Mr. F

I know, somewhere here buried in years of memories I have described with fresh eyes what it felt like to run slipping and sliding back from that house.  I'm sure that everything seemed so brilliantly clear, but now the edges have faded.  You're still tall, I think, with brown hair and brown-maybe hazel eyes.  I'm perpetually wearing what I think is a green tank top with horribly unflattering skinny jeans.  I remember you trying to take them off, and me fighting equally hard to keep them on.
"No," I said, "No." And you stopped, wait- did you?  Or were you one of the persistent ones that I could only fight off through feigned sleep?  I can't recall.  All I know is that at an ungodly hour of the morning the next day I'm slipping and sliding my way back across campus, the guilt heavy in my stomach.
"You only kissed," I tell myself,
"No big thing.  Not any big thing."
But it is a big thing, because if she kissed Tim, I don't know what I would do.  Murder her, or myself.
And what comes next?  I can remember waiting to try to find the right way to say it-but also knowing that inaction would result in someone else telling her what I can't seem to find the words to say. Did I tell her?  Or did someone else?  I don't know.  All I remember is a coldness.  That's why I lost my last true bit of friendship, I think.  And it was all my fault, even through my rum filled haze.

And now, where is she?  Not talking to me, or anyone else for that matter.  Quirky etsy shop shut down, no more Alison Sudol songs to sing together.  But, I've seen the pictures.  Beautiful brown haired baby boy, perfection.  Something I'm afraid I may never have.  She was, is, everything I've ever wanted to be.  And there she is, *poof!* gone.  I remember the day she came over to my room, a stack of vogues, and collaged words onto the dorm wall.

"I believe."

From that point on, whenever I opened the door those words fluttered up and then landed steadfastly in place again.  Words to live by.  Words to leave by.  And so I packed up and went, because I felt dirty.  She was the one person who never said those things about me, not that I knew of: but she's the only one who had a right to.

For years, I've repeated that mantra whenever I have the misfortune to think of that night.
"It was only a kiss.  They weren't even dating.  It was no big thing."

My Dear Mr. Felix, why couldn't you leave it at that?

Once upon a time, she read everything I wrote.  And now I know these words will fall upon blind eyes.

Oh my darling, if I could only tell you, redeem a bit of myself.

If only.