Jack and Megan

The line of mourners moved slowly, with each person having their moment to pay their respects to the late Gerald Dunleavy. Me, I didn't care about Gerald Dunleavy. The guy was a proper bastard in life, so why pay him any respect in death? Instead, I was here because I needed a few days away from my crumbling life. It seemed like a good opportunity to return to my hometown of Russell Creek. I figured I'd meet some old friends at the funeral, maybe talk over drinks later, and get a couple good nights' sleep before returning home to my failing job, my failing marriage, my failing sanity. The way things were going, this could be my last time visiting Russell Creek before I had mourners of my own.

At this point in the afternoon, I wasn't sure the whole "meet old friends" part of the plan was going to work out, because I was avoiding talking to or even making eye contact with anyone else at the funeral. I watched people, but if they happened to meet my gaze, I'd quickly turn away. The truth is, I felt embarrassed about what I had become. I left here twelve years ago, full of promise. Now I was... well... I don't know what I was. I wasn't really anything.

I passed by the casket, nodded my head vaguely towards the body of GTO --"GTO" being the nickname everyone had for the late Mr. Dunleavy when we were in high school-- and then took my seat toward the back of the room. A strange thing I noticed was that there were very few people crying. Yes, there were a lot of people here, but only a handful --mainly his family members in the front row-- seemed to show any emotion at his passing. Cancer had taken the life of young 30-year-old Gerald "GTO" Dunleavy, and my only wish at this point, terrible as it sounds, was that he had lived a little longer just so that he had more time to suffer. To say I disliked GTO was understating it. I've reserved the word "hate" for very few people in my time on this earth, but he was an exclusive member of that club.

When it seemed that the funeral was winding down, I scanned the faces of those who were still standing. One of the few who were crying, and making a big display of herself as she always had, was Kathy Miller, --or at least her maiden name was "Miller," though I had no clue what it was now-- GTO's girlfriend from Grade 8 until sometime in Grade 11, who was sobbing loudly and uncontrollably at the front of the room. She was being consoled by a few women I vaguely remembered from back then. About twenty feet away was a guy I recognized as Guy Britton, who was talking excitedly to Marie Zucker, a girl he had had a crush on for most of high school. And then, partially hidden behind him... could it be?... I stood up to try to get a better look.

It was as if time slowed to a crawl. It was Megan. Sweet Megan. I hadn't seen her in more than ten years. My God. Megan. I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I sat down. I stared at the floor for the next several minutes, only looking up quickly every thirty seconds or so to see where she was in the room. I could barely even look at her. I felt heartsick, like every time I looked at her since I realized I loved her. God, I never thought I would see her again. She wore a modest but cute black dress, and there was a black headband in her shoulder-length brown hair. Her deep brown eyes scanned the room wildly. I wondered who she was looking for. It had to be someone specific. She was surrounded by people she should recognize. My God. She had put on a little weight since high school, but her curves. My God. I shouldn't be thinking about this, I thought. This isn't the time. My heart was beating loudly in my ear. She met my eyes for a second, and I shifted my gaze to the flowers by the casket. The scent of those flowers filled the air. It smelled like lies. Like death. My God, she saw me.

Megan walked over to me and sat down. Her hands were in her lap, and she played with her wedding ring nervously. She's married. I felt crushed. Not surprised, but crushed regardless.

"Hi, Jack," she said, somewhat mumbling the words. She brushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes. She looked at me. I could see it in my peripheral vision. I struggled to talk.

"H-hi, Megan," I said after what seemed like ten minutes.

"It's been a long time," she said, her voice hushed. She always spoke so quietly. I hadn't forgotten that about her. I tried to think of the last time we had spoken to one another. It was some basketball game at the high school. Every once in a while, between the Fall and Spring semesters at college, I would attend the basketball games at my former high school. It was always a good place to meet old friends, since most of us were bad at staying in contact. There was always a lot to keep up on. So-and-so is engaged, so-and-so is at an Ivy League school, so-and-so hasn't been seen since graduation but I heard he went into the service. Those were pretty good times. I loved college, but it was always good to catch up with old friends from high school.

I remember the last time I had seen Megan at one of those games. I wanted to talk to her, but by this point she would barely acknowledge me. Our friendship had greatly deteriorated during the last few months of our senior year in Russell Creek High School, and even though she had promised to call sometime, I hadn't actually spoken to her since a brief and awkward conversation at Guy Britton's graduation party. I could even remember the conversation. Neither of us could believe that his parents bought him beer for the party, and we both hated the DJ. It was small talk, idle chatter. That's what we had been reduced to. A year earlier and we would have talked each other's ears off until three in the morning. That was too long ago. It sometimes hurt to think about it.

At the basketball game, Megan was talking to Sarah Cunningham and Guy Britton. Guy motioned me to come over when Megan was looking away, but I shook my head and tried to focus on the game that was winding down. But I couldn't keep my eyes off of her for long. When there were only about two minutes left in the game, GTO and a couple of his jock friends entered the gymnasium. Megan looked over at GTO, and their eyes met for a few seconds. GTO then kind of snickered and said something to the guys around him, and they all laughed and, not so subtly, stole glances at her. Megan looked horrified. She stared at the floor for several seconds while Guy and Sarah looked at each other, and then she bolted out of the gymnasium as fast as she could.

I followed her. I knew she didn't want to talk to me, but I had to try to make her feel better. I used to be able to do that. I remember a number of times that she had called me, crying, and we talked for hours. At the end of those conversations, she would be laughing and sniffling. She once called me her sweetheart. I could never get that out of my head.

"Megan!" I called after her. Her hands were fists, and she walked with her arms rigidly, angrily swinging. I had to jog in order to catch up with her.

"Megan!" I called again, this time only a few feet behind her. I walked up beside her and tried to grab her hand. She looked straight ahead, her eyes streaming tears. I loved her. I wanted her to be okay.

"It's okay, Megan, it's okay. Don't worry about him," I said.

"What is wrong with me?" she said, her voice breaking up, close to incoherent. "Why does he treat me like this? I thought he liked me..." She trailed off because she began sobbing. She was still moving forward, but at a much slower pace. I tried to put my arm around her, but she shrunk away. I felt deflated.

"There's nothing wrong with you, Meg," I said, "He's not worth all this. You're wonderful, you're one of the nicest people I've ever known."

Megan continued sobbing, and then said, "I don't want you to see me like this," and ran off. Maybe I should have followed her, but I thought she just needed some time for herself. I figured I'd see her at another game, or maybe at Homecoming the following year.

But she was gone. She faded into the shadow, and it was as if the sun had faded. I never heard about what happened to her, at least not anything definite. I had heard a rumor that she had gotten pregnant in college and married the guy, and they lived in New Hampshire or somewhere else in New England. I didn't trust the source, but somehow I figured that wherever she was, she wasn't planning to return. Russell Creek held too many bad memories for her, or maybe just one huge bad memory. That fucking bastard GTO. He ruined my Megan. He ruined everything. She should have been mine.

"Yeah, it's been maybe ten years," I said, the sentence sounding non-committal as if I expected her to correct me. She didn't. She looked at her hands. She should have been mine. I should have been the one to put that ring on her finger. I've loved her my whole life.

I tried to shake the feeling out of me. Why do I do this to myself? I thought. I felt like I fell for almost every woman I talked to. It didn't used to be that way, but I think it came into effect around the time my marriage began to really hit rock bottom. It had been heading there since the beginning, but I couldn't see it until it was too late to fix.

My wife, Karen, and I had met in college. She was a different person then. She was ambitious, fun, friendly, and beautiful. We had done everything I thought we were supposed to, given my religious background. We built a friendship together. We had fun. We laughed. I loved her dearly.

Karen's eyes sparkled with kindness. I could see it even when waves of curly blonde hair fell into her face. She used to smile at me. God, I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her smile. On our wedding day, I imagined that I had never seen a more beautiful woman than the one who walked down the aisle towards me. Her eyes shone through the veil. I wanted badly to make love to her, but I knew it wouldn't be long.

That night, she emerged from the bathroom wearing her bra and panties, and the veil. My heart was racing, and I was trembling. We lay on the bed, gazing into each other's eyes. We kissed. I kissed her neck, her earlobes, her face. I slowly put my hand inside her panties, my fingers running through her pubic hair. Her juices were flowing so much that I could feel it all around her slit. I loved her so deeply in that moment that I wanted to take her right there, but first I wanted to pleasure my new wife. I wanted her to feel loved and cherished and beautiful. I devoured her wet, quivering pussy. I spread her labia wide and drank all of her wetness. My tongue explored her, entered her. I made love to her with my tongue, and her hips rose as she gasped, clutching the sheets.

She was worried about how sex would feel, so she wanted to be on top. She straddled me, smiling at me with her sweet, innocent face. She grasped my cock, rubbing it up and down her wet slit and through her pubic hair, and then put it at the entrance of her vagina. She squatted on top of my cock and I felt her warmth around the tip as the head slid inside her. She gasped, winced, but then smiled, lowering herself, then lifting, then lowering, allowing a little more of me to enter her each time. I couldn't believe how it felt. So warm and wet, like a tight, hot mouth swallowing my cock deeper and deeper. Soon I was completely inside her, and I pulled her close to me. We were two unspoiled lovers, our bodies belonging only to each other. Our first time was brief, as it usually is I suppose, but we were completely in love with each other and it was heaven.

If anyone were to ask me what went wrong in our marriage, I would honestly have trouble telling them. I don't know where it began, or what caused it. But Karen changed, slowly and in subtle ways at first, but, in more recent years, so greatly that I could barely recognize the woman I was waking up with each morning. Sex had all but disappeared, and she used her witholding of it as a way to wield power over me. She had stopped taking care of herself, and began spending most of her time watching television, eating, and ignoring everything around her. I became responsible for everything that needed to be done, and was rewarded with harsh words, power struggles, and constant disappointment.

Here in Russell Creek, hundreds of miles away from my real life, the life that was currently on hold for a few days, I felt distant from everything. Distant from the people who populated my past, as their lives had taken many different paths and had turned them into people I barely recognized. Distant from the people who populated my present, as they were all far away from me and I barely felt a connection with them anyway. People used to think I had it together... I wondered where it was that I had left the right path, and at what point I had fallen into this ditch. I thought that Karen held the key to my happiness. Maybe she did at one time. But my happiness was hopelessly lost now, I thought as I sat here with Megan, the woman with whom I should have been all those years ago. Both of our lives had taken many wrong turns, it seemed. What would things have been like if I had told her how I felt about her way back then, before GTO? Before she fled from me?

Megan was still playing with her wedding ring. I wondered what she was thinking about. When I looked at her eyes, her gaze was directed at the ring. She was frowning. I turned away from her and sighed. It was almost too much to bear, just being in her presence. A flood of old feelings had begun to wash over me when I first saw her, as if they had lay dormant for years, waiting for some sort of signal to flow forth.

"You look... good," I said, finally. I didn't know why I said it. I just felt that I needed to break the silence. I think I was afraid that if we couldn't engage in some sort of conversation, it would be easy for her to simply get up and find someone more interesting to talk to. If that happened, I'd be almost sure never to see her again.

"Thanks," she said, smiling slightly. Our eyes met. "You look good, too." I doubted that she meant it, but it felt pretty nice anyway.

"Thanks," I said, smiling. I felt my cheeks grow a little flushed.

"Where do you live now?" I asked.

She seemed hesitant to answer, as if embarrassed. She said the word "Um" a half dozen times or so, and then finally gave me an answer: "Vermont."

Vermont. That's right next to New Hampshire. I wondered if the rest of the rumor I had heard was true, that she had become pregnant in college and then married.

"Kids?" I asked.

"Yes. Two boys," she said, and she gave me a real smile this time. A light was ignited in her eyes, the light of motherly love as her mind settled on her children. I smiled with her. At least there was something good in her life.

"I'm happy for you," I said, and her smile slowly faded. She was twisting her wedding ring faster now. I detected some tension.

"How about you? Any kids?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"How long have you... been married?"

"Um, seven years," I said.

"Oh."

"You?" I asked.

"Um...," she hesitated a long time before answering. Then she spoke even lower and softer than before: "Nine years."

"Oh."

It appeared as if she wanted to offer an explanation, but none came. She looked embarrassed.

"It's... really good to see you again," I said. She smiled, but didn't say anything. "I had hoped you were doing well."

Megan's eyes grew glassy, and she sniffled a little.

"Are you doing well?" I asked, my voice wavering.

She didn't have time to answer. Just then, Sarah Cunningham, or at least the former Sarah Cunningham, appeared to the left of Megan and sat down next to her. Megan blew her nose into a tissue quickly, and Sarah --who had always been a bit of a talker-- began comforting her friend, and basically stole all of Megan's attention away from me. I could hear Sarah talking a mile a minute and felt that Megan was now out of my reach once again. I sighed, looked at the coffin, and thought about what GTO had stolen from me. That fucking bastard. I hope there's a hell, and I hope it's full of GTO and other guys like him. Megan was my sweetheart... at least, I wanted her to be. She was my true love, and she should have become my wife.

My mood had definitely soured by the end of the funeral. I had hoped that I would have another opportunity to talk to Megan before leaving, but Sarah and then a few other women drew all of her attention for the duration. I left by myself, feeling about as low as I had ever felt. I felt a sort of desperation as well. I didn't want to return to my life, and the disappointment that plagued it. But I couldn't stay here. This wasn't my life anymore. These were only shadows of what I used to know. Soon even most of the shadows would be gone, returning to their lives, happy or sad. I was a shadow to them as well. I felt like killing myself.

As I was leaving, Guy Britton stopped me. He was accompanied by his wife, Kayla. She was a beautiful woman, and seemed very sweet. Exactly what he deserved. Guy was always a good friend. We hadn't kept in contact much over the years, but I was happy to know that he had apparently found his happiness.

"Jack, dude," he said --he always called me dude-- "Are you going to the after-party?"

Kayla suddenly looked annoyed and elbowed him. "Stop!" she said, in a somewhat less-than-serious tone.

"What?" Guy said, looking less-than-genuinely hurt.

"Your friend just died," Kayla said.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute here," Guy said, "First of all, Gerald was not my friend. He wasn't Jack's friend. The people who he was friends with... they weren't friends of ours, either. Gerald was a jerk, and I'm sure Jack here would appreciate the opportunity to toast Gerald's soul to wherever it is guys like him end up..." At this, Kayla's jaw dropped, but there was a bit of a naughty twinkle in her eye.

"Secondly, my adoring bride, almost everybody is going to the bar. It'll be like a class reunion, except without all the 'Most Distance Traveled' awards and all that stupid stuff."

"Wait, wait," I interrupted him. "Who's going?"

"Oh, I don't know, exactly. But just about everybody. Sarah and Toby and a bunch of other people were organizing it. Didn't you hear about it?"

"No..." I responded, somewhat hurt to have been left out of the loop. Still, the idea formed in my head, a glimmer of hope, that Sarah had asked Megan, and that maybe Megan would take her up on the invitation.

"Hmm, wait a second," Guy said suddenly, attempting to study my face. "I think I know what's going on here."

"What?" I asked.

"Dude... her? Is that what you're thinking about?"

I started to blush.

"Oh man..." he said, the humor now gone from his face.

Now it was Kayla's turn to ask, "What?"

"Nothing, babe. Let's get going," Guy said slowly and seriously. When Kayla turned to look in a different direction, Guy shook his head at me, as if warning me. He held up two fingers and mouthed the words, "She has TWO kids." I rolled my eyes, nodded my head, and looked away.

"Anyway, dude, the party's at McLaughlin's. Obviously you'll have to buy your own drinks, or at least find an old cougar who thinks you're an easy score," Guy said, some of the humor returning to his face.

I was staying with my parents while in town for the funeral, and I went to their house in order to change out of my funeral clothes and into something more casual. My dad seemed amused at the idea of people meeting at the bar after GTO's funeral. My mom wasn't so amused.

"It's terrible, if you ask me," she said, looking up from her magazine. "I know that a bunch of you didn't like the guy, but couldn't you have a little respect for the occasion?"

Dad rolled his eyes. I just grinned at my mother.

"I mean, why did you even come back here for this funeral if you didn't like the guy? Is it some sort of joke?"