FanStory.com - DUEL with the DEVIL - Chapter 19by Jim Wile

Chapter 19

When I got back home, I sat down with Fran in the family room. “Well, what did you think of her?”

“Do you even have to ask? She’s great. Don’t do anything stupid to lose her, little brother. You two seem terrific together. I’ve noticed the way she looks at you. Isn’t it nice to have someone who’s as crazy about you as you are about her?”

“Yeah, that’s for sure. I’m not sure what I felt about Sandi now. Maybe it was just lust.”

“Ya think?”

“But with Julia, we seem to be on the same wavelength about everything, like you said was important once. I think about her all the time. I’m not sure Sandi and I would have ever lasted, even if we’d been together. But Julia.…”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks. You know, when I’m with her, I don’t even think about my pain, but as soon as we’re apart, I start to notice it again.”

“That’s your endorphins. Handy little things. Kind of like a cat purring when it’s happy. It’s soothing for them. They even purr sometimes when you clip their claws because they’re soothing themselves.”

“I miss Chloe. I used to love her purr. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

“Well, it’s good in a way to have that constant reminder.”

Julia and I continued with our weekend visits through the remainder of our junior year and through the summer, never missing a single one except during the month of July when she attended another music festival. She continued studying meditation and yoga and claimed they were helping her to be far less nervous about performing. She had entered several competitions, all of which she won. I had gone to see her play on several occasions, and her demeanor looked very calm.

I had tapered off Oxy under Fran’s direction, and while the pain was still very noticeable, I resisted the temptation so far to begin using again.

In October of my senior year, I applied for early acceptance to North Carolina State University in Raleigh. It’s the only college I applied to for early admission since I was confident that I would get in. In February of 2009, I was accepted.

Julia’s goal for college was to go to Juilliard in New York. We were both resigned to the fact that we wouldn’t be together physically during our college years, but we vowed to call each other often, visit when we could, and get together during vacations. We were in a committed relationship now, and neither of us desired to date others.

By mid-May 2009, Julia had already had auditions at two prestigious music schools and had been accepted at both, but her true desire was Juilliard. Her audition tape had qualified her for a live audition, and she would be heading to New York for this in a week.

Although her mother had gone with her to the two previous auditions, she would travel alone to this one because both her parents were heavily committed to work and couldn’t take off. Julia was used to traveling to distant cities by herself for various music camps and competitions, though, so this was not unusual. She had turned 18 in January, so she was officially an adult now. A friend of her mother’s, who lived in Brooklyn, would meet her at the airport and take her to her home to stay during the trip.

At the beginning of May, I had also turned 18, and in another week, Fran, now that she was free of the guardianship responsibility, was going to go on a two-week cruise with a girlfriend to the southern Caribbean. She was very excited about it.

To celebrate my birthday, Fran’s newfound freedom, Julia’s acceptance for a live audition to Juilliard, and our graduation from high school, the three of us decided to go bowling again together, then stop and have dinner at the Village Tavern in Winston-Salem.

Julia and I had gone bowling a few more times since that first time with Fran, and it was something we enjoyed doing together. Her mother was always leery about it, though, because she felt Julia ran the risk of damaging her hands somehow.

This particular evening was family night when the younger kids got to bowl for free, and there were a number of families at the lanes. This wasn’t ideal because the noise level was quite high and was somewhat distracting. A family with three kids under eight occupied the lane next to ours. There was a fair amount of screaming and carrying on between the two younger kids, and the parents were constantly telling them to shush.

I had just finished a frame, and it was Julia’s turn. As she reached down to get her ball, a sudden wail from the youngest child distracted her for a moment. Right at that instant, my ball came up through the ball return and crashed into Julia’s fingers, as she hadn’t gotten them into her ball yet.

“Oh, fuck!” she cried, which surprised everyone. I’d never heard her swear before. She immediately apologized to the family for exposing their kids to such language, but she was in obvious distress and couldn’t be blamed for it; it had just burst out. She grabbed her stricken hand with the other one and was beginning to whimper.

Fran and I gathered quickly around her to see the damage. When she slowly opened her hand, it was bleeding, and it appeared as though the nail of the ring finger of her right hand had popped up from the base and become detached.

My eyes widened. “Oh, God! Look at that. Jules, I’m so sorry that happened,” I said as I put my arm around her and ushered her back to the seats. Fran pulled some tissues from her purse and gently wrapped them around her finger to keep it from bleeding on the floor.

“We’ve got to get you to urgent care to look at that,” said Fran. “Let’s change your shoes, and Brian can return them and pay for the games we bowled.”

I helped her out of her bowling shoes and into her regular shoes and soon met them at the car after paying.

As Fran drove us to urgent care, Julia voiced the big concern she now had. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to play for the audition. My mother’s going to kill me if I have to miss it. I can just hear her raving that I never should have gone bowling, and what was I thinking being so careless with my hands? What am I going to do, Brian?”

“Well, at least it’s your bow hand, not your string hand, that was injured. Maybe you’ll still be able to hold your bow. If worse comes to worse, do you think you can hold it between your thumb and first two fingers?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Oh, this sucks, and it really hurts!”

“The audition is still 10 days away. Maybe it will feel a lot better by then.”

“I hope so, but it’s going to put a crimp in my practicing.”

“Jules, you’re so good. Do you even need to practice?”

“You’re sweet, but yes, if I want to stay sharp. Everyone who gets an audition there is good. There’ll be a bunch of us competing for a limited number of openings. I’ve got to keep practicing.”

“Well, let’s see what the doctor says about your chances of that. Don’t despair yet.”

I could tell she was very uptight about the situation, not the least being that she would have to face the wrath of her mother. I held her close until we got to the urgent care facility.

The doctor ended up removing the nail, cleaning and disinfecting the area, and wrapping it in a bandage. He had numbed her finger to remove the nail, and he told her to expect some pain when it wore off and to take Extra Strength Tylenol for it. As far as practicing went, she would have to play that by ear. There was nothing to stop her from trying to hold the bow and practicing as much as she wanted to. It would be entirely up to her.

That much was good news, but she was still worried it would require a major technique change to accommodate playing without the ring finger on the bow and that she wouldn’t have time to perfect a new technique.

Usually, I would only drop Julia off at home after our dates, but I decided to go in with her this time for moral support. When we got inside, her mother was in the family room and spotted Julia’s wounded hand immediately.

“Oh, my God! What happened?”

Julia looked forlorn. “I had a little accident with a bowling ball, and my ring finger got mashed between two balls. I lost the nail. We just came from urgent care, where the doctor removed it.”

“Julia, I told you this could happen. You should have listened to me!”

Not, “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry that happened to you.” No compassion or commiseration at all, just a bawling out.

“And you’ve got your audition coming up. Do you have any idea what that’s going to do to your technique? This is a disaster!”

“It might not be that bad. I’ll have to wait and see. Please don’t yell at me anymore. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Oh, quit whining. Maybe you’ll listen to me next time.” She stormed off then to find Julia’s father and vent her frustration on him.

That left Julia and me standing there. I could see tears beginning to form in her eyes, and I folded her into my arms. I felt her trembling as I held her. “Don’t worry; it’s going to be okay. You’ll see,” I said softly while rubbing her back.

She eventually settled down, and we split apart.

“Call me tomorrow, after you’ve had a chance to try it out.”

“I will.”

I had such a strong feeling for her then, in this vulnerable state. Looking into her eyes, I said, “I love you, Jules.”

Her tears, which had largely dried, began forming again. “I love you too, Brian.”

Slowly, our mouths came together, and we kissed. It was a slow, sweet kiss, and when it was over, I turned to the door and said before leaving, “Call me.”