and it cuts me.

“So I’m seeing someone.”
Silence.
“Um…”
“Yeah?”
He’s angry.
“Why do you sound angry?  Are you mad?”
“Well, yeah.  I didn’t think you’d be dating anyone.  Why do you think I’ve been on the phone with you for hours every night?  Why do you think I sit through your tears and help you get over your breakup?”
“….I thought…I thought…  You’re my best friend.  I thought you were being my best friend.”
“C’mon, Rumi…you know better than that.”
This time the silence is all me.

He goes into detail as to why I ought to know better but I’m questioning my awareness as fast as I can because I’m caught and psychosomatic heart-drop reactions are combatting mental processing.

I consider things like:
I thought you were asexual because your art is your girlfriend and I don’t see your vulnerable side.  There was a window where we could have not skirted around the ‘do we consider something more than friends’.  And though it was never shut, we sure didn’t make efforts to see each other on the constant and we never stopped skirting, dammit.  When you moved away I made an effort to strengthen our tie because it’s fucking rare that I can talk art and people and life the way we can while you crunch on pickles, beer and cheese curds and I eat fatty-fat pulled pork sammiches with my whiskey drink.

Maybe I should have known better.
Maybe you could have said something.
We’ve been stock-still.

“I’m sorry…”
“Well, I’ll probably disappear for a bit.”
“Really?”  Damn…this fucking hollowed out feeling makes it hard to breathe.  “I guess my time is up?  I almost made it to your six-year time limit.”
“Yeah…usually six years is it.”
“Seriously?  You’re dumping me for your self-imposed friendship time limit??”
We both know it’s not the time limit that’s pushing me out of his world.  And I don’t insist on an explanation.

Because we both lose.
Even though it feels like he won.
I unwittingly broke his heart.
But he controls if I ever get to talk to him again.
And on what terms our future correspondence will take.

It’s been years since we last communicated.
I have a feeling he’s doing great.
I know he’s producing awesome images.

The funny thing?
That guy I was seeing?
A blip of a memory.