Back to the Plains

Part 7: The Revelation

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

All Ali remembers of her love life is heartache. Not one good memory stands out. Sure, there were a few dates that made her smile and laugh, but they became clouded by the countless stand-ups, break-up texts or phone calls, arguments, relationship pressures, and more. There was Kevin, who was sweet in the beginning with his pale eyes and dashing smile, but only to get what he wanted. When Ali did not provide, so to speak, he became angry, blaming her for his lack of basic needs. She held out hope for six months that he might reconsider, but her last straw was finding him fulfilling his basic needs with one of Ali's classmates. It was awkward, to say the least. Once Kevin was out of the picture, Xavier moved to town during Ali's junior year in High School. He was new and semi-popular, with dark eyes and a rebel attitude. Every girl in Ali's school wanted Xavier, but she was surprised to find that he only had eyes for her, or so she thought. Eventually, she discovered all he wanted was another notch on his bedpost and it was public knowledge that Ali was not putting out what he wanted. At first, she was a challenge to him, but he got bored after a while and eventually forgot about her. She was glad, for she did not like the way he looked at her.

During Ali's senior year she sat next to Luke, a friend she has known since kindergarten. A boy with blond hair and blue eyes that would make Hitler tremble with glee. Something changed between them that senior year and they gave a relationship a try. It would have worked if they were not so similar. They were predictable, in nearly every way a relationship could be. After a while, he began to resent her for not being interesting anymore and called it quits the day before Valentine's Day. He never talked to her again. She could not blame Kevin, Xavier, or Luke for how she acted. It was against her beliefs that she should give them her body along with everything else, and she still might have been holding out for Samuel's best friend Caleb to stop seeing her as a child. There was a time when she was Caleb's shadow, always following the dark-haired, blue-eyed hometown baseball legend, just for the small chance of being noticed. It never happened, and every day that passed only seemed to chip pieces of her heart away. She hated to hold out hope, and eventually stopped the day his wedding invitation came in the mail; addressed to Samuel only.

The four years of college for Ali was not much different. She focused on her studies as her classmates focused on men. The only interest she had was in a sophomore from a neighboring college. The interest died when she discovered she was being cat-fished by her roommate's boyfriend and using his buddy to help. She swore off men after that until graduation, or that is what she told herself to keep her eyes on her books rather than on the men around her. Drama stuck to her like glue, and it did not help that her family pried into her love life on more than one occasion. Holly's constant and endless flow of men in her life made her and Ali the two ends of the extremes: Holly too much and Ali not enough. Nora had a steady boyfriend, meeting right in the middle. Ali had never met him and was rather quite jealous of her family's high praise of him. Ali wondered if she would ever find someone worthy of such praise.

The disappointment was around every corner for Ali, and somewhere along the way, she stopped looking altogether. She no longer saw the males around her as possible catches, but rather as people in general, unknown names and blank faces in a passing crowd. She decided that she would rather be alone for the rest of her life than to be disappointed for the rest of her life. As long as she had her family, she knew, in some way, she would be happy. However, her full-proof plan backfired in the worst way possible. Never, in a million years, did she imagine something like this happening. There was no way to know. Her family is gone, and she has no one left, or does she?