CHAPTER 36
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Elizabeth pulled her cell phone out after her Sociology night class while she was walking back to her dorm. She heard the phone vibrating in her backpack but didn’t dare pull it out during class. She had four missed calls from Kate. She sat down on a bench and called her friend back.
“It’s about time,” her friend said picking the call up on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“I have my night class on Thursdays. I was on my way back to my room but I saw that you called so I sat down to talk to you. The reception in my room sucks.”
“Well, you might want to hurry up and get back to your room,” suggested Kate.
“Why, am I missing something?”
“Angela is probably already waiting for you and I’m less than an hour out.”
“You’re both coming to Durham?” she could barely contain her excitement.
“Yep, but it’s just for the night. We’re not staying.”
Elizabeth’s excitement dissipated. “Oh, well it will be good to see you guys even if it’s just for one night.”
“Yeah, ok,” Kate said sarcastically. “Get back to your room and start packing. We have a long trip tomorrow.”
“I don’t understand…”
“You don’t have to. Angela’s waiting. Go!” Kate hung up the phone.
Elizabeth ran to the residential quads as quickly as possible. Just as Kate had anticipated, Angela was sitting on a bench outside of Elizabeth’s dorm. She threw her arms around Angela and practically tackled her best friend.
“What are you doing here?” she asked excitedly.
“We’ll explain everything when Kate gets here. First, we need to go inside and start packing.”
Kate arrived thirty minutes later complete with a tan. “Wow, going to school on the beach sure has its benefits,” said Elizabeth laughing.
Kate pulled out a duffle bag and started going through Elizabeth’s closet. “Do you have winter boots?”
“In the box. But it’s not boot season yet. Where are we going?”
“It will be,” laughed Angela. “You need some layers.”
“Okay, so you might not think this plan is genius but we’ve been talking about it for weeks and you should just trust us.”
“That is not very convincing! You guys are making me nervous!”
“Give it to her,” suggested Angela. “Elizabeth, close your eyes.”
Elizabeth laid on her bed with her pillow over her head. “You guys suck,” she mumbled into the down comforter. “I don’t like it when you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
“Oh, stop complaining,” said Angela. “We’re done, you can look now.”
Elizabeth removed the pillow from on top of her head and brushed her static hair away from her face. “Oh, no, you didn’t!” Her friends were both wearing white Penn State hooded sweatshirts while holding a third sweatshirt between them. “You guys look, disgusting,” Elizabeth said annoyed. “Why would you ever put that on and why would you bring me one?”
“We’re going to Penn State tomorrow,” said Kate.
“NO,” shouted Elizabeth. “We’re NOT!”
“Okay, just calm down a second,” said Angela sitting next to her friend. “We know Jack hurt you and that your friendship ended on maybe not the best of terms.”
“The worst of terms you mean?” said Kate.
“I don’t know if you’re been keeping up with college football at all….”
“NO!”
“Well, I have,” said Kate. “The Tar Heels have lost more than half their games. That’s where Jack would have been. Penn State is undefeated. And, this weekend, they’re playing Ohio State, another undefeated team in the Big Ten Conference. This is quite possibly the biggest regular season game for Penn State and we’re going. You don’t have to call Jack. You don’t have to text him. He doesn’t ever need to know you’re there. But, go for yourself.”
“How is going to the game going to do anything for myself?”
“Because, I think you need to go see for yourself that he made the right decision. It’s time to let go of hating him. You don’t have to forgive him, or like him, or want to be friends with him but you need to stop hating him.”
Elizabeth grabbed the sweatshirt out of Kate’s hand. “Fine, betch.”
The three girls slept on Elizabeth’s twin size bed. By seven, Angela was begging them to get up. “This is so uncomfortable,” she whined.
“Sleep on the floor. We have an eight hour drive. I’m not getting up now,” Kate said back.
“Elizabeth doesn’t have any extra blankets.”
“I have an idea,” said Kate. “Angela, sleep in the middle with your head on the other side. That should give us more room.”
“I do not want my head next to her air craft carrier feet!”
“I hate you, Kate,” shouted Angela.
“Good, now don’t talk to me so I can get some sleep.”
An hour later, they were all showered and packing up Kate’s blue Ford Escape. “I need Starbucks ,” she said.
“I need Dunkin Donuts coffee,” Elizabeth and Angela said in unison.
“We are the worst travel buddies,” said Kate rolling her eyes.
When everyone had their favorite cup of coffee and breakfast sandwich to go with it, Kate programmed the GPS. “We have 464.49 miles to go.”
“What is that in real people time?” asked Angela.
“Eight hours or something,” answered Kate. Elizabeth leaned back against her pillow. She was exhausted.
“Okay, so why are we wearing white?” questioned Angela. “Aren’t the sweatshirts going to get dirty?”
“I don’t know,” said Kate. “It’s some tradition. It was hard to find white.”
“Penn State's Beaver Stadium held a White Out during a nationally televised football game between Penn State and Ohio State in October 2005. The first White Out was Oct. 9, 2004 against Purdue. The idea was inspired by Oklahoma State's "wear orange" in 2003. It was a success as almost the entire student section participated, and another White Out took place the next week against Iowa.” Kate looked at her friend through the rear view mirror while Angela blatantly turned around. “In 2007, the first stadium-wide White Out was promoted and all fans were encouraged to participate during the home match-up against the Notre Dame on September eigth. The Phoenix Coyotes organization actually attempted to sue Penn State for using the term Whiteout. Penn State in response began using the term the "White House" which further angered the Coyotes. A White Out game usually occurs when there is a night game, or a game that will be nationally televised, like tomorrow night’s game.”
“So you have been paying attention?” asked Kate.
“Just a little,” Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Jack taught me a lot last year when we used to watch college football.” Elizabeth caught Angela smile at Kate. “Oh, stop it. Where are we staying tonight?”
“We got a hotel room,” said Kate, “ and I hope you have money because it’s not cheap.”
After checking into the hotel room, the girls ate dinner at the hotel restaurant and went up to the room to relax. Elizabeth debated whether or not to text Jack and let him know they were in State College or just go to the game the following day. She felt very weak and vulnerable but more than anything she needed to talk to Jack even though he had hurt her so badly. She didn’t know why she needed to talk to him. It wasn’t something she could explain. It was something she knew she had to do. Before she knew what she was doing, she g
rabbed her cell phone and texted him that she was at Penn State and came to watch him play football.
“What are you doing?” Kate asked.
“Isn’t this what you wanted? Didn’t you want me to text him? Wasn’t that part of your plan?”
Kate and Angela looked at each other. “Not, if that’s not what you wanted.”
“I’m weak, okay?” said Elizabeth. Her eyes began watering. She swallowed hard trying to fight back the tears. “I've been able to get by these weak moments by writing down exactly what I'm feeling at the time and it comes out in a jumble of feelings and thoughts, some not so pleasant, but in the end it actually helps.” Elizabeth got off the bed and went for her duffle bag. She pulled out a large journal. “I’ve been writing to Jack every day since we stopped talking.” She handed the journal to her friends and sat on the chair next to the desk. “I tell him what’s going on in my life.
How much I love Duke. How my classes are going. I ask him about Penn State. How football is going. I ask him what it’s like to play for Joe Paterno. I tell him I miss his face, his laugh, and his electric smile. I miss the way we used to talk all the time. I miss the way he listened to me and always knew the right thing to say. At the end of the day, I ask questions to answers that I’m never going to get. It’s the most fucked up thing in the entire world. Do you know that after all the months we were friends I don’t even have a stupid picture of him? I know it doesn’t seem important, but I’m still in love with him.” Elizabeth stood up and put her hands on the iced cold window. “I love him. I always have and always will. He is my destiny.” Elizabeth paused and sniffled. “I need a fucking Kleenex.” She turned around. Kate and Angela both had tears streaming down their cheeks.
“Get me a damn Kleenex,” said Angela.
“Me too,” echoed Kate.
The girls feel asleep a half hour later. Tired from crying and driving. They slept until almost eleven, when Angela woke them up whining about food. “I have to eat,” she said. “It’s urgent.”
“You might want to get that starving issue of yours looked at,” Kate said yawning. “If you lived in Africa, you’d be screwed because you wouldn’t get to eat every day.”
Elizabeth picked up her cell phone. There was a text message from her sister, her roommate at Duke and two text messages from Bob. There was nothing from Jack. She shook her head at her friends.
“Maybe he’s still sleeping,” said Angela.
“You know how you want something so bad but you just don’t have the confidence that it’s going to happen?” Angela and Kate nodded. “Well, that’s how I feel right now. I don’t know what’s worse, being in love with him after all this time or knowing it was never going to work out.”
“Look,” said Kate. “If you don’t want to go to the game, we don’t have to. In fact, if you want to pack up and just leave this frozen tundra right now, we’ll do it.”
Elizabeth pondered the decision to leave. If there was no hope for a mutual love or at least some sort of friendship then why should she stay and torture herself? It was almost like finalizing a divorce. Elizabeth knew she needed to keep living her life and meeting new people. She owed it to herself to be available when the right person did come alone. It was impossible at this moment for Elizabeth to think she would ever possibly find someone that she would love more than Jack Bennett, someone who would actually return her love. But, she knew she would never be ready if she was still hoping for someone who didn’t return her love. She knew what she deserved and that was a happy and healthy relationship. Elizabeth was stuck. She couldn’t control who she loved.
“We can’t leave,” she finally said to her friends. “We came all this way. This is Penn State dammit. Do you know that Joe Paterno is a living legend and he’s been on the sidelines at Penn State since 1966 and he is the winningest Division I-A coach of all-time, with 400 career wins! Paterno made Penn State into what it is. With five undefeated seasons under his belt, two national championships, 14 wins in major bowl games, and only five losing seasons in 45 years, Paterno is without a doubt one of the all-time greatest coaches in the history of college football and he doesn’t compromise academics just to win games. Even if I don’t talk to Jack, just being here is pretty spectacular.”
“Good,” said Angela holding her stomach. “I need breakfast. Let’s go see what they have downstairs.”
It only takes one visit to a Penn State Football game to understand why a home game at Beaver Stadium is the most memorable tailgating and football experience in the nation. More than 200,000 fans come down to Happy Valley during a typical home game, inflating the population of State College to the third largest city in the state during home game weekends. The girls were in absolute shell shock, especially after never even attending a college football game. They found their seats quickly. Kate had come prepared with white blankets, warmers for their gloves, white hats and they all had layers of clothes underneath their white Penn State sweatshirts.
The girls jumped up and down when they saw Jack Bennett run out on the field. “There he is!” screamed Elizabeth. “Number 26! That’s him!” A sense of rejection came over Elizabeth. She had texted him almost twenty-four hours earlier. Even if he was mentally preparing for the game, wasn’t it possible that he could have at least sent her a simple text back?
The girls huddled together standing with the rest of the fans as the snow began to fall during the first quarter. “This is amazing,” commented Angela. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Elizabeth smiled. The experience was surreal. She tried not to think about Jack and just concentrate on the game.
With less than a minute left in the second quarter, Jack ran a touchdown in to put Penn State ahead fourteen to seven. There were over 106,000 fans in Beaver Stadium all going crazy for Jack Bennett at the almost sold out football game. Elizabeth sat down while everyone around her was cheering Jack’s name. She watched as his teammates congratulated him. It was at that moment that she realized why Jack had chosen to go to Penn State over the University of North Carolina.
“We know Jack Bennett,” shouted Kate hugging a fan next to her.
“You do?” the man asked excited.
“Yeah! This is our friend, Elizabeth. She was really tight with Jack!”
“You really know him?” he asked Elizabeth. Looking away from the man, she thought of all the times they had together, sharing laughter, tears, jokes, late night conversations, and then, without explanation he had suddenly disappeared from her life. She finally answered softly, “Once, a long time ago...at least I thought I did.”
After the game, the girls made their way through the crowds of people back to Kate’s car. People were tailgating all around them. “I can’t believe what a party this is!” she said. Elizabeth smiled and ran her cold hand over the journal she had been writing in to Jack every single day.
Angela turned around and looked at her friend. “He’ll text you,” she said smiling. “He has to. He’s your destiny, right?”
“I opened my heart to him,” Elizabeth said somberly. “I can’t just wait for him to accept that. Things have changed. I didn’t realize until tonight that I really lost him. No matter how hard or how much I love him he’ll never love me back. I’m not his destiny. I have to learn to be okay with that. I don’t understand how I thought we had like the greatest friendship imaginable and then all of a sudden it was gone. Have I always been wrong about our friendship?”
“No,” said Kate firmly. “You slept in his bed. He slept in your bed. He never judged you. He helped you in a way no one else could. He understood you.”
“Maybe, I just wanted to believe that he did.”
“Elizabeth, he’s your greatest weakness,” said Angela. “And your greatest sense of security. He knew what he was doing. He just wasn’t strong enough to follow through. In a way, everyone has
their reasons for keeping people away. We all have to protect ourselves. I guess we won’t know what his reason was.”
The girls woke up the next morning. Still, there was no text message from Jack Bennett. They showered and packed up the room in silence. Just as they were about to leave, Elizabeth dropped her back and pulled out her journal.
“I just have to do one thing before we leave,” said Elizabeth. “I need to write one last thing to Jack.”
“We’ll check out and wait in the lobby for you,” said Kate.
Elizabeth sat down at the desk. She tapped her pen on the blank page in the journal. Elizabeth began sobbing. She buried her head in her hands and let herself cry. She was the only one in the world his smile meant everything to. She would never again see his smile. Jack Bennett was like a drug that Elizabeth was addicted to. She didn’t get to talk to him anymore. He never gave her the chance. She had driven eight hours in a car to watch him in his glory. He put on quite a show. She would never forget that night, that experience, or Jack Bennett. Elizabeth missed the Jack she used to know, the Jack that was her friend, her confidant, the love of her life. Elizabeth thought back to the conversation she had with Kate six months earlier. “He’s my anyway friend, the one person in my life who no matter what he says or does, no matter what he’s been through, I love him unconditionally anyway. This is a story of a girl who became friends with a boy, a girl who fell in love with a boy. But, this story will never have a happy ending.” Somewhere deep inside, between the blurry tears falling from her eyes, she found the courage to write her last journal entry to Jack.