A CROSS TO BEAR
Hayden and Shelly were a mismatched pair from the moment they met. Shelly always described it as the result of a comet strike on a planet. The matter from both was cosmically fused together for eternity. Hayden concurred, but sometimes it was accompanied by a sorrowful melancholy.
They met when they literally bumped into each other in the campus quadrangle as both were rushing to get to their next class. They apologized to each other quickly so they could continue on to their respective destinations. They soon realized they were heading to the same first-year English class all new students were required to take in their initial semester at the local state college.
They were never apart from each other for the rest of their lives. Well mostly, never apart. Their friends and later their families could only shake their collective heads in amazement that the two of them hadn't killed each other. They had absolutely nothing in common. Hayden was a quiet introvert. He was one of those rare individuals who could be lonely in a crowded room and joyfully fulfilled while alone reading a book in his dormitory room.
Shelly, on the other hand, constantly needed to be around people, exciting people. She fed off their energy. When alone, she became morose, and uncertain. Shelly always felt the creative spark she experienced when surrounded by imaginative creative individuals was life-affirming. It was a similar sensation to the white-hot sexual flame she experienced while having sex.
Hayden proposed at the end of their junior year. Well, to be fair, Shelly proposed to Hayden, but neither had any doubts as to where they were headed together. They agreed to wait until after graduation to marry. Although it was a bit 'old fashioned,' they felt it was a good idea to live separately until after they married. They maintained their own dorm rooms until they finished school. Of course, Hayden and Shelly would have been lying if they said they never spent the night in one another's room. Their needs were no different than most twenty-one-year-olds in that respect.
Because of their different personality types, they tended to have separate groups of friends and study group members. Both were very comfortable with the situation. Early in their senior year, however, an incident occurred that angered and disturbed Hayden tremendously.
One warm evening as Hayden was returning from an off-campus study group session, he heard a familiar flirty giggle from one of the sidewalk cafes surrounding the campus. It was funny how he could pick her laugh out of the loud cacophony of integrated noises synonymous with the area. He was detail-oriented but never very intuitive until now. He sensed that, at this moment, her girlish laughter wasn't a good thing.
Everyone knows that when you are twenty-one, you think you already know everything you need to know about life and the world you live in. And, when you are forty, you realize that you didn't know shit when you were twenty-one. But Hayden hadn't been forty yet, so seeing Shelly sitting between two pretty boy types as he would describe them, shamelessly flirting, was a shock that caused him a momentary paralysis.
Hell, she wasn't just flirting with them. Each of the Adonis-type schmucks had a hand on one of her breasts kneading them gently under her regularly braless blouse. Her breasts were on the full side, and it was a constant source of irritation to Hayden that she refused to wear a bra. The braless look was still in vogue in those days, especially on college campuses, so it was not that outlandish, but it still bothered him. When he first questioned her habit, she told him she liked the way it felt. He told her, she was going to make the entire male population of the campus cross-eyed. She just laughed and told him, "Good!"
Shelly's hands were below the table, one in each lap of the boys he didn't recognize. Because of the darkness, and the angle of his vision, he couldn't really see what she was doing. But based on the motion of her arms, and the looks of euphoria on the dumbshits' faces, He knew.
It is rare when someone recognizes the significance of a life-altering moment in real-time. It's easy to look back and spot those scenarios, but it's not when you are living in the moment. Hayden did, however, once he overcame the shock of what he was seeing. So, without a further moment of indecision about confronting her, Hayden headed straight for the amorous threesome.
He grabbed an empty chair and dragged it behind him, at least he thought it was empty, on his way to their table. He had actually reached them before any of the three saw him. He sat down noisily as the legs of the metal chair annoyingly scraped on the cobblestone surface. "Hey, Shell. Are you going to introduce me to your friends?" All three were startled. It was the trio's turn to freeze up. Despite his anger Hayden thought it was comical that the three lover's jaws dropped open simultaneously, in a Three Stooges-like parody.
Their brains were having difficulty processing what was happening, so the scumbags' hands remained frozen on Shelly's breasts, as did her's, on their dicks. Shelly returned to consciousness first and hastily removed her hands from their crotches, and viciously slapped the offending hands of her stunned lovers away from her breasts. Hayden noticed that her engagement ring was missing from her hand.
"Ah, hi, ah, Hayden...W-w-what are you doing here?" She winced at the stupidity of her question.
"Oh, I just thought I'd stop by and say hi to my fiancée." He glared into the eyes of her playmates. The faces of the Romeos, who by now knew they weren't getting laid this evening, had registered shock at his pronouncement. It was obvious to Hayden that neither of them knew she was engaged. He filed that insight away for the time being. It was an illuminating moment, so he switched his intentions.
"Well, I can see you're busy, Shell, so I'll leave you to get back to your fun." Hayden left without further comment nor having looked back. He thought he heard Shelly yell out. "Wait, Hayden, please!" He never slowed down.
Hayden, not being very sophisticated in matters of the heart, specifically the breaking up part, managed to avoid Shelly for all of about forty-five minutes before she pounced on him. She literally did pounce on him, like a lioness on a gazelle. Her tackle would have made Dick Butkus proud. She actually knocked Hayden to the ground just as he got up from the park bench, he had plopped himself onto about thirty minutes prior.
It had taken Hayden ten minutes to angrily walk from the bistro to his dorm building. But rather than go inside, he sat on the bench next to the entry and tried to make some sense of what had just happened. He truly didn't know what to do next. He just knew his life as he understood it was over. His thoughts ranged from how he could have been so wrong about Shelly, to whether it was somehow his fault? His emotions vacillated between rage and sorrow, to melancholy and despondency, then back to rage and sorrow. He had just settled on sorrow when he was struck by Hurricane Shelly.
The astonished Hayden could only lie on his back as his hysterical ex-fiancée tried to beg his forgiveness. Her rationales fired from her lips like a machine gun. "I'm so dumb, I don't deserve to live...I've known those guys for several years...I had too much to drink...I'm so sorry...I would never cheat on you...You know what a receptive person I am..." There were a lot more I'm sorry, please forgive me, and I love you so much's, thrown in there, but her rapid-fire manner of speech made it all blend together in an incoherent stream.
Hayden needed to free himself before he drowned in Shelly's bodily fluids that were splashing onto his face. It was a mixture of tears, spittle, and snot dripping from her nose that he had to keep brushing off his face in order to save himself. When she finally wound herself down, Hayden made the mistake of suggesting they go to his room as they were becoming a public spectacle.
Shelly agreed, and within five of minutes being inside, they were naked on Hayden's bed and making love. Once she had time to catch her breath, Shelly's usual whispers of affection and moans of pleasure were quickly replaced with a broken record of, "I'm so, so sorry...I can't live without you...please forgive me. To Hayden, these words seemed extraneous, given the fact that he was as much involved in their lovemaking as was Shelly.
When they both had finished and calmed significantly, Hayden asked, what to him seemed a simple but particularly important question. "Shell, how is it that the guys you were with tonight, your very good and long-time friends, were unaware that you were engaged?" That set off another fifteen-minute stream of variously worded and frenzied mea culpas from Shelly.
There was two things Hayden was sure of at that point. First, Shelly would never be able to lie to him, and second, she'd be a terrible poker player.
After she once again composed herself, Shelly gripped him even tighter. It was a normal occurrence after a round of lovemaking that Shelly would hold him. Typically, Hayden would be on his back while Shelly draped her nude frame across his right side. Her leg would be thrown over his torso, thus effectively pinning him to the bed. They would usually awaken in the morning in this same position. Both would be in desperate need of the bathroom.
However, in this case instead of falling asleep, Shelly spoke to Hayden from deep within. "Honey, you complete me. I didn't know what love was until I met you. I couldn't live without you." She was teary-eyed and intermittently sniffling, but coherent. "I promise you every person I have ever come across in my life will know I am engaged to you by tomorrow night. And, they will know that you are the center of my universe. I promise." She made the 'cross my heart' sign across her chest as she spoke the words causing Hayden to smile at her sincerity.
"I know I did a terrible thing. I wouldn't have cheated, but I know what I was doing was way out of line." She was up on her elbows, staring intently into Hayden's eyes as she continued. "I won't make excuses for what I've done. As you know, I'm very tactile and I guess I let things get out of hand. I wouldn't trade one session of our lovemaking, for a hundred white-hot sexual encounters. They pale in comparison to what we share. I used to think I needed the excitement that sex provides me until we made love.
"But, Hayden, there is something you have to understand. Being married to me will be complicated. Just because we get married doesn't mean I am going to lose who I am. Ours will not be an Ozzie & Harriet life. I will have my own career. I will need my own friends around me. Don't worry, it isn't a bad thing. I will be devoted to you, but that doesn't mean it won't be sometimes trying for you. Our life together will be filled with excitement and passion. But, But because I am not perfect, we will have our fights and disagreements. I'm sure you will be disappointed with me on occasion, but I promise you, it will never be boring."
Whether it was his inexperience or just exhaustion on Hayden's part, he missed the significance of Shelly's last statement. They didn't speak of the incident again. It was like it never happened.
They graduated, married, found jobs, and settled into their careers. To Hayden, it seemed odd that one's first trimester of their adulthood could be summed up in a single sentence, but it was nonetheless true. Hayden progressed within the field he had chosen that fit his personality. He was the newly promoted Senior Logistics Manager for Twin Falls Transportation. Shelly, a Creative Design Manager for Eagle Graphics, Inc. Hayden was surrounded by facts, figures, and solutions. Shelly by strong creative personalities and opportunities.
For all intents and purposes, they were leading a normal middle-class life indistinguishable from millions of others.
One time, after a few pleasant years of marriage for the odd couple, Hayden's confused parents, being the very direct individuals they were, asked the two of them what they saw in each other. Not unexpectedly, they gave completely opposite explanations. However, upon hearing them, Hayden's parents understood. It gave them an uneasy feeling, but they understood.
Hayden told them that Shelly drew him out of his carefully constructed and rigid world. He felt emotions that he never had. He admitted that her powerful personality sometimes intimidated him. But, at the same time, it challenged him to experience life more spontaneously and meaningfully.
Shelly said Hayden grounded her. No one ever had that effect on her before. Without being graphic, Shelly explained to his parents that when they made love for the first time, she had never felt so warm, safe, and wanted, in her whole life. And those feelings had compounded every time they were together since. She laughed and said he was like 'Crack' to her.
It was during that same conversation Hayden's parents asked them about grandchildren for the first time.
IN THE FAMILY WAY
Hayden and Shelly wanted desperately to have a family, but they felt it was better to wait until both were settled into their careers. They began to talk more earnestly about having a family after the conversation with Hayden's parents. But it was still a couple of more years when they reached their mid-thirties before Shelly and Hayden actively tried to have babies. After over a year of trying, and despite Shelly's tireless research being put into practice, they still weren't pregnant. Frankly, Hayden was exhausted, both physically and mentally.
