I Am Jack's Life Ch. 10

Author's note and acknowledgements

This story has sat on my hard drive for four years now.

I wrote it, all twenty chapters and 95,000 words of it in eight days of a frenzied, near trance-like state, sitting on my couch with my wife's laptop. She would occasionally have to remind me to eat.

When the dust settled, and I looked up, I realized a couple of things: one, I had just written a fucking novel in a week, whoa. Two, it seemed to be pretty damn good, double whoa. And three, what the hell was I going to do with it?

I tried editing it, I even enlisted the help of a Lit-Editor, who was invaluable for early editing, and confirming it was in fact, pretty good, or readable at least. I spent several months then, editing, unashamedly forcing it on writer friends to read, regular friends to read, and total strangers on writer boards. Everyone had different opinions of course, as people do, but all of them seemed to think it was pretty good, and I should probably try to do something with it.

So I spent another year trying to sell it.

Well nothing happened.

And I can't blame them, agents and publishers. It's kind of a niche story, hard to market. It's got too much sex for a coming age story, too much teenage drama for adult fiction, and not a single word about vampires or bondage to make it work as erotic fiction.

So it's sat on my hard drive for four years. I'll occasionally open it up, tinker with a line, or try to figure out how to re-work it into something more marketable. I always end up wasting a weekend trying to figure out how to change it, without losing the essence of the thing which I, and several others, feel is, "pretty good."

So fuck it. Here you go Literotica. I just want people to read it. I want people to get to know Jack the way I did. Writing his life made me feel like I was a part of it. He's a pretty good guy, I wish I knew him in real life.

So NEXT, some disclaimers.

This is a coming of age story. Which means first it starts out when the characters are too young to have sex (on literotica.) So there's no sex for a couple chapters. I hope that's okay. Second, this is a novel length story, including the prologue and epilogue, there are twenty-one chapters in all. Some are longer than others, and there is not a sex scene in every one. (Though some have more than one.) More importantly, sex is a thing that happens, it's not written to be titillating, but rather just as events in Jack's life.

So there you go. It's a story with sex in it, not a story about sex. I think it's pretty good anyway.

If you have not read the first chapter, please click on my profile and pick the story up at the beginning, its better that way, trust me.

*****

The graduation ceremony was in a large auditorium the school had rented out, it had a large seating area, probably about a thousand chairs had been set up for parents and grandparents, families and friends. When we'd done the rehearsals earlier that week, my stomach had flipped flopped when I saw all of those chairs. I had to speak in front of all of those people.

The actual night of the commencement ceremony I was about three heartbeats away from total panic the whole time. We were all huddled in the holding area in our caps and gowns, chattering excitedly. I wouldn't be walking in with my classmates. I was coming out after they'd been seated, to speak before we got our diplomas. I was sweating. Kimmy kept a tight hold of my hand the whole time, and I think I would have lost it without her. When my classmates were directed to start to line up, my hands started to shake. The Vice-Principal came and got me and Christina and we were escorted to a separate wing where the staffers that were going to be up on stage were waiting. I didn't make eye contact with anyone. I was a wreck.

Then the commencement march song started.

Then, I was really a wreck.

The principal began speaking and a hush fell over the crowd. I was going to be sick.

Christina looked up at me, "You okay Jack?" she asked.

I nodded, "Oh yeah, only have to speak in front of a thousand people without peeing my pants. No problem," I joked. My voice was shaking.

She laughed, "Actually I think it's closer to twelve hundred, but yeah, I see your point."

Great. No problem, only an additional two hundred. Why not?

"Wanna trade?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I'm already almost a puddle of goo just having to walk out there on stage. I think I'd melt completely if I had to speak."

"Great pep talk Christie, thanks." I said.

She giggled again.

Then Principal Stevens said over the loud speaker, "This year's salutatorian, Christina Wu!"

She gulped and I had to kind of push her out the door onto the stage.

There was some cheering and polite clapping. She had a lot of friends, but not many people knew her very well.

I started thinking about exactly the wrong stuff just then. I started thinking about how I was really just some nerd with a cute girlfriend, how I was Beth's hanger on and pet. I started thinking how I was going to go out there and my friends might clap for me, but otherwise there would be crickets and silence. God, maybe my friend's wouldn't even cheer, maybe they were too embarrassed to be associated with me. I was a freshman again, and Tommy Johnston was my best friend. No one knew us, and Todd Smith was going to throw my ass in a dumpster.

"And the class of 1994's valedictorian, Jack Wallington!"

The building erupted.

A wall of noise rushed from the floor of the auditorium and onto the wing where I was standing and blew me away. I looked out and could see my entire class on their feet cheering like mad. I couldn't pick my friends out of the crowd, it was just a sea of our school colors and faces

And then it hit me - I knew all of them, they were all my friends. Every damn one of them had written something in my yearbook. Not just 'have a great summer' - things that were personal.Thanks for tutoring me, I'd have never made it through Ms Enverton's English class without you. Thanks for being there for me when my Mom died, if you ever need anything, I'll be by your side. Hundreds of them. Two hundred and twenty really, minus a couple from people like Tommy who had something against me.

I walked out on stage, and if possible, the cheering got even louder. I fought with every fiber of my being to not let my emotions overwhelm me.

I didn't walk to the podium, I floated.

I stood up as tall as I could and looked out over the sea of over twelve hundred people - and saw only my friends.

I cleared my throat, and the cheering didn't die down. I grinned like a mad idiot.

I started to talk, and the cheering started to die a little. Principal Stevens stood up and held up his hands. The crowd mostly died down.

I started to talk again.

"I guess most of you know me by now," I started.

A girl in the back cried out, "We love you Jack!" and the crowd laughed. I don't know who it was, but thank you. You made me laugh too, which is the only reason I was able to get through the rest of it.

"But this wasn't always the case," I continued. Everyone was mostly quiet now, and I could hear my voice carried on the loudspeakers over the whole auditorium.

"Four years ago, I was a stranger in our halls. I'd gone to school with some of you before, but we were not friends. We knew names and faces, but we did not know each other. I was just another nerd in the hallways, and you were lost little freshmen yourselves. We moved from class to class and just tried to survive in a sea of bodies where everyone was at least two feet taller than us."

I let that line die, and the added, "Unless you were Kim Allison."

There was a lot of laughter, Kimmy had been tall even as a freshman. She was six feet as of yesterday. I saw her in the front row (Allison, A.) and she was bright pink, but her eyes were glowing.

"Our stories are as varied and diverse as we are, but we made it to the end of the year; a little wiser, a little taller, and ready for the challenge of a new year."

Alright, so this was starting to sound like every other commencement speech ever, but I had a point to all of this.

I looked out over the crowd and found Beth, I caught her eye, she was smiling very brightly at me.

"That first summer, I got a phone call from a girl - my very first in fact." Some laughter. Beth started to blush.

"Beth Jenkins wanted me to tutor her over summer school, and friends, I said no."

Some scattered chuckling.

"I thought it was a trick, I thought it was a trap so that her boyfriend Todd Smith could find me and throw me in a dumpster," I paused, "Again."

I smiled big at Todd, and to my pleasure, he blushed too, but he was laughing as the people around him gave him a hard time.

"I said no to her, and hung up the phone. And let me tell you, if the next twenty seconds had gone any differently, I would not be standing here in front of you."

The crowd was quiet, I had their attention at least.

Beth was bright red.

I looked down at the paper in front of me, and I started to read it.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler; long I stood and looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth," I quoted Frost.

I paused a second and then continued with the rest of the poem, when I got to the last stanza I looked up, I didn't need the paper anymore.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

I paused to swallow around the lump in my throat.

I looked up at Beth, and she beamed at me. Her face was radiant with pride and joy, her green eyes shown with delight.

Yeah, I was still just as in love with her as I had been back then.

I cleared my throat and continued

"Friends, she called back and I picked up the phone. She apologized and insisted there had to be some mistake. That she really did just need my help, and would I please consider it." I paused again. This was harder than I thought.

"I - I agreed, and that has made all the difference. I took a different road and it has led me here today."

I continued on then, I told the story of that day on Beth's couch, where she kissed me and then told me we could be real friends now, and that she'd been right. I think I was blushing as bad as Beth, but the crowd loved it. Lots of laughter and 'Awws'. It was a good story. Then I filled up my time with more foibles of the adventures of the five of us, stopping now and then to highlight a moment as a choice or road not taken. I peppered in anecdotes of other classmates and teachers I'd met along the way, and differences they had made in my life, making me who I was today. Todd included.

By the time I got to the end, I was barely holding back tears; and I could see all four of the girls were weeping openly, I think even Todd was choked up.

"Finally, I just want to say this my friends, there is no way we can untangle the weave of quantum possibility each choice brings us. The unknowable impact of every decision and the echo of words not said. My advice is simply this. Take a chance. Pick up the phone. Call them back. Life is funny, and sometimes the simplest things are crossroads in disguise. You never know when having the courage to smile back at someone, or helping someone out with their homework will irrevocably change your life into a different direction. I love all of you," I made eye contact with Beth briefly, I couldn't help it. "Thank you, every one of you, for making my life better than it would have been without you."

Once again the building erupted.

This time it was even louder I think.

Maybe I was just standing closer.

I have tried in the years hence to figure out what it is I was feeling that night. I can't. There was just too much to process. I thought Kimmy was going to smother me when I got off stage. I didn't care that twelve hundred people were still cheering for me; for us. I was so overloaded with just simply - feeling - everything. One emotion ran into the next and cascaded in a torrential rush somewhere deep into my stomach. When Kimmy let me up for air I saw Anna, tears streaming down her face, her expression openly saying that she wanted to do what Kimmy had just done. I loved Kimmy, I loved Beth, Anna loved me.

I had nothing. My brain refused to figure anything else out. It was done.

I don't remember one single other thing from the rest of the night.