Cryin' in the Rain

Her name was Patti, and she was both a friend and a classmate of Gretchen's.

"Dylan, have you been in here, holding her hand the whole time?" she asked.

I just nodded through my sleepy eyes.

"Dylan, she probably won't wake up for at least another two hours. Why don't you go home and get some clothes and some shoes? And let me take care of those cuts on your feet first," she said. "I swear; I'll call you if she wakes up before you get back."

I nodded, but Gretchen was holding onto my hand in her sleep. "That is so cute," gushed Patti. She brought a tub of some sort with warm water in it and a pack off those alcohol wipes. She had also gone to the hospital's store of clothing and brought me back a pair of shoes that were a size or two too big. I dipped my feet in the warm water and tried not to yell when the rock salt caused them to burn.

After prying my hands loose from Gretchen's I quickly drove back to my dorm, showered, put on fresh clothes and even grabbed a quick snack and my backpack with all of my books in it.

I was feeling refreshed and better when I walked back into the hospital. I still had my buzz on from hearing that Gretchen had asked for me, not Jimmy when it happened.

I had waved at the nurse on duty and opened Gretchen's door when a short, fat man came running out of the room and launched himself at me. He punched me in the chest and called me a son of a bitch. He had been trying to hit me in the face, apparently. However, the fact that I was moving and much taller than him had thrown his aim off.

I reacted instantly. I had been hit much harder, and actually punched harder while on the football field. So his blow rolled off of my chest and I just bull rushed him, like I was throwing a block on the football field. Tight ends have to block for running backs pretty often, so I was good at it.

Even though he outweighed me, I slammed him into a wall and took all of the fight out of him. I was standing over him, looking down at him, when the security guards separated us. He was still fuming and trying to get to me when they led us both away.

After speaking to the nurses on duty and the witnesses in the area the security guards let me go. They had explained to me only that the crazy man was Gretchen's father. They told me that her family had flown in order to be with her, and that they had arrived while I was at home changing clothes.

I was headed for the parking lot when I heard a voice behind me.

"Hey! Dylan! Where are you going?" He yelled. I turned and found the same crazy man running up behind me.

'Oh, shit,' I thought. ' we go again.'

"Dylan, I need to talk to you. And Gret's asking for you," he said. "Sorry about what happened back there. You are one helluva kid." He just shook his head.

"You know; I thought you were the other one," he said. "You two are a lot alike. I only met him once, it was after one of your games, and he still had his helmet on. You have to understand. Shit, if some guy had gotten your daughter pregnant and ran off on her like a fuckin' coward, you'd be pretty pissed off too, right?" I just nodded.

"Well, the nurses and Gret told us most of it," he said. "Come on in. She wants to see you."

He led me into the room, where I found Gretchen propped up on pillows in her bed. She shook her head as soon as she saw me. "My knight in shining armor," she said. "Do you even realize what you did?"

"Uhm, hey, Hotstuff," said a voice from a chair near the window. "There are other people in the room."

I turned and looked, to find two other women, sitting on chairs beside the window. One of them was an older version of Gretchen. She was a little thicker, with bigger breasts and wider hips from age and child-birth. But when you factored all of that in she was easily just as beautiful as Gretchen. I realized that I was looking at what Gretchen would look like in twenty or so years, and I was on board with it.

The one who spoke was just slightly younger than Gretchen. She had those same luminous eyes and facial features, but her hair, while just as long, was straight instead of curly and blond instead of Gretchen's fiery red.

"You looked really funny in that security video," she said. "You ran in here, carrying her, covered in blood, with no shoes on in the middle of friggin' winter. You look like a serial killer who had changed his mind."

"Dill, other than the video they showed us, I have no idea what happened or how I got here," said Gretchen. "I remember we were watching the Princess Bride and then nothing."

Her mother, father, and sister were all smiling. Obviously, they knew something I didn't. I later found out that the Princess Bride was Gretchen's favorite movie to re-watch when she was happy. She favored darker movies when she wasn't.

"How'd you fall asleep during your movie," asked her mom.

Gretchen pointed at me. "Whenever he gives me those foot massages, I just drift off. The next thing I remember, I was in the hospital, and I had lost my baby." Her voice sounded sad, but resigned.

"Gret, I'm sorry that happened," said her mother. "But from what the doctors have told us, your pregnancy was problematic from the beginning. They've assured us that you two will be able to have healthy children in the future, when your lives are more stable, okay?"

"But Mom, Dylan and I aren't like that," said Gretchen. "We've never had sex. We've never even kissed." It seemed like her father was about to say something when the door opened, and a nurse came in to check Gretchen's vitals and do some other things. She asked us to step out of the room while she did it and told us we could come back in about ten minutes.

Gretchen's dad immediately cornered me. "When are you going to tell her," he asked.

"Tell who what?" I asked. I looked into his wife's twinkling eyes. Her knowing smile warmed my heart.

"When Bernie and I were younger; it took him years to tell me how he felt about me. I don't think he'd have ever said a word if the biggest douche bag in our town hadn't asked me out. I was going to say yes, just to make him get off of his ass, but he got so jealous that he stormed away from me, and I confronted him and made me tell me," said Gretchen's mom.

"Gret, did the whole thing backwards," said her dad. "She started up dating the douche bag. So you have to rescue her. Well, ya already did. Now you have to follow up."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "We're..."

He just started laughing.

"Dylan, you aren't fooling anyone," he said. "As soon as you walked into that room the rest of us ceased to exist. And even I have to admit, seeing you in that video running into the hospital with no shoes on, covered in blood was incredible. You left your car running and the doors wide open. That is exactly what a father wants to see from a guy with his little girl. Nothing in the world matters more to you than her."

"And maybe you think that she doesn't feel that way about you," said his wife. "But that nurse Patti told me that Gret didn't ask for Jimmy when she was being put to sleep. She said "Dylan." And she told me that she had to pry her fingers loose from your hand so you could go home and change. Just give her some time. My daughter is no dummy. She knows what's good for her."

"No she doesn't," said Gretchen's sister. "Gret has always had a thing for bad boys."

"Yeah and look where it got her," said her father.

They stayed for about a week. Gretchen decided that she wanted to stay at school instead of going home. It was her senior year too, and she wanted her degree.

While she was in the hospital, I went to her teachers every day and got her assignments and the handouts they have for her classes. She e-mailed them with questions about things she didn't understand, and they answered her the same way.

Before they returned home, her mother and father exchanged phone numbers with me and made me promise to stay in touch. Her father especially wanted to be notified the second that Jimmy showed up, if ever.

If our lives had been a movie, Greta and I would have looked at each other, declared our love, and lived happily ever after. However, real life isn't like a movie. Things don't always work out.

Gretchen spent over a month in a very severe depression, she had to go into counseling. There were days when she never said a word to me at all. I cooked for her, took her everywhere she wanted to go, and kept the dorm clean. It was painful for me for us to be so close together and yet so far apart.

Her parents visited us a few times, and even they were baffled. Her therapist finally explained things to them and to me. Gretchen was emotionally and physically dependent on me. She needed to have me in her life to take care of her. But at the same time, she hated me because I reminded her so much of Jimmy. On another level, she resented me because even though I reminded her of Jimmy, I wasn't him and a part of her wanted him back. To that part of her mind, it should have been Jimmy doing all of the things for her that I did, but it wasn't; it was only me.

Her sister told me that I should get out. "My sister isn't the only woman on the planet," she said. "She's just the only woman in your heart. Maybe you should give someone else a chance."

"Abby are you trying to steal your own sister's boyfriend," asked her mom.

"Mom, she treats him like a thing," said Abby. "He deserves better."

In the end, it wasn't the therapist, time, or anything I did that brought her out of it. It was her friends, mostly. Several of them came to visit her or ran into her during the months after she got out of the hospital.

They told her about Jimmy. Greta had never known how Jimmy really felt about her, or that he had been cheating on her since they first started. A couple of women who were dating guys on the team even explained to her why he had begun dating her. Someone even told her to ask me about Sarah.

So one Friday evening on our way home from our last class. Gretchen asked me if I had any plans for that evening. She had never asked me anything like that before, and I got really nervous.

"We should stop off on our way and pick up some food," she said. "We need to talk and I think it's going to be a long one."

I was sure it was going to be the end of us. Greta arranged the two big chairs in the living room, so they were facing each other instead of the TV.

"Tell me everything," she said. "Don't leave anything out. Don't try to save my feelings. Tell me your entire God Damned life story. And I already know more than you think so don't lie to me."

So that was what I did, pretty much.

"So you and Jimmy lied to me about Sarah," she said.

"Not exactly," I said. "We told you the truth. We just told it in a way that didn't paint Jimmy in a bad light."

"Don't you ever fucking lie to me again," she said. "If we're going to be together, you have to put me first. Even over Jimmy." I nodded, but I'm not sure I felt it.

"So Sarah was Jimmy's girlfriend, but he made her have sex with you because HE decided that it was time for you to lose your virginity?" she asked. "What an asshole!"

"And you loved her didn't you?" I nodded.

"So why didn't you tell her how you felt?" she asked.

"I think she knew at the end," I said. "But she knew that I would never go against Jimmy over a girl, and she WAS Jimmy's girl."

"So you figured that she was better off with a guy who cheated on her and didn't really give a half a damn about her than she was with a guy who loved her?" she asked. I shrugged my shoulders.

"So, what about me?" she asked. "Why were you avoiding me when Jimmy and I first met?"

"Because I couldn't go through it again," I said, on the verge of tears. "I just figured that if I didn't know you... If you hadn't become a person to me. It wouldn't be as painful."

"Why would it be painful for you?" she asked and she was smiling.

"How, did Jimmy really feel about me?" she asked before I could answer.

"He... He lov..." I stuttered. Her eyebrow arched, and her eyes narrowed.

"He's just out of it from..." I began again.

"He didn't give a half a damn about me," she spat. "I spoke to some of the guys who used to play football with you two," she said.

"My tits were too small, I don't have a Kardashian booty, and he hated my freckles. He was going to dump me the second he signed his contract. He wasn't depressed. I told him that I was pregnant, and he ran out on me, the very next day. He was too much of a coward even to stay long enough to find out if I wanted to have the baby," she hissed. "I thought I told you not to fucking lie to me. I told you that you had to make a choice, Dylan and I meant it."

Her tone and her expression softened, then. "But you already made your choice; a long time ago didn't you?" she asked. "I felt something the first time we met. Dylan, you loved me from the first second you set eyes on me didn't you?"

"I... Uhm... I... Jimmy just nee..." I stuttered.

She brought her face very close to mine. From the second our eyes locked, I was frozen in place. "Dylan are my tits too small?" she asked. I shook my head.

"Dylan, say it," she gushed. "My mother already told me, my father told me. Most of my friends told me. Shit even my sister told me. But I need to hear it from you, too. So say it."

"I love you Greta," I said. "I love you more than air. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you. I love everything about you, all five and a half feet of you, from that beautiful red hair to your tiny little feet. I love your freckles and the way your nose crinkles up when you smile. Your boobs are perfect. Your butt is perfect. Everything about you is perfect to me and..."

Her mouth planted itself on mine, and it was the sweetest nicest most passionate kiss I had ever felt.

"Dylan, I'm no longer Jimmy's girl," she said. "Never call me that anymore. From now on, there is no Jimmy. I'm yours. Jimmy has nothing to do with us." We spent a lot of time on the sofa that evening. We cuddled, and we kissed a lot. But that was it. It was a few days later that we finally made love, and it was spectacular for both of us.

It was also ironic that both of us had only been with one other person. Jimmy had been her first and Sarah, mine. However, that was when the fairy tale finally started. Gretchen's roommate got a new roommate and Gretchen, and I lived together in my dorm. The building was Co-ed so the arrangement really wasn't that unusual. The school's administrators understood everything about Greta's miscarriage and how instrumental I had been in her recovery. Besides that, there really wasn't much time left in the semester anyway. So nothing was said about our living arrangements.

After graduation, I was hired by the company I did my internship with. And Greta with her degree in hospital administration was hired to do medical billing in the same hospital she was treated at. We got married only two months after we graduated. It only took that long because we had to wait for Greta, her mom, my mom, and her sister to plan out the wedding. A big surprise was that Jimmy's mom helped out as well. Greta took a while warming up to Jimmy's parents, but they are great people who have always loved me. They loved Greta too.

We bought a small starter home, and both sets of parents visited us frequently. It just seemed to me that every morning I woke up and Greta was more beautiful. Our lives couldn't have been better.

Our work schedules were similar, and we always took our vacation time together. There were a lot of places we wanted to go. We usually split our vacation time between visiting one family or another and traveling. Our plan was to spend a few years building our finances before we bought a bigger house and started having kids.

I hadn't wanted to mention it. I was happy just having Greta. It was she who brought it up. Even after almost five years together, I didn't mention it. I didn't want to bring up bad memories.

I was, bringing her breakfast in bed one Saturday morning, when she brought it up. "Dill, I'm twenty six," she said.

"I know that, silly," I said. "But you're the one who asks for sprinkles on her pancakes."

"And you give them to me, right?" she smiled.

"Of course," I said. "I try to give you everything you want. Your father would kill me if I didn't."

"My father is sure that the sun shines out of your ass, Dylan," she said. "But what if I wanted you to forget about the sprinkles and do something else?"

"All you have to do is ask," I said.

"Okay, look in my top dresser drawer," she began. I crossed the room and opened it. "Take my birth control pills out of the drawer," she said. I picked up the flat packet and prepared to open it for her.

"Don't open it," she said. "Just throw them away."

I looked at her in surprise. "Are you sure?" I asked. She just nodded.

"I'm doing it for you," she said. "I don't want you to be married to an old woman by the time our kids graduate from high school. Besides think about how much bigger my tits will be after you knock me up two or three times. Don't think I haven't seen you checking out my mom's butt and her rack. I'm gonna give you something to play with to keep you from leaving me for her."

"I'd never leave you for anyone," I said.

"I'll bet you think you're telling me something I don't know," she said pulling me down for a kiss. "It'll take a month or so for the pills to work themselves out of my system," she told me. "But we may as well start practicing now."

I was the happiest man on the planet for the next three days. It was a fucking Tuesday that all of the air began leaking from my fantasy.

We had been fucking like bunnies every night, and as I drove my brand new, blacked out Mustang GT down the streets of our subdivision, it hit me. The feeling was so strong it almost hurt.

Gret looked angry when I walked into the house. She didn't leap into my lap and smother me with kisses the way she usually did. As she tried to figure out how to tell me, I blurted it out.

"Jimmy is back, right?" I said. She just nodded. "He called today just after I got home from work. He wants to come by and see us. I know that you want to see him. But I think you should call him and take him out to a bar or something. I don't ever want to set eyes on that bastard."

I just nodded. I called his parents to tell them what had happened. For some reason, he hadn't called them. I also called Gret's dad Bernie as I had promised.

"Kick his fuckin' ass in," he told me. "Don't even bother. Tell the bastard to have a nice day and then change all of your phone numbers."

As usual, I did what Gretchen wanted. I called Jimmy, and we met at a bar. The five years that we had been apart meant nothing. As soon as we saw each other our bond was back.

During the time apart, I don't think I changed much. I still run every day, so my weight hadn't varied by more than a few pounds. However, Jimmy looked a lot different. His clothes were shabby and had an odor to them. He had a full beard and had put on a lot of weight.

He also walked with a decided limp. "The leg with the prosthetic has aged differently than the repaired one," he said.

"Bullshit," I told him. "You're just out of shape. Lose some of that gut and you'll be dancing in no time."

We hugged and had a few rounds of beers and talked about everything under the sun except for the elephant in the room.

"Did you keep track of Gretchen after I left?" he asked finally. I realized that the message on our voicemail was the phone company's generic message. It didn't mention our names. He had no idea that we were together.

"Kind of," I said. His eyes flashed to mine. With our bond, he knew everything within seconds of looking at me.