That Anderson Girl

When I finally got my shit back together, we used the phone in hall to call the airlines to make a reservation. There was a flight at one a.m., which meant four hours of waiting for the two hour flight. I just wanted to run out of the building and run all the way home until I dropped. In that moment I was completely irrational. Lara went to talk to a friend down the hall as I sat there trying to keep panic at bay.

"Okay, I borrowed LeAnne's car. I'm taking you to the airport. Let's go back to your dorm and get together whatever you need."

"Thanks, Lara. I...I love you." It just came out, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Lara smiled and said, "I love you too, Sam."

On the flight home, I went from being stressed to thinking about Lara. I replayed the day over and over in my mind. I felt guilty that I had such a great day while my Mom and family were suffering. Thank God for Lara, I thought to myself. She was already there for me. There for me...like she said she would always be...no, she said she would protect me like she always said she would. Huh? That was weird. My thoughts were then interrupted by the announcement that we were on approach to the airport. I got a surprise when Benny was there to meet me. He ran up to me and grabbed in a hug. Now it was my turn as the older brother to comfort him. I wrapped my arms around him in a bear hug and reassured him everything would be okay, even though I had no idea. That's just what you do.

The next few days were touch and go, but slowly Mom started to get better. Damage had been done to her heart, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. She was going to recover, but she had to make some changes to her diet and exercise more. My Dad had bought a computer for the house, so I installed one of the endless number of free AOL trial disks that came in the mail to keep in touch with Lara. I used the screen name "Sam the Bam" after the former NFL running back. Lara needled me endlessly about it, though she stopped when I said, "I thought you liked when I gave you the bam." We communicated mostly by email, but there were times when we coordinated when she could be in the school's computer lab so we could chat in real time. A couple of weeks went by and my Mom came home from a cardiac rehab place. I told my parents I was taking the rest of the semester off to help out, but Mom would have none of it. I flew back to school a couple of days later. Lara, once again, borrowed LeAnne's car and picked me up.

"You look like you lost weight," she said.

"Probably so. It was tough to have an appetite for a while."

"Your appetite's not going to be any better with shit they serve here." We both laughed at the sad truth of her statement. We drove back to my dorm and were naked within seconds. Seconds after that she was riding my cock in reverse cowgirl. I massaged her breasts from behind as she rotated her hips, grinding down on my cock. After a few minutes, we were both breathing heavily and sharing an orgasm.

"Oh, I missed that," I said. She shot me a stern or mock-stern look. "I missed you, I meant I missed you."

"That's better...jerk." We laid there for a few minutes before I excused myself to take a leak. I saw a friend of mine in the bathroom and updated him on what was going on with my Mom. When I stepped back into the hallway, Lara was running out of my room, fully clothed, like a bat out of hell.

I yelled after her, but she didn't stop. There was no recognition that I yelled her name at all. I was only in my underwear, so I went to my room to quick throw on some clothes. The local paper I had brought back with me was strewn all over the run. What the fuck, I thought to myself. I got dressed as fast as I could, but by the time I got downstairs, she was long gone. I ran across the quad to her dorm and saw LeAnne's car sitting out front. I couldn't find her anywhere. LeAnne said she returned the keys and she thought she heard Lara's motorcycle shortly after that. I went back to my dorm and cleaned up the mess, and then sat there thoroughly confused. Clearly, nothing I said or did would have caused such a reaction. She wasn't in our shared class the next day and no one had seen her. I didn't know her home phone number, so I call information to get the number of her Dad's shop in her hometown, except they said there was no such business. Now, I was really worried. I went to the computer lab and signed on to AOL, but she wasn't online, so I sent her an email. It was the only means I had of getting in touch with her.

"Lara,

Are you okay? What happened the other night? Please get back to me. I'm worried.

Love,

Sam"

I called home to check on Mom. She was steadily improving, but she could also hear the worry in my voice and she knew it wasn't just about her. I told her about Lara and explained what had happened.

"I always like that name Lara, after seeing Dr. Zhivago when I was a kid," she said.

"I think she said her parents named her after the film. I've never known anyone else with that name."

"Me either, although, remember the Andersons from when you were a kid? That was their daughter Kerry's middle name. I guess they liked the movie too." My Mom's words hit me like a Mike Tyson punch.

"Do you know what ever happened to them, Mom. I mean after they left town."

"No, not really. Though, your Dad told me that he read in the paper the other day that somehow Jeff Anderson had been paroled from prison. You would have thought he would have been put away for life after all the money he stole from people."

Before she could say more, I interrupted her, "I gotta go, Mom. Love you. Call you later," and hung up before she could answer. I ran back to my room and picked up the newspaper that was still laying on my desk. There it was in black and white. Jim Anderson to be paroled. Details were sketchy, but it seemed he was terminally ill and was granted a compassionate release. There was a photo of him from the time he was arrested. It included his wife and four kids. I stared at the picture of Kerry for several minutes. Could it be? Even though the picture was in black and white, in my mind I saw it as if it were in color. I could see the redness in her curly hair and I could see those amazing green eyes of hers. It had been eight or nine years since the picture was taken.

I kept checking AOL, but there was no read receipt on my email and no record that she had been online. When Saturday rolled around, I asked LeAnne if I could borrow her car to look for Lara. She happily said yes, since she was worried about her too. I grabbed a map at a local gas station and filled up the tank. I wasn't really paying attention on our bike ride, but I had a general idea of where we had gone. About 80 minutes later I pulled into the area that I thought we had been to. Sure enough, as I climbed up a small hill, I spotted her bike. I continued on a trail until I ended up in the area of our "naked lunch." There she sat on the grass, looking over the valley. I had debated with myself on the way as to how to handle the situation, and decided to just go for it.

"Kerry," I called out to her. Her reaction was a combination of being startled and not wanting to face me.

"Go away, Sam," she said, without turning around.

"I can't do that," I said as I continued walking towards her.

"Please leave me alone," she shouted. Still refusing to listen to her, I walked to where she was sitting and squatted down to her side, about five feet from where she sat. She looked like hell. Like she hadn't eaten or slept.

"Why?" was all I said. She glared as she turned towards me. I hadn't seen that look since we were kids.

"Did your Dad ruin your life and the lives of everyone in your family? Huh? Answer me big shot?"

"Or what, you're going to beat me up?" That was the wrong thing to say. She lunged at me, knocking me over and started flailing at me. Swinging her fists in a wild rage. I put my arms up to block her, but a few connected with my jaw and face. I finally got a hold of her wrists and said, "Stop," over and over again. She was screaming incoherently until she started ugly crying and collapsed on top of me. I held her around her back tightly and let her get it all out of her system. When she was ready to talk, she turned her away, too embarrassed to face me.

"After we moved away, my Mom decided to change our last name. She didn't want us associated with my Dad anymore. I decided to use my middle name as my own escape. I dyed my hair and...she reached in her eye and removed a contact lens and then looked at me for the first time. There was one of of those amazing green eyes. For a moment, I felt compassion for her, but it quicky turned to anger.

"All this time, you knew exactly who I was and you lied to me. You played me for a fool You know I was so worried I try to find the number for your stepdad's repair shop, only to find out it didn't exist. Does he even exist?" I had my answer when she bowed her head. "Why weren't you honest with me?" I said, raising my voice in the process. When she didn't answer, I repeated it even louder.

"I wanted to tell you a thousand times, but I was afraid you wouldn't want to be with me anymore."

"That's the best you've got? Seriously? You may have changed your hair, eyes, and your name, but you're still just that Anderson girl." Having fired a shot across the bow, I got up and stormed off.

"Please don't go," she said as tears started to stream down her face again. "I never meant to deceive you. I really do love you."

I stopped for a second and turned, "I don't want your love," and continued on.

"Please...," she pleaded. I could hear her bawling in the distance as I got further away from her. I got back in the car and just sped back to school. I got back to the campus, returned the car to LeAnne and headed to a local bar. I saw some friends and we started doing shots early and often. We were already half in the bag when I went up to the bar to get a couple of pitchers of beer. There was a hot blonde sitting by herself at the bar.

I noticed her looking at me and said, "How are you doing?"

"Good, you?"

"Shitty, but that's what the beer is for."

"That's not much of a pick up line."

"Oh...how about we go back to my place, I eat you, fuck the hell out of you, and fill your pussy up with cum?" I totally expected her to slug me and part of me wanted her to.

"I could use a good fucking. Let's go." I dropped the beers off at our table and said, "See ya". I took said blonde by the arm and we walked back to the dorm. She was clearly somewhat inebriated as well and told me her name was, "Greta."

"But, what's your real name?"

"Huh? My name is Greta."

"Yeah sure."

"It is," she said with some anger in her voice.

"Okay, okay. Just checking." We got up to the room and I wasted no time. I lifted Greta up on my desk and yanked her panties down from below her skirt. I roughly shoved two fingers in her pussy and attacked her clit with my tongue.

"Geez, easy dude." It didn't matter what she said; my fingers were ramming into her and it started to drive her crazy. "Holy fuck. Yes." When she was good and wet, I dropped my pants and slid my cock into her. I pulled her closer to me and started pounding her pussy with all the anger I had inside of me. I kept seeing Lara's face and I didn't want to, so I pulled Greta off of the desk and flipped her over. I started ramming her from behind at lightspeed. Greta came hard on my cock and just as I started to ejaculate into her, the room door opened and Lara walked in. I looked at her as I continued pounding Greta and cumming. Lara put her hand over her mouth and then burst out of the room, but I just kept fucking Greta.

"Suck the rest out of my cock, Greta." Greta willingly obliged and knelt before me, cleaning me up and sucking my cock until the last drops of my orgasm were squeezed out. When she was done, I helped her up to her feet and pulled her panties back up. "Time to go now, Greta," and I threw her out of the room, locking the door behind her. She banged on it for several minutes, calling me every name possible. I put on the room stereo and blasted it, drowning her out. I finally passed out in bed, not knowing when, or if,she left. Hell, I never even told her my name.

I woke up the next morning with a horrendous hangover and then the night before started coming back to me. I was never a one-night stand kind of guy and now that I had scratched that off my todo list, I felt miserable about it. I treated Greta like shit and I hadn't cared. On top of that, Lara, Kerry, whoever the fuck she is/was had seen the whole thing. As angry as I was with her, I really did love her and may have just ruined any attempt to work through things. I walked out of the room and was greeted by the word "Asshole" written in Greta's lipstick on my door. I just left it there.

I went into the bathroom, threw up a couple of times and then took a hot shower. I went to the cafeteria and grabbed some toast and coffee, and chased it down with a couple of Tylenol. I felt like my head was going to explode. That's when LeAnne came running towards me; she was crying.

"Sam, Sam..."

"What's the matter, LeAnne?" She took a moment to catch her breath and slow her tears.

"It's Lara. She was in a terrible accident last night. She wrapped her bike around a pole and is on life support." The room started spinning and not because of my hangover. LeAnne continued to talk to me, but everything sounded mumbled and incoherent. At the moment, I truly knew what a state of shock was. Things finally became clear after indeterminate period of time.

"Sam, did you hear me?"

"What?"

"The doctors don't know if Lara will make it. Her body is badly broken."

"Can you take me to her?"

"I can, but I don't know if they'll let you see her. I only found out because I ran into one of our professors."

"I'll tell them I'm her brother or something."

"You think that will work?"

"I don't know, but I need to see her." We raced to the hospital and somehow I convinced the head nurse on the ICU floor that I was indeed Lara's brother. I was told I couldn't stay long, but they thought that being there my help her. That I should talk to her; that people in comas can sometimes still hear us. I nodded in agreement and sat down next to Lara. She had tubes running all over and machines were beeping. Her legs were in casts as one of her arms. Her eyes were black and blue and her bottom lip was stitched up, as were many other cuts. She had a collapsed lung and who knows what else.

I was never one to ask God for anything, but in that moment I did. And, then I started to talk not to Lara, but to Kerry. "Kerry, it's me Sammy. I'm here. It's my turn to protect you now. I am so sorry for the things I said yesterday. I was angry and hurt, but I love you so much. I knew it from the moment I met you again in class." Tears started to run down my face as I continued. "I know you've been through horrible times in your life and I'm sorry for contributing to that with my behavior. Last night, I just lashed out in anger with someone else. It was stupid and infantile, and seeing the hurt look on your face, just crushed me. At that moment, I knew that I had really fucked up." I put my hand gently on top of one of hers. "I love you so much. Please don't leave me. I want to be with you forever."

Eventually I nodded off. When I woke up, there was a woman about my Mom's age, standing on the other side of Lara's bed.

"Sammy?" she said.

"Yes....," and that's when it hit me. "Mrs. Anderson?"

"Yes, dear. My goodness, look at you. All grown up and so tall."

"Yeah, I guess so," I said and forced a smile. "I'm so sorry about Kerry, uh, Lara, uh..."

"I know, and the name thing is confusing. It took me quite a while to get used to calling her by another name. She wanted to tell you, you know."

"Huh?"

"She called me when she discovered that you were not only going to the same school, but were even in the same classes. She was very conflicted as to how to deal with this and as the two of you got closer, it became even harder for her. She had established this identity to try to separate herself from my ex-husband....and..." Mrs. Anderson paused to wipe some tears away before continuing. "...she always cared about you. Even when you were kids she always would talk about you to me. I just can't believe this happened to her."

"This is my fault."

"How could it be your fault?"

"I reacted horribly when I discovered who she was...and," now it was my turn to lose my composure. "...and then I cheated on her, just to hurt her. She saw us and then she crashed her bike." I broke down completely at that point. Mrs. Anderson came over and wrapped her arms around me.

"Listen to me, Sam. Her crash had nothing to do with you. We can't control things like that. If you took a hammer and hit your hand, any pain and suffering would be because you made the choice. If someone else hit you with the hammer, it's not your fault just because there happened to be a hammer laying around. Things happen for no reason all the time and this is one of them. Lara knew the risk of riding that damn bike. But, she is strong and she will recover, and when she does the two of you can sort things out. Okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I guess you heard about my ex getting out of prison."

"Yes."

"I'm sure he'll want to try to see her, but I will not allow it. I want you to know that. She didn't see him after she turned 18. That's what she wanted and I am going to honor those wishes. Why don't you go home and get some rest, a shower, and some food. We're not going anywhere soon."

"Okay, Mrs. Anderson."

"It's Anna, Sam. You're old enough now to drop the formalities. And, Sam...thank you for being you.

"Thanks, Anna. I'll be by later."

"I'm sure you will, dear."

Over the next few weeks, I spent time between classes and the hospital. Lara was off life support and breathing on her own, but it was still in a coma. She was moved out of ICU to a telemetry floor so they could still keep a watchful eye on her. Then one day I arrived at the hospital and saw her mom coming out. She looked grim.

"Anna, what's wrong?"

"I couldn't stop him."

"Stop who?"

"My ex-husband from seeing Lara. He keeps calling her Kerry." Before she could say more, I raced to Lara's room. There he was, Jeff Anderson, sitting at Lara's bedside. He was talking to her, but doing it in such a quiet manner that I couldn't make out what he was saying."

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I shouted.

"Excuse me. Who are you?"

"Sam Miller. Lara doesn't want you here and neither does Anna."

"Sam Miller? Oh my God, it's been years."

"I'm not in the mood for a reunion. You need to leave now before you upset Lara."

"Her name is Kerry and I'm not going anywhere."

"Like hell you're not." I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up to his feet. As he protested, I shoved him out into the hallway and closed Lara's door. He started shouting to let him in and threatened to call the police. Eventually, hospital security was called and they demanded to be let in. And, then I heard it. It was barely audible, but I heard it.

"Saaaammmm." My head whipped around and saw Lara looking back at me through squinted eyes, I ran over to her as security and Anna entered the room. "Saaamm," Lara repeated. I took her by the hand and she squeezed it. "I....love...you."

"I love you too." Anna started crying and ran to her daughter as well. Lara then closed her eyes and the machines in the room started beeping like crazy. Nurses and doctors ran into the room with a crash cart. They injected something into her IV and were administering CPR. They brought over a defibrillator, and that's when we were hurried out of the room despite our protestations.