an inauspicious ending; part 6 of 6.

you're really never lucky enough to be given foresight about the end of a friendship. sure, you know when someone you've trusted has broken that trust and you must choose to let them go - but i would not call that luck. i'm talking about those relationships that just...end. not because you wanted them to, or didn't care, but due to some circumstance outside yourself that you neither understood nor could control.

but i firmly believe that sometimes frienships are forged out of what i can't quite call convienence, but something close to it. necessity, circumstance.

that's how this one worked. he was fresh in town from austin. i was fresh in town from san francisco. we were hired at the same restaurant over the same week by the same man for the same rate of pay.

it took me a few days to notice. it was the day i left my wallet two hours away and didn't notice until halfway to work with maybe a gallon of gas left in my tank. i turned around and was reunited with my money by some undeserved miracle, not running out of fuel on the freeway or in the middle of an unfamiliar city. when i finally rushed into work, the supervisor and all the employees were running a pool to see whether or not i got stranded. and this stranger was totally in on it.

that night, i wiped icing off a counter as he vacuumed the carpets and quizzed me about my musical interests. "what's in your cd player right now?"

i don't remember my answer, but it was september of 2003 so my two best guesses are remy zero's villa elaine or counting crow's recovering the satellites.

he was nice. i didn't see this coming. as far as i was concerned, i was destined to be alone forever. i had been permanently abandoned, un-chosen as i've said before. i had just abandoned the life i'd declared loudly and publicly to be "perfection!" because it had been hollow and disappointing, and had come dangerously close to killing me.

but he asked me to come over and dye his hair. persistently. finally after a shared shift one evening we drove to the apartment he shared with his parents and i stood over him in the bathroom rubbing black goo onto his skull. that was pretty much it.

i'd say it was about six months. he was everywhere i was. i was everywhere he was. it wasn't the kind of relationship i used to gloat about as an adolescent, we didn't sip expensive coffees and talk about important things, there was no soul baring. we went to movies, we ate dinner. he made me laugh so hard that my stomach hurt. he helped me move (twice). he was smart and quick and said the most ridiculous things. he listened to beautiful music and then gave it to me.

it was fall, and then winter. my failures on the west coast didn't matter so much. he was my best friend. i was happy.

looking back, i know it really ended with the girl. she was suddenly there, and i understood why he liked her so much. i understood why she liked him so much. i was happy for them - he was my best friend, and i liked her too. but suddenly he didn't have time for me, suddenly there was too much going on. i spent more time with her than i did with him. i left that job for something marginally better, moved about twenty minutes away. saw him only by appointment, direct request. things were different now - i had school, i had other friends. he had school, he had his new girlfriend.

they broke up maybe two years later. he sat drinking coffee with me one night and told me point blank, "she didn't want me to hang out with you. she thought i was closer to you than i was to her."

i was stunned, though maybe i shouldn't have been. but i was friends with both of them - close enough to her that she should have known i had no interest in her boyfriend. i'd been friends with him a long time before she even existed in our lives, and i hadn't been interested then - why would that change?

and the worst part was not that she passed the edict. the worst part was that he followed it. i wanted him to have been stronger than that, more than i wanted her not to be that kind of girl. i couldn't place the blame solely on her, the party about whom i cared less - i had to acknowledge that he was the one with the power to hurt me, and he had to bear some responsibility.

that's when i stopped trying. didn't really call all that often, and tried to fight the urge when it came. i'm a busy girl, i have a lot of friends. i didn't need him anymore.

but circumstance, necessity - they can't explain it all. i still miss him, to this day i miss him. i haven't in the past three years met anyone who could make me laugh quite like he did. and i wish i'd had the foresight to know this was happening. but it tiptoed quietly under the radar that had been pushed aside by my overflowing calendar and never said a word.

two weeks ago when i called, just to ask him to have a few beers on saturday night, he broke the news. "i'm moving to chicago next week." swore up and down that he'd told me before, but i knew it wasn't true.

i was a little sad, but only a little. see, chicago is only a three hour drive. if it mattered, i could drive to see him no question. but it wouldn't matter. the move may as well have been symbolic, because i could cite at least three hours distance between us even at 12 miles. he'd been gone for a long time.

but he was there when i needed him the most - he was the perfect answer to what i needed in those dark days right after i came home from california. and i'll always remember that.

so i'm taking the high road tonight and forgiving everything between then and now, and saying just this:

i'll keep missing you like i've missed you already, bud.
i hope you knock them on their asses.