was all the encouragement Julian needed, springing away from her he rapidly wrapped up their picnic and ran to the car with Sasha and drove to his apartment as quickly. They were barely through the door and ripping each other’s clothes off ravenous with passion. They toppled on to Julian’s bed and gave themselves up to their insatiable desire over and over again until they were completely spent and drained. Much much later Sasha tip-toed out of the apartment leaving Julian fast asleep. She fell asleep herself thinking of how wonderful everything felt, how right and how perfect.

  Chapter Six

  When Sasha woke up the next morning the first emotion to engulf her was an acute sense of loss. She wished that Julian was lying next to her. She missed him terribly. On impulse she dialed his number but it went straight to voicemail. He must still be sleeping she thought to herself, after all it’s not even 8am yet. She jumped into the shower and as the water cascaded down her body she relieved the wonderful day she had spent with Julian.

  On her way to class she tried him again and again got his voicemail. She decided to leave it be and figured that he would get in touch with her when he was ready. But that was easier said than done, when two days went by with no word from Julian at all Sasha was feeling very upset. Even as a part of her felt relieved that he hadn’t responded, another part of her couldn’t help but be disappointed. After their wonderful date at the lake she had believed that he would at reach out to her somehow. Didn’t she at least deserve that much?

  Whatever, she thought to herself, his loss. I can’t go chasing after him. With her mind made up him Sasha tried to put him out of her mind and focused instead on her classes, her work and her volunteering work.

  She arrived at work that day in a bit of a temper to find Jenna gushing over the new volunteer who had joined the network.

  “Oh Sasha! Just wait till you see him.”

  “Who?”

  “The new guy.”

  “Oh, ok cool.” Sasha said only half listening as she went through her emails.

  Sensing that her friend wasn’t in the best of moods Jenna decided to refrain from making any other comments.

  When Sasha finally met Brad at the staff she understood right away Jenna’s gushing and couldn’t help but feel a little smitten too. Not only was he dashingly good looking in a movie star handsome way with a tall, lean, muscular body, which looked but he was also a psych student. She found out he had intelligent eyes when he caught her looking at him and gave her a piercing look of his own. Sasha blushed at being caught staring and quickly concentrated on the meeting but she didn’t miss the fact that he kept looking at her for the remainder of the meeting. She ran into him again the next day during her lunch break in the cafeteria. He slid into the vacant seat next to her and held out his hand,

  “Hey, I’m Brad.”

  Sasha smiled at him and introduced herself as well.

  After a few pleasant moments of pleasant and idle chit chat the initially wary Sasha relaxed a little finding him surprisingly easy to talk to although her mind kept darting to thoughts of Julian and the time they had spent together. She could tell that Brad likes her and if her instincts were correct he was probably going to ask her out. And when he did, she decided she would say yes because he was the kind of guy sh
e should be dating, nice, normal and without any excess baggage.

  But what about Julian? A small voice whispered. What about the attraction you felt for Julian?

  I’ll grow to like him, she told herself firmly. With her mind made up she focused her full attention on him and concentrated on making conversation. Sensing her increased interest in him Brad began to speak more freely and talked about his educational ambitions and his career aspirations. Sasha nodded and agreed with his points feeling a sense of kinship as she too had very high ambitions for herself. But as he kept talking her earlier assumptions about needing to date a man like Brad started to fade and gave way instead to a mounting dislike towards Brad and his views on life. He explained how he had chosen to volunteer at the network of its prestige.

  “It looks really impressive for grad school applications to have work experience at this network.”

  “Yes I suppose, but it also feels nice to know that you’re helping so many people.”

  Brad shrugged his shoulders, “Maybe.”

  “Isn’t that important at all to you?” Sasha asked more directly, pressing for an answer.

  “How much help are we really doing here?

  His comment took Sasha completely by surprise,

  “So your grad school applications are only reason you’re doing this?” It was a disquieting thought.

  Taking a bite out of his sandwich Brad chewed thoughtfully before answering,

  “Well isn’t everyone? It’s pretty depressing place to be in for fun, don’t you think? But I figure if you’re going to muck around might as well be at a very well known place that will add the wow factor on your resume.”

  Feeling a rising anger, which she tried to hide Sasha remained silent for a few seconds realizing that although she found his intentions abhorrent she couldn’t exactly fault him for telling the truth. But it was clear that he was not someone she would be interested in long term. Before he could say anything more she quickly changed the subject by bringing up Jenna.