Reign On Me

The night is clear, the moon huge. It sits there brightly, in the sky, hovering over our small town;—population five hundred and three—the only illumination on these pages where I scribble my thoughts and memories.

It's strange, but as I think back on it, I remember that each time over the years when Drew and I stumbled upon one another, it was always raining. There were many times, and opportunities, where we could have introduced ourselves. We finally stepped through our inhibitions in 1978. I was twenty and she was thirty-five. We were both still immature where matters of the heart were concerned. But we did eventually learn what love and its pleasures were all about. There was time to come and time to waste: time would never end with Drew near.

In the beginning, if anyone had asked, I would have said she was the echo of a shadow at the edge of my thoughts, but truth be told, she was the light I needed in my dark, the sense to my chaos, the ying to my yang.

I remember everything about Drew. I can recall how she smelled, how she blushed when we bumped into one another that rainy night. I relive that meeting over and over. The way her wet hair was plastered to her face comes to mind quite often, as if it were only yesterday. I also look back and marvel over the changes I've made because of Drew, the emotional and mental obstacles I've overcome, and I know if it weren't for my honesty with her that first time, I would have never even tried.

I didn't used to think I ever really cared what others had to say about me when I was younger. At least that's what my outward appearance showed, but deep down I was hurting. It bled through. With everything else I told Drew that night, I think that affected her the most.

The day was wet and cold, as usual. My friend and I were strolling along the slippery sidewalks, hunched over, trying to stay dry. The fair was in town, and we were debating on whether to go or not. Fairs aren't particularly fun in the rain. But there was Drew. Wet, soggy-looking, and yet she smiled so beautifully through a blush when our glances met after we banged into each other.

How we actually ended up at the fair is a bit cloudy. One of us suggested we should get out of the rain finally. There was a closed in picnic area, the covering would shield us from the rain that was practically coming down horizontal. The park was deserted except for a few die-hards and the attendants and ticket takers and sellers.

We ordered pizza and sodas; my friend abandoned us to have her fortune told in a tent nearby. So, I sat and I watched Drew, the way her perfect teeth tore at her piece of pizza. She then reached for her cola bottle that sat sweating next to mine and nearly drank half of it down. After, she asked me if I wanted to ride through the haunted house with her. I just shook my head.

"You're not scared are you?"

There was a teasing glint in her eyes, and a smile graced her full lips. Before the forlorn thoughts in my head enveloped my face, I hopped up and moved to a nearby trashcan, dumping my uneaten pizza. "When I was young, the dark terrified me." I admitted a fear I had had since childhood. I never dreamed Drew Peterson would be the one I finally confided in. "I...I still feel a bit afraid of it, even now." I had hoped my nervous chuckle didn't give away my embarrassment at that revelation.

Drew understood; she always did. "The dark only holds your own terror." Her voice was so tender and soft, her eyes the kindest gray as they settled on mine, conveying her understanding. "Try listening to it," she continued, almost as if she had been through the same suffering.

I just stared at her, sure that my face must have shown the surprise, the amazement that she was telling me now what I had, many a time, told myself. There were no boogie men in those dark corners, no monsters scratching at the windows trying to get at the trembling little child hiding, crunched into a ball, under her magic blanket.

I found my voice finally after swallowing the huge lump lodged in my throat. "I tried that." I had to think of each word first before I said it in order to not make myself look like an utter fool. "Sometimes, I just push myself into exhaustion at work so I fall into bed when I get home. Then I don't worry about what may be lurking in those shadowed corners."

I felt renewed strength, a power within that seemed to appear when Drew hadn't laughed at my initial revelation. "I still sleep with the lights on." I was sure that would bring a peel of laughter. I waited, waited for a smirk, a giggle, anything that would prove I was a silly child pretending to be a woman of twenty.

"Tell me more about you," was all she said.

I know I must have looked dumbfounded, but on I went, perhaps to ridicule myself. But she hadn't laughed so far. Maybe...Just maybe, she wouldn't laugh at all.

Fidgeting from foot to foot, I knew I needed something to wash away the fear clogging my throat again. Reaching down for my cola, I noticed my hand was trembling. My eyes rose, and there were Drew's, gazing strangely at me. At that moment I think I may have felt the first pangs of something, some shift in the air in the short distance between us bringing us closer, but I had to tell her all of it before I even began to hope.

"When I was a kid, mom used to tell me all the time how the world was such a beautiful place." I think I may have smirked ironically after I said that. "She never said anything about its dangers. She never told me there were people who could hurt you. She never let on that I could be the one who would get hurt some day."

I remember stuffing my hands way down into my pants pockets as if to shield myself from those awful memories. I guess it did give me some security because I found myself continuing after I half turned from her view toward the Fortune Teller's tent. "My step father sexually abused me." There. I said it, now I could die of the shame.

Drew just sat there, eyes shining. Oh how my heart squeezed back then, and even now as I remember. "When I was thirteen, mother finally realized there was something happening, but by then, there was nothing she could have done to make me forgive her for not coming to my rescue. I just wanted to die. How I hated her for not seeing. Why didn't she see sooner?” I asked questions that possibly only my mother could answer. But how did one get answers from a dead woman?

"What did she do?" Drew's voice was a soothing caress to my ears, but barely audible.

"She continued ignoring it." I again felt a burning loathing for my mother. "A heart attack was my savior. I was fourteen and a half then." I walked around the picnic table. Hearing a sniffle, I took a quick look to see how Drew was handling it all. Not well. Tears were openly running down her cheeks.

"All the talk back then was about 'Heartless Jem, not going to her daddy's funeral.' I'm sure you've heard the stories. Even mother started to believe I was the evil one, not him. And I guess it was my fault for what had happened—"

"It's not your fault. I know it's hard not to, but you need to stop blaming yourself." Drew's eyes had been locked on the carousel, watching the rain pattering the horses with a forced intensity. Then she gazed my way and smiled assuredly. Could someone truly care? Was I a good person after all? Had my step father’s actions not tarnished me?

"It shouldn't matter what anyone thinks anymore, Jem. When you come to understand this, you'll be free from that dark past. Until then, no matter who's there with you, you'll still sleep with the lights on. In order to overcome that darkness, you must forgive and let go."

"I want to." I was very desperate. "I don't know how."

"Maybe together we'll find a way."

That day so long ago was the saddest and happiest of my life. I knew in the future I could overcome anything as long as Drew was by my side. I later learned that I was capable of doing it on my own, but it was okay to let Drew help.

I'm not positive if I ever truly forgave my mother, but I did learn that it didn't matter what anyone thought, as long as I knew in my heart the real story.

I don't sleep with the lights on anymore. I don't blame myself anymore. I sit in the dark, in the very same corners that you couldn't have forced me into in my earlier years, and remember.

Drew died in the summer of '98. I wonder how much longer I have to wait until I can reunite with her. I'm not scared of death, I welcome it. I know my Drew's up there waiting for me, and I'd like to believe my life had a happy ending. Drew's death and my being left behind, is not something that haunts me and makes my time left unbearable. My memories of the past and the thoughts of the future are what keep me striving forward.

I once read that the dead don't truly leave us, until we let them go. So, I cling harder to the past, to keep her here with me. I still go to the fairs when they come to town every year. Sometimes it rains and I sit at the picnic tables, and I start to thinking, that's my Drew up there, crying her tears for me, for our separating so young. Crying her tears to make the flowers grow, to truly make this world a beautiful place. Crying for all that's past and can never be again, except in memory.

I'll not take the road that would get me to Drew faster for I would only end up not getting to her at all. I'll wait for my appointed time, and I'll have my memories for company.

I told Drew about a billion times that I loved her, needed her, and cherished her. But you know what? There were two little words -- that really aren't so little -- that I have never told her.

So, to my beloved Drew, for the many happy years you gave me…for the rain…for reigning over me when I needed it most…

Thank you.