Losing Jack

Chapter 12

Just the same as any night Michael had trouble getting to sleep. He found rest always come after lots of tossing and turning - trying to make his mind shut up.

Though he finally went to sleep, his rest was overshadowed with disturbing dreams. That night was the first time in ages he had dreamt of Mary Lynne.

His dream started off pleasantly. They were on top of Bluff Knoll after it had snowed on the peak. The snow - so white and crisp, crunched as he rolled it into balls and lobbed one after the other at Mary Lynne.
She screamed and ducked for cover, yelling at him over the top of a large dug out she had made.
"I swear to god Michael I will get you back for that one," before sending streams of her own crisp snowballs in Michael's direction.
You will never take me alive," he yelled as he ducked for cover behind a large snow covered rock.

It was of a time back in their high school days, and they were having so much fun. All of their childhood friends were there. Even Jack, who was lobbing his fair share of crispy white snowballs and yelling, "Bombs away."

Braving the barrage of flying snowballs, Michael made a run for it, landing suddenly in Mary Lynne's handmade bunker.
"Truce Linney," he cried as he slid in beside her.

As the others began to send snowballs hurtling at the pair Michael and Mary Lynne had stopped making snowballs. They had begun making out, the soft snow moving and crunching around them...

Then all too suddenly the mood of the dream changed. The whiteness of the snow fields turned grey and bleak. Michael was looking over Mary Lynne. She was hanging from the cliff edge of the mountain, with a sheer drop that seemed to go on forever below her. One arm was outstretched, as she clung on to a small overhanging rock with the other hand. She held on for dear life.
"Please Michael save me," she pleaded, eyes wide with fear.

But Michael he couldn't, she was too far away. She was out of his grasp....
"Mary Lynne," he cried sitting bolt upright in his bed with his arms outstretched.

It took a long time for him to calm down. Even though he knew it was just a dream it had felt so real. He felt as though Mary Lynne was still there in the room with him.

It had been so long since he had seen her and smelled her perfume, which reminded him of bubble gum.

The truth was he really didn't know how he felt about Mary Lynne. At one time he felt anger, rejection, but mostly sorrow. That had passed now, he thought of her less and less with each passing year. He just couldn't shake the feeling, there was unfinished business between them still.

It was crazy, in some ways he resented her for leaving him alone to pick up the pieces after the accident. Why hadn't she told him why she left. Michael couldn't put their relationship to rest until he knew why. There was this part of him that longed for Mary-Lynne and the time they had spent together.
They were the happiest days of his life.

Many times he lay in his bed at night wondering how he would react if he did see her again. Would he be angry and yell at her for abandoning him without a word. Would she fall into his arms and everything would be back to the way it was all of those years ago before the accident.

Would they be strangers. Would their eyes meet from across a crowded room and they would both look away too afraid to talk. Or worse still if they met would they realise they had grown so far apart over the years that they no longer had anything to say to each other?

Although to some degree he blamed being stuck in Mt Barker looking after Jack on Mary Lynne, Michael knew it was guilt that kept him there.

They had been so close all three of them.

A few months after the accident, when he knew Jack was going to be alright, he had ran away. Jumped on the first bus headed out of town, wanting to put the whole thing behind him.

He had disappeared, hoping to forget for just minute how crappy his life felt, and how close he was to having his dreams before they were pulled out from under his feet.

Michael realised that he just couldn't take it anymore. He despised watching his best mate suffer, while he sat there helplessly missing his girl like crazy wondering why she just left. So he got out, turned his back on Jude and Daniel and left them to help Jack through his arduous rehabilitation process.

Michael roamed from town to town and never stayed in one place too long. He went from job to job, and town to town.

Even then he had known the truth. He wasn't running away from town, he was trying to run away from himself. That's why no job felt right. No woman could mend the hole in his heart Mary Lynne had created. Every new town reminded him there wasn't a place on earth he could run to that would ever be far enough away.

He may have been miles away from Mt Barker but there wasn't a night that he didn't stay awake agonising over leaving his best mate. He tried to tell himself that what he was doing was ok.
Sure he may have had his freedom, but he knew he was still in limbo, running away hadn't fixed anything.

Then finally it all got the better of him he just couldn't do it anymore. With guilt consuming him he come back to Mt Barker without his girl and his dreams in tatters. He had gone back to Jack. Back to face his music like a man.

Jude and Daniel welcomed him back home with open arms, but never said a word about his leaving, or coming back. They didn't need to. Jude and Daniel knew he had come back because it was the right thing to do, he owed it to Jack to stand by his side. He owed it to Jude and Daniel.

Although they were gentle kind people both Jude and Daniel had a lot of pull in the town. Jude come to Michael one day with a plan, since he spent so much time helping out, he should at least get paid for it.

Michael had become Jacks official carers aide. That is how he concreted himself to the town and to Jack.

The extra money from the job was helpful, it meant that he was able to move into his own place. Somewhere he could get away from it all, but at the same time it felt like an anchor tied around his legs. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't leave now. This was his life.

Then there was Sandy. Dreaming of Mary Lynne almost made him feel as though he were cheating somehow. Even though there was no promise of a serious relationship between him and Sandy, he wanted it to be more. She had become his beacon, his light at the end of the tunnel that made his crummy existence just a little bit more bearable.

He really felt something for her. She had a type of vulnerability about her that he sometimes caught glimpses of when she thought no one was looking. And today, when he had kissed her, she had kissed him back.

But he knew all too well that he was skating on thin ice with her over Beth keeping Jack at Whispering Vines. She was just as likely to tell him to get lost and don't ever come back if he were to appear to be helping Beth.
"Talk about lousy timing."

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