Summer was nearly eroded away completely a few days after the wedding. Warren never came back to the house after he was married and instead remained in Southern Jersey until he returned for one more year of wrestling at the university. Frank had finished his summer classes as well and was nowhere to be found. I gave a week's notice at my painting job and savored the last few days (of what would turn out to be) my youth.

Returning from the wedding, I thought only of what transpired with Mercedes. Long before the wedding I had an awareness that something of the like was to occur. That was the reason I did my utmost to keep Leanna away from the event. Dear sweet Leanna whom I no longer deserved. Romantically, I thought myself a young man of honor and if I could not be faithful to Leanna, then I could not maintain relations with her.

"Now I must become the wild man that I am. My actions betray the thoughts of a strong, willful heart. I will go where it leads and remain heedless."

I told these things to myself and proudly took on the garb of a fool.

***

As previously agreed upon, I called Leanna upon my return. In order to assume the posture of a well-filmed movie scene, I sat on the side porch steps with the phone on my shoulder, a beer in my hand, and my dog at my feet.

"Hi sweetie. How was the wedding?" Leanna's hope and faith in me rang through and silently shocked the larger, more sentient part of my soul. I remained monotone and Leanna needed no details of the weekend to understand that something horrible had happened. She could feel, if not see, the rift now open and yawning between us. She was now crying.

"Oh Peter! I knew something like this was going to happen. Please, we can work this out. Let me come up there with you."

"No Leanna. I have met another person. There can't be anything between us any longer. I'm sorry this had to happen, but neither you or I can do anything about it." I lied to Leanna. By telling her that I was interested in another young woman, it made the separation more conclusive. Both Mercedes and I stated that we wanted to see each other again after the wedding, but both of us knew it wasn't going to happen.

"I guess I was stupid to have trusted you again Peter. You don't know what you want yet."

"You're right Leanna. You still have another year of university work to complete. Enjoy yourself. I'll just get on with life whatever it may hold for me."

We hung up the phones and my heart was no longer so strong. It beat on as usual, delivering the needed pulse to the right places. It did not stir within its cage. It remained in the same place, but it was in a body newly lost and without a guide. I felt like I had just dropped from a bough up above and fell a great distance in a short period of time into a river who's currents ran to where I knew not. I did not resist its driftings. I did not swim, but rather floated motionless in the catatonia that pride had injected into my body. Seeing, but unfeeling.

I sat staring into a sky lucky enough to hold all the jewels of the heavens. No matter what happened to me, those stars forever shone upon humanity, evenly constant. I wondered what they would witness as my life unraveled beneath them, likely unnoticed. My eyes traced slowly back to earth. I looked across the way to the neighbor's house. In the attic window, a man sat before a typewriter. I could just hear its hammerings on the waiting paper.

"What is he after" I wondered out loud, thinking of my own pencil sketches on my desk. Motor Puppy, evidently unnerved by my lengthy silence trotted into the dark, summer yard and grabbed a tennis ball in his mouth. I got up and followed him, sipping at my beer.

***

I left the university town on a Friday after work. Methodically, I loaded all my goods into my automobile. The whole operation took less than an hour. After ensuring that all the doors and windows were locked, I walked through the kitchen one last time. There were three 16 ounce beers in the fridge and it would make for an enjoyable ride.

The dying sun of late August carried enough strength to slightly cook the Pennsylvanian woods and grasses, giving everything an aroma of vitality. It carried through the open window of my car which sped away from the scene of my summer crimes. Suddenly I was not feeling so badly about the whole thing with Leanna. Sure I still had one more 16 ouncer between my legs, but it was more than that. Possibly I needed no woman. I thought for a second of the monkey-wrenching my heart took after my last conversation with Leanna, but I flicked the thought away like an ant on my arm.

"Are you not happier when you are alone Peter?" I asked myself as I drove through my hometown after an hour of driving. I was in no hurry to get back and see my parents. In fact I had the rest of my life to make the trip. So I swung by my old high school, parking my car on a hill overlooking the school and the athletic fields. To my delight the marching band was out practicing in the cooler sun that occurs before dusk.

There, sitting on the bumper of my car and drinking my last beer, I overlooked my past. I especially thought of women I had known and loved. Of course there was Leanna. We had experienced love, but had fought and battled frequently. Possibly it had been a blessing that things progressed as they had. Before her I had loved only one other, a girl named Doreen Hudson. There was a blind love, if ever there was. I often told my friends that they could not show me a picture of a more beautiful woman. They tried, but really could not demonstrate a better woman for I truly was blind. She ended our relationship on this same locale where I was now sipping beer from a can and listening to the band.

Doreen and I had gotten together upon returning home for thanksgiving of our first college year. Sitting in my fathers station wagon with the heat blasting to keep her frail body warm, Doreen told me that which I couldn't bare to hear.

"It's just that you've changed Peter. I don't even know you anymore."

"I don't know what you mean Doreen." I tried to snatch a deep look into her averting eyes in hopes of catching a glimmer of explanation, but could not.

"Our universities are so far apart. It's too hard to make it work between us." She stabbed me with the afterthought and then only the sound of the roaring, unbearable heat remained. "Can you just take me home?" she finally said. Without a word between us, I drove the short distance back to her house and watched her walk slowly to the front door and then through it.

Both of the women I had loved maybe were trouble, but it was strange to think I would never kiss either of them again. My thought returned to my last sip of beer and the sounds of marching music echoing across the distance. Even in such fits melancholy and duress, the world was incredible. It would have to be my unpredictable lover. I remained yet faithful to my vow and was quite heedless of the days ahead. Hell, I didn't even need to chase happiness. It was already mine. I drove the last two miles to my parent's home, with a slight weave to my course.