I IM him for the first time in weeks to tell I need for him not to visit my blog anymore. I tell him there are things I need to write, things I need to get out of my system, and I'll never do it, knowing that he might be reading them. I tell him that I can't deal anymore with the feeling that he's judging me. For being myself. For having emotions.

Seems like that's all I'll ever have.

He says "ok." Unceremoniously, the way he says everything. I fight the urge to extend the conversation any way I possibly can without losing what little credibility I might still have. It's pride, and not strength, that draws the final words out of me. "Thank you. Goodnight."

The conversation is ten messages long, but I save it anyway. I don't know if it's a wish or a fear that it will be the last.

The truth was, only part of my reasoning for IMing him was to request that he never come here again. The other part was to give him a chance to redeem himself, to say something irresistible and overcome my waning resolution to purge him from my life. He might have tried, if I hadn't been so terse-- when I first asked him not to come, his original response was "What's so important that I don't see?". And I told him, in such a way that I knew he would either have to fight for me or let go. Whatever I might have wanted to believe, I knew which it would be. And it was.

So now I'm free. To lose the euphemisms and shed the inhibitions. To say what he really is, to call him by his name.

Casey. Casey Casey Casey Casey Casey.


There's so much I've not been able to explain in the past about him, about me in relation to him, about what was once "us". There was a small part of me that hesitated because I fear that certain people who read this would not understand the line between how I feel about him and how I feel about Zack, and how very seperate they are-- this fear, I suppose, was heightened by the fact that foremost among that group was me, so I never would have been able to aptly explain it to the others who might question my intentions or integrity. I will say that while I have lacked faith in myself, Zack never has, and whether or not he understands any better than I do, he has never been more than passingly threatened by the cold, fucked facts: I love Casey. I love him so much.

I've talked with little hesitation on here about how I felt, before, about Chad, and I've referred to him as "The one that got away". I've wondered where my life would have been if he had, for a moment, felt something for me that was on the same plane as what I felt about him. But I'm starting to wonder, now that all of that is in the open with him, if that is in the past-- or if it isn't. I don't know. So it certainly seems suspect that I could claim to love both Casey and Chad to such a dangerously similar extent to the way I love Zack, but I'm sick of wondering why that is, and what it means. Perhaps there is only one person meant for everyone in the world, and perhaps there is not. Perhaps I am an anomaly and perhaps I am just like everyone else. Perhaps I love Zack more, perhaps I only love him differently, in a way that makes us compatible where others are not. All I'm sure of anymore is this: if this weren't love, it wouldn't hurt so much.

So while there's years of written history that have been subtly altered to meet his approval that now I could, given the time and inclination, now shed light on in a way that might prove fascinating or therapeutic, right now what I want to talk about is the end. Or what will serve as the end, until I meet that bear once more.


We were talking, casually, one day, having only been reconciled from our last period of not talking (the last time I tried to quit him, the addiction that he is) for a few months. The previous time had taken place over the summer months, when he was home from school in Mass, and because of that timing, I hadn't had an oppurtunity to see him in a long time, almost a year. I hadn't want to bring up the prospect of seeing him again, because I didn't want to rock the boat-- things were going well between us, and I wondered if I could deal with the rejection if, for some reason, he didn't want to see me. That night, though, I suppose I was feeling bold.

I should point out that, over past vacations or before he left altogether, whenever we'd see each other, I felt the need to live up to these enormous expectations that I created of how I could entertain him, blow him away, make him feel like I was the one who made his life exciting. That probably all started in the awkwardness that developed after the anticlimatic end of the slightly romantic portion of our relationship (which, mind you, was never anything more than an attraction, a highly discussed hypothetical relationship, and ultimately a giant sword of Damocles the thread of which, I can now safely say, gave into the weight.) This pressure, of course, only added to the awkwardness and insecurity, making for potentialy intolerable nights that were only reprieved-- when they were-- by the natural chemistry between us.

That night, the night we ended, I had come up with an idea of something for us to do together: the next time I saw him, we would rent "The Aristocrats" to watch together. A documentary-style film wherein a myriad of comics tell the dirtiest joke of all time over and over again, it wasn't exactly a flashy plan, but I'd wanted to see the movie for some time and thought that Casey, unlike Zack (who had no interest in seeing it with me) would be just the kind of person to enjoy it. Mind you, the conversation where I proposed this happened online, and I assume he was busy with other things, so there were long pauses in between things that were being said. I asked him when the next time he was coming home for a while, and I told him to keep a night open for me, I had an idea. He insisted on knowing what it was, and I told him about the movie, describing it in vague terms-- as I did, and this is the important part, my enthusiasm for the evening was growing. It'd been such a long time since I'd seen him, and I began to reminisce about other nights we'd spent together, just sitting on my bed and laughing about the world, and how it couldn't understand what a complete farce it was. It was then that my mind's eye zeroed in on an image, a sound:

Casey laughing.

I am not a particularly imaginative person, and often times I have trouble picturing even things I've just seen. But it was perfectly clear to me then, the smile, his face, the sound of him laughing, how good it always made me feel when I could make him laugh. I was picturing him, with me, laughing to this movie, and suddenly, I was so happy I couldn't contain myself. I felt more elation just imagining him, just anticipating the moment with him that I can even begin to explain: such a simple, perfect moment with someone I loved so, so much. I didn't mention it to him, because he would have thought that I was a complete idiot, but..looking forward to that moment with him, watching that movie with someone I knew would get it, I was overjoyed. I felt, for only a moment, that our relationship was right and real, and everything was how it was supposed to be. No objections. No complications. Just happiness.

Of course, he couldn't have known how I was feeling on the other end of our connection, 300 miles away. He didn't know how I would have sounded if I'd been speaking the words and he couldn't see my face. There was no way he could have known what he did to me when he said "I don't really want to see that movie."

He couldn't have known.

I tried to keep going, and did for a while. I simply said "Okay", not letting on that I was...crushed, destroyed, hurt beyond his imagination without him even realizing it or having any idea why, and we continued the conversation, for a while. But our next catty little fight, and, consequently, his next condescending, hurtful comment, was too soon in coming.

And I told him to take me off of his buddy list. And signed off.



I wonder if any of you won't think I'm crazy after reading that-- I wonder if anyone out there could understand what it's like to get so caught up in an imaginary moment, and then to have it snatched away from you, so suddenly. Like a cartoon character standing on a cloud, who doesn't realize there is no support for height they're hovering at until the cloud clears away, and look down, and there is a moment of realization before they fall.


My name is Linda, and I've fallen.

On with it.