The Story of Norah Pratt, John Reeves [e textbook reader .txt] 📗

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My friends were all driving cars. I not only wasn't, but wouldn't be anytime soon. My parents couldn't afford to buy me a car. With football taking up my time after school I couldn't get a job. When I looked around I saw the things I didn't have. I never looked at what I did have. There was a coach who cared enough to get me help with my grades, and he'd asked me to change positions because of my size. He knew I wanted to play past high school. I took everything the wrong way. My heart had been broken. The pieces hadn't been put back together. When I told my coach I wasn't going to play football anymore it was tough. It might have been the hardest thing I'd ever had to do to that point in my life. It was the beginning of the end for me.
I quit football, I quit school, and I went out to find me a job. There had been other guys I knew who quit school. They were doing good. One of them made more money than either of my parents did at their jobs. I didn't have any real concept of money. The only thing I knew was that I didn't have any. It didn't work out like I thought it would. There were no good jobs for a seventeen year old. It was clear that I had made the wrong decision to quit school. Immediately I didn't feel like I could go back. I tried to make the best out of it. I ended up hanging out late, and doing things I shouldn't have. Things I wouldn't have done when it all mattered. There I was with the other deadbeats, drinking, doing drugs, and having sex with neighborhood tramps.

"She's coming back." Teddy said, as he ran upon me in the streets. "She told me to tell you she's coming back." He was out of breath from running me down.
"Norah? She's coming back?" I couldn't believe my ears. It didn't seem like it could be possible. I had already convinced myself that she'd never be back for more than a visit.
"Her mom and step dad are splitting up, and her mother is moving down her with us."
"They're going to live with you?"
"For a little while, just until they get there own place. I've got to get back home Steve, I just wanted to tell you." He said, and then turned back toward his house. "All right, thanks Teddy. I'll see you later."

I was excited about her coming back. It was what I had wanted for almost a year. My life had seemed to fall apart at the seams, but it felt like things might change. The thoughts made me realize how far I had fallen. I had lost everything. It was thought like that, that made me question whether I was deserving of such a girl now. I had been screwing around with sluts. I hadn't been involved with a real lady since Norah had gone back home. There was no real reason a decent woman would want a guy like me. I had become what I despise, a deadbeat loser. She might have been coming back, but that didn't mean all would be the same. This time she'd be going to school. Her life would be right there where mine had been.
She could have come back to a senior boyfriend who played on the football team. Instead she had a two-bit loser who was less promising than before. I didn't feel like I could go back to school, and I definitely couldn't play football for the age eligibility. If I couldn't play football, then I wasn't going back to school. I figured I'd get my GED and get it on my terms. It really didn't matter whether you had a diploma or GED, if you didn't have direction then you weren't going anywhere. I truly didn't know what I wanted to do. There was also a lot of doubt that I'd ever get my GED. My parents didn't think I'd ever pursue the night classes seriously, and there was a part of me that questioned it too. At the time I was working and didn't take the night classes.
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Norah had to be shocked upon her return. I was no longer the guy she fell for one year earlier. She seemed like the same girl to me. Maybe I should have noticed the changes in her. She still seemed to have feeling for me, and I know I did for her. It must be why I never noticed the change. Because I would have still loved her no matter what. We seemed to just pick up where we left off the summer before. There was more kissing, and it had led to the brink of sex more than once. She wanted to go all the way. I did too, but I wanted it to be something special. The handful of chances we had were all outside. I wanted to lay her down and make love to her. She just wanted to lose her virginity to me. I wasn't a virgin anymore so I wanted to make her first time as wonderful as I could.
Through the summer we got close, but never actually had sex. There was a level of intimacy in what we did that was greater than any of the sex I'd had. She meant something to me that no other girl had, and that made everything we did better.
"I want to make love to you. Not outside like this, but inside the house. I don't just want to have sex with you; I want to make passionate love to you." I had told her. This was on a night when we almost went all the way. The summer night was hot in Alabama, but not as hot as we were.
I thought she had understood what I meant about making it special. The only reason we didn't do it that night was because we didn't have a condom, and I didn't push it to go without one. Norah would later say.

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School was about to start back. I was worried that Norah would find someone else. Some nights I'd just think about what I could have been. She could have had a good thing. One night at a party Norah went to a party with her cousin, and she kissed a guy behind my back.
"I can't believe you cheated on me."
"I didn't mean to." She said. "It was one of those things that just happens."
"I'm not sure it's going to work out." I explained. "I'm the only guy you've ever known here. You're about to start school and you'll meet people, and soon you'll tell me how it's not going to work out." It hurt me to say that. I wanted her like an addict wants drugs, but she was only to be mine if she wanted it that way. That night she would have me, but the door I opened was never closed. She had her cousin Chris tell me how much she loved me. I had tried to keep our relationship away from Chris, but obviously Norah hadn't. I hadn't told her that he didn't trust me. She looked up to her older cousin. I'd have never said anything about him. He just didn't know me, but what little he did told him I wasn't a bad guy.
That night I had forgiven Norah for the kiss. We made out under the stars, and again were just inches from full penetration. Again we didn't have a condom, but we weren't going to let that stop us. We had started to do it, and then realized that we were not alone. Her older brother Chuck and Teddy were out there too. They hadn't caught us in the act, however they'd gotten close. That night had been the night it happened. It had been in the process of happening. The passion we'd felt that night ended; it ended just as quickly as our mood for sex did, upon being discovered in the backyard.
Norah figured out she did need room to grow. I figured she finally realized that I was nothing. That I'd likely never be anything, and it was time to move on. I would learn later it wasn't how she felt at all. Part of me was glad I didn't have to worry about her anymore, but the part of me that loved her always would. She needed to spread her wings and fly. I just didn't want to be there to see it. My parents were discussing a move, which at first I was against. Soon I knew if I didn't get away for Arlee, then Norah's wing spreading would be right under my nose. It was a small town...a very small town. For one year I moved away.

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I might not have noticed the change in her the first year we were separated, but I did when we lost that second year. She had grown into who she was going to be. Not totally, but she knew what the score was by that point. I still loved her, but didn't say anything to her about it. She was no longer a virgin, but that didn't matter to me. I had liked the fact that she hadn't been touched sexually, but the fact that she had been didn't change anything. I still loved her, but I didn't live in Arlee anymore, and I wasn't around her on a regular basis. The second time I saw her (which was about four months after I moved back) I told her I loved her. She felt the same way and we began talking on the phone. It was obvious to both of us that the flame was still burning.
Things were different for me by then. I was a single man with a car, money, and different women every weekend. At that point I wasn't looking for a commitment. Still I talked to her. Things were not going so good for her. They'd