I finally told the ROTC fellow I knew what he’d said about me last May. His response? A surprisingly long explanation and he admitted he was a jerk.

…

Sorry, did the world just rock? Yeah, thought so.

I keep trying to friend you for the simple fact that we did share a lot of memories together, and I still want to see how you’re doing on this giant blue marble of ours. I don’t think I felt the need before, probably because I was so bitter at myself (even though I thought the bitterness was directed toward you). I wanted to just completely forget about you.

Leaves me in a weird spot. I’m okay with not giving two shits about him. Sometimes I feel guilty for not caring, but mostly that time in my life is gone from memory. Save for the rare remembrance of a positive time with him (and yeah, there were a lot of those), most of my recollections of those two years were crying and feeling dirty and arguments that made my mouth taste bad and unhappiness. It wasn’t all because of him, but I can’t say he did much to help it. I’m just as much to blame, because I didn’t walk away from it.

I know he played a big role in my life at one point. And maybe I don’t care now because I don’t let myself think about it. Surely it’s more than that, though. There’s never been another person for whom I didn’t care at all – not even a stranger, not even someone I’ve disliked hugely. It was never that he broke up with me. It was everything before that, starting that first weekend back in Kirksville sophomore year.

What solidified it all was the night I sat in a straight-backed wooden chair in Danny’s bedroom about a month after it ended for good. We were watching Youtube videos and playing video games. He was crouched on the floor next to me, and it all came up. Word vomit. I looked at his blue desk as I spoke. I told him what happened – those things that came after the love and before the end. I think he was the only one who ever really understood it, and I think that was a night where he really secured his place in my heart. He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to apologize for someone else’s fuck ups. He looked at me hard for a second and then hugged me, a hug both fierce and gentle, like he wanted to hug all the shitty parts out, but knew I might break if he pressed too hard.

So…what? What do I take from this? Do with it? To let him back in not only is to accept his apology, but to reflect on a chunk of my life that I’ve basically sealed away for the last two years. I’m not sure I can do that. Ninety percent of the time, to think back to those years leads to two memories. The first is of playing and kissing him in the snow freshmen year, very early in our relationship. Feeling warm all the way through, even though it was ten-thirty at night and snowing and February. The second is a string of memories rolled into one of sitting in my bed sophomore year, probably January or February. I felt cold straight through my core for months. I couldn’t get warm. Most everything I remember of that year is cold and it was always sunset, always too much work, always tripping over myself and sitting in his lap crying late at night – then he’d get angry or frustrated or tired…and then usually left while I was still upset.

He says I played a big part in his development, and I wonder how much he played in mine. It should have been so big, but when all was said and done, I hate everything I ever was with him. I destroyed that part of myself when things finally ended between us, and something new and (I’d say) pretty beautiful and confident and amazing grew out of it. I’m not sure he gets any credit, unless one counts his involvement in the peak and then fall-out of my lesser self. So I guess he can have that acknowledgment of his role in my development.

Beyond that, well, I’m not so sure. So why would I let him back in my world?