The Fourteen Years War - 1997 - Volume II

A week or so later, I broke it off with Jeff for the last time. Jeff got drunk and came down to my place crying and weeping, broiling for a fight. It did him no good. Unemotionally, I told him it was finally over. I wouldn’t keep Nate from him but I was moving on. Emotionally, I was clinging to AZ. I needed that stability and encouragement. No one really believed for a while that Jeff and I would stay apart. I believed it. I told AZ one Sunday that one of the reasons I had stayed with Jeff was because I didn’t think anyone else would want me. My body had changed and I referenced my trip to the grocery store. AZ said, "I know you didn’t want to see me and I hoped you had gotten the message. And, I would still press you up against a building anytime." That being a reference to one our trysts in which he had me up against the outside of the radio station, under the tree, the night the train hit a car at the crossing, and the helicopter flew over. He was good for my soul. Nate spent his first Christmas with Jeff’s family that year. Jeff still had something up his sleeve for the coming year. . . but so did I.