The Story of a Girl (Part Four)

To recap: It begs the question, have you ever wondered just how much the Universe is capable of conspiring to make something happen…to make something come true? To bring two people together…

Part Three continued the story of a girl, and her journey to happiness. She’ll again be typed in this color and she’ll be known simply as the girl. As before there are also three boys, there’s the ex and he’ll be this color and called the ex. There is also the boy, he’ll be this color and called the boy. (And last, but not until the very end of this story, there will appear a third and final main character; the One, and he’ll be typed in this color as the One.)

Part Four (The Mind-Games of It)

We continue where we left off; the girl found out that she was pregnant, the boy was in effect banned from her life as she concentrated on bringing a healthy baby into the world – which she did, and they attempted to try a relationship again, which just was not meant to be. Then the girl applied to college, she and baby moved to a nearby city and into their first apartment. She tried-on a casual long distance relationship and started school. After missing her own freshmen activities while the boy went for the second time, she began to comprehend what it would be like to co-parent with him. So as we see what followed, we are again left wondering if it’s fathomable that it’s all part of the Universe’s grand plan? Could this possibly be true?

…

At twenty years old we tend to think a certain way and it’s differently than we do at thirty, forty and so forth. We can only know what we’ve learned up until that point. Some people are ahead of the game, some behind, and most are kind of average, wouldn’t you agree?

The girl was average-ish in most ways. She’d been lucky; she’d been well-loved and well-cared for all her life. But she was now a mother, and that was a lifelong commitment.

She took this very seriously, but she had to learn as she went as first-time moms do. She may not have known everything she needed to know, but she was certain of one thing; she could do it.

Although it was tough to do alone, she was particularly blessed by the people in her life that bent over backwards for her and for baby. The girl had no idea how she’d have managed without them.

That first year was one of turmoil and adversity as they got used to living in an apartment in a city. Baby had turned one there! The boy brought his girlfriend to baby’s first birthday party, and the girl admitted she’d felt very awkward about this. She got through it though, and she did quite well, considering the first time is expected to be the hardest.

There wasn’t a lot that went on that first fall. It was a mix of getting settled, going to school, taking care of baby until there was daycare available. It was hectic, but she was coping.

Everything was kind of going smoothly, other than a few times when the boy refused to help out when she had a paper due and needed to get to the library, this was before computers and mass internet availability, you see. Otherwise he was preoccupied with his relationship.

Until he wasn’t anymore, his relationship was over.

The girl was still in her casual long distance one at this point and suddenly this was something that bothered the boy, causing tensions to bubble to the surface once again. She realized that she’d had enough of this barely existent long distant thing, and it ended quietly. She had plenty on her plate as it was.

At this point something unexpected happened; she had run into the boy’s ex a while back and they’d kind of hit it off. When the girl was contacted by her several weeks later and invited out with her and her friends, she decided to go.

As they became friends the girl realized they had a lot in common, and she became friends with her friends, too. She’d met some of them the year before and she found out she really liked these girls. They became some of her closest college friends.

That April the boy’s ex went back home, quite far away from the city. She wrote the girl asking her to visit. Her grandmother encouraged her to do it and helped her pay for her plane ticket.

In May her parents took baby for the week and off she went. She had a great time getting to know her new friend, meeting people there, enjoying the fair weather. They really did have such a connection and she had such a blast.

She’d offered her apartment to one of her most trusted friends to stay at while she was away so the friend could have some quiet to do her summer semester school work.

Three quarters of the way through her trip the girl called her own number to see how her apartment was doing. After several rings her answering machine came on, but instead of her outgoing message it was the boy’s voice saying that he was not home and to leave him a message.

She was shocked! She felt a kind of violated that she’d never felt before. Her stomach sank. She had no idea what to do, and long distance was very expensive. So stuck in another part of the world she had to wait until she got home to deal with it.

When she arrived at the airport her father was there to pick her up as planned, but he was alone; no baby. She would find out that the boy had shown up at her parent’s home and taken baby back to the city…to her apartment.

She was furious. And then she found out he’d showed up late one night, demanding her friend let him and his friends in. He’d told her since it was baby’s apartment, it was his too. Her friend didn’t know what to do, so she’d packed up her stuff and left.

The girl thought her friend had done the only thing she could have done under those circumstances, and she was glad that she’d gotten out of there. Meanwhile, as she faced the boy upon returning; he showed no remorse, he was now effectively living there and to top everything off he spat words at her about how fun it must have been going to see his ex and how they must have spent all their time talking about him and making fun of him.

Not true…but she couldn’t tell him that. Well, she tried to, to no avail.

…

She made plans to move herself and baby closer to the wonderful daycare baby was now in. There she came up against a problem, while she thought she’d found just the right place, there would be almost four weeks between leases.

The boy, who’d been acting decently for a few weeks, suggested they move into the large home he’d soon be sharing with three others around the time her lease would start. Coincidentally it was not too far from where they were moving and she was really stuck.

Against her better judgment, but out of desperation, she said yes.

As their apartment became ready for them to move in she began moving over there. Small trips as she didn’t own a car didn’t usually need one in the city, but buses frowned upon people trying to move using their services.

Just as she was preparing to rent a small truck on the coming weekend she had a knock at her new door. The power was on, but the telephone wasn’t hooked up yet. She and baby were there just sizing up the place.

It was the boy, he told her that he’d watch baby while she went and got her things. She started to explain, again, that she didn’t have a way yet, which he knew, but she’d do it very soon.

He told her one roommate specifically was quite upset at her because her things were still there and he was trying to move in…AND…she had to go now because the boy had put her things out on the sidewalk, so she should probably hurry before someone took them.

This news finally started to sink in and she realized what he’d apparently done! She couldn’t even call anyone, no phone. She couldn’t drive over there. Her parents were over an hour’s drive away. Then she couldn’t help herself, the tears started to flow as she walked out of the building and towards a main street to find a pay phone.

She called the same trusted friend, from a restaurant phone booth, as the tears streamed down her face. The friend told the girl to stay put, and then she dropped what she was doing, borrowed her mom’s minivan racing there to pick her up and go get her belongings.

The boy hadn’t been kidding; her things were loosely piled on the ground and sidewalk outside the house!

They quickly shoved every bit into the minivan. She noticed some things were not out there, fearing they’d been stolen she told her friend who suggested they go check inside. Sure enough anything that was useful, for example a tv, or some kitchen gadgets, was still there. Her friend went around gathering everything up!

The roommate whom the boy had claimed was angry with her walked in, smiling, saying hello to them. The tears started up again, she blurted out how sorry she was. Only…he looked confused and didn’t understand.

He said he hadn’t been upset at all.

So again we arrive at the question that sits at the heart of this story in all its parts; was this all the Universe’s grand plan?

Was it all necessary? How much can a person handle on their journey? Is there a breaking point?

And as everything seemingly spiraled out of control, she asked herself; if she survived this, what was she willing to do to improve and change and fix her life…

Next post: Part Five; the Finale (What Became of It)

— Raina K Morton December 16 2014

*Title from the 2000* song “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” by Nine Days
**The color coding is purely for identifiable reasons & whimsy, anything else is a coincidence**
***This author claims all rights to this story about a girl in all its parts***