A Warning In The Night

We were the perfect fairy-tale couple.

- Debbie Tompkins

I was 27, blonde, blue-eyed, pretty. Jake was 32, tall, dark and handsome. The revered high school football coach in our small Oklahoma town. The most eligible bachelor around. Everyone told me I was the luckiest girl to be hanging on his arm on a Saturday night. But they didn’t know Jake like I did.

That night, I watched Jake from my spot on the couch in his musty basement. We’d just come back to his place after a ceremony at the high school, where Jake had won the award for Coach of the Year, and he was ready to celebrate. He put Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” on the record player and bopped his head to the music.

“Let’s get this party started,” he said, reaching into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a baggie and poured its contents onto a mirror on the coffee table. He cut the powder into neat little rows with a razor blade, lowered his face and snorted.

I looked away, disgusted. How had I ended up here? Once upon a time, my life had held so much promise. When I was growing up, Mama had always told me I could do anything, be anyone. She was the kind of person who believed the world was your oyster, as long as you trusted God and believed in yourself. Mama had all the answers. We’d sit at the kitchen table—Mama’s hazel eyes locked on mine, her thick hair pulled back in a French twist and her strong hands wrapped around mine—and she’d tell me to dream big. “Life’s too short not to,” she’d say. I did have big dreams. I wanted to move to Hollywood, write movies, fall in love. But I’d long ago lost my dreams.