Tom grips his steering wheel tighter, as the sharp grooves in the pavement shake his car and warn him that he is careening onto the highway’s shoulder. Tom doesn’t need that warning today. As he pulls off the interstate, Tom looks to his right and sees a sign that reads, “Junction 56: 1 Mile.” He puts his car in park and thinks to himself, “Almost any other time, crossroads would be the appropriate term for what I’m facing right now; but, ‘Junction’ is the right one today.”

Ignoring the “Check Engine Oil” light that has been on since he crossed Kansas’ state line four hundred miles ago, Tom turns off the car, leans forward, and presses his forehead against the vinyl steering wheel cover. “A Junction is when two things come together,” Tom says to himself. “And no matter which way I go, I will be coming together with somebody.”

Tom came across the easy route to Topeka forty miles back, but the phone call from Sandy as he drove through Colorado was too fresh in his memory for him to automatically choose Topeka over St. Louis. Sandy, up until 24 hours ago, had been out of Tom’s life for the last two years. The two had dated for four years before Sandy moved to St. Louis, leaving Tom behind and wondering why he ever invested so much time in somebody who obviously never loved him enough to make a sacrifice and stay in Washington.

Mandy came into Tom’s life three months ago, when he was working for an electronics company in Seattle. She was doing an internship for the University of Washington, and the main objective for each intern was to work with a specific department and familiarize themselves with that department’s operations. Fortunately for Tom, Mandy chose to study Marketing in school, which was his line of work at the company.

Shortly after Mandy began the internship, she and Tom started to date. Surprisingly, Tom took to his dating Mandy quite positively. He had never fully recovered from Sandy’s breaking his heart, and he always wondered if he would ever allow another girl to get as close to him as Sandy did. When it became obvious to Tom that Mandy did, in fact, love him; he brought himself to face the reality that he had, once again, fallen in love.

The two continued their romance until Mandy, realizing her internship was ending and a job opening was on the horizon, confronted Tom with the “What if” question he had been dreading since the day the temporary intern started to show some interest in him. “What if I were to go with you to Topeka?” Tom asked Mandy with a shocked voice and face. “Are you serious?”

Mandy, understanding Tom’s astonishment, explained her proposal to him. “A lot of companies were interested in my internship’s findings. The one in Topeka even offered me a full-time job with a decent salary.” Tom continued to look at Mandy with a doubtful face and asked her, “So, what am I supposed to do if I move out there?” Mandy could see that Tom’s heart was already on its way to Kansas to be with her, but his conscience was holding him back because of the task of finding a new job and starting over. “They already have a job waiting there for you with the same salary as the one you’ve got now,” Mandy assured Tom, alleviating what she thought was his biggest concern.

Tom’s biggest concern wasn’t the new job or even the new location halfway across the country. Falling in love with somebody is one thing, but making a life-altering decision to be with that person is something that takes love to a level Tom had tested before and only resulted in failure. A four-year relationship wasn’t convincing enough for Sandy to consider staying at her normal job in Seattle. She would much rather have the extra five thousand a year at the cost of losing the man she loved the most in her life. “Will Mandy be the same way Sandy was and say, ‘If you love me so much, you’d come with me and let me pursue my dream,’ just so I would go with her?” Tom wondered as he stood there with Mandy and considered what he would do.

Mandy took Tom’s hand into hers and stared convincingly into his eyes. “I love you too much to let you make a decision that could end up hurting you, Tom, even if doing so hurts me in the process,” Mandy told him sincerely. “So, do what you feel is right.”

Obviously, Tom accepted the job in Topeka and was well on his way. While he was dining in Boulder, his cell phone rang. “Hello gorgeous,” Tom answered. A distantly familiar voice came over the receiver and asked, “Is this Tom?” Tom’s face became pale with shock and anxiety. He knew the voice all too well and his heart may have skipped a beat while he gathered his words. “Sandy?” Tom asked with an unsure voice, even though he knew exactly who it was. “Yes, Tom. It’s me,” Sandy replied. “Where are you? I can hardly hear you.”

Tom was very dead set on telling Sandy he was on his way to Kansas to start a new life with his girlfriend, Mandy, but he held back the response to see what Sandy could possibly want from him. “I’m on vacation. I’m driving through Colorado and I was thinking about going through Kansas on my way to Chicago,” Tom told her. Trying to sound interested, Sandy inquired more about Tom and his vacation. “Why are you going to Chicago? Family or just plain tourism?”

“Tourism,” Tom answered with a nervous, unconvincing tone. Sandy, being the impatient and demanding person she has always been, got right to the point and told Tom, “I’ve been thinking a lot lately, Tom. You didn’t deserve what I did to you. I wasn’t fair with you because all I could think about was what I wanted and nothing else.” Tom, having reserved in himself a response he could make to Sandy over the last two years, was too shocked by her apology to remember what malicious things he wanted to say. Instead, he responded, “I don’t know what to say, Sandy. I guess I could just say, ‘No harm done,’ but that wouldn’t be true,” he told her with a confident voice. “You hurt me more than anyone ever has, and it hasn’t been easy to deal with these last two years.”

Sandy, insistent on being forgiven, continued with her apologies. “I really am sorry, Tom. I never loved anybody more than you, even up to this day.” Tom couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Is Sandy trying to get back together with me?” he wondered to himself. “Does she really love me that much?” Tom retained his composure and held the phone back up to his face. “What are you telling me, Sandy?” he asked her, hoping the answer he knew she was about to give him wasn’t the one he would hear. “I’m telling you to come down to St. Louis instead of Chicago so I can see you,” Sandy responded. “I want to make things work again, Tom.”

Tom suddenly brings himself out of his daydream and takes his forehead off of the steering wheel. Once again, he looks off to the side of the road and reads the “Junction 56: 1 Mile” sign to remind himself of what he’s contemplating. “If I go to St. Louis and meet Sandy, I may regain all those feelings I once had for her,” Tom thought to himself. “However, I may also relive the heartbreak she left me with two years ago.”

Tom had promised Sandy he would call her before the junction to let her know what he decided. As he reaches for his phone, Tom remembers his conversation with Mandy before he left Seattle. “Call me Tuesday night and let me know where you are, O.K.?” Mandy said to Tom before they hung up. Tom can still hear the emptiness in her voice, as he could tell how anxious she was to be back with him again. They both knew that when they saw each other the next time, it would be for good.

Tom punches the numbers on his telephone and waits for the other person to pick up. “Hello, gorgeous,” he answers. “Sorry. I’m going to be a little bit later than I thought.” As he waits and listens to the person’s response on the other end, Tom starts his car, pulls back onto the highway, and starts towards the junction. “No, nothing’s wrong,” Tom responds. “I just got a little sidetracked, that’s all.” Tom’s car exits the highway and proceeds up the off ramp, where, at the end, a sign with two arrows awaits him and his final decision. The arrow pointing to the left reads, “Topeka,” and the arrow pointing to the right reads, “St. Louis.”

Tom’s car pulls to a stop at the junction. First, he looks to his right and considers what awaits him in the distance. He shifts the phone into his right hand and turns on his left blinker. “Nothing to worry about, Mandy. I’ll see you in a few hours,” Tom says as he looks to his left and considers both what awaits him and what he awaits in return. “I love you, too, Mandy,” Tom says as he hangs up the phone and proceeds towards Topeka. Driving down the new highway, Tom smiles and feels positive with the fact that he would much rather take a chance on a love he’s coming to know than to give another chance to a love he may never know.

Kirk McKnight Age 24. Contact: djemboss@yahoo.com

Copyright 2003 Kirk McKnight

Comments and Reviews Welcome

Posted 8/06/2003