James melted right there, he lost all sense of reality and was completely under her spell.
"I've been doing some thinking, spending time alone" he replied.
She descended the ramp and seated herself next to James. She sat closer than you would sit next to a friend. James felt his heart race and his palms starting to sweat. He knew what he wanted to do, he knew how he felt but something wasn't right. The feelings he had for her made his heart soar, but his mind kept betraying him. The thought of once again dishonoring Sheila's trust made James sick. Only now he was faced with the ultimate decision, he had never felt this in his heart before and this girl next to him was the one that was doing it.
She turned to him and simply asked, "Do you want to kiss me as bad as I want you to kiss me?"
James uttered the only words that he could think of at the moment, "Yes, yes I do."
Without thinking, he leaned forward and kissed her gently.
Pure electricity coursed through their lips and locked them together. She kissed him with a hunger James had never experienced. He returned her kiss with more passion; warmth filled him from within and he could feel himself start to harden under his shorts. Her hands started to explore his body. He was unsure of himself, as if he had never done any of this before. His hands caressed her back and teased ever so slightly forward, touching the sides of her breasts. They kissed heavily and without hesitation. She took hold of his hands and placed them over her breasts. James was fully erect now and her hand probed his crotch area, massaging his stiffened member. James squeezed her soft breasts, feeling her nipples harden under his touch; she moaned passionately. He could feel her body release itself to him. His hands grasped her tighter and he traced his hands, once again, up and down her back. He moved his hands up under her shirt and felt the warmth of her skin against his. She forced her body closer to his and kissed him even deeper, allowing her tongue to escape her mouth and probe into his.
James was overwhelmed with emotion; his mind was moving eighty miles a minute, sending thoughts crashing through his skull. He suddenly pulled from her and looked her in the eyes. She had a look of disappointment, but he could also see a slight shade of shame in her face.
"I'm sorry. This just isn't right. I have a girlfriend and I love her very much" he stated simply.
He was out of breath and his heart was beating double-time in his chest.
"James, I know. But what feels right? Do you want to be with me? Because I want this, no questions asked." Her voice wavered some at the end and she looked just as confused and scared as he did.
What is going on here? What is this I am feeling? I am so confused…
The questions just kept coming to mind as he looked deep into her eyes. She shook her head and looked away from him, out across the dark water.
"I don't know James, I just don't know, but ever since I first saw you, there was something about you I wanted to be near."
He was moved by her confession and shocked to know that she was feeling the same things he was.
"Karen," he said gently "I do not want this to get complicated. I have a girlfriend back home that loves me very much and I love her too. I don't want to hurt her or you."
Karen turned her face back to his and the look in her eyes said more than any words could ever have. She moved closer to him and rested her head on his broad shoulder.
"Jimmy, I just want to be with you. I want to know everything about you and I don't know why."
James put his arm around her and held her close to him. That moment on the dock turned the tables for James. His heart would never again be settled and content with whom he chose to share his love.
****
James put the car in gear and drove away from the gravesite. For a brief moment he didn't want to leave. His driving away gave finality to a part of his life that he hadn't wanted to end. His heart would still ache for her and his soul would still yearn for her company, but he knew that would never happen again. Karen was gone. For a brief time in his life, he and Karen had shared a love like no other; an unspoken love that until just recently remained buried deep inside of James, scratching and gnawing.
James had moved on from that summer spent on the Black River. He had taken his life in the direction he thought it needed to go. Not knowing that the love that they had shared under those summer skies had made him the man he was today. Karen had been a silent presence in his life. The mark she had left on his heart was one that no amount of time would ever erase. Her love for him was strong and true, he knew that now. He also knew that he had always felt the same for her but couldn't face that truth.
Karen was dead now, killed by a stray bullet; an innocent bystander to a senseless crime. She would have been thirty-two years old this year. She had two young kids and a promising career ahead of her. She had recently gotten out of a marriage that, in her words, was what felt right at the time and seemed like the next logical step in her life.
Karen had confessed to James, just recently, that her ex-husband had found another girl during his medical residency. After the divorce, she had found out from friends, that there was a child involved; too old to have been conceived after their marriage broke up.
A radio commercial break ended and the radio DJ came back on; he introduced another one of Garth Brooks' hits and a song from the major motion picture, Frequency.
"This song put Garth in the movie business; the song is called When you come Back to Me Again…"
With sorrow engulfing his heart, threatening to smother him, James listened to the soft music and that powerful voice, "…on a prayer, in a song. I hear your voice and it keeps me hanging on… 'til you come back to me again…"
The words were meaningful and filled James with a consuming sense of loss and sadness. Those who we love and are lost to death never come back to us again. We have their memory, but it is never the same as having their physical being in your life. James thought of his mother and the pain that he still dealt with, having lost her at such a young age in his life. He fought back a wave of tears and kept his eyes locked on the road ahead of him. He drove to his destination not noticing the world around him. He was unaware, guided by instinct.
When James had learned of Karen's untimely death, he knew what he had to do. It seemed cruel to him that they had just recently reconnected and now it was all over. Decisions and mistakes had been made in his life and James knew where his journey was taking him. He knew the path forward that he had to take. His life had taken many turns over the years but along that long broken road Karen had always been with him. Now that she was gone from his life, lost forever, James needed more than anything to be true to himself and the ones that he loved in his life.
Karen was a permanent fixture in James' soul, never to be extracted, even by death. What they shared was deeper than any physical barrier could withhold. He truly and deeply loved Karen; she was his soul mate. It had taken losing her and finding her again to make him see that the love they shared was more powerful then he had ever imagined. He recalled the conversations they shared about life and their futures. He could still remember the day she came back into his life, not a month ago and flipped his world completely upside down. Karen had told James of her true feelings for him and in return he had shared his emotions with her. Both surprised by what each had been harboring for so long, and equally troubled by where they were going to go from there. Her death answered that question quickly.
James made a clear decision to tell the people that he loved how he felt about them, but also confess his love for another. First, he had to tell Leah how he really felt; he had to divulge his long, quiet love for another woman. James had to make Leah understand that what he shared with Karen was more than he had ever imagined it could have been. He had to make Leah see that she was important to him, but that they were not to be; for their relationship and what they shared was only filler for a love lost long ago. He had to let her
go, let her find someone who could love her the way he never truly could.
****
It was two days after that evening on the dock with Karen that James' students for the summer arrived. He and Tim had been assigned a group of eleven to thirteen year olds, ten of them in all. The group consisted of six girls and five boys. Being a very prestigious camp that required a strict application process, the kids they had that summer were all eager to learn. Not as much could be said for some of the kids that Renee had in her class, it seemed every time you turned around another one of her students was headed to the counselor's cabin. James and Tim considered them selves very lucky to have such a great group of kids to teach for the summer under those endless blue, mid-west skies.
James and Tim spent their days teaching their students the lesson plans and activities that they had set up earlier. There were day hikes and night hikes; there were indoor classroom sessions and outdoor, hands-on lessons as well. One of James' favorite activities was the obstacle course. Updated from when he had been a camper, the course still offered the campers an opportunity to use there heads plus their muscles to work through a number of challenges. Most required teamwork, and the class was forced to work together to solve each of the obstacles. James and Tim ran their class through that course several times over the summer and they both agreed that it had become one of the best activities when classroom learning just wasn't working. James thoroughly enjoyed teaching the class as the summer moved forward and knew that he had chosen the right career path. He knew that being a teacher and influencing young minds was what he was destined to do.
There was another part of James' life that he was not so sure about. He still talked to Sheila on a daily basis, but he also found himself in Karen's arms just as frequently. Any chance they got, which ended up mostly being late at night, they would sneak off together. One of their favorite places was out on the dock watching the stars but it was a little too public. They ended up sneaking off behind buildings for a quick embrace or kiss. Lover's Notch had also become a good place to escape from the rest of the camp, and James could remember sitting there under that outcropping of rocks many a night, waiting for her to come to him. The passion that they shared between them was unspoken, neither of them needed to tell the other how they were feeling and rarely did. It just felt right. Being with Karen gave James a sense of inner peace that he had never experienced before. She just matched him. They talked about everything and nothing. It was not always physical between them, there were times at night when they would lay in each others arms and just talk about life. They would share their dreams and aspirations. James would talk about his hometown and where he grew up and Karen would tell him about growing up on a dairy farm in northeast Pennsylvania. It just fit, the two of them, they connected on so many levels. They shared a love of country music and a passion for the outdoors. James was impressed, when one evening walking the trails around the camp, that Karen was able to catch, let alone want to touch, a bull snake that had come out in the evening to hunt for prey. Unfazed by the snake's loud snorts and hisses, Karen snared the snake and calmly spoke to it as if they were long lost friends. She never ceased to amaze and surprise him.
They shared songs with one another. It had become a game that when one heard a song that made reminded them of the other, they would tell them and he or she would have to seek it out and listen to it. The messages they shared through the songs were their own secrets to each other. The one artist that they both had stumbled upon as being a favorite between them was Garth Brooks. His music had a message that was universal; Garth had a way of making you feel the music. James could find Karen in the songs he heard and it made him yearn for her more. His heart fell deeper for her as everyday passed, and the more time they spent together made him never want to let her go. He didn't realize then that he had never spoken of his true feelings for her; she never knew how deeply she had affected him.
Neither of them spoke of Sheila or of the possibility that there might have been someone at home waiting for Karen as well. It became the one thing they didn't speak of, they dreamed of a future together and where they saw themselves in ten years. James' heart became more and more confused as the days turned to weeks. James found himself in the company of the guys on the nights he and Karen could not be together. He also found that Renee and Karen had started hanging out with them as a large group some nights too. The atmosphere was always light and jovial. Tim and Renee had no qualms about showing how they felt about each other but James and Karen were forced to hide their feelings from the group. Scott and Dave were their typical selves, each trying to out do the other for the ladies. James had to conceal his jealousy whenever either of them turned their so-called charms on Karen. He couldn't get a firm feel for how she was always going to interact with them; he just held onto the quiet nights they shared and hoped that they meant as much to her as they did to him. These gatherings made James crazy with thoughts of commitment and of love. He had no one to turn to except the one person he knew he could count on to shoot straight with him. He decided to turn to Tim, hoping he would be someone he could talk to and not be judged. His relationship with Tim had become one he knew he could trust. He and Tim would talk long into the nights after each had returned from their specific evening duties. Sometimes those duties included sneaking out late with certain girls that had come into their lives. James confessed his feelings to Tim one late night and was surprised by his friend's response.
Tim said to him calmly and with a compassion rarely heard from him, "You have to do what you feel is right in your heart. If your feelings for Karen are true then you have to be honest with yourself and with Sheila. If she has affected you this deeply, that is going to be something that will never leave you."
James never knew that those words would ring so true for so many years after.
It was late one night on the pier with Karen that James had decided to really talk to her about his feelings and where she saw their relationship going. After several minutes of gentle kissing and caressing, James was surprised to see that Karen was crying.
"Karen? Are you okay?" he asked quietly.
"I'm fine. It's just that this whole summer has been such a roller-coaster ride of emotions. You must think the worst of me sometimes, for having pursued you and let it come to this. And I should be ashamed and hurt in return that you would do this with me, knowing you have someone at home who loves you" she wiped a tear from her cheek and turned her attention to the murky waters of the Black River.
James was stunned and dumbfounded. He had wanted to talk to Karen about what they were doing, but he was silenced by her sudden and open honesty. He couldn't answer her; he couldn't find the words to comfort her. His mind was filled with words to say, but none formed in his mouth to be spoken.
"Jimmy, what we are sharing right here and now means a lot to me, but it also scares me."
James nodded in approval; he reached out to her and took her in his arms.
"Just don't let go right now okay? Just hold me tight. We can try to figure this out" she replied and returned his embrace.
James stood on that pier never knowing that the words he left unspoken would have such an impact on his life.
****
James pulled his car to the curb in front of the townhouse. He noticed that she was waiting for him at the front door as he exited the car. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle again, and James didn't even bother with an umbrella. He walked slowly up the drive and came to stop in front of the open door. Leah's face said it all, he knew he probably looked like hell and her expression confirmed it.
"I'm so sorry Jimmy, was she a good friend?" she asked quietly.
James said the only thing he could think of, "Yes, yes she was."
Leah gently took hold of his hand and led him inside.
"Go put your feet up and I will get you some hot coffee. Sorry I didn't get your call, I was in the shower" she said to
him, guiding him to the living room.
"That's okay, I was in no position to talk at that moment anyway" he responded as they treaded softly across the carpeted room.
He had always liked this room, it was warm and inviting. Some of the other rooms in the house seemed cold and empty to him, but this room, with its oversized, brown leather furniture and natural wood tables, welcomed you. James took off his damp coat and laid it over a straight back chair by the desk and slipped down into one of the large sofa cushions. His head hurt more now than earlier; he was going to have to take something to dull the pain if it didn't start to subside. He could feel some of the tension release from him as he laid his head back against the soft pillows. James could always count on Leah to comfort him and care for him. She was good to him and he knew that all to well, but it was just not right anymore. James had come to realize his true feelings and what he had with Leah would never be the same again. James could smell the coffee brewing and hear the soft music from the kitchen radio. Leah, of course, was listening to the same station James had been listening to. The music was familiar and the connected memories were intense.
James again, listened to the words, "…there's never been another summer, where I have ever learned so much…"
He smiled to himself and let a quiet peace come over him for the first time in the past couple of weeks.
****
"Jimmy," she said quietly, "what do you want out of life? Who do you want to be?" Karen's questions brought James out of his quiet daydreams.
They were lying together under the stars near Lover's Notch. It was a clear, moonless night and the stars stretched from one horizon to the other. James had always lived in the country and stars were not new to him, but he had never seen so many as he had here. They seemed to blanket the sky and never end, but go on forever. He thought about her questions for a moment before answering. She turned and looked at him; she had been resting her head on his chest.