So here's the dynamic.  Megan and I are in like 5th grade by now.  We've been together longer than any other couples I knew around us, and yet here I am trapped in that "next step limbo".  Whether it was a lack of courage or whatever, it was starting to become brutally obvious that our relationship was not growing as it was expected to be.

One of her new friends, a guy I became painfully aware of, was Jason.  Whether it was just childish jealousy or natural instinct, I never liked him.  For all I knew, they might have very well just been friends.  But I saw the way he made her smile.  I had claimed that smile, it was mine to behold.

I don't remember how specifically it all ended.  Maybe it was just us growing apart, maybe it was my inability to take our romance to the next level, maybe it was my jealousy of Jason or maybe it was just the fact that what should have just been best friends was cultivated and groomed into dating by family and society.

There was a phone call at the end.  Word had somehow traveled to Megan that I had referred to her as "it".  I still don't know to this day how it happened, since I quite simply never said anything like that.  I remember calling her to clear the air, to reassure her that I'd never say something like that.  I remember her crying.  I was devastated.  How did it get here, how did what we once had dissolve to this moment.

I don't even recall how the phone call ended. I feel like we made up, that we both said our piece.  The more I think about it, the more I think this had all started over me hearing that either she or Jason had asked each other to an upcoming dance.  We didn't have much in our relationship in regards to dating. But that was our thing, we always went to the dance together.  I felt betrayed.

Looking back, she was just a girl looking for a guy to become connected with on a romantic level. I didn't offer that, even after years of being together, so it's only acceptable she would assume I wasn't going to step up and find it somewhere else.

Just as we never really officially got together, we never really officially broke it off.  I didn't really have confirmation that it was officially over until months later when I received word that she and Jason were dating.  I recall that exact moment.  I was in the lunch room surrounded by friends.  I had a crew at that point.

Ian.  Jeff.  Vince.  Tyler.  James.  Sam.

Ian delivered the news as I recall.  I was overcome by a sense of rage and depression.  I knew it was over, hell I hadn't exactly done anything to earn Megan.  She wasn't a possession.  We had a romantic connection and I failed to nurture it. I felt alone for the first time in my life.  I'd lost not only a girlfriend, but I lost what was once my best friend.  The person who used to come over to my house and walk around with me.  The person who used to sit at the back of the bus with me since we were the last two off every day, forever laughing and smiling at things I'll never remember.  The person who was there for me physically and mentally as I re-learned how to live life.  Just like that, she was gone.

Sorry Dan, that one's on you.  And unfortunately it doesn't get any easier from here.

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