Not Quite Closure

This is a story based on real people and actual events. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

When I was 16 I was in a car accident. I ended up with a fractured ankle and sprained ligaments in my left knee. When I was taken to the hospital they weren't really sure what was going on in my knee so they just threw a cast on my whole leg and sent me on my way. It wasn't until my ankle healed six weeks later and the cast came off that we found out about the ligaments, since my knee had blown up like a balloon while the rest of my leg atrophied. It would take a lot of long, hard rehabilitation to get the full range of motion back in my knee; only I never went to rehab. It wasn't until after I graduated high school that I took to riding my bike around the neighborhood to strengthen my knee. And that's how I ended up in front of my old friend Jenny's house.

Looking back now it seems so odd that I had a female best friend in high school. I was completely socially awkward. I was interested in girls, but the ones I was interested in had no interest in me. Then I met Jenny. Even though we only lived a couple of miles apart we didn't meet until we got to high school. The way our district was carved up we went to different elementary and middle schools. Even when we got to high school it took us nearly our whole freshman year to get acquainted with each other, even though we were both in the orchestra. I played cello and she played viola. It was only on a class trip late in our freshman year that we were introduced by mutual friends. Ironically our meeting was overshadowed by another girl in our group who decided that I was her soul mate that day, but afterwards we hardly spoke again. I didn't understand it at the time and still have no idea what that was all about.

During our sophomore year we slowly began to gravitate towards each other. You know how these things start in school... recognizing each other in the hallway and saying hello... little conversations before and after orchestra that would slowly get longer and more familiar. Then we would start getting together with our mutual friends after school, my best friend at the time was another cellist named Bill, and hers was a male viola player. As best friends go, Bill left a lot to be desired for me. I was more his choice than he was mine. He smoked, drank, and chased women, and I didn't have any interest in any of those things. I was the quiet type. I enjoyed music and video games, staying in and watching television. When Bill and I would hang out he would play video games with me but I always felt that pressure to be more like him. I know, I know. I was boring. But I was who I was, and I was definitely hoping for a change in my life, and it turned out to be Jenny.

As luck would have it, so was Jenny. Soon after we became friends she had some sort of falling out with her best friend. I heard from Bill that one day she dumped a pitcher of iced tea over his head or something and that was the end of their friendship. Jenny looked to me to fill the void and I was happy to do it.

Having a female friend was different. Having a female best friend was much, much different. For one thing, it meant long phone conversations. We would get home from school in the afternoons and call each other and talk for hours. It wasn't something male friends did with each other. It's hard to even remember now what we talked about through all that time. I think Jenny did a majority of the talking. She had a rare gift of being able to remember whole conversations, or at least be able to pretend that she could remember whole conversations that she could relate to me word for word. Then she would be able to describe what they were wearing to me in perfect detail. I marveled at the way she saw the world. I would start by telling her everything that had happened in my day in 30 seconds and she would go on for an hour. I would just lay on the couch in the living room and listen to her voice.

It took me a while to realize that I was attracted to Jenny. She was 5 foot 3 but well-proportioned. She had a pretty, round face with brown eyes and thick shoulder-length brown hair. By the time my backwards teenage mind had figured it all out, we were too firmly ensconced in 'the friend zone' for me to do anything about it. At least, that was the way I thought. She was the most important thing in my life by then and the fear that making any kind of romantic overture would ruin that kept me from saying anything.

By now we were juniors. Jenny had quit the orchestra. I think a combination of the fact that she felt awkward being around Ralph, her former best friend, and the fact that she wasn't very good anyway helped her to decide to give it up. She was still my closest friend, even though we had nothing in common. We talked on the phone a lot, and she even offered to join a bowling league with me. She was a terrible bowler. Her balls used to wobble slowly down the lane and we would all make fun of her. We would make up silly names for each other to input into the electronic scorekeeper and hers was "Jen-if-ever." You know, as in if the ball would ever get down the lane. It was lame but we were 16-17 years old, and it cracked us up.

Then my car accident happened, ending my bowling career for the time being. Jenny quit along with me. I think she was relieved, because she didn't like bowling much. During my time in a cast Jenny would come and spend time with me but a change had started to come over her. One time while I was hobbling along with my crutches Jenny deliberately knocked me over. She wasn't the sweet, nice girl that I had become friends with anymore, and I didn't understand why. We would still talk on the phone, but she started talking about hating people and the negative things she started saying turned me off a little. Ralph and Bill would warn me that she wasn't a nice person and that I should distance myself from her. Well, they used harsher language than that, but I ignored them. She was my best friend, after all. By that point I was completely taken by her. I was intoxicated by her presence. I couldn't imagine my life without her. You know, all of those crazy romantic things you believe when you're young.

Another thing about Jenny was that she was completely boy crazy. It seemed like every week there was another boy in our school that she was crazy about. She would have to tell me all about it and I hated every minute of it. It made me jealous, and put me in a constant cycle of fear and relief. Fear that she would actually start dating the guy and relief when she quickly lost interest. It also made it even more difficult for me to ever find a way to tell her how I actually felt about her, since she always going on about one boy or another, when was I supposed to turn around and say, hey, what about me?

It was late in our junior year when my worst fears were realized. One of the guys that Jenny had become interested in reciprocated. She now had a boyfriend and didn't have much time for me anymore. We rapidly drifted apart, punctuated by a brief meeting in the hallway after class when I asked her why she was giving me the cold shoulder, and she replied "Nothing's wrong with me." Looking back it seems like such an offhand remark, but at the time something snapped inside of me, and I stormed off. I was determined to never speak to her again.

In our senior year we completely avoided each other. I lost track of her and didn't even know what was going on in her life. I didn't know if she was still with the guy, or if she had gone back to her previous boy craziness. We were in a pretty large school with almost 2,000 kids, so it was easy to lose track of people if you weren't in any classes with them. In the meantime I found a new best friend. A male one with a lot of the same interests as me and we hung out all the time. He knew Jenny years ago and didn't like her, and we would spend a lot of time gleefully verbally abusing her. As for my non-existent romantic life, I spent my senior year pining over two women, one a willowy redhead that I met when I had a small role in one of our school's theater productions, and the other a pretty blonde cellist, neither of which had any interest in me whatsoever. At least the pretty blonde cellist was kind enough to string me along for most of the year. It helped to keep me occupied. But I'm not bitter or anything.

Finally the end of high school came and we graduated. I was accepted to an out-of-state school, and I couldn't wait to leave my hometown. I was looking forward to a fresh start, but my knee was still bothering me. I got the idea to start riding my bike around, first just up and down the block, but as my knee got stronger during the first few weeks of summer, I would range further and further away. One day I rode all the way to Jenny's house. I don't think I consciously set out to go there, but all of a sudden, there it was. The first time I went there I stopped in front of her house and stared at it for a minute. It looked empty, anyway. I turned around and headed home. The next day I rode straight there, and I stayed a little longer. The third day I went there I saw a car in the driveway. I had been all sorts of angry and frustrated with Jenny. Angry that our friendship ended the way it did, and frustrated that nothing had ever happened between us. She had turned out to be my best chance of having some sort of romantic relationship with a girl before I left for college and nothing ever happened. I knew that I would be going away in a couple of months and it felt like nothing that had happened really mattered anymore. I remember sitting in front of her house for the longest time with a weird feeling in my gut. Do I really want to knock on her door? I had no idea what she was up to these days. Was she single? Was she engaged? Who knows what I would walk into. Finally curiously overcame my anxieties and I walked my bike up to the front door.

Jenny answered the door. She was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. She said she was surprised to see me. I told her I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by.

Jenny looked at the bike that I was holding. "How is your leg?" she asked.

"It's better," I replied, "Riding the bike has been helping my knee."

"Well, that's good," she said, and I saw her gaze turn thoughtfully to my bum knee.

We fell into an awkward silence. I wasn't sure what to say to her next, but when she didn't speak for a while, I felt like I had to say something. "I'm going away to college in a couple of months," I said.

"I know," Jenny replied, "I saw it on that sheet they put up." For some reason our school would post up a list of students and the schools they told the guidance counselors they were going to. I guess there was a good reason. I just didn't know what it was. I'm sure it served some kind of purpose, like you would know if any of your classmates were also going to your school, but it kind of felt like an invasion of privacy to me. "Is that why you're here," Jenny continued, "To say goodbye?"

I was caught off-guard by the straight-forward question. I didn't consciously know why I was there. Maybe she was right. I did what I always did when I didn't know what to say, I started to babble, "Well, I don't know..." I said, "I was just riding my bike around the neighborhood and I just kept ending up here... I don't know, maybe I'm looking for some kind of closure..."

"Okay, OKAY." Jenny said, stopping my rambling. "Well, I'd love to spend a day with you, just like we used to. It's too late in the day now. Why don't you come back early afternoon tomorrow, if you're free?"

"Yeah, I'm free," I replied. "Okay, I'll be here tomorrow, around 1?"

"That's fine," Jenny said, "And bring a bathing suit. See you then." She gave me one of those looks. You know those looks. I would get them from women every once in a while. I never knew what they meant but they always drove me crazy. Then she turned around and closed the door behind her. I was left to wonder what tomorrow would bring.

I thought about it during the bike ride home. I thought about it all evening, which I spent at my best friend Bob's house, playing video games. I didn't tell him I went to see Jenny. He probably wouldn't understand it any better than I did. I thought about it most of the night, instead of sleeping. What was I thinking? Why did I want to go spend a day with a girl that blew me off and made me so angry? I considered just not showing up. That would show her, I thought. But in the end I knew that I was going to spend the day with her.

We were having a heat wave, and the next day was a hot one, easily 90 degrees. I set out for Jenny's house in a t-shirt and bathing trunks instead of shorts. Even as I rode my bike there my mind was still whirling around about what was going to happen. I got to her house and knocked on the door, nervous and sweaty. Jenny answered the door, dressed pretty much the same as the day before in a t-shirt and shorts.

"Hello," Jenny said, her gaze taking me in, "Come on back by the pool." I followed her through the house and into the yard, where there was a decent sized in-ground pool. I idly wondered if anyone else was around. She lived with her parents and younger brother. "Kenny is at summer camp," Jenny said, as if she was reading my mind, "So we have the house to ourselves for the day."

As I stepped into her yard a wave of deja-vu came over me. I looked off towards a group of trees in the corner of her yard and lost myself in a memory.

It was a fourth of July party after our sophomore year. She invited a group of her friends over. We went swimming and had pizza for dinner, and then we gathered in the far corner of the yard. We ended up playing truth or dare. There was something like 6 girls and 4 boys, so the ratio was good for the guys, but Jenny was the only one I was interested in. I was even vaguely aware that some of her friends were trying to get us together that night, but I was scared. I knew I wanted it but I didn't know what Jenny wanted. We got dared to kiss three or four times. We kissed briefly, the butterflies going crazy in my stomach. By the last time everyone was rooting for us to French kiss but we didn't. I only got kissed one other time, by a girl that supposedly liked me but I had no interest in her. I only had eyes for Jenny.

Once the game was over, we were heading back towards the house for dessert. A couple of her friends held me back. "You should totally ask her out," one of them said.

"Oh, I don't know," I stammered. "You know... we're best friends and all..."

"You guys would make a great couple," the other one replied, and they kept walking towards the house.

I was fighting that great internal war, the one where the desire to have Jenny as my girlfriend went up against the chance of losing her as my best friend. Finally, at that one moment, danger won out over safety. I was ready to take the chance. "Fine, I'll do it!" I said. Nobody heard me say it. I never acted on it. Nobody ever brought it up again.

"Are you coming in?" Jenny was asking me. I blinked myself back to reality. I had spaced out so completely that Jenny had already stripped to a one-piece bathing suit and was heading toward the pool.

"I'm fine," I replied, "Just... thinking." I pulled off my t-shirt and followed her to the pool. I was tall and lanky, 5 foot 11 and barely 120 pounds. I was skinny but I had spent the past spring break raking leaves which built up my arms, and all of the bike riding had built up my calves while it rehabilitated my knee. I had a nice tan from riding my bike around in the sun every afternoon. None of it seemed to interest Jenny, however. She was off swimming down the length of the pool. I followed her in. The heat wave had made the water insanely warm, so after sticking a toe in the water to test the temperature, I jumped right in.

We swam around for a while. Every couple of minutes one of us would look over at the other and smile. Eventually we got tired of swimming around and settled in the shallow end, chatting about our lives. Yes, Jenny was single. She was staying home and going to the local community college in the fall. I filled her in on the more interesting points of my life that she missed. We talked to each other like nothing had ever happened.

Eventually, Jenny swam out to deeper waters. "Help, help, I'm drowning!" She cried. It was one of our old pool games. She liked playing the damsel in distress. I would swim out and 'save' her. I swam over and grabbed her, and started pulling her back towards the shallow end. I picked her up once my feet touched the bottom, something I wasn't strong enough to do outside the pool, but it was easy here since she weighed almost nothing in the water, and carried her in my arms across the pool. It was just like old times, and just like always, the feel of her wet, half-naked flesh on mine got me completely aroused.

I used to be a little embarrassed by it. I'd be carrying her around in the pool with a huge erection pressing against her. I wasn't sure if she felt it or knew what was going on at the time, but eventually I would realize that the whole thing was a cheap thrill for both of us.

I carried her around the pool mock-triumphantly, like I had done a great deed, Jenny in my arms with her arms around my neck, and my hard-on pressing into her thigh. Jenny looked up at me and smiled. "My hero," she said melodramatically.

I responded in the usual way. Gathering her up, I tossed her back into the water. She came back up, sputtering and laughing. I scooped her up again, carried her around for a bit, and tossed her back into the water. This went on for a while, until we got our fill of the pool. All the while my erection must have been clearly visible in my flimsy swim trunks, my full length pointed straight up towards my belly button.

We climbed out of the pool, and Jenny handed me a towel to dry myself off with. My erection eventually subsided. She invited me inside to watch television. It was time for her soap opera, General Lives or Days of Our Children or something like that. I didn't bring anything to change into so I stayed in my bathing trunks and put my shirt back on, leaving the towel around my waist so that I didn't get everything wet. Jenny put on a white t-shirt over her bathing suit. We went into her basement and scrunched together into the recliner, just like we used to.

Jenny was watching the show but I was bored. My mind wandered and my eyes wandered with it. Then my eyes wandered and my mind followed them along. My eyes found their way to one of Jenny's legs and started to trail up it. She wasn't very tall but she had nice, shapely legs. My eyes reached her bikini line and I saw that some of the hairs from her pussy were peeking out of the side of her bathing suit. It was as much as I had ever seen of a woman's private parts, except for my father's Playboy magazines. I found myself trying to imagine what the rest of her pussy looked like underneath her swimsuit. My dick was stirring, and suddenly I was very uncomfortable sitting next to her.

Luckily, that was the moment that Jenny decided to play another one of our old "games". Without warning, she would suddenly try to punch me in the crotch. She usually missed, but this time she scored a glancing blow to my half-erection. I leapt off the recliner and onto the floor, more stunned than hurt. Yes, Jenny was probably a bit of a sadist, but for all I knew I was a masochist because it never kept me away from her before. I glared at her from where I landed on the floor.

"Did I get it?" She asked enthusiastically. I would just glare at her. "Come back," Jenny said softly, "I'll be good." She patted the empty half of the recliner that I just vacated.

Reluctantly, I got up and sat back down. I'll bet anybody could guess what was going to happen next. After another minute she was going to try to hit me in the crotch again. This time I was ready for it and grabbed her arm. She struggled to get it free but I was stronger than she was. Next she would try to bite the arm that was holding her. Some days I used to leave her house with teeth marks on my hands and arms. I pulled my arm and hers along with it until she couldn't reach it with her mouth. We wrestled around in the chair until we tumbled off of it and onto the floor. I rolled on top of her and pinned her arms down. None of this was new. It all happened like this hundreds of times before.