aoife

I have this picture in a frame somewhere. Usually it's on my bedside table, but I put it away when I came here because it's too close to those memories and I don't need my heart to break every day when I wake up to hit the snooze button and fall back into ten more minutes of dreams.

In that picture, there are three people I love and one I hate. I hate her because she slept with my boyfriend, my first and the only one who matters. But I think I hate her more because she's in that picture with the three of them. They're on their way to prom, and even though I know what happened at that prom, that one of them kissed me while my date danced with someone else, that another one of them left because his friend kissed me first, and the third one consoled me when I was upset about it, I hate her for being the girl in that picture because it should have been me. It was me in their lives. Chris's girlfriend, Mike's best friend, and god knows what Josh would call me know. Loverfriendenemy, who knows?

At work today, two of the guys and I were talking about our old friends. I commented that I was like Wendy with the Lost Boys with them, and the guys laughed and said, "they all liked Wendy because she was giving it up to all of them." I got mad, but had to say, "Well, I only slept with two of them." Asking for it. Tony asked me, "Chris and who else?" But it wasn't Chris, and I didn't tell him who it was. Didn't want to talk about that night I cried myself to sleep after Mike fled me to sleep on the couch, or those nights unable to talk to each other yet unable to keep our hands off each other, Josh and I...

Mike will be home next week for a few days. We have something like our friendship back, and I can't say that for the girl in the picture. I see Josh but we still can't talk to each other. Mostly he can barely look me in the eye.

And Chris is married. And people tell me to get over it, that he screwed up and I need to move on.

But yet I know that I screwed up too. That maybe I need to stop thinking of myself as the great catch that everyone tells me I am and instead think of what really matters, not the education I got into too much debt for, not the cities I've lived in and rock stars I've hung out with.

So I sit and watch Before Sunset (and break writer's reverie for a minute to tell you that it is one of the only note-perfect movies I've ever seen) and watch the two of them reach out and almost touch each other and pull back at the last minute so many times and it stabs me to the heart even on the third viewing (and I hope it never ceases to) because you want them SO badly to just finally connect.

The message of that movie is that the real connections are so few, and the second chances almost never, so you should jump for them when you can. And I've sworn not to lose things for lack of trying or for some silly pride issue. But what more can I do? Fear of getting hurt dominates so many people's thoughts, but lately I'm sick of that route. I hid for over a year. And one night Jill and I realized that sometimes hurting is good for you, or at least necessary. That if our friend wants to be with someone, even though he'll probably hurt her and we know him well enough to know this, if it is what she wants, she needs it. That even if the guy Jill is dating hurt her once, he makes her happy.

I guess what I'm saying is there are no rules. There are no winners. It's not a competition, of course. I gain nothing by playing it safe, even if I may lose by taking the risks. I just hope that those boys in the picture know that I still love them, no matter how I've fucked up.

(this is fairly personal stuff and doesn't require a response, really. I'm OK. don't ask.)