A Friend Request

He tried to contact me. He sent me a friend request on facebook. I wasn't sure how to react. The longer I spend in Farmington the safer I feel. The longer I go without hearing from him the safer I feel. That scares me. Fear is what has kept me running from him, kept me safe from him. It has driven me to be careful with information about myself and my relationships. It has made me pick my friends more carefully. It has kept me away from places where I know he will be. Fear has kept me out of danger and out of harm. I am losing that fear. In many ways that is good. I shouldn't have to live with that fear everyday. I did that for a while and it is hard. You jump at your own shadow. Then it was a more healthy fear. A fear that only manifested itself when he was near. Now that he is not near ever there is not as much fear.

I denied his friend request. I know I must try to protect myself even if my fear is not as great as it once was. He is the person who is most dangerous to me. I wait to see if he will send me a facebook message. A part of me expects it.

Sometimes I miss him. Sometimes I miss talking about books that we had both read and sharing books with the other that they hadn't read. I sometimes miss bus rides that always felt too short and hands that were big enough to hold both of mine in his one. I sometimes wish for that intensity even though that was what scared me the most. I miss notes folded into squares, little bits of poetry shared.

Sometimes I wonder what I am so afraid of. Perhaps it is that he hates me. That he blames me for everything that happened to him. Sometimes I think he should. I abandoned him when he needed me. He was hurting and I tried to help him. He was my best friend. But when he hurt me like he was hurting I stopped trying to help him. What is wrong with me? So what if his friendship was toxic at that point. He was my best friend. He needed me. He begged me to be there. To love him. To care for him. And I did but I let him think I didn't because I thought a clean break would be better for me and for him. I pushed him so far that he didn't know how to cope with all the shit in his life anymore. He should hate me for letting him down. For not talking to him and holding his hand when he needed me to. For not letting him hurt me when he needed someone to hurt with him. I must be the worse friend ever. Instead of being there for him I relied on others to do that for me. Other people who did not care for him like I did. Other people who loved me and did it out of love for me. Other people who knew that I needed someone to get him better, keep him safe and keep me safe.

I owe him something, don't I? I owe him the ability to tell me he hates me after all of this time. Instead I have continued to shut him out. To think of my health and safety first.

I would rather die than go through the hell he put me through again.

That is why I rejected his friend request. But maybe I should have been willing to go through more for him. Maybe I should have died. Maybe I should have let him continue to slowly kill parts of me.