Author: Tarabeth
Characters: TJ & Katie, Jaime
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Monday Continued
I had lunch at the Saturn, where a cute girl with green spiky hair slipped me her number. She must have seen me driving the Jaguar.
One of my most favorite memories with TJ is a day we spent in Carmel, walking along the shore hand in hand at sunset.
I finished lunch and decided that a walk on the beach would help to settle my mood. I wasn’t in the mood for one of the Santa Cruz beaches. So Carmel it would be.
I walked back to car, opened the glove compartment and removed the scarf that TJ kept there to keep her hair out of her eyes.
I am much more the baseball cap type, but today I wanted to smell her, so I put her scarf on, popped her CD into the player and off I was, cruising down the coast on Highway 1.
I was just out of Watsonville, singing along with TJ, cruising at a comfortable 85 miles per hour, when I noticed the flashing red, yellow, and blue California Highway Patrol siren in the rearview mirror.
FUCK!!!!
I pulled over to the side of the road and began to reach into the glove compartment for the car’s registration, when I heard a booming voice, a familiar sounding booming voice. ‘Oh, thank you god in heaven,’ I thought.
“Place your hands on the steering wheel!” The voice boomed.
What the fuck was his problem, I rolled my eyes and continued to reach for the cars registration.
“PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE STEERING WHEEL, NOW!” The voice boomed a second time.
Oh, crap maybe he doesn’t realize it’s me, I doubt he knows TJ’s car well enough to recognize it; we usually take the jeep places. I placed my hands on the steering wheel and waited for him to approach the car.
I watched as he approached the passenger side of the car with his hand draped over her gun. This was actually kind of humorous, although I was starting to think he wouldn’t see it that way.
He leaned down peered at me from the passenger side of the car.
I turned towards him and smiled.
He released his tense CHP officer pose, but quickly assumed a tense Top pose.
FUCK!
“Open the door,” Jaime growled.
I unlocked the door. “Hi, Jame,” I smiled again, but this time I also batted my eyelashes.
He let out a laugh, “Katie it has been years since that worked on me, and besides Leo does a much better ‘take pity on me’ eyelash batting.”
I blew a raspberry at him. “You used to be very taken by my eyelash batting,” I informed him.
“I also used to think I liked girls,” he replied back, still wearing a large grin.
“No, you only liked gay girls. You had the liking of gay people right; you were just liking the wrong sex gay people,” I told him.
He let out his strong deep laugh and opened the door, sat down in the passenger seat, took out his ticket pad and started writing.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a panic.
“Writing you a ticket. You were doing 85 in a 50,” he answered, a little to matter of factly for my comfort.
“But, what is the fucking benefit of having a friend who is a CHP officer if you can’t get away with a warning?” I huffed.
“To answer all of your questions during CSI,” he answered with a wink.
It wasn’t cute.
“Hey, what are you doing in my part of the world anyway? Shouldn’t you be at work?” He asked.
“None of your business. Just give me the ticket and go away!” I snapped at him.
Jamie put his hand on my thigh as if trying to comfort me. “Hey, Honey, I just want you to be safe. If I let you off with a warning, you are just going to keep on speeding. This ticket may make you think twice before you do it again,” he said with another wink, knowing full well that the ticket would not be the only thing to make me think twice about speeding again.
I could feel the tears trying frantically to burst out, but I really wasn’t in the mood for comfort from him right now. I pushed his hand off of my lap and held my hand out, “Ticket please.”
He tore off the ticket and handed it to me.
$635! I was dead.
“Thanks, can you get out of my car now,” I told him.
“Whose car?” He asked, “Does she know you’re driving it?”
“Goodbye,” I responded.
“Take care of yourself, if you are having a hard time without TJ, call her,” He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “See you for Verge’s birthday dinner on Friday,” he said, and then exited the car.
I pulled back onto the highway and decided to drive home instead of going to Carmel.
I was full of nervous energy when I got home; I couldn’t stand being alone in the house, so I decided to go for a run. I drove down to Central Park to do laps around the duck pond.
I was on my third or forth lap when it happened; it was his emerging from the bushes that triggered me.
I am not exactly sure how to explain a flashback. There are probably some things that are similar for different people who experience them, but they also seem like such a personal and surreal event that it’s difficult to imagine anyone else experiencing or understanding it.
I know there is the classic tale of the veteran who comes home from war and is triggered by a car backfiring. He falls to the ground to get away from oncoming gunfire and feels as if he were back on a battlefield.
My flashbacks are different than that. I feel like someone is showing a movie of the rape, or a particular incident of the rape, in front of my eyes. It shows up transparent over what I am actually visualizing. I can sometimes hear the sounds of both this odd film and what is taking place in front of me. It is often only a flash, but sometimes longer.
I am not sure if this is the same experience I had when I first experienced the flashbacks. I’ve had a lot of therapy since then, and they aren’t as powerful or as scary as they once were, but they still carry negative energy and are pretty exhausting.
Years ago, experiencing this would have caused me to vomit on the spot and I wouldn’t be able to sleep for days or possibly longer. Today, I was just a little queasy, but it did rock my safety. I decided the best thing to do was to cut the run short and go home.
I had my cell phone with me when I was running, and it was turned on, but it was in my pocket and I didn’t hear it go off. It buzzed at me in the car, indicating that I had a message. It was from TJ; she had arrived safely back in Boston and was just calling to let me know. She said she would call me later, if I didn’t call her first.
When I got home, I decided it was probably best for me to call her.
She answered, “Hi Baby, how was your day?”
“Okay, fine,” I answered. “I was really tired after I dropped you off at the airport, so I called in sick to work. I thought it might be best if I just rested today.” See there, I told her I called in sick.
“Are you sure you are feeling okay, not to sad?” She asked.
“No, I’m fine, it was just a long weekend,” I said, adding a bit of sexiness to my voice, trying to indicate why I was tired.
TJ gave a little laugh. “I thought you had a big report due to Chris today,” she stated.
“Yeah, I did, but we talked, it’s fine, I’ll finish it tomorrow and then on Thursday I’m going to help him compile everything before he sends it off to the State on Friday,” I told her. See again, not a lie, I’m keeping her informed about everything that happened.
“Oh, that is really nice of you.”
“It’s nothing,” I told her.
“Did you get up to anything else today?” She asked.
Okay, this was the true test of my courage and truth telling. “Nope, I just rested mostly. I did go for a run,” I said. Hmmm, failed that one big time.
Well I am sure there will be other instances in the next six weeks to bring up the piercing and ticket.
Oh, and she would probably want to know about the flashback.
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Copyright TBL 2008
