REWIND
CHAPTER THREE
“I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO, SO I WHISPERED ‘I LOVE YOU’”

FEBRUARY 8th, 1978

I had called Kara on Sunday and we had had a pleasant talk for about an hour. 

Monday, I saw her briefly in school. We didn’t talk much, but she gave me a huge smile when I walked into English.

Then, on Monday night, it hit. Something else I’d have to relive that I’d forgotten about: The Blizzard of ‘78.

I got home from school to the beginning of flurries. I started my paper route in a light snow. When I finished my paper route--which was about an hour later--I was trudging through blinding snow. Just like the first time!

The Blizzard of ‘78 was a big huge thing in the Boston area. It was something that was still talked about 30 years later. It wasn’t just a snowstorm--though it was that, over two feet fell--it was also accompanied by gale force winds, massive high tides with floods, beach erosion, some coastal houses lost, fatalities, the whole bit. It was, basically, a hurricane with snow instead of rain (though not technically). There were 8 and 10 foot snowdrifts due to the wind (and the fact that there was already some snow on the ground from the previous week). It shut Eastern Massachusetts down--I mean, completely shut it down--for a week.

Of course, when you’re 13 years old, it was great.

Kara called me Monday night, in the middle of it. “Do you believe this?” she asked excitedly.

“Oh, I was out doing my paper route when it started. It went from flurries to me getting buried before I could blink.”

“I believe it!” she laughed. “Well, at least we won’t have school tomorrow.”

“Probably for the rest of the week,” I told her.

Tuesday, I helped Dad dig out, and helped my brother and sister build a toboggan run in the back yard. It started at the top of the bulkhead, six feet off the ground. That’s how deep the drifts were!

Now it was Wednesday, the state was still shut down, and Mom had a proposition for me. My grandmother was snowed in. It was about a two-mile walk to her house. And walk is what I’d have to do--you couldn’t drive, the roads were closed. Would I be willing to walk over there, dig her out, and then stay with her for a few days? Sure, I would--I had done this the first go-round.

Of course, there was a little difference this time--the route I took to get to Gram’s. My street, Hereford Street, spilled out onto Border Street, a main road. Gram lived two miles down Border, on another side street in the next town. So, all I’d have to do was go to the end of my street, turn left, and keep walking. I didn’t do that. I went the other way from my house, up through some side streets that paralleled Border St., and found myself turning onto Lee Rd., right where Kara lived.

I debated this. I debated this the whole way to her street, actually--debated pulling down one of the other side streets to head to Border St. Why? Well, I didn’t want to look like I was pushing it.

I guess part of me kept saying that this wasn’t supposed to happen. I mean anything between Kara and me, it just wasn’t supposed to happen. I was ecstatic, of course, but I didn’t trust it. Plus, we’d had one date, and a couple of phone conversations--all great, mind you, but not much. I wouldn’t have been trusting it at this point in any case. So, I was worried about pushing.

But I headed for her house anyway. We weren’t going to have school all week, it looked like, and I really did want to see her, if only for a minute.

When I rounded the corner on to the top of Lee Rd., there she was. Her whole family, actually: both of her parents, her brother and sister, and Kara. Mr. Pocharsky was shoveling, along with Kara’s younger brother Dave. Kara had a shovel next to her, but seemed more intent on helping her little sister Angela build a snowman. Mrs. Pocharsky was just kind of watching over everything. In fact, she was the first one to see me as I came in front of the house. Mrs. Pocharsky said, “Kara,” and then pointed past Kara towards me. Kara turned, and a huge smile split her face. Wasn’t that nice to see!

“Hey!” she said, walking over to me. “Hi, Eddie! What are you doing here?”

“He’s come to help us shovel out, right?” Mr. Pocharsky offered.

I laughed. “Normally, I’d offer, but I have to walk two miles to my grandmother’s house and shovel her out.” I looked at Kara. “And you’re on the way, so I wanted to say hi.”

“Where does your grandmother live?” Kara asked. I told her. Her eyes twinkled. “On the way, huh?” She knew the slightly varied route I’d taken.

“Well, sort of on the way,” I said. “I wanted to see you, since we won’t have school all week.”

“Good!” she laughed. “Hold on a second.” She went and talked to her mother, then came back to me. “Come on,” she said, grabbing my hand and heading down the street.

“Huh?”

“You need to get to your grandmother’s and shovel her out, you good grandson,” she laughed. “I figured I could walk with you a bit. Up to the bowling alley or something.”

“Great!” I agreed. 

We walked to the end of Lee Rd, just chatting about whatever. At the end of Lee Rd., across Border St., there was a school--Cardinal Steen High School (where my sister would eventually end up going, at least the first time.) It had a large yard in front, which was pretty much untouched snow. Kara giggled and headed right into it. 

“This is great! I should bring David and Angela down here to build a snowman.” Then she flopped into it. It was so deep, she almost sank out of my view. “Snow angels!” she chirped, and started making one. 

It struck me then. Was this the same Kara? Did changing timelines change the person? I thought about it, and decided--no. She’d been the same Kara I’d known for the four months I’d been ‘back’. Today, she was different, though. Kara’d always been fairly serious and reserved. Not solemn or anything like that, just reserved. Today? She was positively giddy.

I said as much. “Boy, you’re in a bubbly mood today!”

She laughed, still making a snow angel. “Snow makes me feel like a little kid, I guess.” She stood up then--smiling, flushed, snow-covered, and grinning at me. “And, I admit,” she said a little softer, “I’m happy to see you.” 

How did I get this lucky?

She stepped over towards me, out of the impression she had made in the snow. “You wanna see my snow angel?”

“I think I’m already looking at one,” I blurted out. It was the right thing to say. Before I knew it, she was wrapped around me, pressing her lips into mine. We separated--me barely staying upright!--and then we got out of the snow drifts on the lawn and started walking.

I still didn’t trust this, though. “Kara,” I said to her after a minute, “have I changed that much?”

She thought for a few seconds, and then said, “Yes and no. I don’t know, really. You changed enough to get me to go on a date with you. Quite honestly, I thought that’s all it was going to be.” She sighed. “But, you were right. I really don’t, or didn’t, know you.” She looked at me with a little smile. “When we were on the phone Sunday night, you had me cracking up. It felt good. I really enjoyed our date Saturday. I was glad to see you today.” She took a breath. “I don’t understand it, either. It just is.”

“Good enough for me,” I laughed.

We walked, not saying much, until we got to the bowling alley. “I’d better turn back here,” she sighed. She leaned up and kissed me again. “Call me, OK? Especially to let me know when you're coming home.”

“Will do,” I told her.

FEBRUARY 14h, 1978

The eleventh was The Saturday After The Blizzard. Things were starting to open up just a wee bit, but it was still treacherous going. I had spent the last couple days with my grandmother, but decided to walk home today. I called Kara before I left.

“Great! I’ll meet you!”

“Huh?” I said. 

“I’ll leave now and I’ll meet you halfway.”

Unbelievable.

When we met up, she kissed me. Then we started walking. We chatted easily until we got to her house. She kissed me again, a few houses from hers, then she went in.

Monday we were back in school. Wednesday was Valentine’s Day. It seemed like I might actually have a valentine, for the very first time. So, I had to get her something, didn’t I? I decided on a little scheme. I went for my run early Wednesday morning, with Kara’s Valentines goodies in hand--a card, a couple of Valentine’s heart-shaped balloons, and a bag filled with Hershey’s Kisses. Kara had told me she was a confirmed chocoholic. The plan was to drop the bounty on her doorstep, so she’d see it when she opened the door--and then continue running. I’d hoped I was early enough; I didn’t want to get ‘caught’.

I creeped up to her doorstep, and arranged the stuff. I looked up--and the front door had opened! Damn, I thought, but it wasn’t Kara. It was her mother, standing there with a big grin. I put my finger to my lips as if to say ‘shhh’. She nodded and grinned wider. I took off before Kara came out.

Later that morning, I went to my locker in between classes. I opened it and an envelope fell out. I picked it up and opened it. It was from Kara. Underneath the printed message inside, she had signed it “Love, Kara,” which was nice. But what she wrote on the opposite, blank, part was even better. It was in a different pen, so she must’ve added it after she went to her doorstep this morning. It said, “I couldn’t believe it! You are the sweetest guy in the universe!” And she signed it with a heart, and her initials, KP, inside the heart. 

Later, in English, I got a blinding smile for my troubles.

That day, on the bus, I was sitting a few rows away from her. She was sitting with Kelly. Another one of her cronies, Danica Rosen, was sitting behind her.

“Hershey’s Kisses? You got kisses? Gimmee!” I heard Danica say.

“No way. These are mine. My Valentine gave them to me,” Kara said.

“Valentine? You got a valentine? Who?” Danica asked her.

“I’m not tellin’!”

As if all this wasn’t satisfying enough--I was barely in the front door of my house when the phone rang. And she was gushing!

I was reeling. This was Kara Pocharsky, for crying out loud, a girl who wouldn’t give me the time of day the first time around! And now, somehow, I seemed to have found the key to her heart. And I wasn’t quite sure how! I guess I really did know, even more than I thought I did, the mistakes I had made the first time around. 

But still, sometimes it seemed like I hadn’t stepped into my own past as much as I had stepped into the twilight zone!

MARCH 1st, 1978

I guess I wasn’t completely in the twilight zone, though. But I’ll get back to that.

Between Valentine’s Day and March 1st, which was a Wednesday, Kara and I had gone out a few more times. We talked on the phone almost every night. After our last date, I had asked her, “So, are we dating now?”

“We’re definitely dating now,” she giggled. The kiss she gave me then could’ve set a house on fire!

This was important to me. I had a relationship, and it was going well. Well, it was even more special because it was with Kara. But having a real relationship, at only 13, was something else.

On my first go-round, I didn’t have that. The closest I got was with Cyndi. After her, it wasn’t until my senior year, when I was 17, that I had a relationship. Her name was Rosalie, and we were set up by a friend of mine. We went out from March of Senior Year until I left for school in September. I went to college in St. Louis, and neither of us wanted a long distance relationship, so we parted. However, she was sweet and we had fun.

The next summer, I dated my next-door neighbor Josephine. That was very nice, and it was my first real physical relationship, though we didn’t go all the way. That lasted as a long-distance relationship all through first semester. We had joyous reunions at Thanksgiving and Christmas. In February, however, I got a Dear John letter.

The next four years, give or take, were one unrequited infatuation after another, combined with washing out of college. When I was 22, I looked up Rosalie again. I remembered her fondly from high school. We met up, and started dating again. Shortly thereafter, she got my virginity. 

What a fucking mistake.

Rosalie had changed, a lot. I guess part of it was that I refused to see that. But part of it was my state of mind. I was 22, almost 23, and had had two brief relationships in my life. I was insecure about relationships, had no self-esteem, and was love and sex-starved. Quite honestly, I would’ve gone out with--and slept with--anybody that had offered at that point. Since I had fond memories of Rosalie, I was easy pickings.

But, as I said, Rosalie had changed. She’d gone to college and, basically, allowed anything with a prick to fuck her. She had her own self-esteem issues--and a lot of them had to do with control.

So, I was insecure and unsure and, frankly, desperate--and I ended up in a relationship with someone that had control issues.

Sound familiar to anyone? Sound familiar to anyone that’s been in an abusive relationship?

And you thought that only happened to women.

It was mainly emotional, but I got one black eye out of it.

I’m not even the one that ended it, to my everlasting shame. She did...and I thought I’d lost something.

It’s amazing--and depressing--how the failures of childhood follow you for too long a time.

Anyhow, this all popped into my mind, walking alongside Kara as we came home from one of our dates. There were probably a lot of reasons why Rosalie happened, and why I let it happen, but this was one of them; probably the biggest one. Because I never had this. I looked over at Kara, smiling, holding my hand, and realized--I never had this. It wasn’t about sex--it was about having a teenaged relationship. I’d never done that, so I didn’t know how to do it. And when it came time to have an adult relationship, the one with Rosalie is the one I found myself in.

I was thinking of all this. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and just wrapped my arms around Kara and hugged her, as tight as I could.

“Mmmmmm,” she purred, “what was that for?”

“Just felt like it, is all,” I said.

“You’re such a sweetheart,” she grinned, and we started walking again.

Like I said earlier--the fucking Twilight Zone. But if that’s where I was, I didn’t want to leave!

Of course, not completely, as the events of this day--March 1st--made plain.

I missed the bus. I was at the phones in front of the school--damn, I missed cell phones!--trying to call my Mom. No answer. Damn.

I turned around to see Beth grinning at me. “Missed the bus and your Mom’s not home again, right?”

“You got it, Beffy.”

“Well, come on, then.” Beth lived close enough to school to walk. This had happened a couple of times last year, where I missed the bus and couldn’t get a hold of Mom. Beth and I walked to her house. I was able to hang out there until I could get ahold of Mom.

There was a shortcut from school to Beth’s house, it ran along railroad tracks. We always went that way. And the tracks got us away from the busy streets--easier to talk that way. As I said, we’d done this a few times last year. This hadn’t happened yet this year, though--in other words, it hadn’t happened since she’d been diagnosed.

We loped along together down the railroad tracks. “So,” she started with a grin, “is what I hear true?”

“What would that be?” I asked her.

“You’re actually dating Kara Pocharsky?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “How did you find out, though?”

“Kara told me,” she grinned. “We’re in Home Ec together, you know, and we were assigned to be partners on a cooking project. I don’t know her at all, except for your glowing descriptions,”  she smirked. “You know me, I don’t talk a lot to people I don’t know.”

“And with those of us that are your friends, you talk our ears off,” I teased.

“Yeah, yeah. Shut up,” she grinned. “Anyway, she started it. Said to me, ‘You’re really good friends with Eddie Bovilas, aren’t you?’ I told her I was. That’s when she told me you guys were going out. You must be on cloud nine,” she smiled.

“Pretty much.”

“We did that project together for a week, so we talked. She’s very sweet. Smart, too. And she’s nuts about you!”

“I know,” I laughed. “Do not ask me how that happened.”

“Well, I’ve noticed you’ve changed a lot this year. You’re more confident. Once Kara got past that, she surely noticed how sweet you are. Knowing you, I’ll bet you treat her like a queen.”

“Yeah, basically,” I smiled. “And she said the same thing--not being an annoying nerd allowed me to show her the good parts.”

“I’m glad, I really am,” Beth said. “Somebody’s got to watch out for you.”

“Yup, and since you did it all last year, I guess it’s someone else’s turn,” I told her with a grin. I thought that that was a pretty innocuous comment. I was wrong. She looked at me in complete shock.

“What?” she gasped.

“You don’t know? You got me through last year. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. Seventh grade was the worst year of my life. I felt like a complete outcast. Except around you. You introduced me to your friends. You told one of the assholes to get off my back in English class. If you saw me eating lunch alone, you dragged your friends over to eat with me. If I had a day when I was beat up or harassed, you were the one that told me it’d be all right. Last year was hell, Beth. The one and only bright spot was you.” She was still looking at me like I was an alien being. She never knew this? The first time around, she died without knowing this? Of course, that time I’d never said it, either. I could kick myself.

Then, she started crying. “Beth? Did I say something wrong?” With that, she hurled herself at me. Before I knew it, I was holding in my arms 100 pounds of crying, shuddering female. I just stroked her hair and let her cry it out. Finally she calmed down--and tried to explain what she was thinking.

“God, Ed, I mean--I worry--I wonder….If, you know, it all means anything….if I had done any good….it’s so short….I mean….did I do anything…before I, you know….”

I interrupted her. “You wonder if you’ve accomplished anything, if you did anything.” She looked at me, and I understood the unspoken question. “Beth,” I said gently, “I understand your prognosis, you know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” She took a breath, and started walking again. I walked beside her.

“I thought you were in denial.”

“I probably was for a while. I’m not anymore.” 

“Everybody else is,” she snorted. “Well, my Dad mostly isn’t. But everybody else is. My Mom, my brothers, my friends--everybody’s counting on a miracle.”

“Beth, I know you well enough--you must have some hope.”

“Oh, sure,” she agreed. “But I’m also a realist. Let’s face it--the odds are extremely high that I’m dying.”

“I know,” I said. 

“And the problem with nobody else accepting this fact is that people keep looking towards the future. Maybe this, and possibly that, and keep hope up, and so on. I have trouble living that way. I find myself having to be realistic. The odds are I don’t have much of a future. So I’m trying to live for today, you know? Every day I wake up still alive is another day--and that’s a good thing.”

Though we’d never had this conversation the first time around, I wasn’t surprised by it. I’d heard from other people that this was her basic attitude for the whole time she was in remission. I’m glad I got the second chance to talk to her about it, though.

“I see what you mean,” I told her, “but you worry that you’re not doing anything.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you did for me. I’m not exaggerating, OK? You were my rock last year. Plus, you’re my best friend. You’ve always been my best friend. That means a lot to me. It might not mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it means a lot to me.” 

“You saying that means a lot to me,” she said. “I must admit, though, that it almost seemed as if you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Well, I probably have, at least a little bit. Trying to get myself together about it, is all. I mean, shit--what do you say?”

“You just said it,” she smiled. 

“Good, then,” I said. “And I promise I won’t be avoiding you. Now that we got this out of the way.”

“Good,” she said. We were walking hand-in-hand down the railroad tracks. “Of course, Kara will probably be upset,” she joked. 

“No, she won’t. Kara knows, Beth. She also understands. Honestly, when I tell her about this conversation, she’ll be happy we had it.”

“Good. Then she really is good for you. That’s good to know.” She paused. “There was one thing that puzzled me, though, and Kara didn’t really answer it. Why do I never see you guys together?”

“Because we don’t do that in school,” I told her. She looked at me. “Kara and I dating isn’t common knowledge. Kara’s not ready for that.”

“Well, that’s not very nice,” Beth said.

I laughed. “Maybe so, but I understand it. When it gets out, there’s going to be shit. Some of her friends aren’t going to accept this. You know my reputation. You see through it, and so does Kara. Now Kara’s best friend, Kelly Cullinane, sees through it, too. Kelly knows about Kara and I. But a lot of the rest of Kara’s crowd just sees the reputation.”

“Ah. That must be tough for you, though.”

“A little, but I think it’ll take care of itself. Hell, we’ve not even been going out a month yet. Kara told me she wanted to make sure this really was something before she went public with it. We’re not exactly secretive--only in school. I go to her house and pick her up, and all her friends live in her neighborhood. It’s just luck we haven’t been spotted.”

“I can sort of understand that. I’m glad she told me, though,” Beth said.

“So am I, since I hadn’t had a chance to,” I laughed.

MARCH 14th,1978

When I talked to Kara on the phone on Monday Night, the 13th, she dropped the bomb. “Honey? It’s time to bite the bullet. What I’ve been doing is unfair to you, and I’ve come to see it’s unfair to me, too.”

“Uh, what are you talking about?” I said, not without a degree of trepidation.

“I’m talking about sneaking around. There’s a party Saturday night. We’re going--together. And, in preparation for that, you’re eating lunch with me tomorrow. I’m going to ask you to the party right in front of all my friends. If they can’t accept it, that’s their problem.”

Wow! “Are you sure?”

“Yes, very sure,” she said. “Let’s get this out of the way.”

“OK, if you want.”

“I want. Do you want?”

“Yes,” I said immediately. “I understand your reasons for keeping it secret, but, yeah, it’s bugging me. I’d like to be able to kiss you good morning.”

She laughed. “That sounds delightful!”

After we got off the bus this day, the 14th, she pulled me over to a corner. “Wait five minutes at lunch, OK?”

“Fine. I’ll have to kind of lurk around since I brown-bagged it today. You want to set them up.”

“A little, yes.”

“How demonstrative do you want me to be?” I laughed.

“Oh, as much as you want. Very would be nice,” she purred.

“I think I can handle that,” I said, still laughing.

I saw her at lunch, getting together with her friends, at their customary table. She left the seat at the end, right next to her, open. I could see she had put her books in front of it to save it. I killed the five minutes by finding Beth, and telling her what was going on. “Good luck, loverboy,” she laughed, and gave me a big hug.

I found out later what Kara was telling her friends. “Look, guys, you need to know something. I have a boyfriend. We’ve been going out for over a month. I haven’t told you guys because you’re going to be surprised. But he’s going to come eat with us today. I want to invite him to Sara’s party.” I guess they all looked at her, wondering what was up. It was just then that I came to the table. I sat in the seat next to her, and she grinned at me.

Before anyone else got a chance to say anything, Bob Golan--a neighbor of the Cullinane twins and a guy I didn’t like much--said, “Hey, Bovilas, what are you doing? You can’t just sit there! That seat’s saved for Kara’s new boyfriend!”

“I know,” I grinned, and turned and kissed Kara on the cheek. “Hi, sweetie.”

“Hi, honey,” she purred.

Except for Kelly Cullinane, who knew, and her brother Patrick--Kelly must’ve told him--every jaw at that table hit the floor! 

“Hey, I got you something,” I said, digging into my lunch bag. I pulled out a plastic bag and plopped it in front of her. Hey, if I was going to be demonstrative….. “I told you I could cook,” I said with a grin.

She opened the bag, and lit right up. “Chocolate chip cookies?”

“With pecans.”

“My favorite!” she blurted, and took a bite of one. “They’re good! You made these?”

“Yup. And I made enough to keep you in ‘em all week. I burnt the first pan, but I saved those for my brother.”

“You sweetie!” she said, kissing my cheek. Damn, she was pouring it on. I loved it! “Anyhow, there’s a reason I asked you to eat with me today.” I knew what was coming, but I just looked interested. “It’s Sara’s birthday today.”

“Well, happy birthday, Sara,” I said pleasantly.

“Thanks,” she croaked. Everyone was still staring, shocked, at Kara and me--except for Kelly, who was suppressing a giggle fit.

“Anyhow,” Kara went on, “Sara’s having a party on Saturday night. You up for it?”

“Sounds good to me.” 

The rest of the table just looked at us in shock. Finally, Danica Rosen found her vocal cords. “Waitaminnit--Kara, you’re going out with him?”

“Yup,” she said.

“But you told me you’d never go out with him in a million years!”

“Changed my mind,” Kara said. “And, boy, am I ever glad I did!”

“This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard,” Joe Vizcano, another one of her crowd that didn’t like me much, said.

“I know. I mean, really,” Danica Rosen said. “You’re actually going out with that?”

“Kara, you’re reputation’s shot now, you know,” Denise Bucher, another one, offered up.

Kara was listening to all this with increasing dismay. She seemed surprised. I was not. She looked around the table and said, “I thought you guys were my friends.”

“We are,” Danica said, “which is why we don’t want to see you do something so stupid.”

“Why is it stupid?” Kara asked.

“Because, well, look at him!” Danica said. “He’s the biggest nerd in school!”

It was time to say something, to take the heat off Kara, and hopefully, to make her smile, because she was getting agitated. “The biggest?” I said. “How does one get to become the biggest nerd in school? Was there a vote? Did I miss it? Frankly, I would’ve voted for Dick Capuano--he’s far more of a nerd than I am. I might make top ten, but biggest?” Kara was chuckling--which was the idea--and poor Kelly was barely holding in the guffaws.

“Look, Kara,” Denise started, trying a different tack, “what can you possibly see in him?”

“I bake her cookies,” I said.

“Yes, and he buys me Hershey’s Kisses for Valentine’s day,” she said, grinning.

“And I thought the way to a guy’s heart was through his stomach,” I laughed.

She smiled at me, then turned back towards the table.  “Look, I don’t expect you to understand this--just accept it.”

After much under-the-breath grumbling, the matter was dropped. The rest of the lunch proceeded more-or-less peacefully. Did I think that this was it? No, I did not. Kara might have, but I didn’t.

It was very nice, in any case, to walk from lunch to English hand-in-hand with her. Walking into English was pretty cool, too--Stan noticed, and said, “You two?”

“For a month now,” Kara told him.

“Cool!” Even Michelle Pepper gave her sign of approval. 

It was a very nice week. We acted, in school, like we had been out of school--as a couple. I loved every minute of it.

Of course I wasn’t going to get out of it completely unscathed. I’m not that lucky, not even in this life.

MARCH 18th, 1978

That afternoon, prior to the party, we went to the mall. We decided to get a birthday gift for Sara together. Kara knew what stores Sara liked to shop in, so that’s where we went. I actually found the sweater we bought her. “I think this would look good on her,” I told Kara. She agreed, teased me for being so good at picking out girls’ clothes, and we bought it.

I was nervous about the party. Kara sensed this and tried to calm me down, but I didn’t share her optimism. “Look, after this party, nobody’s going to question us being together,” she said. Well, we’d see.

I sensed the hostility right away. The Cullinane twins were friendly, but from the rest, hostility. 

We grabbed a couch and settled in. This was probably a tactical mistake. Kara wasn’t mingling, which was noticed. She wasn’t hanging out with Sara, Danica, and the rest, which was definitely noticed. They watched us warily for about an hour, I could tell. 

The tactics were predictable: divide and conquer. The girls came and asked Kara to go ‘powder her nose’. It would’ve been bad form to refuse, so she went with them. I was keeping the couch warm, when here they came--Bob Golan, Joe Vizcano, Mark Adamopoulos, Jon Karalides, and Steve McCauley. Patrick Cullinane was there, too, but was hanging back.

Bob sat down next to me. “Ed, listen. You know this is a mistake, don’t you?”

“Why?” I asked reasonably.

“Because Kara needs someone her speed. You have to be able to see that.”

“Her speed, how, exactly?” I asked.

“Her speed, her crowd, people that she hangs around with,” Mark put in. “You’re not her kind of people.”

“And who is?” I asked, guessing what the answer was going to be.

I guessed right. “Don Nixon,” Bob said. “Don’s been waiting for her to realize what a mistake she made dumping him. You’re in the way of that.”

“That’s a ‘mistake’ she’s never going to realize, whether or not I’m in the picture,” I spat at him. “Don treated her like shit.”

“Don doesn’t see it that way,” Bob said. “We all thought they made a good couple.”

I changed tactics, and looked at Patrick, who was lurking around listening, uncomfortably. “Patrick. How long have you known?” I asked him.

“Since the beginning,” he grinned. “Kel told me.”

“And Kara’s at your house a lot, correct?”

“Sure, hanging with Kel.”

“Notice any difference in her in the last month and a half?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “She’s a lot happier. She wasn’t happy with Don. She’s very happy with you. And I don’t just see that, I hear it. Kel told me that she thought that going out with you is the best decision Kara ever made.”

“See?” I said.

“You are kidding, right?” Bob asked Patrick.

“Nope,” Patrick said. “Look, a lot of you might not see it, but I do. Eddie and I have had our differences in the past, but we’ve been friends for longer than that. He’s basically a good guy. And I think he’s good for Kara.”

“Well, of course she’s happy now,” Steve put in. “Eddie lets her walk all over him.”

“No, actually, I don’t. It’s pretty equal,” I said. 

“I’m guessing he’s right,” Patrick said.

“Look, you all know how I feel about her,” I told them. “So, yes, I make sure I’m good to her. But I don’t let her walk all over me. Furthermore, she doesn’t even try. I just don’t disrespect her or try to control her. She doesn’t deserve that.”

Just then, Kara came around the corner. “Why thank you, sweetie,” she said to me. “Hey, Bob? Out of my seat, huh?” Bob got up, not happy about it, and Kara settled in next to me. “So, were these guys giving you the same crap the girls were just giving me?”

“I’m guessing so,” I told her.

“How I’m ruining my life by going out with you?” she laughed.

“Well, in my case, it’s that I am ruining your life by going out with you.”

“Ah,” she laughed. “I guess we’ll just have to both ruin my life, then.”

The collected vultures seemed to give up at this point. They all moved away, muttering--with a couple of exceptions. The Cullinane twins were plainly amused by all the fuss. And, surprisingly, Steve McCauley and Danica Rosen hung around. They grabbed a couple chairs and sat across from us. 

“Look--is this real?” Danica asked.

“Yeah,” Kara told her. “Look, Dani, I’m as surprised as you are. But it’s real. Honestly.”

“Dani,” I said, thinking about what I wanted to say, “look. I’m trying to make some changes, OK? Kara noticed, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” Kara agreed. “Remember how I told you he asked me out before, when I was going out with Don?” Danica nodded. “Remember I told me he called me on the phone and was his usual stammering self? Well, when he asked me out this time, he wasn’t like that. He did it in person and was cool about it. I noticed the difference immediately. And when I hesitated, he talked me into it, and made a lot of sense doing it. I agreed to one date. We had a great time, so we didn’t stop there.”

“Dani, I’m sick of being the school laughingstock,” I told her. “I was scared of my own shadow. I’m tired of it. I decided to change some things. I knew why Kara wouldn’t go out with me--so I fixed things.”

“He treats me like a princess, you know,” Kara said, with a sweet little smile.

They seemed to accept things a little better. Eventually they moved off, and Kara and I were sitting on the couch, just chatting happily.

The next thing I knew, I was getting punched, full-force, in the face. I never saw it coming. It felt like a baseball bat had slammed into my nose. Then I got hit in the stomach. Then the face again. I was not ready for it. It distantly registered to me through the haze that poor Kara was screaming--and was covered in my blood. My whole face was exploding in pain and I couldn’t breathe.

Steve and Patrick pulled him off me. It was Kara’s ex, Don Nixon. I should’ve known.

Evidently--and I found this out later--there was a conspiracy with two different agendas. Sara had evidently invited him because she had designs on him and she was hoping that seeing Kara with a loser like me would turn Don off from Kara. But some of the guys talked to him, and convinced him that since Kara was with a loser like me, he could win her back.

I’ll give them all credit, though. I really don’t think any of them thought he’d do what he did.

It was chaos. My head was spinning. I could only see through a red haze and my stomach was going blllllppppp. Kara was screaming, Don was screaming, Sara’s mother came storming in to see what had happened--but I had to get out of there.

I stumbled out the front door, almost unnoticed. I threw up into Sara’s mother’s rose bushes. After that wonderful experience, I ended up sitting on the lawn--cold, in pain, and alone.

Wasn’t this where I came in? 

Things had gotten too easy. I thought I’d turned everything around. And now, here I was, having gotten my ass kicked, just like the first time around. Except, to my unending humiliation, this time was in front of Kara, my girlfriend. 

The chaos still raged inside the house, as far as I could hear. Then I heard the door open. “Eddie?” Kara said.

“Here,” I told her.

She found me sitting on the lawn. She sat next to me. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“What are you sorry for?”

“For ever going out with that ass,” she snorted. “I didn’t think he’d ever do this, though. Are you OK?”

“Not particularly.” 

“I thought you had taken off,” she said.

“No, I had to come out here and throw up,” I snorted. I couldn’t help it. Despite my adult memories, I was reacting like a 13-year-old kid. Reacting the way I did the first time. I was ashamed and humiliated, and I felt the old self-loathing creeping back in. “Maybe I should just go home, though. You don’t want to be seen with me after this.”

She looked right into my eyes. “Eddie, listen to me. You were attacked. He sucker-punched you. You didn’t see it coming and had no chance to defend yourself. And everybody in that room knows it. Nobody thinks worse of you. In a fair fight, you’d probably take him. After all that weightlifting, you’re stronger than he is.”

“I see what you’re saying, but I can’t help it. It just feels like before. And having it happen in front of you makes it worse. Jeez, I bled all over your shirt.”

She actually giggled! “A badge of honor, I’d say.”

I just shook my head in wonder. “You are something else.”

“I am, aren’t I?” she giggled.

Just then, Sara’s mother came out of the house. “Are you OK?” she asked, coming out to us on the lawn.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I threw up in your rose bushes.”

“Better there than on the couch,” she laughed. She came over and looked at me. “Eddie, you might want to go to the hospital. Your nose might be broken.”

“I agree,” Kara said. “We can either call your mother, or go fetch mine.”

“Mine’s working--at the hospital, as a matter of fact.”

“Then we’ll walk over to my house and have my mom bring us up,” Kara said.

Just then, Don came out, ‘escorted’ by Steve and Patrick, who were holding him by the arms. Don was plainly not happy, and was trying to get out of the grasp of the other two, who weren’t letting it happen.

 “Hey, Ed,” Patrick said, “before we get him out of here, you want a free shot?”

“No,” I said, looking at him in disgust. “I do not sucker-punch.” Patrick and Steve looked at me with approval. “I’ll tell you one thing, Nixon--if that little stunt was designed to get Kara back, then you don’t know Kara at all. If you ever had a chance--which you didn’t--you just destroyed it. She’s not impressed at all.”

“Damn right,” Kara agreed. 

“What are you doing with him?” I asked the guys.

“We’re taking him to my house and his mother’s gonna get him there,” Steve said. “And, she’s not happy!” They went off up the street with him. 

“Come on,” Kara said, and pulled me up by my hands. We started in the other direction, towards her house. Her mom drove me to the hospital, where they checked me out. Luckily, the nose wasn’t broken, just messed up. Kara’s mom drove me home after we talked to mine.

Kara held my hand and stroked my shoulder the whole time, and kissed me goodnight--right in front of her mom! That helped a lot, but I was still shaky when I went to bed.

MARCH 20th, 1978

The worst part of Monday morning were the constant “What happened to you?” questions. Most of them I shrugged off. I told people like Beth and Stan, though.

At lunch, Kara was waiting for me. “Will you come eat with me?” she asked.

“I suppose,” I said.

“You don’t want to eat with my friends.”

“I’m not thrilled with it,” I admitted.

“I think it’ll be fine, but, I’ve never eaten with your friends. So we can do that today if you want. Who do you eat with?”

“Stan Murvetsin. His pals Carl Morello and Rob Singleman. Sometimes Beth, and her best girlfriend Kerry Coombs join us.”

“Sound good,” she said, and I led her over to my ‘usual’ table. Those people, including Beth and Kerry, were already there.

“Hey, you guys know Kara, right?” I introduced her to those that didn’t.

Just as we settled in our seats, we had another visitor, Michelle Pepper. “You guys mind if I sit here? I usually eat with Chris Seneca, but she’s out today.” We welcomed her along.

Shortly on her heels came the Cullinane twins and Danica Rosen. “So this is where you guys are hiding!” Kelly said to Kara and I. “We’re gonna join you.”

“Please,” Danica said. “I can’t stand to watch Sara over there going all goo goo over Don Nixon. And Bob getting Don to talk about how he clobbered Eddie. Yeah, by sucker-punching him. How’s your face?” she asked me.

“Ugly as ever,” I joked. “Nah, it’s OK. It hurts some, but it’s OK.”

“What are you going to do about Don?” Kelly asked me.

“Not a thing. I don’t have to. You see, when we leave the lunchroom, we have to walk right by his table. I’ll just walk right by him, holding Kara’s hand. That’s all the revenge I need.”

“Eddie might have lost the battle--like you said, Dani, only from a sucker punch--but he won the war some time ago,” Kara said with a grin.

“Plus,” I added to Dani and the Cullinanes, “the three of you. You all used to be friends. He might have impressed some of them, but he pissed the three of you off. He’s grasping at straws, and he knows it. I don’t have to do a thing to him.”

“Sometimes, you’re too classy,” Beth put in.

“Hey. I know what’s important. Well, I’m learning, anyway. How are you doing?”

“I’m a little shaky today. Every few months, I have to go in for a little refresher dose of the chemo. Milder than the first batch, but it still makes me a little sick. I had it Friday.”

“Yeah, I thought you looked a little pale,” I joked. Beth blinked, and then cracked up laughing. You have to understand, Beth was Sicilian. She was one of the darkest white people you’ll ever see in your life. 

“A little pale?” she sputtered. “Even if such a thing were possible, how would you ever notice?”

“You went from mocha to café au lait?” I said. That just made her laugh harder. 

I noticed a few people looking at this conversation with interest. A few people--Kara and Kelly mostly, and Beth’s friend Kerry, of course--knew, but most of the people here didn’t. 

Danica finally asked. “Chemo?”

As I said, Beth didn’t keep it a secret. “I have leukemia,” she said simply.

“Oh,” Danica said.

“I’m in remission at the moment,” Beth went on. “They give me little chemo boosts to keep me there, as long as I can.” After that sobering little thought, the conversation changed to other subjects.

At one point, we were discussing Kara’s relationship with me. “You know what’s funny?” Beth asked. “I’ve been Eddie’s best friend since infancy. I’ve had to listen to him blabber about Kara for two years. And when they finally start going out, does he tell me? NO! I had to hear about it from Kara!”

“Well, she wanted it kept a secret,” I said.

“Not from Beth, you big goof,” Kara teased. “Hell, Kelly knew.”

“You’re hopeless,” Beth said to me, laughing. “You’d better watch out for him, Kara, he’s completely hopeless.”

“I keep him in line. It’s a job, but someone has to do it,” Kara teased.

“If you’ll all excuse me,” I said in mock-indignation, “I’m going to crawl under the table until you’re finished.”

“I wouldn’t,” Stan interjected. “Kara will probably make you kiss her toes.”

“Hmm, that’s an idea,” Kara purred.

“Oh, thanks, Murvetsin. You’ll get yours.”

“Well, that could be fun,” Stan mused. “Depends on who I’m gonna get mine from.”

“I vote for Michelle,” I said, pointing at her. She blushed bright red. Hmmm, what was going on there?

Stan chuckled. “The Sarge? I’ll kiss her toes any day.” Michelle really blushed at that!

“Sarge?” Kelly asked.

“This is what happens when your last name is Pepper and you get stuck in an English class with two Beatles freaks,” Michelle said, bemused. “You get renamed Sergeant Pepper.”

“Does that make the rest of us the Lonely Hearts Club Band?” Danica joked.

“Yes,” Stan said. “Well, except for those two,” he joked, pointing at Kara and me. 

This started a trend, and a welcome one. That group of people ate lunch together for the rest of eighth grade, most days. After a week or so, Steve McCauley joined us, too. It was great. I felt like, besides the greatest girlfriend in the world, I had a good group of friends. It was a very welcome development.