2002-03-17 - 10:53 p.m.

So he was my date for Jim's wedding, 6 days from the day I'd walked away from my marriage and my life. He sat with me, and danced with me, and brought me drinks and drove me home. He cracked wise in my ear during the more emotional parts of the wedding reception, and was generally like an angel sent from heaven, as I wasn't sure I could make it through that day.

He started calling me up to do things, and letting me cry on his shoulder. As summer came on, I was still in therapy and feeling broken but centered and strong, and I started taking him places. He came, seeing himself as my necessary companion, and we spent nights having dinners out and days running around the city. I led, and he followed, and at some point the student surpassed the teacher. He was still terribly emotionally attached to his ex, supporting her and taking her 3 a.m. phone calls, and he stood by and watched me cut my own ties, drag myself forward. This was astounding to him, and he mistook his admiration for something else, and one August day we stood on the corner of Mulberry Street, and he put a mint in his mouth. We'd been laughing and drinking and eating all day, and when he saw me watching him he said, "In case I get lucky." In his usual joking manner. And I said, "HA! Who the hell are YOU gonna get lucky with?" And he grabbed me and kissed me on the mouth. I never saw it coming, and I kissed him back, and we stood there like that, on the corner with the hot wind blowing, and then we went to a bar, and talked about it.

And so we got involved, and we were friends and lovers, with no expectations. We kept it quiet, for reasons too involved to get into, and we still spent out nights telling each other our truths and our exposing our weaknesses and our pain. He wasn't ready to move forward with his life, he'd call me up and tell me how stupid he was, that his ex had called, crying and threatening to kill herself, and that he'd (insert one here_______paidoffhercreditcard, paidhermortgage,agreedtogotohertherapysession) and how responsible he felt. I HAD to move forward, I had no choice. And the distance between us widened. It was so easy, though, to not be scared with him. To show myself at my worst, to cry and scream and kick my feet, and know that I'd get acceptance was almost unbelievable to me. We knew each others families for years, we had all the same friends, we lived in the same town. But when your life changes (fight it as you may) you can't keep some people with you. Their own mountain, and all that. It was a time when I could only take care of me, and trying to fit someone else's issues onto my full plate was not an option. And it was no big deal, it dissolved quietly and on its own, and we remain friends today. We have a connection that will always be there, but we've chosen different paths.

And near the end of our little journey together, he told me, in more ways than one, that he wasn't good enough for me. He wasn't strong enough, he didn't want to be reminded of the work he still has to do on himself, and that my honesty scared him. And although I knew it to be a problem of his, and not of mine, it gave me pause. I worried, for a while, that I was too much. He wanted to be a Prince, he wanted to rescue someone, and I'm not exactly a damsel in distress.

And now, we talk on the phone, me in this new life and him, remarried and miserable again, and he says, hopefully, " We had something, didn't we, Trouble? Something amazing. You got good stuff out of us, didn't you?" And I always joke it off, and tell him to knock it off, that he's married and I'm not playing. This, of course, only makes it worse. And next time he says it, I'm going to say, "No, fucker, actually I didn't." He made me afraid of my own power as a person. I know he didn't mean to, but he did. And so I'm letting him go, today.

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