My brain would often over think and over analyse everything. It would go at a million miles an hour. I wanted NO bitterness inside of me. And my love and bitterness were now SO entwined that I could not tell the difference between the 2 any more. I hated her for making me love her.
Everything that Robin said made sense. It explained everything. Why would Robin have any need to lie to me? She was 18.
It pains me to write the following section of this story, as I am wary portraying Kelli in a bad light. But I guess I have to write this section because it did happen, and I am trying to be as open about this all as I can. This is how I perceived things from my end of this story. Kelli has her side of the story and I am sure in time you will all get to read her side of it. So I guess it is something that needs to be documented, as it kinda shows the entire journey.
Including the shit bits.
As I write this now, nearly 10 months after it happened, it is a little difficult to recall what EXACTLY happened. I guess I can only go with how I felt about things. That tends to be the real me, rather than facts.
So yeah, Kelli had left again.
Upon landing, I had to make my way back immediately, as I had a wedding to attend to. My friend Simon was marrying HIS AMERICAN fiancée Skyla. So upon landing, I had to make it all the way from Heathrow to Farnborough (via London) in 3 hours. It took forever, but I got back in time. Showered, changed and drove to the wedding.
My phone was going wild with people wanting to know what had happened. Everyone had expected me to come back and be married. Maybe I should have.
Simon is a friend of mine that used to being singer/guitarist in the band Melaleuca. Simon is someone that I had shared the Kelli saga with for 8 months. It was nice to have someone to talk to about it, that would understand the long distance, the lack of contact, the worrying, where as some of my other friends may have missed the point, or not understood the situation, as it really was.
I made it to the wedding in time to see them get married. During the reception, I was nodding off and my eyes rolling in my head. I realised I was absolutely cream crackered (knackered). Whilst everyone was mingling, I gave my summary of my recent trip in full detail to Simon and Skyla, who in turn were both dead chuffed for me, but Simon already knew. He had flown out to meet Skyla in Texas, after meeting her on myspace. So completely got what I was feeling. It was cool.
After that, I went to sleep in the car for 4 hours.
The plan was to land in Chicago, and then get the train to Muskegon. However, the problem being that it was the day before thanksgiving, and a lot of the services were shutting up shop. We could only get a train to Michigan City, which was short of our final destination by HOURS. It was that, or nothing. So that was the plan. When landing at the airport, only had about 30 minutes to get to the other side of Chicago, to catch the train.
So lots of running, taxi’s, rain, luggage, chickens fights* and tired legs. We eventually got to the train station, booked some tickets and collapsed on a chair somewhere.
So we sat there, talking, kissing, watching the derelict train station fill up with people and just chilling.
The train turned up after an hour or so. We got on the train, got seats and almost slumped. We tried reading a couple of books that I had in my backpack, but we ended up just crashing out. There was nothing to see outside anyhow.
It was pitch black.
* This might have been made up.
The 3 of them spent 5 or so minutes doing whatever, and then suddenly appeared with Kelli, and headed toward the van.
They were talking outside for a few seconds, and Kelli seemed confused, not too sure of what was happening. I was looking at her through the darkened window, and she looked different. Her hair was up, dressed differently, and I felt slightly nervous. My head went into overdrive.
Is that her? It doesn’t look like her. Shit, shit shit, fuck I feel sick. It’s her…..isn’t it?
After all this build-up, and I was going to be disappointed with the real her, like the connection would be gone. Thats not what I wanted . Stupid dark windows.
Everything inside me went knot shaped.
My heart felt like it had stopped.
My brain was racing at a million miles an hour. What I was going to do? I had just got the bloody ticket!! London to Chicago.
So with my imminent holiday arriving, I had to formulate a plan and quickly……………Okay………..plan made.
I was to stay in Chicago for 2 days in a hostel.
If she did not get in contact with me, I would buy a flight to Oklahoma, and hire a car, to go and find her.
If I could not find her within 4 days, I would go to San Diego, to see some old friends I have there.
I would still have a weeks holiday. That way, if I didn’t find her, it wouldn’t be such a wasted trip. And then I would just put it down the fact that it wasn’t meant to be. But this was my one chance to put my mind at rest, to find out once and for all if there was anything to my feelings for her, and her supposed feelings for me. My knew what I would do. Work with logic. Ask people, ask shops, police, post office. I was a small town right. How hard would it be?
I had a plan!!
Unfortunately my trip had not been so cool. One of my friends out there had past away the day before I got there. My 2 weeks there were somewhat of a sombre mood, as everyone I knew there was clearly distraught. Kelli was as sympathetic as she could be. We had contacted each other on email whilst I was in San Diego. She had sent me some pictures of her.
And then we pretty much went back to normal when I got back. She was adjusting to her life back in Oklahoma. She hadn’t lived there for many years. Already she had picked up a southern tinge to her accent. She lived in a town called Granite, which was tiny apparently. No-one had the internet there (hardly), and no pay phones (a bizarre concept when compared to a town in the UK). This was going to be interesting.
The one thing that I had started noticing was that our web chats were frequently interrupted by everyone and anyone that Kelli knew over there. There would always be people over her house. Kelli’s brother and friends. I didn’t really mind so much. I got to meet some folk and chat to other people online, but after a while, I found myself biting my lip a bit, because I wanted to speak to her. Selfishly I wanted her undivided attention. I cared for this woman, and our time online was now on share time. It didn’t help that sometimes her computer would just switch off, and it might be a while before I got to speak to her again.
But still we got on well, and I treasured every moment that I would get to talk to her. Sometimes I’d worry that we would run out of things to talk about. But more often than not, we’d talk about loads the next time. Funny like that.
I am posting this story/ongoing dialogue, because I wanted people to know (in great detail) about the story of Kelli and I, and how we have come to be. Actually, that is not entirely true. What actually happened is this. I had SO many people asking me about her, and wanting to know details of how we met, the trip, and everything. Rather than repeat the story a million times, I thought I would just write about it. Then, if people want to know, they can just read it all here.
This story probably seems quite deep and emotional (I have been told), but I don’t come across like this at all. But it is a lot easier to write about all this than to say it.
Oh and in case you are wandering, Kelli will have her version of everything up on here eventually. I am aware that it probably seems unfair that she cannot say her side of the story, so I guess for now, this story is more for me, to help verbalise everything that I am feeling, but essentially it is OUR story.
Okay, so back to the story of us. So I think what happened as I can recall, went pretty much like this. Bare with me, it was a while ago.