Roy and Joni (Chapter 11)

                      NOTICE: Mild Sexual Reference in This Chapter                       

                              Please Read Previous Chapters First

When their order came, Joni picked at her food and thought and rethought how to best tell some very personal and unpleasant things to Roy. Joni didn’t know exactly how to tell Roy about her painful past experiences. Besides, no one on the first date ever does that---but she felt she had to make sure Roy knew some very important things about her. She really liked this country bumpkin.

“Roy, I must tell you some things about my background and what I have experienced.”

“Sure, I’ll just be a good listener.”

Joni thought to herself how naive Roy was. He might stop her before she finished. He might just take her home and never date her again. He might do a lot of things; however, she felt compelled to tell him the truth.

“My mother is on husband number four and she has had more “uncles” spend a night or two with us than I care to remember. I don’t like the things my mother has done; but I still love her and guess I will always love her.”

“Joni, how does that affect us?”

“Well, most of the boys I grew up with knew about my home life and figured ‘like mother, like daughter’ and some tried to push me to do things I didn’t want to do.”

“What do mean Joni?”

“I have had many dates and a few of the boys wanted me to go all the way with them. I swear Roy I never did. I must be honest and tell you I was close, very close on one occasion. This is hard for me tell you about it and maybe even harder for you to hear.”

“I promise not to interrupt, go on Joni.”

“After high school, a very close classmate married and moved away and a year later had a baby and she invited me to come visit her and see her baby. I was dating a boy then who was more than just a friend. I thought I really loved him. Anyway, I told him about the trip and he and I cooked up a plan to make the trip a very, very special trip.”

“How?”

“I told my mother and he told his parents I would stay overnight at my classmate’s home and my boyfriend would stay at a nearby motel. It was a big lie. We planned to spend the night together at the motel. Please Roy, you’ve got to hear the rest.”

“Go on, I guess.”

“We stayed the afternoon at my friend’s home, had supper, and started for the motel he had earlier arranged while I went shopping for a baby gift with my friend. On the way to the motel, I just couldn’t go through with it and told my boyfriend I did not want to turn out like my mother. He became very mad and called me some very bad names. I asked him to loan me some money to rent a separate room because I had spent all of my money on a nice gift for the baby. He refused and said I could sleep in the car or in his motel room. It was very cold and I asked if his room had two beds. He said it did. Once in the room, he tried again to convince me to stick with our original plan. I refused. I slept in one of the beds by myself with my clothes on. He got super mad because I cried for a long, long time. The next morning we drove home without saying a word to each other. We never dated again.  Roy, I saved the worst for the last. Sure you want to hear it?”

“How could it be any worse? Go ahead.”

“The boyfriend was your close friend, Larry.”

Silence comes in various types and sizes. There is a temporary silence experienced by a child who discovers his favorite toy has been left in the backyard overnight and mom was certain to get mad. There is silence produced when a high school teenager is asked to name three of our country’s major Founders. There is special silence when a new father holds his infant son for the first time.

The silence that followed Joni’s painful account was filled with Roy’s non-verbal shock, anger and disbelief. Joni’s silence was a mixture of fear for what Roy might think and do; however, there was a certain relief because her emotional cyst had been finally lanced. She had never told anyone about her nightmare before tonight.

Roy started slowly shaking his head and opened his mouth and nothing came out. Joni grabbed his right hand and squeezed it like she was about to fall from the roof of a very tall building.

Roy started, “I…. I…. I’m not… I’m not sure what I am supposed to say.”

“Roy, just say something, anything, just say something, please!”

“I feel like I’ve been…. I’ve been shot in my guts with a shotgun, a double barrel shotgun!”

“Roy, I’m so sorry. Please believe me, I’m very, very sorry,” cried the sobbing Joni.

“I’ll worry about Larry later; right now I’m hurting for you,” as Roy squeezed Joni’s hand to emphasize the depth of his concern.

More silence followed---a meditative kind of silence engulfed both of these hurting young adults.

                                            To be continued………