Still Waters

Chapter 56

It was almost a year before I saw Kenney again. I never got to say good-bye to him before he moved, but it was probably for the best. Like I said, my emotions were all over the place and I was too wide open to be around Kenney right then. Especially knowing that he had the types of feelings for me that he did. My own feelings were mixed in with a whole lot of...other stuff at the time, and his feelings had always been very direct and to the point. He and I together, in person, at that stage in our lives would have been...heartbreak part two. No question about it. He would have gotten reeled right back in like he always did, and I refused to do that to him this time.

I spoke to Collin a few times briefly over the phone after Sammie and I left, and every time we spoke it made me remember how much I needed to...pull it together. I was like sugar all over the floor, and no matter how much I tried to sweep myself up, there was always still more of me somewhere out there that I missed.

I'll never forget the first conversation that we had where I didn't feel that way. I hung up with Collin feeling like he was my daughter's father, and like he damn sure did not need to be around her anytime soon. And that was it. That's all I felt. I hung up and went right back to what I was doing. No tears, no wishes, no fighting myself not to call him right back because I hated when he hung up. No...nothing. Just business as usual. His phone call created not one ripple in my day. Not one.

It was liberating.

I told Jasmine about it the next time I saw her. She just nodded thoughtfully and said "That's good, little sister. Every day gets a little bit easier."

Unless something needed to be said, that was pretty much all you were ever going to get out of Aunt Jasmine anyway. It must have driven Mike crazy how little she said, as much as he liked to talk. She was so much like Kenney it was unreal.

It turned out that Jasmine didn't just have "Power to the People" meetings, as Kenney liked to call them. She also had the women's group that Shayna and I had gone to that one night, and that I ended up sitting in on a lot after I left Collin. I can't tell you how much those ladies helped me get my stuff together...which is also how I ended up going to church more often. My faith did a 180 after seeing Shayna and Drama in action. I mean...wow. I had never seen anything like that before. What a blessing to have two people with such strong faith find each other early on and help each other make it through this psychotic thing called life. Too bad Collin and I couldn't get it together enough to help each other make our way through, too.

Such is life. I digress...

The group that Jasmine invited me to that I absolutely adored the most was a group of teenage girls that were pretty much trying to find their way through life, just like I was at that time. Only, I should have had my head on straighter by then, and probably would have, if I wasn't so busy being love sick and stupid. That's pretty much why I thought she picked the worst choice when she chose me to be a mentor to a bunch of hormone driven girls. But, according to her, that's exactly why she thought I was the perfect fit. Because I got it. I knew exactly what they were talking about

I don't know about the perfect fit, but the girls really did take to me, and could relate to my story a lot. The part of the story that I chose to tell them. It was probably because I wasn't too much older than they were, and honestly wasn't so far removed from their way of thinking to not remember exactly why I would have thought that very same way. The beauty of life, though, was that I was now at least able to step back and see the bigger picture. Not just the small part that the girls were usually focused on.