The Choice: Part 1

The Choice
Part 1

Sitting on the counter is a packet of razorblades, a bottle of alcohol, and a first aid kit. And a burning candle, the thick kind that makes a pool of wax when it's been burning a while. Part of a trick I learned a long time ago.
Jennifer is nervous, and I am more sympathetic to her fear than she could ever possibly know. I want to put my hand on her shoulder, tell her that it doesn't hurt, that it's worth the effort, but I know she needs her distance. This is a decision she has to make, a conclusion she must reach on her own terms.
“So that's it, then?” she asks, nodding to the tools assembled just for us. “No pentacles, no circle casting, nothing like that?”
I shrug, and stand up. Her eyes follow me religiously as I walk across the kitchen to the sink, and look out the window to the setting sun. Somewhere in earth's orbit, a ball of white rock caught in our gravity well is spinning, and when it appears to rise over the horizon I'm looking at now, it will appear to be half-full. But, really, it's all a matter of perspective.
I sigh. “I'd thought to dress it up a bit, because I know your background. I want to make this as easy for you as possible, but... I didn't want to be disingenuous to myself. I've been to Wiccan rites and Pagan ceremonies, and I've been to chapel to pray to Christ. I've experimented with Buddhism, Shintoism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam... Every time, I'm hoping to find an answer for what I am, and every time I come out empty handed. I believe that the rituals, the ceremonies, the observances...they're all different names for the same thing. Everyone has their own way of communicating with the numinous. I just can't pretend that hoky spiritualism is mine. I don't want to dilute the truth of what this is through the lens of a belief I don't ascribe to. Does that make sense?”
Jennifer is staring at the table, and her face is a mess of emotions I can't begin to decipher, so I go back to her and put a hand on hers and say, “I didn't mean to undermine your beliefs. This is me being honest. If you don't want to go through with it, I completely under-”
“No,” she says. “I want to do it.”
I kneel next to her and hold both of her hands, and look her in the eye. “Are you absolutely sure? If you have even the shadow of a doubt, I promise you, it will tear you apart. You need to know for yourself that this is what you want, because once it's done there's no going back. Do you understand that?”
She takes a breath, and it's shallow, and as she exhales her voice is trembling. She looks at her hands and a tear runs down her cheek, and she closes her eyes and stands up from the table, turning her back to me, leaning her face against the wall. She's sobbing now, and my hand hovers inches from her shoulder. I should comfort her, but doing so would risk encouraging her unfairly.
“This is absolutely one hundred percent your decision, Jenn,” I say. “Whatever you want, that's what I want. If this is too much, if you want more time, or-”
She spins around and wraps her arms around me, burying her face in my chest, and now I hold her because there's nothing else to do.
I remember feeling this way. I remember every iota of doubt and fear and confusion, and the impossible promise that came with it. I remember loving her but doubting her; wanting to believe but fearing that I was just a kid taking my lies too seriously.
I remember I did it, and I remember that it was the hardest decision to live with.
There are no words I can string together to make this any easier for her. She stands on the edge of a precipice, looking down and out and debating whether or not she should jump. If she jumps, she could be blissfully happy for the rest of her life, or she could spend it regretting having ever jumped. If she doesn't, she could live a happy life amongst other people, but always wonder if she might have been happier had she taken the plunge.
I want to kiss her but I can't, I wan to assuage her fears and make her smile, but I can't. I have to hurt her to help her. I have to leave her in her stew of emotions, undisturbed, so that she can reach a decision on her own.
I ask, “What's wrong?” knowing it's a stupid question, but also knowing it's almost all that I can say.
She says, “I have spent so much of my life being jerked around by idiots promising me more than they ever could give, and here you are just... doing it. Being honest and truthful and...” She takes a few deep breaths. “I've been looking for you all my life, and I hate myself for being afraid.”
“No,” I say, pulling her head up to look into her eyes. “Never hate yourself. For any reason. I'm not worth that. What I'm doing is the second most responsible thing behind turning you out entirely, which I'm not doing because...”
The words don't come all of a sudden, because I remember her saying almost exactly the same words to me. Deja vu all over again.
-because some people are born in the wrong place, in the wrong family. Some people have wolf in them from the start, they just don't know it yet.
Some people just need to be shown the truth, and their truth alights in kind.
I shake my head and laugh a little nervously. “Because I can see in your eyes that you want to see this through to the end, one way or the other. I know how you feel. You've spent your life searching for some kind of truth in the places that everyone else seems to find it, and found them wanting. What you need is something real, something tangible, something that can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. This,” I say, motioning towards the counter, “this is real. If we go through with this, you'll wake up tomorrow and everything will be different. That is the most important thing for you to understand, though. If that's a reality that you aren't ready to deal with, don't tell me this is what you want. We have to do this on your terms.”
“You keep saying that,” she says, “but what about you? What do you get from all this?”
I look at her, and stutter. What do I get from this? Ever since I told her what I am, and she expressed her interest in becoming, I have tailored towards making it easy for her. But what about me? Why should I have said yes instead of turning away and never looking back?
The answer, I think, lies with Caroline.
Thinking of her brings tears to my eyes.
I know what I want to say, but I'm afraid the words might carry too much weight. I don't want to sway her, not now when she is so impressionable. But the words are coming anyway...
“I don't say this enough, but... I love you, Jenn. I love you more than any woman I've met in a long time. I would never put you in a situation that I thought you couldn't handle. We've known each other almost three years, now, and I've never felt closer to you than I do at this moment. In this space of fear and doubt, we've been shorn of the shells we've worked to create all our lives. We're exposed, in this moment, for who we really are. I've been trying very hard to say things in a neutral tone, because the last thing I want is for you to make this decision because of me, and end up regretting it later on. That would hurt me just as much as it would you, Jenn. What I get out of this is someone who knows how I feel, who is there with me through everything... do you understand, Jenn? Despite whatever facade of confidence I put up, I'm... I'm alone. No matter how close I get to anyone, no matter how true any love might be, there is a wall between us that I cannot in good conscience break for my own reasons. It has to be you, Jenn. No matter what you feel about me now, you have to know that you want this for yourself. Because no matter how much I love you, right here, right now, time... it changes things. There is no guarantee that we will be together for the rest of our lives, and I don't want to promise you that, when I personally believe it won't happen. Not that it can't, not that I don't want it to, just... personal experience says otherwise. What I'm saying, Jenn, is that... I want you to do this, but more than that I want you to be happy. You have to know that you can live with this decision without me, without anyone... you have to live with the responsibility of self-control, of giving others the dignity of choice that I've given you, if it ever comes to that.”
I exhale and hug her, then I laugh and say, “Do you want some tea?”
She smiles and laughs as she goes to sit across from her, wiping away her tears. “Yes, please.”
As I get up to get a couple glasses, she says, “When you said that your personal experience says otherwise, what did you mean? I mean, I know what you implied, just...” She sighs, “I'm sorry. It's none of my business.”
I come back to the table and hand her a glass of cold tea, and as she sips I say, “No, you deserve an honest answer. And, frankly, I've been thinking about it a lot myself. I guess it'd be fitting for me to tell you what I went through when I was in your position. Do you think it might help you figure out what you want?”
She thinks about it for a time and nods.
“Alright then,” I say. “A break from all this melodrama.”