Friendship

Friendships are complicated. Especially this one. I'm still in love with him, and he often reminds me that he does not feel anything remotely similar, and repeats that we are not in a relationship. As if I could have forgotten. I have tried so hard to be normal around him, to be cheerful around him, to give the impression that I am living a full life on my own. Of course it's not real, but I don't know what else to do. The mopey me was so tiresome. For us both. I fear her inevitable return. (Or did she ever really leave?)

But sometimes he hits me with something that I can't wave off and can't hide. My feelings aren't buried, only just under the surface like the apple cider under my whipped cream. The top of it melts so quickly when the cider is hot. I try so hard to support him and make him feel like he can talk to me about things, and apparently I am failing miserably. Because he is still keeping things from me and then couching it in 'trying to protect me'. I believe he doesn't want to hurt me. But what I don't understand is how keeping things from me isn't just as hurtful as telling the truth. And when I know he's keeping things from me, my imagination is promised to run so wild that the truth would be easier to stomach. Plus, I have come to understand in the last ten years that omission is still lying. I don't deal well with lying.

I asked him point blank today if he was seeing someone. He quickly replied no. I believe him. But I know that if he were and I didn't ask, he wouldn't tell. Sort of a Clinton-esque policy, I guess. I wanted to explain that my stomach turned when I read his writing on a paper in class; a paper that wasn't mine, but he knew I would see. The same words he said to me back in the days before I knew what was about to run me over and he was relegated to flirting in a not-so-subtle way.

I couldn't look at this girl as I handed her paper to her. Just like I couldn't look at her when she sat talking to him while he ignored me. My stomach turned, just like it turned when he joked with her after class while I stood there wondering what I should be doing or thinking or saying. I started to shake, just like I did when I confronted him about the quirky blonde rumor that had been circulating in my gut for over a month.

But I can't talk to him about this, because he doesn't want to deal with my feelings anymore. They are more than he wants to put up with. He wants me to be the fun hors'devours, the pigs in a blanket, not an entree. Not the roast lamb with the chianti reduction and the beet coils and lemon zest. But unfortunately, that is what I am. The lamb led to the slaughter; sacrificed in some pithy meaningless ritual that didn't mean anything to the theologan in repose, but meant everything; meant the end for the lamb.

But these days they don't call it sacrifice. They call it Friendship.