Brenda inched closer, fighting her emotions, remaining silent.
“I went down this tunnel,” he continued, “and saw the light, as they say, and some woman greeted me. I’ll...never forget it as long as I live. She spread her arms out in front of her…palms skyward and said ‘welcome, son.’ I didn’t exactly know how to react, but she encouraged me to follow signs. Now look at me. Why am I sitting at this bar in Boulder, Colorado? Come to think of it, why do I keep running into you, Brenda?”
Brenda was all ears, and Carter kept on with his story.
“Oh, and another thing…talk about bizarre…I actually got kicked out of Heaven because…as the lady explained to me, I had some unfinished business to take care of. That’s why I have to carefully pursue any signs that may…”
The bar manager approached the table, cutting Carter off mid-sentence.
“Excuse me sir,” he said, “but I’m gonna have to check your I.D. because we got raided just last week. Can’t take chances anymore.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Carter, reaching into his back pocket and flipping open his wallet in front of the manager.
“Thanks a bunch, and I’m routing for your Bruins. I’m from Mass myself,” said the manager. “You two have an enjoyable evening.”
“So what does all this mean?” Carter asked Brenda, rejoining her company as he returned his wallet to its proper place.
Brenda, through her sympathetic and flabbergasted stare, said, “It means you’re totally blowing me away with all this.”
“See?” said Carter.
“No, no I didn’t mean it like that,” said Brenda. “I’m sorry. What I meant was…I think you’ve been through a hell of a lot in your short lifetime. I’m just really stunned, Carter. I mean, I’ve heard some stories and all, but it means a hell of a lot more coming to me firsthand. Carter, are you okay?”
Carter knew in his heart that it was all right to tell Brenda about these occurrences, and perhaps she could even help him. He did not regret it after having spilled his guts.
“A couple of lingering side effects, for the most part,” said Carter, “but yeah, I think I’m doing okay considering…considering I was a dead man. So, tell me about Reggie. How long have you known him?”
Brenda sat up and sighed, as if she was aware that the ball was in her court.
“We’ve been dating for just over a year now,” she said.
Carter cringed when she said that, hoping she’d elaborate on the “ex” portion of him.
“Do you two live together?” he asked.
“Yes, I mean no…oh, I just don’t know anymore,” she said. “I mean, we do live together, but…I really don’t want to be with him anymore.”
Carter was even more interested in what she had to say now. “Does Reggie know how you feel?” he asked, sighing within.
“I think he does,” she said, “even though I haven’t come right out and said it. I just can’t seem to get close to him, and though I thought I loved him, I really don’t. Damn, I don’t really think that I can love.”
Having said that, Brenda stood up and wrapped her arms around Carter. She squeezed tight for what seemed to Carter to be several minutes, then withdrew her arms and looked at Carter straight in the eyes from about a foot away. Carter thought she looked more dazzling that close. He couldn’t believe that she wasn’t even on the rebound yet. Not officially, anyway. Her face was so close to his that he began to get nervous. He knew that he was drinking, but her looks had gone from a seven to a ten.
Brenda closed in even more, and Carter began to panic. He remained seated, trying to remain calm as well. He watched as Brenda’s head tilted slowly to the right, closing in on his lips. He began to melt. The look in her eyes brewed passion. She looked even better up close, but at the last possible second, she swooped her head over to his right ear and whispered, “I know why we keep meeting, Carter. Play your cards right and you will too.” Then Brenda kissed him softly on the ear to which she spoke.
Carter locked eyes with Brenda and tried to do a little soul searching on her as well. Brenda said nothing after the kiss, either. There was just a moment of staring into each other’s eyes. They were apparently reading as much as they could from each other and with no signs of discomfort. Carter felt her warmth, and her caring disposition. He could also extract reciprocated feelings for him. Her eyes smiled, but they also revealed pain and suffering deep within her irises as if they’d seen far too many obstacles for her short existence.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A ray of sunshine flashed through the bedroom window, forcing Carter to squint his eyes as he met the new day. He tried rubbing his morning eyes, but a head held down his arm, preventing him from doing so. He groggily glanced over. He looked to see Brenda tossing and turning, but remaining asleep. Carter could not remember how they had reached this point.
This was instant caffeine to Carter’s eyes. My God, he thought. Here he was in bed for the very first time with the girl who meant the world to him, and he totally spaced out the prior night’s event. Damn it, he thought. What if this turns out to be a one-night stand? He’ll never know.
Carter remained still, trying not to wake Brenda before something, anything, triggered his memory. He kept rubbing his eyes, maybe hoping that if he saw things clearer, then he would see things clearer. He strained his eyes as he brought them down to his sleeping beauty. He was exalted, yet confused. He remembered being at the bar, and getting really close to Brenda on an emotional level. But that was where it ended. Nothing more could he remember. He wanted to blame it on his memory lapses, but his headache and queasiness reminded him of a different alibi.
Brenda inhaled deeply, and then she exhaled. Carter held his breath, but that was not enough. She opened her eyes and her first reaction appeared to be a duplicate of Carter’s. She quickly lifted her head, but she followed with a smile.
“How did this happen?” she asked through a scratchy morning voice.
Carter burst out in nervous excitement. “I…I don’t know, Brenda. I…I just wished that…”
“Was it good for you too?” she asked.
Carter became mute. At first, he believed that she was on the same channel as he, unaware of the night’s finale, but now he wasn’t sure.
“Yes, it was good for me,” he said slowly through an insincere chuckle.
“Well, I’m glad someone remembered,” she said, breaking into contagious laughter.
Carter shook his head and smiled. He could not read Brenda to save his life. Maybe he wasn’t so good at reading people. He wasn’t used to being around such a prankster, yet at the same time he was surprisingly comfortable around it. Somewhere deep within the vastness of his mind, there was something that triggered his ability to love such a personality as hers. He was never sure what type of person he could love, but now he was never more sure about anything.
He went along with this latest prank, though, never admitting to her that he really did not remember what had happened after leaving the bar. He didn’t even remember leaving the bar, and they were pedestrians. Scary, he thought.
Carter squeezed Brenda’s head to his chest. Although she had a T-shirt on, he could still feel Brenda’s full breasts pressed against him. He then wrapped his legs around her legs. He started to get excited when he discovered skin on skin. Her legs felt so soft on his. He squeezed her harder, and she reciprocated. “Oh,” he said, “I wish I hadn’t had so much to drink.” Then he wondered if this would have even happened had he not. Any thoughts pained his head, but at least it wasn’t the pain he felt when he was closing in on signs that he needed to pursue. Then again, he wondered if he could even be so sure about that.
Carter could not sleep t
oo well because of Martin’s digital clock. The numbers flipped loudly through the morning, and even the slight sound was bothersome enough to hurt his aching head. However, that clock was Carter’s only source of time. Ever since the accident, Carter’s time stopped on his wristwatch. He had changed the battery, but still could not get the time to work. He assumed it was damaged in the accident, although it shined, and was without scars, just like its owner.
Flip, flip, flip…the large red numbers sounded with each flipping minute. Noontime stopped by for a quick visit and awoke Carter for the final time, but since then, 120 flips, some distinct and some not, ushered in the mid-afternoon. Although Carter had a busy day planned, he arose only for aspirin and water, and a bathroom run.
Each time Carter arose, he made a point of it to assume the same positioning under the covers. He kind of wished he had been wearing his watch, thus making time stand still. When Brenda finally opened her eyes for good, Carter began to ask personal questions of her. After all, she knew so much more about him.
“Iowa, huh?” he asked. “And what brought you west?”
Brenda shifted onto her side, facing Carter, before answering.
“Oh I just got tired of the farm life,” she began. “I left home at the age of 16 because my so called ‘wild lifestyle’ outraged my parents. But I don’t think it was particularly wild. Maybe for Iowa, though. Just regular partying, like every other high schooler. They just went ballistic on me one night, so I left a note and left town.”
“How long have you lived here?” Carter asked.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Brenda answered. “I told you before…my age is off-limits, for now.”
“What’s the big deal?” he asked. “You can’t be that old. I can see that much.”
Brenda softly swatted his chest. “I’ll tell you eventually. Don’t you try to sweet talk me now. Tell me more about your out-of-body.”
“You’re just trying to change the subject,” said Carter, smiling. “More about you. I talked all about myself last night. In fact, my voice is nearly hoarse from all the talking. Did you finish high school?”
“Kind of,” she said.
“Kind of?”
“I left high school during my senior year, but I’ve gotten my GED since living in Boulder. I also took a year of Psychology at Front Range Community College. There’s a branch right here in Boulder.”
“And?”
“And I began to discover too much about myself… more information than I needed kind of thing,” she replied.
“Isn’t that the reason to stay with it…discovering your true colors?” Carter asked, surprised that the question formed at his own lips.
“No. Well, maybe for some people, but it scared me away,” Brenda said.
“What scared you away?” asked Carter.
“Look, can we talk about something else?” she asked, edging herself away from him.
“For sure. For sure we can, but did Reggie have any influence over your decision?”
Carter could see tears welling up in Brenda’s eyes, and it was then that he knew she was serious. He pulled her close to him.
“It’s all right, Brenda. You don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want to.”
Carter noticed that Brenda regained her composure almost completely.
“No,” she said. “It’s just that I made poor choices that I could kick myself over. I believed that Reggie was the answer to my problems, so much so that he convinced me to quit school and live with him for free. He seemed to be the answer to my problems. He said he’d take care of me. He was 30 years old, and I even admired that.”
An uncomfortable silence disrupted the air, and Carter struggled to find something to fill it in with. But just when he prepared to mumble sympathetic gibberish just to end the silence, Brenda relieved him.
“Reggie wasn’t the answer, but I’d already quit school and got too far behind to catch up, so I felt trapped. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have any skills. I quit school for the second God damn time in my life. And to top it off I had a boyfriend who chose to come home only sometimes, and the religious crap on top of all that.”
“He didn’t come home some nights?” asked Carter.
“Some nights, yes,” she said, “but what could I say about it? He’d reduced my self-esteem to nothing, so I couldn’t even bring it up. I couldn’t leave, either. It was either Reggie or my parents, and my parents still don’t even know where I am. They’ve probably disowned me by now. They’ve always joked that I wasn’t really their daughter. Now I kind of have to wonder if there’s any truth to that. It’s been four years now.”
Carter quickly did the math…she left home at 16 and it’s been four years, so Brenda was 20 years old. He brushed over her age with another question.
“How long have you been this unhappy?” he asked.
“A couple of months after moving in, I guess,” she said. “Once I was firmly entrenched into my new lifestyle, which made it even tougher to do anything about. I figured there was another woman, but I had no proof, no car, no life, no confidence…no balls.”
“But…but what about…the car the other day?” Carter asked.
Brenda hesitated, and then closed her eyes. “What I told you…wasn’t exactly how things happened,” she admitted. Brenda took a second and a dry swallow before continuing. “Reggie and I were returning home from his parent’s house in Lincoln, Nebraska, when we got into an argument. I decided that I wasn’t gonna be his little puppy dog anymore. I told him to let me out of the car, but I didn’t think he would. When he did, and drove off down the highway, I thought it was just one of his scare tactics, but he never returned. I must have walked a few miles before finally seeing him driving around looking for me, but I wasn’t about to just get back in and carry on. I wanted to give him a little taste of his own medicine and not be there, unlike what he was so used to. I’m always right there for that jerk. I could see the highway from the bottom of the exit, where I hid behind a tree. I walked a bit to the nearby truckstop, and talked to a trucker who said he could take me across half of Nebraska, and he did. Then I tucked myself into that gas station, and that’s when I bumped into you. That was lucky, because hitchhiking is not a safe thing to do these days, especially for a lone woman. That tells you how God damn desperate I was.”
Carter was stroking Brenda’s hair during the reconstruction of her ordeal. He was shocked that any guy would treat a woman the way Reggie had treated her. The fact that Brenda had fed him false information blew right past him due to the fact that he did not know Brenda. She had to be scared out of her mind, and probably embarrassed. He believed he might have done the same thing under those circumstances.
“Did he ever hurt you…physically, I mean?” he asked.
“Once in a while,” she responded, “but he didn’t…like…severely beat me. It was mostly emotionally, which put me at his mercy.”
“So after he abandoned you on the highway, you returned to him?”
“Where else was I gonna go?” she asked, jerking her head out, then away, crinkling her forehead at Carter.
“What I meant was…” Carter could not finish what he meant, merely because it really didn’t differ from what he said.
“I felt trapped,” she said, defensively.
“I know, I know,” he said, again trying to find the right words. He wanted to bring up the Pearl Street mall scene when he saw her and Reggie feuding, but it wasn’t the right time.
“Is the religion really that scary?” he managed to ask.
“My God, yes. He just doesn’t quit!”
“Quit what?”
“His entir
e life is ruled by his new religion, the principles, like his constant reference to reincarnation. I mean…believe what you will, but don’t try to shove it into anyone else’s face.”
Carter could see Brenda’s face turning red. She was visibly upset, but it appeared to him that she was prepared to talk about it.
“So,” Carter began, then took a deep breath, “do you think you’ve…been here…before?”
“That’s not the point!” Brenda said angrily. “Even if I do think that there’s a little more to déjà vu, I’m not going to rub it in your face in order to make you believe in the same thing as myself. Religious beliefs are personal.”
“So one of the reasons you despise Reggie is because he pushes Buddhist beliefs onto you?”
“Yes, but together with all the other shit. That’s an awful lot of shit for anyone to have to take.”
“Oh, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t hate the guy. I hate him without even knowing him.”
Brenda sighed deeply, and then stated, “I just hope you’re not that same guy.”
Carter stopped for a moment. He hoped this was more than a one night stand, but he wanted to know how she had left it with Reggie.
“Are you officially out of the house?” he asked.
“Sorry,” she said. “I kinda am, but not officially. He doesn’t know that I am, or where I am, but then again, he probably isn’t home yet to figure it out.”
Carter sat up in bed. “So, is he going to come looking for you with a baseball bat?” he asked, half -kidding.
Desert Son Trilogy: Desert Son, Wayward Soul, Spiritual Intervention (Books 1-3) Page 12