Enter: Christine

 Every so often, Jay’s band, Clocktower, would play at a local bar called C.J. Bond’s. There was never a really big turnout, except for maybe their Halloween show. But this was in the spring. Pat, one of Jay’s friend’s that used to be in their band when it was called Tempered Steel (a heavy metal, get it?) but quit the band because they rehearsed on Sundays and he was very religious. He still came to every show and took photos. Unrelated, he also gave my younger brother guitar lessons, so I knew him from two directions. He worked with a girl named Christine at a camera store who also happened to know Jay through school. So when Pat mentioned he was going to see his friend’s band play, it was a happy coincidence that she knew him and decided to attend as well. So Christine would attend the shows and the occasional party. I didn’t really know her or talk to her other than the passing hello until this one show when Pat mentioned to her that I went to school for photography and that she worked at the camera store with him. We started talking and hit it off really well. We ended up talking for hours. By the end of the night she was asking me what my Astrological sign was. She was really into Astrology and when I told her I was a Virgo, she claimed she knew it. We had made plans to drive up to Albany the following week to fix a driver’s license problem we had. Nothing like getting to know each other during a 9 hour round trip car ride.

  Chrissy was short, adorably cute with long reddish blond hair and very flirty. I admit, I found her very attractive. Christine had recently gotten out of a long term relationship with a High School sweetheart named Sam. For me, this had been really the first time in a long time that I had been open to the possibility of seeing other girls now that Jen was completely off the table. Neither one of us wanted to jump headfirst into a serious relationship, so we had kept things casual. What I didn’t know was that Pat had a huge crush on her and now, suddenly she was single and I swooped in out of nowhere and caught her interest. Chrissy was aware of this and told me not to worry about it, but I did. It didn’t help that in social situations, when other people would just ‘let it go’, he wouldn’t and would end up embarrassing himself and those around him and it didn’t seem intentional. An example of this would be if we were at a beach, and one of the girls with us would have a momentary ‘wardrobe malfunction’ while the rest of us politely pretended not to notice, he would blurt out “Excuse me, did your boob just pop out?” letting anyone, who may not have known fully aware of what had occurred.

  In the situation we were in now, he just sat in a chair about 15 feet away and stared at the two of us while we talked. And if I whispered to Chrissy and asked why he was staring at us and he would just stare more intently.

  Christine and I spent a lot of time together the next couple of months and we had a lot of fun. A trip to the Hamptons and the Lighthouse, beach trips, nature hikes. We even made Paul drive Deana, Chrissy and I to Pennsylvania to visit Eric at school (because Paul owed me) and to Valley Forge during a freak spring snowstorm.

Me on the trip to the Hamptons                                              Eric whipping his car off near Valley Forge

 Chrissy, Myself, and our friend Brooke (photo by Deana)                        Chrissy by the Montauk Lighthouse

 But then one day Christine stopped by my house and we had ‘the talk’.

  She had been trying to get money from her ex-boyfriend Sam for a parking ticket he had gotten with her car and he wouldn’t give her the money unless they talked things out. And… of course, she was going to give him another chance to make things work. It was understandable. They had a long history together. But it hurt. It hurt a whole lot more than I expected or wanted it to for a ‘casual relationship’. The truth was I fell for her pretty hard, and the amount of jealousy I had in me over her was more than I ever thought I would feel again after what Dena put me through. I hated that feeling. But it was her choice to make and I just wanted her to be happy. I told her I would always be there for her and that we’ll still be great friends no matter what and went inside the house heartbroken and feeling sorry for myself.