Chapter Thirteen
Later that night, I took the winding trail down to the falls. The rocks and grass were wet from the previous bout of rain showers. I sat down on the large slab that overlooked the falls to process what I had learned that day and what I would do next.
I considered my options for the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours. One: return to Harrisburg and to Wendy, like Samantha had suggested before we parted. Two: pursue Samantha against her wishes, hoping she would find the capacity to include me in her life. Three: move in with Jordan and start a new life. Four: take some unknown path with no beautiful woman at the end. Each of these options held its own risks and rewards. Together with Tim's words and Frankl's three keys to meaning, these possibilities swirled together like the foam and the spray beneath the falls.
Thinking exhausted me. As much as I just wanted to make a decision - any decision - if my mind couldn't see some deeper purpose in what I was doing, it would ultimately reject that trajectory.
Motionlessness began to consume me again. I needed to do something to change the equation. The surging water from the falls thundered beneath me in a strange invitation. I stripped down to my boxers before I could talk myself out of doing what I was thinking. One, two, three steps brought my feet to the ledge. I gazed down at the stream below for a second, and then leaped into the frigid waters, as if the answer to my questions lay beneath the opaque waters.
A thousand needles pierced my body as I hit the pool at the bottom. The water pressed against my chest, forcing me to gasp for air. My first instinct was to retreat to dry ground immediately. I almost completely made it out of the water before forcing myself to plunge back beneath the surface. This time, the action brought a sense of peace and stillness to my churning mind. I lingered under the water, becoming acclimated to its temperature. A moment more brought complete clarity - I knew what I was going to do.
After floating in the water a little longer, basking in a new found serenity, I pulled myself out of the water and climbed back up to where my clothes were. Shivering, I threw my clothes on, and then drove the half mile that brought me home.
Back home, I slipped past my family so they wouldn't ask me why I was wet. I hastily threw on a new set of clothes. A hot shower might have warmed me up, but I had something more pressing to do. I took out my cell phone and exhaled deeply. Making this call would not be easy. I punched the number in anyway as the knots drew taught in my abdomen.
After six rings and four months, Wendy's voice reentered my life. "Hello?"
"Hi Wendy, it's Evan." Her caller ID would have already revealed that. "How are you?"
"I'm okay," she said after a period of silence, her voice guarded.
"Is this a good time to talk?"
"It's fine," she said.
My turn again. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry Wendy. I treated you really badly and you didn't deserve that." I worded my apology carefully. I didn't want to make excuses, or go so overboard in self-criticism that it seemed like I was making a ploy for sympathy.
I thought she would need a minute or so to compose herself, but she shot back an answer to me like she had been waiting for this call. "What am I supposed to say to that Evan? That it's okay? That I forgive you? What the hell even happened to us? At least give me a reason."
I definitely owed her an explanation, but Wendy didn't give me time to answer. "We were happy together. And all of a sudden everything fell apart. Was it me? Did I do something wrong?"
Imagining Wendy spending the last four months racking her brain on what she could've done differently made me feel awful.
"No Wendy, it was me. It was all me. Something's wrong with me. Maybe I don't know how to commit, maybe I don't know how to be happy, maybe I'm just a miserable human being. You were with the wrong guy. I should've been happy with you. Anyone should've been happy with you."
I remembered Samantha's parting advice: "Tell Wendy you're sorry. Ask her to take you back." At the falls beneath the water, I determined what I would do next, but now on the phone with Wendy, that resolve wavered.
"Wendy, I..." I hesitated. "I'm just sorry things ended this way." Samantha might have been right about my feelings toward Wendy, but I wasn't going down that road again. The picture of Wendy in her sweater in front of the autumn backdrop, sweet and radiant, the unrealized moments of her as a pregnant beauty, and an elderly Wendy flipping through a photo book while she told her grandchildren about me, her husband, all passed beyond me. These moments would belong to someone else now.
Wendy sighed deeply. My apology could only do so much to retract the pain she suffered at my expense. Despite that fact, she tried to be gracious.
"I guess we just weren't meant to be. Good-bye Evan," she said simply, her voice full of resignation.
"Good-bye Wendy."
She was gone again. Someone else would want her. Wendy didn't need me. Maybe she required some closure from our lengthy relationship, but she didn't need me to have a rich and full life. Samantha did. At least she needed someone who would walk with her through her presently empty days, to help her feel at peace with the heart rending decision she had made, whether she recognized that or not. She would be my 'transcendent project'.
Formally letting Wendy go hurt, though I did feel a little better after speaking to her. For the first time in my life, I had apologized to a past lover and took responsibility for my destructive actions - even if it came four months too late.
By the time I went to bed, I felt at peace about my decisions. The outcome of my resolution to pursue Samantha no matter the cost was uncertain. The next day, Easter Sunday, I would disclose my intentions to her. Perhaps she would only continue to reject me. But I was prepared to go the distance with this plan, and truly did believe I was moving toward the meaning.