Saturday 26 July 2003

The night of the crash, Jackie was terribly worried about the ramifications. She called a friend and he stayed the night with her. Over the next few months between seeing each other we'd talk on the phone, and more than a few times I heard stories of her drinking and staying over at some other guy's dorm room. For about two weeks that spring she hemmed and hawed about an invitation to go camping with two guys she knew from school. (Everytime she asked my opinion about it, I said she should do what she thought was best for her. She knew what I'd gone through with Yvonne and thought the subtlety of the hint would be enough. Finally after two weeks of her asking I turned it around and asked what she would think if two women asked me to go camping with them? Considering how after the mellowing of a campfire and a few beers or maybe some wine the three of us would be alone together in a tent, would she want me to go? She realized my point and never again brought up the invitation.) It was pretty obvious ours was a loose relationship at best, but at least I knew what was going on.

Knowing that, in March I was given a ride home from APAC by Kari, a woman with whom I'd worked. I asked if she wanted to grab a beer on the way home... the one turned into a few, and between them I heard stories of her failing marriage (she said her husband occasionally hit her), of her miscarriage, of her rape when she was 15, and how she'd be committing suicide in two years when the rapist gets out of prison. Pretty heavy stuff for a first conversation.

She also said she was about ready to fuck the first thing that moved... that her husband had been away on a hunting trip for a week. She said that she'd had sex with eleven different men over her (not-quite-two-year) marriage and named two I actually knew... one young man who also worked at APAC and a junior attending (of all places) Holmen High School. She dropped me off at home and followed me in, but was turned off by the fact my apartment was pretty messy at the time and made no other overtures.

Over the next couple weeks when it was time to head home from work I'd ask if she'd give me a lift, but she said no each time. It looked like anything that would possibly happen was over before it had started. For the next two months we hardly talked at all.

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