Vasocongestion. . . or the Pain of Love

Walking across the large field of scattered weeds and brush under the stars and moonlight, my stomach convulsed with sharp pains so that I was bent like a fishhook. Forcing myself to almost upright, I walked a few more steps. Then again. It wasn't my stomach, it was lower. What disease, I wondered in a panic? I lowered myself to the ground. This was a hell of an end to things, I thought in my father's language.

That night, I had gone to the house of my Own True Love. She was on restrictions, ostensibly for her falling grades, but more likely, it was because of me. And perhaps the two things coincided. Emily was a dream. Why had no one taken her? She had not had a serious boyfriend, was hardly on the radar at school. Until now. She wrote my name on the cover of her notebook. I was amazed and frightened. She was not afraid.

She called me to say that her parents were out for the night and that I should come over. She told me to come in around the back so the neighbors wouldn't see. Her house was big, not like ours, with large sitting areas, a t.v. room, a kitchen with an island in the middle. She was glad to see me, glad I came. She told me that when she took a bath, the warm water rising up her body always reminded her of me. The truth was in her eyes. I stood, I think, stiffly and mostly mute other than for the awkward sounds that young boys make, the sound of metal falling onto glass. I was too unsure, too unable to express all I felt. Nothing had trained me for that. I lived among rednecks and hillbillies, a mostly silent crowd who rarely spoke of sweet excesses. But I loved her, I thought, I knew that, and I knew what that felt like and that nothing before had felt like that. Nothing.

She showed me her room, the fluffy bed filled with the softness of stuffed animals and a luxury of pillows. The walls were soft, too, a collage of her life, big cutout letters and pictures from magazines and photographs of her friends. It was a happy place that smelled like her. She turned out the light and we lay on her bed. I didn't know what to do surrounded by so many riches, a servant in the palace. I held her, the yellow light drifting from another room. That is all I wanted to do. Nothing with other girls had been like this. Her skin was soft, her mouth.

Now I sat on the cool sand, bent double with convulsive pain. I was dying, I assumed. I wondered if my parents would know, if someone would find me and figure out who I was, or if they would simply wonder whatever had happened to me. A small wind blew through the silence. I decided to get up, to try to go further. I was only a mile from home, maybe less. Up, I could walk, a bit further and on. Yes, I would make it home, I thought, and I would not speak of this to my parents. I would go to bed and wait and see. I did not want them to call a doctor. I would lie in my bed as I had with other things and hope that this would pass. I would lie in bed and think of My Own True Love.