Days Pass...

The days passed. Charlie and I didn't speak, it was simpler for him that way. He could pretend we hadn't changed. In the end maybe it was better for me as well, I could be angry at him in silence. God knew, if he had been kind to me it would have broken down that anger and left me to feel all the hurt that I wasn't ready to deal with.


I saw him frequently in those first few days. We were friends with same people. We went to the the same school. If I had avoided him, it would have been obvious how much he still affected me.

So, I pretended that he hadn't hurt me, that I was okay with how we were. That I was better off without him. And it helped. I started to believe in my dream world, but every so often he'd throw a casual word in my direction, a familiar glance my way, and I would be caught in our past dynamic. And in those moments, I missed him. But then one of us would pull back. Move away. Where it was safe.

Charlie was better at this than I was. He could pull himself into his head in a single second. But my heart was written on my face at times, and all I could do was hope he didn't see before I got myself together.

The days passed...

Charlie and I were friends again, in a tentative way. Neither pushing far into the others world. What both changed things was that I was seeing someone. Chad; a sweet boy who cared for me. Charlie was angry at first, I could see it in his posture, his pose when he was around the two of us. Some part of him still cared. But I didn't let this excite me. I didn't let myself follow that dreadful road of, "He cares for me a little... Soon he'll love me and he'll want to be with me." No. If anything, it was a slight upsurgence of testosterone. And I had Chad, who I thought that someday, maybe, I might fall in love with. And in the end, my relationship with Chad made me completely unavailable. Completely off limits, and Charlie knew that I was not the sort who would cheat. I didn't, not even in my thoughts. And so, I was no longer dateable. I was friend-girl. I was a safe bet, as far as we both knew, my feelings for Charles were gone.

So, I pulled myself close to Chad, and he in turn moved himself closer to me. And, one night, at the best of our time together, as we watched movies and talked late into the night, I fell asleep in his arms. I was so happy to wake up there to find him smiling sleepily down at me. He brushed a strand of hair out of my face, and kissed me in spite of my breath... and told me he loved me.
I couldn't honestly say it back, and he understood. But I told him I cared for him. And we held each other for a long, quiet moment.

But that was the best of times, and in the end I could never love him the way he needed me too. I broke up with him one night, and I cried while I did. And then I let him go with the promise that someday, we could be friends.

And as he walked out my front door into the snow, I realized that I still had feelings for Charlie.
It left me aching, wondering why I could feel so much for someone who felt nothing for me, and I couldn't return the love of a sweet caring boy who meant so much to me.

But the days will pass, and things will change. I have to believe that even this will change, fade, and die away until Charlie is nothing but a piece of my past. A piece that I won't regret.