The Consequence

“Will you marry me?” George asked, a tear sliding down his cheek.
Jacin just stared at him in disbelief.
After a moment, George laughed and said, “Come on. Say yes. We’ve already paid for the cabin and we’re allowed to have the ceremony anywhere in Yellowstone we choose.”
Still no response.
George prodded, “Eddie pitched in with me for our honeymoon to Cancun.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” was all Jacin said before leaving the room.
Stunned, George just stared at the now empty chair.
“Uumm ... I’ll go talk to him,” volunteered Josh, finishing off his glass of wine.
Behind the closed bedroom door, Jacin laid on the bed, staring through muddled eyes at the ceiling and absently stroking Freddy Kreuger’s belly, his unique purr crackling loudly.
It had been months since the accident, but Jacin still suffered from the amnesia.
‘There’s too many blanks,’ he explained to himself. ‘I can’t marry George ... not yet, anyway.’ ‘Oh, but I really want to ... I think. There are things I don’t remember about him, I’m sure of it, I can feel it in my gut.’
‘Or am I just being a chicken shit?’
He turned his head to the mirror on the dresser and studied himself for a minute. ‘Yeah, I’m just being a chicken shit.’ He sighed, and a moment later, ‘Damn, my hair looks like crap today.’
A quick succesion of raps on the door sent Freddy Krueger flying across the bed into the blinds. He scrambled to hang on, but as many times before, he slipped and crashed to the floor, then zipped under the bed.
“Come in,” Jacin answered.
Josh opened the door and scanned the room, “What was all that noise?”
“Just Freddy wigging out as usual ... and ruining my damn blinds!” Jacin lifted himself upright and leaned against the headboard, “I thought you were George, but I’m relieved it’s you. I don’t know what to say to him.”
“OK, but do you know why you said no?” Josh closed the door behind him.
“I guess I’m scared, just for the sake of being scared ... mostly I guess,” he explained. “But I also haven’t gotten my life completely back since the accident — I want to feel whole first, you know.”
Though it was rhetorical, Josh replied, “Yeah, I get it.”
“The only thing I know with any certainty is that it was your boyfriend’s daughter I saved that day.”
Taken aback, Josh asked, “How do you know that?”
“I recognized him ... well, remembered him that day the two of you helped my parents move in across the street.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Jacin considered that for a minute, “I don’t know why. Maybe I was hoping I was wrong.”
Josh sat down at the foot of the bed, guilt washed over him, “There’s something I should tell you.”
“OK.”
“Mark told me all about it ...” he started.
“When?”
“The night he met you.”
Jacin jerked forward, sweeping his legs underneath him, “So you’ve known for like ... two weeks and haven’t said anything.”
Josh scrambled to find the right words, and came up with, “Sorry.”
“That’s it,” Jacin accused with an edge. “That’s all you have to say?” He leapt off the bed and swung the door open. “Get out of my room ... In fact, get out of my house.”
“Fine,” Josh retorted in his usual knee-jerk defensiveness.
Jacin slammed the door behind Josh as he left, then dropped himself down on the bed, buried his face and his hands, and wept.
Some time later — at least an hour Jacin speculated — as the bedroom had turned a tea rose orange from the dying sunlight, he had made a decision: He was moving out, moving across the street with his parents. Just for a while, enough time to recover some memories. Maybe spending more time with his parents would speed up the process.
He pulled an weathered green vinyl suitcase from the closet and began packing clothes. He realized, as he slipped shirts off their hangers, that he had too many earth tone colors.
‘Why don’t I have any blue shirts,’ he asked himself. ‘I look good in blue.’
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a knock at the door.
It was George, looking hurt.
It pained Jacin seeing George hurt, but not as much as it probably should.
Jacin explained the suitcase full of boring earth tone clothes. George’s eyes widened more in disbelief with each word. Jacin imagined the guinea pig with bugged-out eyes from Bedtime Stories. He was being unnecessarily cruel.
“Sorry, I can’t do this right now,” Jacin stated, then snapped the old suitcase shut. “I’ll see you in a day or two.”
He looked one more time at George, who now appeared to have slipped into a catatonic state.
“I’m just across the street,” Jacin reassured.
With that, he scooted past George and walked out of the house — so quietly George didn’t hear the front door close.
To be continued ...