preface part 1 part 2

X and I had made plans to have dinner the night we got back to school. I couldn’t say no, even though I wished I could.

So I fell asleep and dreamed about Joey…

Two evenings later, X picked me up in his 1993 gray Chevy Lumina at 6:30 the Saturday I returned to school. The car was old, smelled like stale popcorn, and had this funky engine rattle that wouldn’t go away. (Kind of like our relationship, when I really thought about it.)

I slid into the passenger’s seat and, without much ado, he pulled something out of his pocket.

I froze.

“I bought this for you,” he said. He pushed it into my hand. “It represents our new relationship; I think we need a second chance.”

It was a ring. Not an engagement ring, but still – it was a ring.

I felt sick, the kind of sick like when you know you have to Do Something Or Else, and that the Something is just going to make you sick and miserable, but there’s nothing else you can possibly do but do it.

The ring was a sterling silver double helix.

I slid it on. Left hand ring finger.

If felt heavy.

Like my heart.

I knew I’d have to go back home later and block Joey from my instant messenger…and I was really starting to enjoy talking to him every night. But I couldn’t be unfaithful, and I had to be with X…didn’t I? It was what was expected of me.

Later that evening, I did just that. I blocked Joey. I felt like such a slimeball, blocking the guy I had a secret crush on while I was wasting away dating his friend. Sometimes life just doesn’t make sense…especially when you’re the one screwing it up for yourself.

I flopped on my lower bunk, remembering the last time X and I had broken up, two weeks prior. We had just gotten back from a weekend at his parents house, and he had done a ton of laundry. Like twelve dress shirts, at least. He had a million because of the whole school rule about guys wearing dress shirts, ties and jackets every day during the hours of 6 and 4 in any of the campus buildings (except the dorms or the gym) – anyway, all of X’s had gotten dirty at the same time.

As per tradition, he deposited all twelve of his dress shirts in my laundry basket as he dropped me off at my dorm. It was an unspoken agreement, I’d iron and starch his shirts, then return them to him later that evening.

It was all a little foggy in my mind now, but somehow between the time he dropped me off (laden with his twelve dress shirts) and 9:30 p.m., we became “off again”.

I remember walking back up to my dorm room thinking, “This is great, now I can chat with Joey again,” and then opening the door to find all twelve of X’s dress shirts piled on my desk chair.

Feeling ridiculously obligated, I got out the iron, set up my ironing board, and spent the next forty five minutes doing what I absolutely hate the most of any household chore: ironing. With starch.

Sometime in the middle of my relationship penance that was ironing, my mom called. I mentioned that X and I had broken up again, but that I was ironing his shirts for him…and was met with silence.

“You’re doing what?” She asked.

“Ironing his shirts,” I replied.

“You should not be doing that,” Mom said. “Take them back to him wrinkled.”

I thought that was an awfully spiteful thing of my mom to say, but something about it seemed…so right, as opposed to the cramp in my left shoulder that I had gotten from ironing for so long. (Men’s dress shirts are freakin’ complicated to iron.)

Unable to stop ironing, for some inexplicable (at the time) reason, I finished the ironing against my mother’s wise counsel (thus demonstrating the utter depths of my patheticness) and called X.

“Your shirts are done,” I said. I felt like the washer woman.

“OK,” he said. We agreed to meet in the circle.

I passed them off to him with barely a word and marched back off to my dorm. I wished, wished, wished, wished that I could break the cycle…but I didn’t know how. I kicked the cement so hard that I stubbed my big toe, chipping the brown nail polish (I was only supposed to wear neutral colors if I painted my toes…bright colors were too “flamboyant” and “tacky”, according to X, even if we were “off again”).

“Dang,” I muttered.

I glanced up to notice who was passing me and started. Joey.

“Hi,” I said, hesitantly.

“Hi, he said, equally awkwardly. I think he had been hearing about this “on again/off again” thing X and I had going on and was probably feeling like a fool for asking me to a movie the month prior when I had probably been dating his friend.

I was feeling like an idiotic fool for blowing him off.

And I was feeling like a miserable fool for having spent forty-five minutes sweating bullets ironing an ex-boyfriend’s dress shirts.

I glanced back and watched him walk away, past a light pole and I remembered the time a year ago when I had seen him riding his recumbent bicycle around the circle.

“What is that thing?” I had hollered after him. He turned and rode back to me.

“It’s a recumbent bike, want to try it?” He smiled, and hopped off.

He’s so awfully nice, I had thought. Of course I don’t want to ride it, I’ll break it and it looks expensive.

“Um, what do I do?” I looked the strange looking bicycle over, it had a full seat with a high mesh back which sat low on two short, wideset wheels. The pedals were out in front, and a motorcycle-like set of handlebars was positioned in front of the seat. Talk about intimidating.

While I had been perusing the unusual bike, Joey had set about to scooting the seat up and adjusting the pedals and handlebars. “Hop on,” he had said with a smile, presenting his strange bike to me.

I gingerly sat down and just about fell over.

“This isn’t a good idea,” I told him.

“No, you’ll do great, here’s what you do…” he gave me a crash course, then pushed the bike. I was forced to pedal. Nothing felt the same on this strange bike. I tried to turn the handlebars so I could continue around the circle, but nothing happened.

“AAAAUGH!” I screamed, wobbling my way across the sidewalk. I was quickly approaching a light pole and tried again to turn the bike. I was unsuccessful. “JOEY! What do I do, how do I stop? I can’t turn!” I yelled.

He had been standing there and laughing at me, but suddenly he was right beside me, slowing the bike down and guiding me away from the light pole, which I very nearly had crashed into.

“I think maybe you just need some more practice,” he had said.

“I think I’ll just leave that thing to you. But thanks for letting me try it,” I replied, smiling at him. It had felt good to laugh, even if it was just for a moment.

The memory faded. I glanced back one last time to that light post. Joey had stopped there too, I noticed. Maybe he was remembering the same thing I was. I paused there until I noticed that the wind was cold and biting, and my cheeks had gone numb. I called myself a fool one last time and went inside.

That had been the most recent time X and I had broken up.

But somehow, X and I managed to stay “on again” for four entire months. I credited it to The Ring, which I wore every day on my left hand ring finger. It gave me a false sense of security, like maybe he wouldn’t break up again with me for awhile?, but it also increased my miserable, pathetic, zero-personality rut I had fallen into.

I wore neutral colors, skipped eyeliner, went easy on the mascara and eyeshadow, didn’t wear lipstick or gloss, kept my hair long and, good gracious, didn’t own anything pink. Pink was verboten.

Sister had come to the bible college after Christmas, and she and I were roommates. She, my brother Andrew and I sat together in Chapel and ate lunch together almost every day, just the three of us, because X very rarely wanted to be seen in public with me.

Not really sure why, but I definitely should have gotten the hint.

Anyway, it was now April and Spring Banquet was just around the corner. X hadn’t asked me yet, and he, Jamie and I were the organizers of the entire event. Can you even imagine what it would look like if he didn’t ask me?! Horrors.

Expecting to be asked, I scoured E-bay for a Faith Approved dress to wear to the banquet. (You thought our other rules were crazy, the Spring Banquet dress code was off the charts.)

Straps had to be two inches wide. We were required to wear a normal bra with the dress. If we were caught wearing a strapless bra at any time, we would either receive a violation or be sent home, I forget. If a guest of a student showed up in what was deemed “inappropriate,” she would be given a sweater to wear for the remainder of the evening. (Can you even imagine the humiliation for that poor girl?)

So, certain that he would eventually get around to asking me, I finally found a dress.

It was so beautiful, and it didn’t even have to be hideously altered to add two inch ribbon over the straps like all the other dresses. Midnight blue taffeta by Vera Wang. I won the E-bay auction and waited by the mailroom for days until it showed up. (I still have it in my closet…) And after I was done waiting for my dress, I started waiting for X to ask me.

I was still waiting when Easter weekend came. Sister, Andrew and I loaded up into my silver 1998 Saturn SL2 and drove back home for the holiday, X went to his house to celebrate with his family.

“Did that guy ask you to Spring Banquet yet,” Andrew asked, he was riding shotgun and Sister was in the back, her face stuffed between the two passenger seats and resting on the back of Andrew’s seat.

“No,” I mumbled. I was embarrassed.

Andrew muttered something I couldn’t understand, and it was probably better. Poor Andrew; I had twisted his arm and talked him into being roommates with X earlier in the year, so he had spent the last four months hearing his sister get badmouthed on the “off again” months…suffice it to say he was not X’s biggest fan.

The conversation was shortly dropped, but I kept thinking about it all weekend. Saturday evening, Dad needed to run down to the office “real quick” to check something and he asked me to come along. I knew this meant that he wanted to Talk.

Dad always wants to Talk when he either:

a.) asks me to fix the sprayer out in the field

b.) asks me to go to the office “real quick”

Dad’s office was on Third Avenue in Cedar Rapids. It’s not there any more, it was destroyed in the Great Flood of 2008, but what happened that evening is one of my favorite, most special memories of that office.

I sprawled out on the floor while Dad sat in his desk chair. He was trying to get something to print, I think, and every so often I’d run off to get some candy. But after we’d been there about twenty minutes, Dad asked, “So, Jenna…I have to ask, has X asked you to Spring Banquet?”

“No…he hasn’t.” I whispered

“Well, I can’t figure out what his deal is,” my dad said. He went on to explain to me that what I was experiencing was not normal. This was not a healthy relationship. And I didn’t have to stay in it.

I twisted that sterling silver ring on my left hand ring finger. I tugged on it. Ohh, I wanted it off.

“I think you need to break it off,” Dad said as we got ready to lock up the doors.

“You really think so?” I asked. I needed to hear him say it one more time.

“You need to break it off.” Dad repeated.

And suddenly I felt free. For the first time in two years.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said.

To be continued…