Feels Like the First Time

Feels Like The First Time

A True Love Story

By Shawn Inmon

©2012 by
Shawn Inmon

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Linda Boulanger

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Published by Pertime Publishing

Also available in paperback format

For Terri Lee, my sister and friend

on both sides of life’s curtain.

This is a True Story

Prologue

February 10
^th
, 1979

Dawn was at the side of the room, crying softly. I didn’t want to see her tears, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. I knew I might never see her again.

I needed to concentrate, but I couldn’t focus. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t slept in two days, or maybe I already knew how this was going to turn out. Either way, I couldn’t follow what everyone was saying.

Dawn looked questioningly at her mom, who nodded her permission. She came and stood behind me, placing her hand on the back of my neck. When I felt her gentle touch, I couldn’t hold my tears back anymore.

I realized it was quiet and everyone was looking at me. I took the wad of bills out of my jeans pocket and laid it on the table.

“I know you’ve told me I can never see Dawn again, but I can’t agree to that. I’ll agree not to see her for three years, but she’ll be eighteen then and she can see me if she wants.”

“Fine,” Colleen said, eyeing me with contempt. It was clear she wasn’t worried about Dawn wanting to see me in the future.

“That’s it then,” I said softly, almost to myself. There was nothing left to say. My composure was completely gone. Hot tears ran down my face, but I didn’t care. This was the moment I had done everything to both cause and avoid. It was possible I might see Dawn again at some future date, but I would never see this Dawn. She was so lovely it broke my heart to look at her.

I went to her and put my hands on her shoulders. I looked deeply into her eyes. I didn’t ask her to wait for me. I was trying to set her free.

“When we can see each other again, if you still love me, I’ll be there for you. I promise I’ll love you just the same.”

She nodded. Her tears streamed down her face and she looked away.

I walked out of her house, across the familiar yard and into the rest of my life.
 

Where True Love Goes

December 1
^st,
2006

It had already been a very long day, but I wasn’t in any hurry to get home to Enumclaw. As I drove north on I-5, I turned the volume up on the CD I had just bought that day–Yusuf Islam’s
An Other Cup.

I was exhausted and unhappy, but that was normal. At 46, I was slowly killing myself by eating too much, not exercising at all, and withdrawing from everyone around me. I didn’t much care if I lived or died.

I had been in my second marriage for five years, but it felt more like a prison than a marriage. The divorce I knew was coming was just another in a long string of failed relationships stretching back thirty years.

Four years earlier, I had told my wife, Adinah, that I didn’t love her.

“You don’t get to do this,” she replied. “If you think it changes anything, it doesn’t.”

And so life went on. I had tried to end our marriage ever since, with no success. I couldn’t find the emotional strength to get it over with and say the magic words:
I want a divorce.

I was still ninety minutes from Enumclaw and realized I was starving when I saw the last Centralia exit in my headlights. I jerked the wheel to the right at the last moment and cut off a gold sedan. I could barely hear the honk of their horn over my music, but I saw the finger, telling me to have a nice day.

I wasn’t sure what food I might find on this exit, but when I pulled off the freeway, I instinctively turned left. Up ahead, I saw a sign that read
Bill & Bea’s.
I hadn’t even known that place was still open. I’d eaten there a lot when I was in high school in the ‘70s but hadn’t been back since I’d moved out of Lewis County.

Without a thought, I eased into the parking lot and got in line behind an old pickup truck. Yusuf Islam–the former Cat Stevens–was singing that he went where his true love goes. I clicked it off because I didn’t particularly feel like listening to that sweet sentiment.

I was beginning to think the folks in the truck in front of me were never going to get their order when they finally pulled away, leaving a blue cloud of exhaust in their wake. I pulled ahead and waited to place my order. The girl at the drive-thru window smiled the way pretty young girls do at safe-looking older men. She took my order and disappeared.

A minute later another woman came to the window and asked me a question, but I didn’t answer. An electric charge started at the top of my head and ran down my spine. My stomach flip-flopped and my hands went slick against the steering wheel.

I gaped at her. There was something about her, but I couldn’t quite grab what it was. Just looking at her made my heart race. She had shoulder-length wavy auburn hair and soft features with brown eyes that jumped out at me. Her face swirled through my memory, but wouldn’t come into focus.

“I just need to know if you want onions on your chicken sandwich,” the woman repeated patiently.

I couldn’t answer. My brain was stuffed with cotton.

“Yes, please,” I finally mumbled. As she walked away, I thought maybe she felt something unusual too, but after a brief pause, she was gone.

Why were fireworks going off in my head? Who was that woman? She was attractive, but I see attractive women every day without acting like a fool. Through the drive-thru window, I could see her standing next to a flattop grill talking to the girl who had initially taken my order. The woman laughed suddenly and a thunderbolt hit me. I had never been able to forget those laughing brown eyes.

Dawn.

I hadn’t seen her in twenty-seven years, but I knew it was her. I watched her slide gracefully between the counter and the grill to pick up an order. My mind wandered through long-buried memories I thought would never resurface.

She had lived for so long only as a memory; it was exhilarating to be this close to her again. As the years and decades passed, I came to believe I would never see her again. I accepted that, and even found odd comfort in the sense of closure. Finding her so unexpectedly sent my head spinning.

She brought the bag with my food. She took my money and handed me change with a tiny smile, but no hint of recognition. I wondered how she could not recognize me. She thanked me and turned away, but I couldn’t let her vanish again.

“Did you go to Mossyrock High School?”

I took my foot off the brake and the car eased forward slightly.

“Yes.”

“Class of ’82?”

“No. ’81.”

Of course that was right. I was terrible at math under pressure. Her dark eyes focused intently through the drive-thru window. She put her hand on her hip and cocked her head slightly to the right, trying to place me.