Feeling: distant
Listening to: Vast - Land of Shame
Reading/Watching: Intolerable Cruelty

I sometimes wonder where he is.

I sometimes think he still visits here, occasionally. Or possibly that's just a narcissistic wish of my own, to think he's still interested in anything I have to say. We haven't spoken in over a year, he's avoided eye contact for nearly as long as that, and I can't fault him for it.

He knew me when I was fifteen. He knew me when I began this journal. He got me started on the Dragon Prince books by Melanie Rawn, and I got him addicted to Sword Dancer by Jennifer Roberson. Leaving for college, I was grateful that I got to "bring" him with me, that his was one friendship that didn't have to change when I left everything I knew and loved behind.

And I loved having him as a friend, even though he began to make it clear that he was interested in more than friendship, and I didn't know what to do about that. After he read the Roberson series, he started calling me "bascha." And I started calling him "Tiger." It became his pseudonym in this journal, as a matter of fact. We remained friends until the year he transferred to St Moo. Came from Massachussetts, to Texas. To go to my school.

It worried me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd always been mildly freaked by guys who were interested in me, as if something had to be substantially wrong with them for them to want me. It didn't help that Jules and Bri were more than mildly freaked, and convinced that he was stalking me. I tried introducing him to the people I knew, and once my friends became evasive about hanging out with him, Tiger and I would hang out one-on-one, instead. Except he got the wrong idea from it, and thought we were dating.

I am not very proud of how I treated him after that point. I still talked to him online, but tended to be very busy talking to other people when he was near by. When people said things about him, I kept silent, instead of defending him as a true friend should, and I felt terrible. I didn't know how I felt about him, whether I wanted him in my life at all, and if so, in what capacity. It seemed an insurmountable problem, and I found myself wishing that we could have remained online friends, so that this confusion could be avoided. In the end, I felt that he'd traveled two thousand miles and in turn I'd ruined our friendship. It came to a head one night, when I was talking to him about a crush I had, and he opened up completely about how he felt about me. He mentioned this entry, and asked if I'd ever thought about how much my description of the "glass-slipper man" I wanted resembled him. He said some truly startling things, poetic things, things so intense that I felt entirely guilty and stupid for being unable to feel the same way. I know, if I'd returned his feelings, he would have treated me like a queen. I just couldn't do it. And I told him that.

We remained rickety sort-of friends until my junior year, when I received my first kiss (he'd once expressed a wish to have that honor), broke up with my first kiss a month later (he was so protective when he learned that Harry cheated), and started dating Quincy on the rebound. We drifted, speaking rarely, even online, and sometimes I wondered whether he still considered me a friend at all. One day in January, I came to him, wanting his advice on what to do, because I knew I needed to end things with Quincy before they got serious, and I just plain missed talking to Tiger about things. He always gave good advice, and knew just what to say to make me feel better.

He listened to me ramble about the problem, and at one point said, "It seems like you and he have the same sort of situation that you and I had, caught between friendship and something more, so maybe you should just treat it the same way, and let him know the truth."

And my reply was cruel. Now, I can't even remember why his reply bothered me so much. But I said that the two were in no way similar. I was dating Quincy. I had never dated Tiger. I had kissed Quincy, and felt romantic feelings for him. I had never felt that way about Tiger. I told him it was a completely different situation, which was why I didn't know how to get out of it.

He was silent. And I think he said he needed to get to class, and we both left, and for some reason I didn't realize that he avoided me for several months afterward. I was completely insensitive to how my words must have sounded to him.

I'd been trying so hard not to hurt his feelings, in the beginning, when I wanted to let him down easily, that he didn't seem to realize that I was, in fact, letting him down. So I had to become desensitized to him, in order to work up the courage to be frank and blunt. And apparently I never regained my sensitivity where he was concerned.

So now we don't talk. He avoids me. Most of the time I don't even realize he's not there, because I took him for granted so entirely.

But tonight, I am thinking of him. I'm not sure why. Possibly because my playlist just fell upon an Indigo Girls song, a group we both loved. I am wondering about him. Wondering what he's up to, and if he's happy. Wondering if he found the friends he wanted, the girl he needed, the one better than me who could love him. Wondering if he's still in capoeira, if he still likes to sing, if he still hates me. Wondering if he's out there somewhere, reading this.

I'm sorry, Tiger. I treated you abominably, and for what it's worth, I know that now. I don't deserve your forgiveness, or your friendship. I'm not asking you to contact me, because perhaps it's better if you don't, after all that has happened. But if you're out there, I'm thinking of you.

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