Be Careful of My Heart

Tomorrow the boy and I are going to a mutual friends apartment for a small birthday celebration. It's been a couple of months since we've had an unsupervised moment to ourselves and I am sort of freaking out. I'm sorry to keep going on and on about Sean and my feelings and general anxieties about what to do in this situation. But it is all consuming lately. And because of my inexperience i am, to be honest, terrified.

The last few weeks have been pretty intense between us. While the level of touching and innuendo is a constant, there has been an emotional  shift. I like being around him. I miss him when he is away and while i play it cool around him, i wish often that he would take the lead and tell me what he wants from me. Because he wants something. And while I often think it is just sex, lately it feels like more. Last weekend was extraordinary and awful. I just purchased my tickets to go home for the thanksgiving and i do not know how i am going to handle being home when everything will remind me of Marie. I promised her mom that i would stop by and visit her when i dropped into town, but i am torn about this as well. What will I say to her? What will she say to me?

I am anxious about this because often, when i retrace my memories with Marie, I realize that out of the two of us, I was the one expected not to make it. During our last few weeks of high school before we graduated, i remember multiple teachers coming up to us to ask about our post grad plans. Marie was headed to the popular school nearby, early admission, and was already accepted into their pre-vet program. I was accepted to a small school in Pennsylvania no one had even heard of and was entering as a pre-med student though i was failing physics. But they weren't really curious about our plans outside of high school, they all wanted to know what we were going to do without the other around. And we always laughed the question off because we assumed we would do fine without the other around as we always had. Even if it was just a lie we told ourselves.

Now that she has passed, i understand the weight of the question. They were never directing it to her: the bigger, stronger, brighter of the two. It was always implied that I would struggle to survive without her. And that's a fact that i struggle to deal with everyday. I know that i am important to people. I am grateful every day for being alive. In fact, I feel more alive these days then i have in a very long time. But sometimes, in the darkest of places, I feel guilty as well. I do not understand how my life continues to go on and she isn't here. I am confused by this. I want to pinpoint where it all went to shit and turn the dial back to fix it.  I miss her everyday and I can't believe that i, who has suffered from depression and anxiety and self harm in the past, continues to survive and she didn't.

And worst of all, lately, I desire to belong to people these. I am afraid of being alone. For so long it was just Marie and I and nothing else mattered. But now, i am concerned, petrified, that my life of solitude and isolation is a scarlet letter. That because i have rejected socialization for so long i will never fit in anywhere.
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I admitted some of this to the boy this weekend (the last part obviously was excluded). My words got all stuck in my throat and I started to cry and he looked, as he always does, like he didn't know what to do. He kept telling me it was okay to be upset about Marie, that he is sorry for everything that i have gone through and that he wish he had more comforting words. It was nice, for a moment anyway, having to not keep the sadness all too myself.

We spent the rest of the weekend in our own little bubble. He was different. Not aggressive and aloof  and distant. He followed me around the store. He felt like he was mine emotionally, mentally and physically. We talked a lot about the future and work. He was upset because he was denied admission to the fire academy. I gave him work advice and he said he wouldn't know what he'd do without me around. That i made things better followed by blushing. He bought me a brownie for lunch. I read him more excerpts from a book i'm reading. He made me laugh so hard, we always pissed ourselves. And  he said the whole "i think i'm dating the wrong girl' thing. And then the hug happened a perfect conclusion to the weekend. I use to complain to Kat that Sean never says goodbye when his shift is over. I go out of my way to look for him before i head home. Just to say goodbye. And for the three years i have known him he has never stopped to find me just to say he was going home and to wish me a goodnight. So his marvelous return/epic hug embrace Sunday was swoon worthy damnit. No one can take that away from me. He embraced me as if it were the last chance he was going to get to.

Then he called me Tuesday because he knew i was going to see a movie with my friend. He wanted to know what we saw, if i liked it and if i was still in the area because he finally brought me the book i've been asking to borrow from him. I was, so I stopped by and picked up the book and then wished him a good night, not before I caught him doing the weird, i want to tell you something but i can't look.

For the past few days, i've been trying to tell myself that i am being irrational. Sure i am obsessing. Sure I want this boy. But what he feels for me is not close to what i feel for him. And i deserve more than a boy who hasn't even said he likes me yet alone who is ready to leave his gf for me. But it didn't stop me from daydreaming about what life with this boy would be like. And it made me happy. Because for a moment, based on what he said, I thought i had a chance. I felt like we had a chance because we are obviously very drawn to one another. That even if this 'relationship' were to turn to shit I would know for a bit how it felt to belong to someone who wanted to be around me as much as i want to be around him.

But last night, after a horrible close at Le Sad store (Sean's been on vacation since Wednesday, so i haven't seen or heard from him in a couple of days), i logged onto fb and was meet with pictures of him and his gf at new york comic con. They look happy and carefree and her dumb stupid face is grinning from ear to ear. And it made me sad, not as sad had i let this boy have my heart, but sad nonetheless because at the end of the day, not matter how much he feels like mine, he isn't. Even though we are close as hell and my feelings for him are strong and his stupid dumb "i came back to say goodbye' moment, the boy isn't mine. And I am not a part of his life the way i'd like to be.

This depressed the shit out of me of course. And i am wounding a slightly broken heart with cookies and pizza. I was hoping the two of us would get to talk about last weekend and everything that was said. I was hoping that I would get the chance to tell him how i feel. But i am tucking those thoughts back inside my head and preparing to put on a brave front tomorrow. I hate wishing that he would just like me as much as i like him, and then take a risk with me. Cause thats what i feel like life with me would be like. Le sigh. I'm a mess.