Junior Year Box Set

Today was Labor Day, so I didn’t have anything I had to do. Tami had been shocked by my revelation last night that I was no longer in love with her, and for the first time in my life, she didn’t have anything to say. She’d left me so I could get back to sleep. I woke up to daylight and went downstairs, looking for my uncle. He and I had to have a talk. I found Aunt Bonnie.

“You want some breakfast?”

“Where’s my uncle?”

She gave me a tight smile.

“Check the south forty. John said something about a float not working on one of the watering stations,” she said.

I walked out to the barn, found the spare four-wheeler and drove to the water station to locate my uncle. He was covered in mud. It looked like the float hadn’t turned off when the trough was full. The system wasn’t complicated, but when it overflowed, it could be hours before you found the problem. Uncle John had a virtual lake he had to wade through to get to the broken part. He heard me pull up and held up his hands in surrender.

“I didn’t call her,” he said in the way of a greeting.

“I thought what we talked about would stay between you and me.”

“David, you know our family. You can’t honestly think I would keep what you told me from your father. Just like if Nate, Mac, or Kyle told you something that you felt Greg needed to know. You’d tell your brother.”

I hadn’t thought of it in those terms. I was suddenly worried about everything I’d told Uncle John the summer I’d stayed with him. I pushed that aside when I realized that if he had told my dad everything, there was nothing I could do about it. If my dad knew all the details about my drug use, he hadn’t brought it up.

“Then who told her?” I asked.

“I would think that was obvious.”

He was right. It had to be my mom. Mom was closer to Tami than she was to me, right now (again). We’d had some heated discussions about that very topic. I just added it to the list of issues I had with my mom at the moment. From time to time, I wished I could cut her out of my life like I could Alan and Tami, but you didn’t get to pick your family. If Mom felt my reaction was unjust, then she didn’t even care how much Tami had hurt me. Intellectually, I could see what happened. The problem was, this wasn’t some intellectual exercise. I wasn’t sure if it was a defense mechanism or not, but I had become numb as far as Tami was concerned. What I’d said last night was the truth: I was no longer in love with her, regardless of whether it was a misunderstanding or not.

We always have a choice in how we handle things. That was something I had learned during my summer on the farm. I could wallow in my self-doubt, and howl at the moon about what Alan and Tami had done, or choose to put it behind me. While they had been my best friends since, well, since essentially forever, they had shown by their actions that our relationship had changed. They’d both known how I would react. The capper was to do it in my bed, so to speak. I understood the heat of the moment and alcohol being involved, but it was still no excuse. Every fiber of my being told me to stop this line of thinking or I would beat the cowboy shit out of Alan the next time I saw him. I would have to warn Tami because I didn’t need him going on and on about it the next time he saw me.

“Your parents are coming home today,” Uncle John said to pull me back from my dark thoughts.

My phone ringing interrupted our conversation. It was Brandon, another person I wasn’t too pleased with.

“Northwestern called and wondered if you’d come back and work out today. I told them I’d ask. They’re very serious about you going there.”

Even though I really didn’t want to, I had made a commitment to them to visit. Something that sucked about being a man of your word was you sometimes had to do things you didn’t want to.

“Set it up. It’ll take me a couple of hours to get there.”

“I’ll meet you there. I think we need to clear the air as well,” Brandon said.

“I agree. Talk to you later.”

I took a moment to clear my mind and then drove back to the house. Aunt Bonnie had a big steak and scrambled eggs waiting for me. Angus beef is, in my opinion, the best around. I was halfway through with my breakfast when Tami reappeared. She looked better, but she had a hard time looking me in the eye. We ate in silence while Aunt Bonnie made herself scarce. Finally, Tami had to say something; she knew I wasn’t about to start the conversation.

“I’m at a loss as to how to fix this. I don’t know why it happened, and I don’t think you really care if we had sex or not.”

“No, it really doesn’t matter. I get that you didn’t do it to hurt me, but it happened.”

“Did you take my promise ring?” she asked.

I just nodded.

“Since you said you’re no longer in love with me, can I have the ring back?” she asked.

I pulled it out of my pocket and let it clatter on the table.

“Tami, the ring no longer means anything to me. Do with it what you want.”