Californication

My senior year of high school, I had a short term boyfriend I had met through some church friends. He told me God planned for us to marry. I thought he was belligerently nuts, I told him so that very night on the lake side. His name is fleeting to me at this very second, but he was sweet, funny, below my usual physical standard but willing to give me things I wanted at that moment in my life. He proposed on my birthday, in a church congregation of over 200 people. I accepted on stage to a thunderous applause and prying eyes. You see, I worked in this church, part time. I partied full time and played with kids in a church part time. Everyone there knew who I was and what I was about and yet I kept my job. CATON! over looked my "past" however. Caton, had no clue my past was still sometimes very much my present. My ring was beautiful and I wore it everywhere, I wore it with pride! I was marrying the future youth pastor of the biggest church in the far west valley. I was finally going to get my ever after, except my conscience gave in and I could not put a sweet, Christian man through my antics. I ended our engagement on a whim. I wanted to have sex and he didn't, he wanted to wait and I didn't.

I used this difference of opinion to end my lucky strike. The night I ended our engagement I threw my ring in his face and told him to fuck off. I got in my car, drove to the bank withdrew my whole account and took off to California! I called a girlfriend back in town to make me some hotel reservations online so I'd have somewhere to lay my head once I arrived 500 miles from home. I slept in a skanky dive my first night in Cali. I only slept two or three hours before I woke up and headed to the beach. I spent 8 days laying on the shore from morning till night. I watched my first sunset on the sea and met a Marine who spent 8 days in my hotel with me like we were an old married couple. He was on a two week vacation and didn't want to go home to Arkansas so we stayed together.

I meet some of the most random people in the most random places and they have always made for my greatest memories. His name was Chris and he was a MARINE! the amphibious kind, tall, dark, muscular and a little warped. He taught me to surf, played me guitar around a fire every night and we ate Panda Express for lunch everyday. I couldn't believe my luck, finding someone as great as him in a random city, without knowing a single soul. I think Chris was put there at that exact moment to keep me from going home and begging Caton for forgiveness. Chris had no idea the morning I up and left him in the hotel without so much as a phone number exchange, but he saved my life...he saved me from settling. I thank him in my dreams when I see him.

Sleep Soundly

**When I had my son, I was panicked. I loved children, but never intended to have any of my own, at least not at twenty and alone. He was so tiny and warm, with a full head of dark brown hair and giant ocean's for eyes. Our first night as a couple he slept soundly wrapped on my chest while I cried into his dark, sweet hair. I wept for our future together and for what could potentially be the biggest mistake of his life, choosing me as his mother. **

*His father and I were always on and off, for over six years he was the one guy I returned too. I had a wayward approach to sex, but Manny was the one guy who loved me despite my open legs or broken past. He was my first boyfriend in the 7th grade and stayed a fixture in my life despite breakups and moving on's. We always ended up back together, him and I were meant to be together. That is until he told me about another girl, one that didn't leave every six weeks and who wanted to marry him. We weren't kids anymore we were 19 and graduated and living in our own place's. On another typical night we ended up together only this time it was different, at the end he said I needed to leave and not in the morning. I never called him back, but eight weeks later I was still missing my heart and my period. We had unprotected sex from the time we were fifteen until that very last night and never once even had a scare.*

**I swear he is the prettiest baby I've ever seen, every person who sees him says the exact same thing. He sleeps soundly and only cries on occasion. Once home Kolten and I bond over midnight feedings and me singing him to sleep 24 hours a day. I pray over him to be better than I was. I whisper all my hopes for his life into his tiny perfect ears. I tell him hourly how wonderful he is, how wonderful he is going to be.**

*I ran into Kelsey, the other woman, at a store downtown, she was obviously pregnant and I obviously had a baby in my Moby wrap. She and I knew one another but had never spoken, our meeting that cold afternoon was no different. We glanced awkwardly at one another and separated from each other before either of us mustered courage to state the obvious.*

**It's been three years since I brought your beautiful soul into this world. You are as wonderful and handsome today as you were the night we met. I still whisper to you while you sleep and I still pray that you forgive me for not seeking him out to be a part of your life. I write you letters when my heart feels heavy with guilt or full of joy for your life. I hope that one day they are enough words for you to forgive me, because you're the greatest thing I've ever done....***

Where I fell

When I was 13 years old, I thought I could do anything with little to no consequence. I had a single mother and an imprisoned father and run of our two bedroom apartment most nights of the week. My mom worked double shifts at the hospital in order to sustain mine and my brothers lives. I found out very early that a good way to get attention from boys was to pretend you were experienced in sex and making out and so forth. I hung out with a group of boys, I was not fond of female friends, they all came from single mom homes and were the men of their houses. They came and went as they pleased and luckily for me, my mom wasn't around to notice I did as well. When the guys got together to drink behind the garbage cans, I was right there throwing back beers like an expert drinker. I could hold my own with guys from anywhere. I became a circus freak, step up and pay a quarter to watch this 100lb girl drink Vodka straight from the bottle! I enjoyed the attention and I enjoyed the company. I loved to feel like I was loved and protected by these guys.

When I was 14 and in the eighth grade me and "my boys" went to a high school party, a regular weekend event for the seven of us. I immediately started drinking far more than normal, I was smoking pot like Bob Marley and cracking my regular sarcastic jokes. A guy whom I had never met offered to take me to the gas station to fill up on smokes, being 14 and "experienced" I went along for the ride. We ended up at a Safeway with me finding a random adult male to makeout with in exchange for a bottle of Jose' Cuervo. The first one to take the bait also footed the bill when I offered him a ride back to a high school party. I was manipluative, young and cute. A horrid combination in most cases, but especially in this one. I remember praying that after I chugged back for the third time that I wouldn't throw up in the high school guy's van. We rounded the corner to the party on two wheels. At some point we had lost the random guy from the parking lot and my new high school friend and I made our way into the party. I smoked in the kitchen and sipped a beer while talking to a few of my guys, they were ready to leave and pretty pissed I had disappeared with some strange asshole. I became defensive of this stranger and told them to all fuck off and stop worrying about me like their kid.

At some point after our elementary blow up, I found myself in a back bedroom with my getaway driver. We sat cross legged on the floor passing my reward of Jose' back and forth. After what felt like an eternity, I began to pass out. In and out of concience I crept, heaving the Cuervo back up faster than it went down, choking and gagging on a dick. I had never done anything more than make out and fiddle with first base and suddenly this stranger had his dick in my mouth. I bobbed back into oblivion, crying at what I knew was inevitable, blacked out I was a freebie for the guy who stuck around long enough to wait for me to pass out. I felt the jeering of my body against his while I burned in pain, throwing up on every thrust. I felt the blood trickle down my legs, burning and aching and blacking out again.

I woke up the next day on the front lawn of some strangers house, alone, in a strangers pants and my own too tight top. I burned in pain and ached from my head to my feet. I had dried vomit in my hair and blood all over my face from an assuming punch I had taken the night before. Written on my hand was, "you took it like a whore" in permanent marker. I cried and panicked and begged God it was not true, my half assed memories and my painful swagger. I knew it was real, the taste in my mouth, the pain in my crotch, the lawn, the pants that were not mine. I woke on that lawn a different person and it was not for the better.

I spent the next eight years reliving that night with every man I could get hard. I was hell bent and determined to sleep with every man I wanted, on my terms, because you can not rape the willing. I would abuse myself on my terms and I took full advantage of the opportunity.

Initial Transfer

We met the summer of our freshman year, we were on a bus heading to sunny California for a week long Young Life camp. I sat on the bus with my very good looking guy friend Jon Paul. He was sexy by all standards, but not my type at all. When he spotted you on the bus that day, he nudged me quickly and said, "Check out that brunette behind us." I turned around, to nearly head butt you, we both laughed. I introduced myself as the friend of the hot guy and proceeded to fill in his name. You laughed and said you'd noticed him. I found you intriguing, almost unreal. Your beauty was stunning and to a 14 year old girl with major self esteem issues, you were overwhelming. I made it my mission that week to learn everything about you, we spent the week glued to one another, I had to know what your secret was.

I remember the smell of the bathroom when you first caught me throwing up. It wreaked of teen girls, cheap perfume and expensive hair spray. The clanking of the bathroom vent was loud enough to drown out my occasional gag, the music coming from the dorm assured me everyone was too busy after dinner to wonder where I had disappeared too. I didn't even hear the door open, I only felt you grab on my ankle from under the door. I freaked, who had a hold of me and how much had they heard! I froze in a panic fearing you were my dorm leader who would surely turn my secret into an intervention opportunity. You didn't say a word, only "open the door love". I meekly opened the door, puke still on my breath and blood shot eyes. You hugged me so hard, I felt a queasy pang. That night, we laid in bed nose to nose talking about our shared secret. Your throwing up binges dated back farther than mine by years, I was new to the world of self hate and unobtainable dreams.

We spent years nose to nose on many horrible nights. My love for you grew deeper than I could have ever imagined, in all my life I had never felt so lucky as to call you my best friend! I eventually outgrew my ability to self hate, I became content in myself and my weight, you on the other hand spiraled out of control over the years.

The day I had my son, I called you to come meet your Godson and you said you were too busy that day, but I could tell by the shaking in your voice you really meant you were too high. I cried, staring at my beautiful baby boy, I cried because I wanted to leave my son and go rescue you from whatever shit hole you were getting high in. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months before you finally were sober enough to meet Kolten. I remember watching him crawl across the floor to you but you were shaking so bad from with drawls, I grabbed him before you could. It was that very moment of scooping my baby off the floor that I realized I had to let you go, my protection belonged to my son, not too you, not anymore.

Jessica, today my love for you far exceeds my hate for your choices. There are days that I get so angry at the drugs and then at you for not being stronger. I pray your addictive cycle's will end when you leave rehab, but you always go right back. I pick up the phone every time, praying it's not the call that you're dead. The last time we spoke, I called you in a blind rage...my cell phone came up missing, money, movies all things I would have handed to you if you'd asked. I begged you to admit you needed help, I begged you to get help. I could hear the lies in your voice, the same lies I had heard over the last nine years. I screamed and cried for you, for our friendship and for the drugs that had such a tight grip on your life. I said in one breath, "it was just a fucking cell phone, don't you want a family and a husband and sobriety?!" The last words you spoke to me were, "call the cops if you want to turn your back on your best friend." I did, I called the cops and filed a police report and cried to the operator that you were my best friend and that it was just the drugs, she patched me through to an officer who told me it was just a cell phone, there's not much we can do. I screamed at the cop, crying hysterically that it wasn't just a cell phone, it was my best friends life!

That night, I called your mom, begging her to find you and get you some damn help. She never returned my call. I heard from Jon Paul this last year that you finally hit rock bottom. He told me that he too had tried to save you, we talked about what a beautiful girl you were. We talked about the night we all first met on that bus outside of Phoenix. I cried and could hear him sighing loudly, that night we both finally let go of that beautiful girl from freshman year and stopped holding you to a standard you would never again achieve. That night I let go of my fears for you and my dreams for you. I begged Jon Paul to love you no matter what, I told him that I needed him to keep in touch with you. My gratefulness to Jon Paul for not walking away the way I had too is never ending. Jessica, there was never another friend as great as you!