Kerry’s other friends and I had been touching base with each other about how Kerry was doing and coordinating the best way to support her through this difficult time in her life. It was through one of these friends that I found out that Josh had lied.
There was no other girl. Josh had made up the desire to be with a different girl as a way to make himself into a villain and make a clean break. He knew that if he explained the truth that he was simply not committed to his relationship with Kerry, the break-up process would have taken more effort and possibly been more prolonged. Not only did he lack the guts to break-up with her in person, but also he lied in the process.
I felt a whole different kind of anger in that moment. A couple hours later, I saw him at the frat house and I couldn’t hold in the heat I felt towards him. I told him what I knew, and I let him have it all over again. Here’s the thing, in all of the other times when I had been mad at Josh, he had just taken my anger and absorbed it. This time he had enough. He put his hand up and told me to stop.
“What the hell was I suppose to do?” he pleaded to me. “You know Kerry, do you think it would have really been better if I had driven out there to her internship and had a drag out conversation that would have lasted hours? Would it really have been better if she heard that it wasn’t some other girl, that it was her and that I was simply tired of being with her?”
“Well, it would have been the truth,” I replied as I left the frat house.
Walking outside in the quad, I realized that Josh tried to break up with her in the nicest way possible. Intention isn’t everything but it counts for something. What was between Josh and Kerry was between them, but what Josh did affected the relationships he had with Kerry’s friends, like myself. It was up to me what they meant.
From then on, I never mentioned Kerry to Josh ever again. I didn’t go out of the way to be nice to him, but I wasn’t rude either. He could be that jerk who lied and broke-up with one of my best friends and he could be a frat brother that I treated with basic civility. It wasn’t an easy tension, but it was what I would come to learn understand as what it meant to have grown-up relationships.
Late in the school year during a quiet moment in a fraternity cookout, Josh asked me how Kerry was doing. This caught me by surprise, but I quickly had ready in my mind a sarcastic and mean comment, but when I looked over to him and saw a soft, caring look in his eyes. Instead of telling him how much of a jerk he was for what he did, I told him the truth.
“Kerry is doing great, her internship went really well, and she’s got some cool things lined up for the summer.” Josh replied, “That’s great, I’m glad to hear that, and I’m happy she has a friend like you.” I smiled at him, and we sat for a moment in the late spring sunlight in silence.
I think of Kerry whenever I listen to country music. She was into Brad Paisley and Tim McCraw and her interest opened me up to the world of country music I now love. I think Kerry whenever any of my female students speak their mind and prove as Kerry did that a woman can be tough. And I think of Kerry in my moments of doubt as a member of the chorus of people who believe in me and never gave up on me resonate deep within my soul.
No comments:
Post a Comment