Blue Ridge, Endings

My apologies to the Michael Stanley Band for lifting their lyrics from "Lover" as emphasis for the story.

Well the glow from the bars and a

thousand stars

Light the cold Ohio night.

And the Turnpike's slick,

the snow's as thick as thieves.

Since your call came through

there ain't nothing new

But the radio and the headlights.

And the news at the top of the hour

That no one really believes,

do they?

Never.

Never in my 45 years did I expect that a song from my youth--one that I liked so much back then and "rediscovered" again in my forties--would end up being about me. OK, maybe not "about me" but applicable to my situation. When I was a kid in high school, The Michael Stanley Band was going to be the next big thing. Hits that made the girls in school sing along, a lead man that made them swoon, and a couple regional hits had us all convinced that it was a simple matter of time before the band broke out of their midwest confines and people outside of Cleveland and "America's North Coast" would soon be singing the praises of our favorite local heroes.

And here it is, all these years later, and I'm the one on the turnpike in the winter, braving the snow, fighting the tears, wondering if my efforts will go for naught.

Since our time in the Blue Ridge Mountains, our affair has grown into an all-encompassing fire that consumed everything it touched. I've moved to be closer to you. My job here, though not one I wanted, actually pays more and allows me more time to pursue you.

You've become something new too. A promotion, a new happiness, and a fire in your eyes are all evidence of something good in your life. Your friends have all remarked on it; they've hinted more than once that they suspect a man in your life is the cause. And like me, you've kept it quiet. Holding cards very close to the vest, both of us are aware of the dangers we face if we're found out. Significant others won't understand, children will be hurt, and reputations possibly ruined. Why ruin a good thing? We're both having fun; fun we couldn't have at home. We made agreements; our hearts are not on the table. This is physical pleasure. Despite our intense interest in each other and a complete mutual admiration, we agree that this isn't love and will not become love. I'm filling a hole in your life. You're filling mine.

The chorus rings in my ears as the truck's headlights push through the night. "Lover." I called you that more than once. It seemed easier to call you that than many other things. After all, we were loving each other. We were leaving unspoken the things that we clearly began to feel. And "Lover" just seemed like a fun thing to call you. MSB got it right with this song. Maybe not their biggest hit, it still is my favorite.

There were times in those stolen weekends when I saw something more than what we'd planned. A life built on something more than our disloyalty to others, a renewed belief in what two hearts beating as one can accomplish, maybe, a life shared...

But I, like you, kept whatever feelings were boiling just below the surface, to myself. "It's only sex," I said over and over and over. Maybe, I could eventually convince myself.

And then memories rush back at me just like the snow flakes dashing themselves against my truck.

A clandestine grope on a South Carolina mountain top. Yeah, there was a view , an incredible one from up there. And later as we were leaving, I turned and noticed the explosion of leaves on the hills below that others had climbed the mountain to see.

A promise of birthday fantasies fulfilled. I'm not one to make bucket lists but your constant probing of my own experiences and my regrets at ones that have gone unfulfilled led to promises of both the extreme and the kinky; things that I had never allowed myself to hope for.

A time when the two of us stood in the middle of an ancient covered bridge and your eyes got "that look." And before I knew it, I was holding you close, your back to several oblivious families up on a hill at picnic tables, and your hand was guiding mine under your skirt to feel your lack of undergarments and the obvious interest in leaving immediately.

Things I cannot stop thinking about as the melancholy song fills my old truck.

When the cold comes to stay,

it takes your breath away

And it makes the hours crawl.

And it feels to me like I've been

driving forever.

Then your words return, the whole

place burns,

And I just don't know where to

begin.

Girl could you just make it

anybody else...

Anybody else but him, could you?

And then, for me, tragedy. "He" returned. "He" re-entered your life. "He" who tossed you aside like so much rotting garbage more than once in all these years that you say you've loved him.

I chose to forget what you told me about him. You warned me early on, long before we ever believed that real physical intimacy would ever bloom between us. How he and you had shared an on again off again love affair for almost twenty five years, how he had failed--time and again--to follow through on his promises to leave his wife and come to you, and how he had seemed to grow disinterested in you, breaking your heart, and then leaving the opening that you claimed I "slipped" through to fill that massive void that he created. I recalled your words, "you've bound my wound, filled my heart, and assuaged an aching in my soul that he created."

The truck pushes forward. Those words remind me of shared pleasures.

And now new words cause an aching. My heart burns, singed with a pain that I cannot fathom, a confusion that sears me, a fear that brands me with painful marks.

"He's back."

"But...?" I'm confused as hell. How can this have happened? "I'm the one. I'm here. I'm HERE. Dammit, I'm the one that wants you. Wants you. Do you hear me?!?"

I've no right to fight for you. You're "his" and I'm "hers." No right. Does a cheater have a right to demand any type of loyalty from another cheater?

The verses become more poignant; they cut me as I apply them to my own situation. I can't stand it. I must keep reminding myself not to speed, not to take stupid chances in the snow, not to run the truck off the road into a bridge abutment as the wind pushes, the cold freezes, and the snow attempts to blind me from my eastward progress.

The risks are great; the rewards greater. But dammit, not him. I'm only a man, a poor example of one at that. But him...please, Baby, not him. Hasn't he already showed you what you mean to him? Don't his actions prove to you how little regard he has for your feelings? Can't you see this? Why him? Why not me?

When you called and told me, despite our promises and plans not to allow our feelings to become a hindrance, it crushed me. I feel broken, torn asunder, and empty inside. "You have so much to offer," you kept telling me. "Any woman would be happy to have such a passionate lover and someone so kind..."

"Then why don't you want me?" is all I can reply in my mind.

Dammit, you're mine. Not his. I want to fight; want to put up a resistance that would win you back for me. Want to point out how little he cares for you. Want you to stop trying to make me feel better about you choosing him over me.

This shouldn't be an issue. We had a plan. And despite my biting my tongue every time I wanted to say it, you told me. You broke your own rule. You opened the flood gates and changed this forever. Damn you.

And once broken, my own reservoir overspilled onto everything around. I couldn't wait to say it back. My own elation at your admission pushed me to immediately respond. I couldn't wait to tell you again and again, over and over. And say it we did. Neither can deny it; what would be the point? Actions had already proven it repeatedly. Even if the words had never been said, it was apparent from the moment you unexpectedly told me you had to go, to prepare for work the next morning, and left me sitting alone in a hotel room.

Now this. Now, you're going to 'him'. As if I don't matter. His hold on you is something I cannot understand. I've broken my back to be with you; he has ignored you repeatedly, left you alone and insecure, and dismissed you in favor of his wife so many times that I secretly question your wisdom.

What will I do? I don't know. All I can think of through my pain is a teenaged need to get to you, to see you, to talk to you, to stop you before you make a mistake. An immature, impulsive need to try to break this up before it becomes something that for both of us, cannot be fixed. The truck shudders from a side gust of wind, but my thoughts are of getting there faster.

So I talk to the night, I head for

the light;

Try and hold it on the road.

Thank God for the man who put

the white lines on the highway.

Baby, what you gonna do when the

fire is through,

And you find he's out looking for

somebody new,

Cause you did everything that he

wanted you to do?

And now you're all alone and

crying, aren't you...

"Dammit. I..."

The thought dies aborning on my lips. I don't know where I was going. My mind races at what I should be doing. What my actions might be. What the repercussions of fighting for your love will be in my life.

Recalling that in live versions of the song, the singer would stop and the crowd would elatedly sing, "Thank God for the man who put the white lines on the highway" for him, I am nostalgic for that simpler time of my youth and for that time two months ago when we first met in person in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Times were easier. I had a bright future as a kid. As an adult, I didn't think about him. I didn't imagine that he could possibly cause this. I didn't account for what he meant to you. I didn't think so much about what could go wrong. I knew, even at 18, what a powerful line that was to the anguished man singing the song; I now know that pain as I peer into the night looking for those same lines that keep me on a barely cleared road heading east, east, and east...towards you...and him.

Why? I mean, I know I'm nothing special. But "we," we were special. I have had my confidence shaken, my arrogance in the belief that I could take you away and keep you has been left cracked, broken, and permanently damaged. What is it I hope to accomplish by speeding through a snowstorm towards a woman who doesn't want me and a man who doesn't know I exist? And will probably laugh at me, secure in his knowledge of his apparent mastery over you?

What is it, Baby? The snow may slow me, but I will not be stopped. I am coming. Don't--please don't do anything that can't be fixed.

Is it safety? Is it a familiarity? Do you feel that the twenty five years are just too hard to throw away? Do you think that I don't represent safety, security, passion, and love to you? What?

The truck is ten over the limit. The flaky snow blows up and over the hood to spatter on the windshield. The white world around me reflects the high beams. No other traffic dares be on the road, the plows are few and far between. Yet, here I am, doing seventy five on summer tires towards a shaky future that cannot be guaranteed, possibly cannot even be salvaged.

The heater works over time against the sub zero temperature outside. The coat I threw around me before I left is barely sufficient for spring weather, let alone the worst December Ohio has ever seen. But when we spoke about your decision, how he was back and had decided that not only did he want you, but that he expected you to travel to him, I dropped everything. I ignored winter storm travel advisories and moved. My decision was immediate; I had to go. Had to find you. Had to stop this. Had to...