whatever it takes
9:44 p.m. | May. 01, 2010

and then, there you were.

it's been over a month since your (inevitable?) return. the dreamer in me knows what i can and cannot take. the dreamer in me pretends none of this ever happened. the dreamer in me pretends you are just another person to chat with, to talk to, to get to know. because you are a different person now. you are married. you have a different job. you live in a different location. and so my heart starts the arduous, but surprisingly easy, job of disentangling any past from our now. i will do anything to make sure i never lose you again. and if that means being your friend, i will be the best friend in the entire world.

i sit by and watch your world collapse. your wife leaves you. you tell me that and i purposely tuck away the part of me that wants to scream the obvious thoughts, suggestions, possibilities. there's nothing i can do from here and i feel helpless, useless. you fall apart in front of me. not eating, not sleeping, riddled with anxiety and going a little insane. and i know exactly what it's like to be where you are. and so i sit by, as solid as i can be from this far away. i rush home to you. i ask you to tell me what the doctor said. i make you take your sleeping pill. i make you shower, brush your teeth, put on clean clothes. it breaks me, physically hurts me to see you in this much pain. it clouds me wherever i go. every thought i have is mirrored by a thought of you. is he okay? where is he? and i focus all of my being into sending you my energy, to keep you standing, to keep you upright.

this time, when you disappear for a day, then two, i don't worry about it too much. because we already agreed that we are best friends, you are never going to leave me again. you can't. friends can't leave each other. they are friends, and that's that. the thing is, the next time i see you, you're in a hospital bed and i fall apart. i can't stand the thought that anything, ANYTHING, might, or could, happen to you. your fragility in being human hits me square in the gut and i feel like i absolutely have lost you and i cry with the pain of it, with the relief of not. you tell me not to cry, that you are okay. you stay in the hospital for a week. i can't do anything. i feel useless. i rush home to be with you as much as i can. i want to be in that hospital. i want to wrap my fingers around that woman's neck who is doing this to you. i want to scream at her for not visiting you, for not making this better, for being a silly little girl who doesn't realize who you are, what she has, what she could have. how can she throw this away? she's an idiot. i want to tell you how i would never do this to you, that i'd be there in that hospital room with you 24/7, that i'd bring you clean clothes to change into, that i'd read to you, leave you, shush you, anything you until it was all better. i want to tell you that i love you that i've always loved you that i need you to better and okay because then i will be better and okay again too. instead, i watch you wither away. no solid food for a week. and at the end, you are cranky, sarcastic, and unappreciative. it feels like the disease has taken you away from me and i know it's just the sickness and all the shit you've been going through, so i keep my mouth shut and i continue to just be there for you. even though you don't notice how much of my energy i am spending on you. i would do it all over again if i had to.

and all the things that i remember are there. we finish each other's sentences. and i'm the one who makes you smile for the first time. and we say the same things at the same time. and our eyes shine that way they used to. and people notice us the way people used to notice us. we are perfect, me and you. we fit just like we used to. it's nothing to get used to this new you. because it's you and me. and somehow, in any way, we were meant to be.

i can breath again simply because the piece of you has come back to me. and if all of this just means we are friends forever, i will take that and i will run with it and i will clutch it to my chest and i will never let it go.

because i will not, ever, not ever ever ever ever, lose you again. i just won't.