The Graveyard of Tears

Cutter's Log - Stardate 2102.71.21
Current Song - Baby Hold On (Eddie Money)

With that ribbon of love - girls I liked at all - fading off to the distance, I wanted to take some time to orbit it a little bit.

Going around it, I spotted a dark void just below it. I knew what this was.

This was the resting place of those I never even looked back at. Those that tried and yearned for my attention all these years. Those girls that I ignored.

I looked at this dark area for a moment, and I had to toss and rip my hair out of my head. I tried to prevent myself from the painful admission that my own desires for those I had crushes on ultimately killed the efforts of those who did like me to make a connection with me. I wanted to prevent this from happening because it meant those I had crushes on were liable for these failures of theirs. I wanted to slap them in the face and say "how dare you hurt them!"

Finally, I had to scream it out ...

"I'M SORRY!!!!"

Knowing full well that those I had admired are now going to turn on me.

I traveled into this dark void to see the damage I had caused and left behind.

The entrance was a black iron gate, similar to a graveyard. It was indeed a graveyard.

I walked in and recognized the names on the stones. With each name, I was able to determine who I may have had my eyes set on otherwise.

The first stone I stopped at and stared at for a long time was the girl that kissed me on the cheek three times in fifth grade (S.C.). No girl had ever kissed me more than once. I didn't see her love because I was blinded by someone else. At that point, I wondered what would have happened if I had gone through with this. I remember making a joke about "a life-or-death decision" during lunch. She had displayed feelings for me, while my mind was on someone else. This girl eventually faded away from my memory as she moved across the river and eventually into the land of "whereabouts unknown."

Next to this stone was another (A.M.). She had been real kind to me in 6th grade, the beginning of one of the darkest times of my school days. She simply fell short of the one I liked at the time. While the passion eventually died out, she still finds it within herself to try to make conversation when we see each other, which is a rare occurance.

Moving on to the next one, this one made my mind go blank for a long time. This was the only time anger had been inflicted toward me in my refusal to look back (A.C.). I simply did not see it coming when word spread of my then-crush announcement. This eventually caused many more people to become angry at me for not taking advantage of this opportunity. Even the girls that I had loved before were angry at me. I did see her crying at one point. All of a sudden there was this fork in the road, and, perhaps, like an idiot, I went the other way. I learned more about this episode many years later, and I think we are both understanding about what happened back then.

One large stone was in the back. I knew who it was. Before visiting it, there was one more.

The final small stone was one that eventually led to my fall from grace in my sophomore year (if the previous occurance hadn't already). I was pushed into starting a relationship with someone who both I didn't know, and didn't really like (A.R.). We just happened to be in the same working capacity at the school. She had just entered the district. My refusal for her, because my eyes were dead set on this one particular girl, had ticked off one too many people. One thing led to another, which led to the ripping of my heart during my junior year. As for this particular girl, I don't think she lasted the year in Sterling and moved away into the land of "whereabouts unknown."

This was the moment that brought me to the darkest time of my life, and eventually how I was able to recover with a little help from my softball friends.

That led me to the largest stone in the yard.

A.L.

She was the only girl that took a chance on me. And I failed to react to it.

***

The support for the "softball" girls wasn't limited to softball. Most of them played basketball, and I attended some of their games during their freshman year. I had mainly gone there in support of the people I knew, but eventually got to know more girls on this basketball team as the season progressed.

There was this "B" team player, Alicia, that I didn't know anything about. At that time, I had a personal webpage (as was the fad back then) with a guestbook. Her name had appeared in my guestbook with quite a few statements about how she loved me and such. Her love for me had become known to my softball friends on the team. They had asked me if I was going to do something about this. I kept sleeping on it, and sleeping on it, and sleeping on it.

During one of the RF boys basketball games I attended, I was introduced to this new thing called ICQ. I think it was Joi that told me about it. Sure, I'd try it. I downloaded it onto my computer, and right away my first ICQ friends were Alicia, Emily, Joi and Jen. I was frightened at first at the "whoo-hoo" noise that signaled a message. It was Alicia, trying to message me. I didn't quite know how to send a message back. I typed it in the box and hit the "enter" key. Then she kept wondering why I wasn't responding back to her. Emily messaged me too, and I didn't know how to respond. After a while I closed out of it, and the next day I found out you had to hit the "send" button to reply to a message. Doh!

It was through ICQ that her interest in me began to grow. I had this stretch of time where I wasn't able to see any of the freshman girls' games, so I wasn't able to see her. I was too nervous to. After a while on ICQ came our first phone conversation. I have little memory of these conversations.

Then one day she closed out a conversation with a surprise request, and then immediately went offline: "Will you go out with me?"

I was startled the rest of the night. No one had ever asked me before. I didn't really know this girl all that well. It was be a shame to say no. I debated this throughout the night, and even asked a couple of my friends thru ICQ what I should do. They overwhelmingly and enthusastically said YES.

She must have told this to someone, who then proceeded to hound me with "WELL?!?!?!!?"

Alright. I'll do it. I can't remember if I did this through ICQ or by phone.

There, for the first time, existed a relationship that had Cody Cutter involved in it. I wound up telling a few more friends on ICQ that I had "finally" had a girlfriend. It was like the apocolypse had arrived.

I was to meet her at one of the RF home games. She sat in her usual seat in the student section, while I was toward the front, behind the lead Rowdies. We didn't even sit next to each other, as I didn't know if she was really even there.

"Cody, she's over there!" yelled softball girl after softball girl after softball girl.

I was slow to cross that threshold.

The game had ended, and we didn't see each other. As I made my way out of to the lobby, the girls mobbed me and told me she was over there. I saw her. I smiled. I waved. She waved back. And I made my way out the door.

My nerves had exploded and collapsed at that moment in failure. I walked out to my truck along Grace Avenue and chided myself for this sudden loss of feeling. I parked over at the Lower Dam for the rest of the night, trying to find a way to not let this failure EVER happen again. Slowly, I tried to piece together ways to make this "relationship" work.

While I was unhappy about not making this work, I bet that she was extremely angry that I chickened out.

And for some reason - unknown to me to this day - this also made Joi extremely angry.

The next night I had an ICQ message waiting for me from Joi. In it, that's how I heard of the news that Alicia wanted to break up with me. It wasn't Alicia that told me. Joi told me. And she also wrote to me about how she was angry that I chickened out on Alicia.

I think after a while Alicia and I were both understanding why it didn't work out. I was riding my bike on Emmons Avenue one night when she spotted me. We crossed paths not knowing who each other were before I heard her scream "CODY CUTTER?????"

We stared at each other in surprise for a few minutes, and talked a while. After that moment, I never saw her for the rest of my high school days. We have only crossed paths once or twice as a customer at BP. A lot of time had passed that she didn't remember who I was. I made no attempt to let her know. By that time, she was married. To this day, I don't know how to reach her.

Well, there it it. My only "success" - and an absolute failure at that. I never came anywhere close after Alicia.

Over the years I kept private about this "relationship." It was an embarassing moment that I wanted to put behind me. I couldn't help but think of the damage this failure had caused. It certainly hurt my chances with any RF girl, as they were the only ones that really know about it.

The more I think back to Alicia, something didn't seem right. Here she was, out of the blue, when my mind was on someone else she knew. There were times I told myself I was being tricked into this relationship as a distraction.

Something just didn't seem right.

I think I know the answer, which is something not to tell about on here.

***

As I wiped my tears away, I saw a large and empty field off to the side.

However, the field wasn't empty. I could feel the presences of people floating in this field, but am unable to identify who they are. These are the people that liked me and never told me.

Who could these people possibly be? The thought pained me for a while.

Then someone popped in my mind. I kinda liked her, but didn't want to reveal a hint of this to save myself. But my mind kept firm at the girl I really liked. The rest of the boys all thought she was ugly. I didn't think so. She was one of those types that was heavily into academics.

If it is indeed this girl who I'm thinking of ... this is where I start over again.

It's going to take a lot. And a miracle.