Everything Changes

by Shey Stahl

  “Fuck you, Sean!” Parker shouted before he stormed out.

  To risk ruining my best friend’s pre-wedding day, I excused myself and found Parker not far from my car pacing with Kurt near by.

  “I’ll let you two talk.” Kurt walked back inside leaving us alone in the dark parking lot.

  “Have you been with him? Were you lying to me last night?” I knew what the questioned implied and wasn’t sure how to answer it. Moments passed and he pressed again. “Have you?”

  “No, not physically. But…”

  “You’re with him when you’re not with me, aren’t you?” His eyes pierced through the dark night. Standing in the shadows of the building, the heavy thudding in my ears drowned out the laughter coming from inside.

  Just saying that to him was suffocating. My mind scrambled to provide some sort of justification to the words, but it wouldn’t do anything. It wouldn’t mean anything.

  His back turned and he started to walk away, his suit jacket over his shoulder before he turned to face me again. “I don’t want to be that guy. Goddamn it, Rowan!” he shouted, suddenly seeming angry, or at least more angry. I flinched at his words having never been on the receiving end of this in the few years I’d been with him. “I thought you knew. I don’t want to be this guy holding out hope the girl he loves is waiting for him. I don’t want to be him.”

  I shivered in fear. Fear that I’d lost him completely and I would never have what I had been waiting on. “Then don’t be him.” I stepped towards him ready to tell him how I felt. “I…”

  Parker’s hand cupped my cheek. “Do…I uh…do you love him?” His gaze seemed to shift. That guarded side took over, and I knew my next set of words had the possibility to break him completely. Even though Parker had broken my heart when he left, I couldn’t and wouldn’t do the same to him.

  “No.”

  Something told me it would never be quite the same between Parker and me after this. Something told me that I had broken his heart a little more.

  CHAPTER 17

  Parker O’Neil

  Arm Pump

  Having arm pump is a condition that occurs when a rider grips the handlebars too tightly and the muscles in his forearms become so tense that it is difficult to hold on to and work the handlebars.

  July 21, 2000

  Supercross was glitz and glamour with night races, highly polished fenders, and Troy Lee painted helmets. The grit and grime of the outdoor Motocross is what I loved because that was where I grew up. I enjoyed the technical, grueling woods, deep ruts, and rocks cars couldn’t maneuver through. That was me. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy Supercross, because I did. I wanted to be the best and that was where the best riders went.

  After a while though, it was losing its appeal for me because to do this, I couldn’t have the girl I wanted. I was in love with Rowan, and I wasn’t pleased by that.

  I asked her to stay a couple months ago when I saw her at the Bristol Nationals. She made an excuse about work and school. I asked her to come to Budds Creek Nationals, but Addy was in labor and she couldn’t come then either.

  Sometimes, knowing another guy was there when I wasn’t, I often thought I was too late. Every time I didn’t want to give in and call, I did. The harder I resisted, the weaker I got. I didn’t want it to be over, so I kept calling and she kept making excuses.

  I couldn’t understand why all of it, the entire relationship that we had, was so hard. Why couldn’t we just get our shit together?

  Why couldn’t either one of us talk about our feelings?

  The problem was the weight of the words that remained unspoken between us had been building, and now it was crushing both of us.

  I stared at myself in the mirror the morning of the Washougal Nationals asking myself why I kept doing this. Girls were all around me. I had options so why couldn’t I just forget about the one that I couldn’t have or didn’t want me?

  I told myself to forget her and move on but it was Ro, my heart, that I couldn’t move on from. When I thought about any time in my life where I was truly comfortable, it was with her. The more I tried to move on, the harder it got and the more I called.

  I tried everything from breaking my phone into pieces to keep from calling and then taking a girl home after Red Bull Nationals. Nothing worked and I couldn’t even kiss a girl without feeling like my heart was going to explode.

  Girls were never shy about their intentions. I never paid any mind to them as most were only hypnotized by fame and money.

  Two things I couldn’t care less about. As the money and wins came, so did the women, but not the woman I wanted. No, she was finding comfort in the arms of another man while I was gone. That killed me to even think about it. All the women that threw themselves my direction, none of them held an ounce of my attention the way Ro did, and not once did I sleep with any of them. I tried, but I couldn’t seal the deal.

  Since that night at my brother’s wedding, I hadn’t seen Rowan. It was going on a year and I was starting to think I would never see her again. She made her choice and that was that. It was over. So I thought. It wasn’t for me. It couldn’t be.

  When Washougal came around, I called again, knowing if there was ever a chance she would come, it would be when I was in Washington again.

  She answered first ring. “Hello?”

  I gasped, falling against my hotel bed. Not saying anything for a long moment, she knew it was me. “Congratulations on the championship.”

  “Thank you.” I breathed easy, knowing she’d been watching the 2000 Supercross season. She was keeping up with what I was doing. That scared me and excited me in the same way it always had.

  “I miss you,” she said, mirroring my thoughts. It wasn’t over for her, and I knew it right then. She may have been avoiding me until now, but it wasn’t over.

  Feelings and memories rushed to the surface. Her skin, her smile, her scent overwhelmed me. “Can I see you tonight?”

  I knew it was short notice, but I held out hope that she knew the Motocross schedule and knew I was in town. “I’m actually in near Washougal in Vancouver right now,” was her soft reply.

  She knew the schedule, my heart nearly exploded. She drove all the way down here for me.

  “I’ll come to you,” I said, ready to run to her, but then it dawned on me that she was with Sean or maybe she wasn’t. “Are you with him?”

  “No.” Her reply held a certain amount of pain that couldn’t be mistaken. She knew it bothered me. “He’s not here.”

  I wasn’t going to ask questions. It had been over a year now since I saw her. I was also leaving for Australia for the Australian Motocross series at the end of this season. It was now or another year. As much as I didn’t want to run to her, I did. She moved on. She didn’t wait for me, but I had to know. I had to feel what we had back then.

  We met up at her hotel in Vancouver after my last hospitality event for Red Bull and Yamaha.

  When I entered her room, she was standing on the balcony dressed in a light summer dress—the one I bought her when we were in Moab last year. The wind was blowing softly through her long brown hair, her coconut smell flowing towards me. Stepping inside, she heard the door close. A smile, that smile, called to me.

  Her voice was soft. “Hey.”

  Mine wasn’t there.

  Rowan’s hands slipped over my shoulders, familiar, yet different. We were older but the same confusion was there. We wanted each other, but life got in the way: dreams, responsibilities, past mistakes, the past in general. Everything changed. I wasn’t sure why, but it did, and I was in her arms again wishing she would see me for me and not let it change.

  My hands roamed where I hoped no other man had been, knowing I should have never given another man the chance.

  Laying her on the bed, I yanked away my clothing wanting that familiar closeness. Was it wrong to fall into this again? Was it wrong to want any part of her, whatever she would give me?

  Yes.

  A
ll of it was wrong, but I had to feel. Surrounded by the pain, I couldn’t take not having her. She found me, she knew me, she loved me in her own way, never judging, always seeing what I couldn’t say or do.

  Legs spread, bodies tangled, our clothes were carelessly discarded. My knee came up just as we hit the bed in a depraved sense of belonging. My soul and my heart was laid bare for her but once again. Everything remained unspoken, unclear.

  My hands grasped, needed, moved, tugged, and gave way.

  “Parker,” she moaned into my mouth.

  My body screamed in approval. Entering her, I knew then I was still the only one. Something told me. Her movements, her gasps, her eagerness told me it’d been just as long. Reeling at the thought, my hips moved on their own, pounding into her.

  Grasping my shoulders, Rowan moaned again. “Faster, Parker, please!”

  I couldn’t deny her, though my body had other ideas and wanted to slow this down knowing this may be the last time.

  Would she be there when I called next? Would she return to him?

  My orgasm was nearly there. I fought hard not wanting my time to end with her. I knew the moment I pulled out, things changed. At least when we were like this, I held out hope, claiming something that was mine for tonight anyways.

  “You feel so good.” I grunted as my movements sped on their own volition, needing the release.

  She tightened her embrace, wrapped her legs around my waist, and I lost all sense of existence.

  Despite my wants and desires, just like the times before, she was gone in the morning and I was left waiting on a call that wouldn’t come, a decision that wouldn’t be made. A choice only she had. A power only she possessed.

  I would have given anything at the real possibility that what we had was real and that she felt what I felt. That it wasn’t just my imagination. I’d remained true to her, having never needed anything more than what she provided. The truth was I needed more, but I needed it from her.

  Over the last year, I had planned everything I’d say to her given the chance but my words failed me when I heard the hotel door close behind her around three that morning.

  She left. Again. But it was different that time.

  Back at the race, my focus and attention for my job just wasn’t there.

  I tried so many times to ask her to stay, so many, but she left every time, and I didn’t stop her. And every night I wondered whose arms she was in. Part of me knew and that was worse.

  My life over the past five years had been the same. I practiced and tried not to call. I worked out and tried not to call. I raced, felt the adrenaline, the passion I held for the sport, and then I called wanting what I felt on the track with her. I had that with Ro. For the first time off the track, I felt parts of myself I only ever felt on a bike. I tried to live a normal life of a pro-rider like the other guys in the series. I tried to be that playboy they all were, but that wasn’t me. I took girls home and could never follow through with it. After a while word got out I could never close the deal with them and they eventually gave up on me, and essentially that was what I wanted. I didn’t want that attention from those girls. I wanted it from Ro.

  I felt like I had spent years, in which I had, waiting for her to see that I wanted her, only for her to constantly ignore it. I tried to tell myself to let her go and that if she really wanted to be with me she would stay, but I couldn’t for the life of me not call her, all the while telling myself if she didn’t stay with me, it’d be the last time I called.

  The days blurred from one to the next, days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and eventually, months into years. Our visits got less frequent, but they were still there, neither one of us willing to let go of what it was between us.

  CHAPTER 18

  Rowan Jensen

  Banging Bars

  Banging bars is a reference made when two riders are having a close battle for position where their bars may bang together.

  January 5, 2002

  Parker and I hadn’t seen each other in a few months when he called in January and asked that I come to the season opener in Anaheim. So I did. It didn’t matter how time had passed, I always craved more.

  Every time I said I wouldn’t go, and the instant I heard his voice, I went.

  Only this time I intended to tell him that we couldn’t keep this up. At some point I had to put an end to it or I would constantly be living my life around his phone calls.

  I started taking night classes to becoming a massage therapist and scheduled it around working at the shop. It was going good. I was moving forward to a certain extent. The thought of never doing anything with my life besides waiting around for Parker to call was making me sick. I could feel the anxiety building in my chest, and I had to do something about it before it took over completely.

  I was still seeing Sean when I wasn’t with Parker, and it tore me apart inside. Though I hadn’t slept with Sean, it still felt wrong to me.

  So I flew to Anaheim where Parker and I spent three days together before his race on Saturday night. As always they were the best three days of my life. I kept telling myself that I would tell him, explain to him that I couldn’t do this and how angry I was that I still subjected myself to it…but I didn’t.

  While I intending on telling him we couldn’t keep this up, the opportunity never came. I found myself at the Edison International Field the day of the race, and I still hadn’t said anything. I couldn’t.

  That was when Kayla decided to get involved. Every race Kayla was there, and every time she fed me lies and tried to make me believe I was just another girl Parker called. And maybe I was. I really had no way of knowing because still, four years later, we were doing the same shit to each other.

  “I see you’re back…” Kayla said when I was by the merchandise booths picking out a few T-shirts for Bryce.

  “Nice to see you too, Kayla.” I took the change from the lady at the Yamaha trailer and the bag with my shirts in it. Turning around, Kayla met me with another one of her fake smiles.

  I couldn’t believe that Parker of all people could stand to be around a girl like her.

  “It’s a shame he keeps calling you when he doesn’t realize you’ve moved on. You know that it’ll break his heart…or already has.” Her smile was impious and I knew then what she was implying.

  Kayla knew about Sean. I didn’t answer and she was confident that she was right about our situation. I gasped for air. My throat hurt but my eyes stayed dry. I wouldn’t cry in front of Kayla.

  “It wasn’t your place to tell him, Kayla.” I could feel the blood in my face rising to the surface, my ears throbbing. “I was going to tell him.”

  “Sure you were.” She wasn’t smiling anymore. In fact, she looked a little bleak. “I know exactly what you were going to do. You were going to come into town like you do every time, have your fun, and then leave and return to the life you have without the superstar.” Kayla’s eyes scanned down my casual attire of a simple summer dress Parker had given to me two years ago. “You don’t honestly think he waits around for you to come, do you?”

  “How do you even know about Sean?” I glanced around to see where Kurt had disappeared to. Usually he was beside me at these races when Parker wasn’t, strict orders from Parker.

  “It wasn’t hard to find out.” Kayla stepped closer trying to appear like we were friends to anyone that was watching. Her breath blew across my face. “Parker knows about him and he knows that you’re still with him. He only called so he could have a little fun with a girl who is supposedly taken.”

  Nothing she said made any sense to me, and I knew enough about Kayla over the years to know that she fed me lie after lie. I would be lying if I said that it didn’t hurt though. She knew exactly what to say to make me question his motives.

  Maybe I was naïve about our situation and what exactly I was to Parker. I would be the first to admit it to anyone that asked. When I looked at our situation from their eyes, or even Kayla’s, it was easy
to see that this relationship between us wasn’t healthy and in the end one of us was going to get hurt.

  I snatched my bag closer, wanting to head back to where I knew Parker was, but she wasn’t going to let me.

  “Rowan...” she stepped in front of me “...you and I both know what you are to Parker O’Neil,” she said, clipping the words.

  “Fuck you, Kayla.” It felt good to say that to her, and I was at my breaking point with her and finally stood up for myself. “You don’t know anything about Parker.”

  “Oh please.” She sniffed delicately and looked away. “I’m with him nearly twenty-four hours a day. I know plenty. I know that every time he calls you that you come running like the booty call you are.”

  “I don’t see you in his bed, so obviously I know more than you do.” I hated what she implied and worst of all I hated that she was right. I was a booty call. My anger got the best of me, my grip on my bag tightening. “And still…you’re here waiting for him and he still calls me. That should tell you something about what you provide him.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, honey.” Then she laughed, harsh and humorless. It made me feel even more naïve and young, exactly what I was.

  I wanted to punch her in the face for saying that, but I didn’t. Instead my focus was on Parker as he approached us with Collin close beside him. I couldn’t breathe knowing he finally knew the truth about Sean; his expression told me so.

  He gave a quick jerk of his head and waved me over with his hand. I walked towards him and Kayla followed, but when Parker and I went inside the Yamaha hauler, she stayed outside under the tent.

  Parker stood there dressed in his riding gear having just finished his heat race. “Don’t lie to me.” His words were spoken with such hatred that I wasn’t certain I had ever heard him use that tone with me. He turned to look at me. “Are you still seeing him?”

  I swallowed trying to find the courage to be honest with him. He deserved me being honest with him about the life I had when he wasn’t around. “Yes.”