Little Conversations Read online

  He was her first boyfriend. Her first kiss. Her first and her only everything.

  It all seemed so idyllic in the beginning. To be Jake’s girlfriend was a bit of a dream come true. He was wildly popular at their small-town school. He was athletic, playing football and running with the track team. He was so good-looking with his wavy blonde hair and blue eyes. An Adonis-like golden boy. Devin’s own social status was elevated by her involvement with him, although she was so shy that the attention it garnered sometimes exhausted her. A lot of the kids who ran in that circle sold their soul to be trendy and came off pretty damn superficial. Many of the girls were a bit miffed by her claim on him and could be quite vocal about it, often whispering and slanting their eyes in her direction.

  But Jake had chosen her, in spite of what those bitches thought. He was, for the most part, very sweet and considerate. The next two years sort of flew by, and Devin’s attachment to him grew until he was the most important person in the world to her. She thought they really truly had something special. Not everything was perfect, but she took the bad with the good. Everyone had problems they had to deal with. And he loved her. He said so, after all.

  And, really, who would say they loved you if they actually didn’t?

  But, very slowly, things began to change.

  It started with her friends. Jake thought they were boring and kind of snooty, too smart for the raucous crowd he hung out with. They were brains, and he hung with the partiers. Devin grew up in a family of teachers, so she had to have good grades. It was nonnegotiable. She was a good girl and she couldn’t let her dad down. So, Devin spent time with the 4.0 GPA kids in school and with Jake’s crowd outside of school. Easy fix, right? Her smart friends didn’t do much outside of school anyway. They were studious and, honestly, actually kind of boring. Their idea of a crazy night on the town meant going to a movie, maybe even putting (gasp) butter on their popcorn. Much different than the keggers Jake, and subsequently Devin, often went to.

  Devin didn’t branch out much at the keggers. She mostly hung really close to Jake, sitting quietly and speaking when spoken to. She was pretty shy and reserved. Occasionally, though, Jake would get preoccupied, and she’d be left on her own, at which time, she would sit off to the side and watch the party go on around her. Laughing, kissing, fighting, rough-housing. A microcosm of teenage debauchery swirled around her. Occasionally someone would talk to her, but she didn’t really have much to say and was a bit afraid to come out of her shell.

  Besides, Jake didn’t really like her to mingle much. He was only trying to protect her from the others’ wayward influences.

  The girls that went to keggers tended to lean towards the slutty side, and some of them smoked pot or experimented with other substances. This truly shocked naïve little Devin to the core, and she honestly wasn’t truly comfortable hanging with a majority of them anyway. Most of them were downright bitchy to her, wondering loudly what Jake saw in a mousy little thing like her. So many others just seemed to be intent on pressuring her into trying whatever new high they were on. Very few, primarily just Amy and Joanie, seemed pretty cool, a wee bit mellower than the rest. That said, they were still a tidge on the wild side, and Jake often remarked how glad he was that she didn’t act like them. Because of his obvious dislike of their escapades, she chose to not get too involved, although she definitely envied the fun they seemed to have.

  Jake didn’t really like her talking to the guys, either. Some of them eyed her as though she was a rare, juicy steak, and that always enraged Jake—incessantly. Not one to make a spectacle at the party, he would wait until they had left, at which time he’d rant at her about how furious it made him. About how, one of these days, she was going to really find herself in trouble if she continued to come off so easy.

  A few of Jake’s close friends seemed to just be genuinely nice—brotherly. They would stand by her when some other guy was acting a little lascivious or when a girl would spew catty words her way. She began to feel a little more comfortable around them. Over time, they sort of became friends…

  …which led to more problems.

  “You know, the only reason they are being nice to you is because they want to sleep with you,” Jake would say. And her ego would take a hit. “You should hear the things they say when you’re not around.” Another hit. “That outfit is awfully slutty. You’re going to give them the wrong idea.” And another hit. After a while, most of their conversations began to revolve around all the reasons nobody would really like her, and how lucky Devin was that Jake did. That he was around to protect her from all his nefarious, dishonest friends. Because of what they had together, though, because she didn’t want to rock the boat, Devin pushed the confusion from her mind, not allowing herself to question why he was such good friends with them if they were all so atrocious.

  Before their senior year, Jake spent the summer working on a farm in a town about five hours away. Devin barely saw him, and she missed him tremendously. He would come back for a few days now and then, at which point she would drop everything and trade shifts at work so they could spend time together.

  Things were getting more and more strained, though. Jake was quieter, not as inclined to go to parties. Instead, he only wanted to hang out at his house and watch TV. So she would go to him, be with him. She desperately tried to reconnect, responding zealously every time he showed her the slightest hint of lust. As the weeks went by, his visits became shorter, less often. When he did come home, his kisses began to feel colder and more distant. Where she had once felt a fervent passion emanating from him, she now felt disconnected. She could be wrapped in his arms, yet still feel so lonely and desolate.

  They didn’t really talk much, either. Jake wasn’t interested in sharing what his life was like when he was out farming. Long days, driving a tractor around. Not much to tell. And all Devin did was work, come home, work, come home. She spent a little time with her dad on occasion, but Jake didn’t like her to go out when he wasn’t around to protect her. Devin feverishly worshipped him by this point, her first and only love, so she would wait on pins and needles for him to come back.

  Now and then when he was gone, his friends would stop by the restaurant where Devin worked, and they’d visit a bit. It made her feel closer to him, and she’d tell him about it when he’d call her. Jake, though, was always irritated by this to the point that it began to make her feel uncomfortable. He’d accuse her of having feelings for them, that maybe Devin was flirting and coming onto them. “They only like you because you give them free stuff when they come in.” Her already battered self-image slipped another notch. Devin took to being too busy to wait on them when they’d stop by. No more free French fries for them.

  Finally, that awful summer was drawing to a close, and Devin was eager to have him back home—home for good. The tension had grown over the past few months. Devin’s self-deprecating mind convinced her that this was her fault. He was off working hard, slaving away to make money to put into his old pickup, and she was gallivanting around behaving in ways that he deemed unacceptable. How could he trust her? How did he know she was telling him everything?

  In order to allay his suspicions, she started spending every penny she made on things she thought would make him happy—stuff for his truck, proper clothes she thought he’d approve of, movies she didn’t want to watch but knew he loved—just things to show him how much she loved him and how glad she was that he was coming home. And then, there he was, standing at her door.

  They went for a drive up to a nearby lake in the mountains. The heat of the day had faded into a crisp evening, and a few stars struggled to shine through the clouds, signaling that a mountain thunderstorm was headed their way. Jake was quiet and withdrawn, but Devin was sure he was tired because he’d been working so hard and had driven all the way home, coming straight to her house to see her when he got to town. That showed how much he cared—he wanted to see her before he saw anyone else, even his own family.

  They wal
ked along the lakeshore, finding a giant hunk of granite to climb up and sit on. A slight breeze blew through the trees, and the occasional rumble of thunder echoed through the glacial valley. He pulled her to his side, held her hand, looked into her eyes and said, “I met someone this summer…”

  The rest of the conversation was kind of a blur to Devin.

  “I do love you, Devin. I really do,” Jake had said, his beautiful blue eyes showing remorse and regret. “But… I love her, too. She’s just so different than you. She likes all the same things I do.”

  And I don’t? Devin’s heart cried out as she stared ahead, watching the ripples in the lake, too choked up to talk.

  “She likes working on cars,” he continued. “God, she is so fuckin’ amazing about that, and it’s so cool to see a girl into that sort of thing. Her home life sucks, and it makes me feel so bad for her.”

  Bad home life? Since when is that something you are looking for in a girlfriend? Devin thought to herself. But she still didn’t trust herself to speak. She couldn’t talk through the ball of emotion festering in her throat.

  “But I came back to you, Devin,” he insisted. “I really, really love you. I didn’t mean to love her too, but I’m home now. We will work things out.”

  From time to time, though, this other girl would come to visit.

  Those weekends, he was unavailable to Devin. She would see glimpses of them, this new girl’s light blonde hair reflecting in the sunlight as they dragged main on a Saturday afternoon. Her heart cracked a little every time.

  Then the other girl would leave, and he’d be Devin’s again. He’d come to see her right away, and she’d fall into his arms as though nothing happened. She didn’t even mind his comments at this point. She probably was flirting with his friends too much. Granted, she only was giving out pieces of gum to those who asked, or maybe simply responding to their questions and comments. She tried to behave herself, to keep Jake happy with her, but she wasn’t doing a very good job, apparently.

  Then, the pictures started appearing. The first one was a little school photo pinned onto the tack-board in his room. They were sitting on his bed doing homework, and Devin glanced up to see it hanging there above his desk, so unobtrusively.

  Maybe it was a relative, she tried to tell herself.

  But she knew better. Devin had only seen the girl from a distance, but the hair color, the shape of her face. That was her. When Jake left the room to grab some chips for a snack, Devin examined the photo closely. Her own insecurity pounded forth as she stared at the picture with agonizing dread. The girl was stunning. High cheekbones. Beautiful brown eyes.

  The next picture really stung. It was a larger one of the two of them—together. This picture had been taken more recently. Devin recognized the shirt Jake wore. He had gotten it at a concert he’d gone to a few weeks before. He hadn’t wanted her along, saying it was just supposed to be the guys. With a sickening jolt of trepidation, Devin realized the girl wore a similar shirt in the picture. Jake had his arm around her shoulders and they both appeared truly exhilarated. This photo leaned up against the picture frame behind it, obscuring the photo in that frame. A photo that Devin had given him. A photo of her.

  This other girl also now had a name. Devin hadn’t wanted Jake to tell her, as though not knowing it would make her less real. Devin refused to speak about her with anyone, quickly steering the conversation away whenever it started heading in that direction. But one of Jake’s friends had let it slip. Her name was Melanie. Tall, blonde, beautiful Melanie who liked cars and all the things Jake liked.

  Still, Devin loved him. She needed him. She knew she could keep him. She had to keep him. He still told her he loved her. He told her how lucky she was to have him, how he defended her to people and how nobody else could be trusted but him. His words and his actions when they were together had warped her already damaged psyche. They cemented the belief in her mind that he was the best she could ever hope for. That nobody would ever be able to love her like Jake did, especially in spite of all her faults.

  The senior year ended, and he was planning to go away again. Not back to the farm like last summer, which made Devin extraordinarily grateful, but to Alaska. He planned to work on the fishing boats, to earn money for college in the fall where they’d be together again.

  “You should come with me,” he’d suggested.

  Somehow, Devin had a moment of clarity in her young mind. Alaska was so far away from her life in Montana. It was a big scary place and, even though Jake would be there, Devin had responsibilities here in town. She had a good job that made a ton of tip money, and her boss had become sort of a surrogate mother to her. Devin’s dad was unmarried and travelled a great deal on business, and her mom lived so far away. Devin had worked at the Sundowner after school and over the summers for the past three years, and Margaret had taken her under her wing.

  Then there was her new little home. Devin’s dad had just been transferred through work a month before school got out. She was in her last month of her last year of high school. While she was rather young and naïve, she was pretty independent for her age, and it was only a couple of months before she’d be out on her own anyway. Therefore, rather than making her move with him or go back to live with her mom, her dad got her a sweet little furnished duplex, paying the rent through the end of the summer. After that, she would be heading off to college. Five months’ worth of rent. That was a lot of money to just bail on. Her dad would kill her.

  And finally, since things with Jake had become tumultuous, she had recently begun to find some relief with Amy and Joanie. It started as a way of defying him when Melanie was in town. Fuck him! If he was going to be doing what he wanted, namely Melanie, she was going to do what she wanted.

  The instant camaraderie she felt with her new friends helped bring her out of the ‘Jake funk’ she was in. Their fun and lively nature quickly pulled her in on their shenanigans. Joanie was also planning to go to school in Billings that fall, just like Jake and Devin. First-year students were required to live in the dorms, so she suggested the two girls be roomies, which thrilled Devin. The thought of living with a complete stranger terrified her inner agoraphobe, so she readily agreed. She did make sure it was the all-girls dorm, though, so Jake wouldn’t feel uncomfortable having her in the same building as a bunch of horny college guys.

  Back to her moment of clarity, though, which pushed her to say no to Jake. Probably the first time Devin ever said no to Jake. Ever.

  “I can’t, Jake. That’s just so far away. I can’t just leave my job,” she implored. “And my dad? Jeez, he’d kill me after he paid all that rent up front.”

  Jake exhaled with a frustrated huff and stared at the TV, a behavior that often caused Devin to cave, to give in and go along with what he wanted. This time, though, she somehow held firm.

  “I’ll be a good girl, the kind of girlfriend you deserve,” she promised. Her hand crept into his, and he squeezed it lightly, still not looking at her. Still pensively discontented. “I will be here, waiting for you in the fall when you get back. And then, we’ll go off to college. You and me—together.”

  He ended up not going to Alaska that summer. He ended up going back to the farm a couple of times to work, a few weeks here and there. Back to the farm near Melanie.

  “The pay is just so good, Devin,” he explained with exasperation when she quibbled. “I can’t make that much anywhere else except maybe Alaska, and you wouldn’t go with me there. Jesus, I’ll still come home to you. I always do, don’t I? I love you. You know that. We’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

  June became July, and they continued to plan for school. As they sat on the bluff above town, waiting for the start of the Independence Day fireworks, Jake mentioned that he had somehow gotten a waiver to live off campus.

  “You should live with me. At school…” he smiled at her with the confident and cocky air that came so naturally to him.

  “Jake, I can’t do that,” Devin blurted out, the
n quickly tried to explain as Jake’s face fell. “It’s just… Joanie and I have things all worked out. I can’t do that to her.”

  “What about what you are doing to me?” Jake angrily threw back. “You’re picking your friend, someone who you barely know, over me!”

  Somehow, Devin found the strength inside her to hold her ground. “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  Jake had been furious. He took her home before the fireworks even started and barely spoke on the way. He dropped her off, not responding at all to the soft kiss she placed on his cheek. He didn’t even so much as call her for days after.

  It was almost a week before she saw him again. He came back to her on a hot summer evening with a solemn, steeled expression.

  Melanie was going to live with him in the fall at college.

  And that was it.

  “I actually had asked her to go to Alaska with me after you said no,” Jake brooded with a cold sober expression. “But she couldn’t because her grades weren’t so great. She wasn’t sure if she was going to graduate, so she took some remedial courses over the summer. She did that for me. For me, Devin. To be with me. So she would graduate along with me and we could go to college together.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “She’s been doing really well, and her guidance counselor helped her get all registered for the fall semester in Billings. Everything is falling into place.”