A few weeks before I left for Denver, Chez came back into town for a couple of days. We had been talking from time to time and writing letters to each other. She told me about a lot of stuff that had happened to her and her family before I met her.
The most startling thing was that she had been raped by her half-brother when she was 14. Her half-brother was the product of her father's first marriage. Chez was severely injured by the incident, so much so that the doctor told her that she would never be able to have children. Charges were filed against the half-brother and there was going to be a trial. However, he accepted a plea bargain when he found out she was going to testify. In his deal, he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Her family had come up to Clovis this time because her sister Kiz had just given birth to a baby boy. Chez invited me to go with her family to see Kiz and the baby in the hospital. When we went into her room, I was surprised to find that her roommate was someone I knew who had just had a baby. I said, "Hi, Kyz! Hi, Kiz!" I'll bet Kyz thought I was there specifically to see her at first, but wondering how I knew about her having a baby. She and I spent a little time catching up. I'm pretty sure that as soon as I left the room, Kyz and Kiz turned to each other and said, "So, you know Fayd, huh?"
We went to the area where they had the newborns on display. Chez looked at Kiz' baby and asked, "Fayd, wouldn't you like to have one of those?" I laughed a little, but didn't actually respond. Before I left, I told Chez that I would be at a live remote for the radio station the next day and invited her to come see me if she had time.
She did show up. We hung out and talked a little bit, but she had to get going. Her family was going to go back to see Kiz in the hospital. I stayed to finish up that remote before heading out to the mall.
I saw Chez again a few weeks later as I was driving from Clovis to Artesia after I had completely moved out of my apartment and prepared to move to Denver. I stopped by her house and we hung out for awhile. Considering that I went eight years between my first two girlfriends, Roz and Marz, and I didn't want to wait eight years for my next girlfriend, I decided to hedge. I told Chez that, when she turned 18, if I wasn't involved with someone and she wasn't involved with someone, we could look at becoming boyfriend/girlfriend. As a way of sealing the promise, I gave her my high school class ring. (I should point out I never got a college class ring.)
But I had no idea how we were going to make that work. I mean, I was still going to live in Denver and she was still going to be in Roswell. We could have done the long distance relationship, but at some point, one of us would have to move to the same town as the other. I figured that there was a good chance that by the time she turned 18, she would probably find someone else closer to her age who didn't call her the b-word.
However, I realized how seriously she took the promise when I walked her to her door and hugged her goodnight. She was trembling in my arms. I felt very responsible and very guilty for knowing that I was not really that committed to her.
When I came back from Denver six weeks later, Chez was still wearing my ring. I actually dreaded how I was going to handle the situation when she turned 18. At the time, I had met someone I was very interested in, but hadn't started dating her.
It was during this visit that I was able to take the photos that are included in the post. There were other photos that show her face, but I'm not going to publish those, including the one that clearly shows her wearing my class ring.
As usual, this story is far from over, but it's going to be awhile before I return to it.
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