It's amazing how fast events built and break...

Loving Oliver was like being caught up in a whirlwind. There were watershed moments that one could pinpoint as beginnings--the bench by the lamppost at UCR, the corner behind the couches upstairs in the La Mirada Theater... dating him was almost high drama. He often saw things as either all or nothing.

We never outright fought, but there were a few struggles for control. I almost always ended up subservient, forcing myself down because I thought that would make him love me. One time I remember he asked me to do something to prove my love for him. I told him anything, that I'd do anything. He said for me to cut my hair--my long black hair which I had worn for so long. I agreed. Luckily for our relationship, he called me and stopped me just before I picked up the scissors.

Another time, I remember, we were talking over AIM. I had been disturbed because a friend had noted that I was giving myself totally over to Oliver and that it was almost disgusting, how he demanded so much of me and my time and how I never felt like I owed Oliver enough. I was disturbed enough to express this to Oliver, and--to be perfectly honest, I don't remember quite what was said, except that it belittled my friends, my family, and me. Even now, when I read over the conversation again, I could feel the internal battle, where I felt my ire rising and I wanted to break out in yelling at him for his sheer arrogance, his overwhelming self-righteousness, and his intentional blindness to the thought that, while some things may not bother him, they could bother his girlfriend to the point of lost sleep. Part of me wanted to rebel against what felt like him twisting my mind and mood to fit his liking, and wanted to just end it all...

I remember how hard it was to force my fingers to type, "*sigh* Why do you always have to be right?" It was a way to placate both him and me, to ease his tension and to completely shut the door on myself. I made a conscious choice to stay--to quell my indignity, because he would have found it childish. Because I was afraid to leave him and find myself alone. Because he would have been disappointed in me, and I could not bear that to happen.

After that, there was a shift--something much more noticeable (to me, at least), a sudden jump in what had before been a general trend. Oliver became more than just a boy I loved. For someone who already excelled above most of his peers, he became something more than human in my heart, and I began to love him to the point of idolization. This was tempered during my stay at Entrada, but after this shift I never questioned the status of our relationship. I was in love with him and he was a huge source of happiness in my life. We were to be together, always, forever more.

This is why when we broke up, I was haunted and sleep-deprived and depressed for a season. You can read all about that below.

We broke up for logical, sensible reasons, and so I comforted myself with logical, sensible reasons. I knew I would never be able to find someone else like him, and I knew that the chances of us coming back together were all too slim. I told myself that I would wait for him or that I would wait forever. I came to appreciate and value my singleness, seeing the traps that "love" could leave, embittering myself and loving every minute more the freedom that I had. I flirted randomly with many men at college, although nothing really sparked (and neither did I expect it to).

When I found out that I still had feelings for Oliver, that my heart could still cry over his loss, I was stunned. It felt like I had been slammed down to the ground again. I was still cynical, to be sure, and now more than ever--I was weak and unable to stay strong like I wanted to. And so I was broken.

Imagine that into this comes the growing presence of... someone. I first knew him as the boyfriend of the girl who lives in the dorm next to me--one of those sudden relationships that begins the second week of school. Then Grace admitted to me that she had liked him too, and that my hallmate had stolen him from her, and that now she and my hallmate were mortal enemies... well, to be honest, *that* sparked my interest, and I tried to pay more attention to this tall skinny boy. What would make him worth fighting over?

I ended up finding him to be endearing, as well as a fellow cross-country runner from California. I started to pity his involvement with Judith down the hall--to me it seemed like she was using him, manipulating him into staying with her. I began talking to him, teasing him as I teased most boys. As Judith became more jealous and possessive, I started to back off, only randomly offering to buy him an ice cream from Sweet Things for his birthday. We ran around trying to get a time that would work for the both of us, and when we finally managed to get ice cream, it was a week later. I had just recently found out that he and Judith had broken up, so I figured that we would probably not see each other so much, so I let myself talk with him for hours. I talked with him about cross-country. He received his birthday gift from his parents from the post office--a Bible, with a pale green ribbon tied around it. We unwrapped it back in his dorm room, sitting on his bed. I tied the ribbon around his arm jokingly.

Somehow we started talking a lot and hanging around each other a lot. I began to see him almost every day--whether it was at dinner or just walking around the campus. It got to the point where we would talk for hours at a time (very bad for my grades) and he would put his arm around me at times--always for an excuse, but still--and once he started stroking my hair when we sat next to each other...

One weekend he was gone for a cross-country meet. I missed him somewhat, and when I saw him again Sunday night, it was like something bursting into light inside me. I couldn't deny it anymore. I was starting to fall for someone, despite the irrationality of it all.

He tells me I'm the best hugger in the world, and the simple earnestness of that makes me glow in a way I'd forgotten. One late night I'm watching Futurama episodes in someone's room and I fall asleep next to him, and he wraps his arm around me. Everything is shy smiles and a slight, sweet awkwardness that I hadn't the chance to experience before. I inadvertantly talk to his parents a lot during Parent's Weekend. He leaves for four days for cross-country regionals, and when he finally comes back we go to a party together and dance. I tell him I've missed him and that I'm glad he's back... he responds in the same way. He's started to put his arm around me when we walk together.

Things became inevitable. Before Thanksgiving break, we went out with some friends to watch a movie. Afterwards he walked me back to my dorm (our hands touching, we're holding hands) and we said goodnight. He asked me out, tentatively, and I responded that I would rather wait--wait to go home and tie up loose ends, mostly. I told him that I might not see him again before he left for home--I had a paper to write, and would be very busy. Thus, when I did see him randomly that Friday morning as I was leaving my work-study to return to my dorm, I was pleasantly surprised. He was running off to Tucker Hall, but paused so I could give him a hug. I asked him if he was late to class. He said yes, but didn't let go. I urged him to leave, and told him I would see him later, possibly during the break, and finally got him to leave for his class. I had barely turned around and gone maybe thirty feet when I heard footsteps behind me again. I turned around, and there he was again, running up to me and out of breath. He gathered me into a huge hug, saying that class was cancelled, and held onto me like he could never let go. I calmed him down and he walked with me back to my dorm, where we reluctantly parted ways as I returned inside to finish my paper. I later found out that his Spanish class was actually not cancelled, and that he had sprinted across campus down to Tucker Hall to catch what was left of it after I had gone. This knowledge overwhelmed me, to a point beyond words, where I could not work because my hands were too shaky.

I told Oliver and Matt about Ben during the break. Matt reacted the most dramatically, signing off AIM before relaying to me his now-dashed hopes of starting something with me. We managed to talk it out, however, and things since then have been quiet. Oliver, however, kept it all in... and to be honest, I feel more uneasy about that with Oliver than I do with Matt. At least with Matt there was a catharsis and then a resolution, but with Oliver... with Oliver things are still tenuous, still delicate, and I'm not sure how to deal with it.

Ben asked me to Christmas weekend the week after break, and that night we kissed, and now we've been together for two and a half months. This has all felt like a progression, like something so natural and easy, almost like breathing.

It's amazing. It's a blessing. Even if this turns out to be temporary--even if things don't work out, I will be amazingly happy... I have learned a lot from this, and I have learned to be content no matter what happens.

"I'm really excited... I haven't felt this way about a girl since... a long time ago."

And so the small bird in my heart comes crashing down.

I admit, I haven't exactly been "faithful" either, if there was anything to be faithful to... as the summer neared, Matt and Katie's relationship fell apart, and Matt came to me for comfort. Soon we found ourselves liking each other, although... although I went in knowing that it would be nothing more than a fling (at least for me).

My fling with Matt is what I would probably describe as perhaps the worst thing I have done... I didn't even try to justify to myself that what I was doing was right. I went in seeking affection and comfort which had been so lacking in the past year, and knowing that Matt was half in love with me to begin with. It spiraled out of control, and I broke the promise which I had made for myself. If it had ended there, I would have at least been able to say, "I made a mistake, and I fixed it," but such was not the case. I ended up breaking it again and again, not entirely out of any desire I had myself, but to appease Matt and the latent sexual appetite which I had kept bottled up for so long.

I probably would not have let myself go if I knew that there was even the barest possibility that Matt and I would have been in a long-term relationship. I essentially cheated him out of any such probability in getting so close to him over the summer. I doubt he knows.

But that's the thing, isn't it? I am so deadset against having a long-distance relationship that I don't even question the possibility of one occuring; I remove myself so completely from the equation that I had might as well just be talking about death. I have become so bitter and cynical about love.

I don't know how to love anymore. This is honestly how it has felt for me. I admit that part of the reason I kept letting my affection show with Matt is that I wanted to experiment--to see if I could love again--but nothing. Our little summertime fun, while admittedly being relaxing and enjoyable, never cracked open my heart. Even having Matt sitting next to me in tears at the prospect of my leaving (something so tender and wrenching which has never happened to me before)--even this did nothing to make me think, "I want to love you." When I cried at our parting, it was from guilt--guilt at what I did and what I did to Matt.

No one should be able to say that I am a good person... no one should be able to say that I would be worth waiting for.

Over the summer, I also began hanging out with Oliver. I found it so heartening that we could talk and have fun and that we could do it all without my distress. We saw each other increasingly often--in the company of others, of course--and soon I felt comfortable in calling him a close friend again.

I left for Virginia. I attended a preorientation trip, and in my eagerness to guarantee myself a Poverty Ball date, apparently I led someone to believe I was interested in him. He slept on my shoulder on the way back to Lexington, and the next day he asked me on a date. I, being caught completely off-guard, laughed it off. We don't speak much anymore.

There have been a few more men of note in these early weeks--somehow a man named Brian and I have become "movie buddies" inadvertantly, although I doubt things would develop further (despite what some of my friends postulate). The only real connection I ever felt was from talking to someone who liked to sit outside late at night after parties--Riley--and even on those two occasions where we sat and talked for hours, I had an impression that he was searching for something more.. physical. He has not spoken to me since.

During all this I have called him. Matt is often busy with dorm life or homework or his friends, and even when we talk the conversation starts to lag after about half an hour, with neither of us knowing quite what to say.

This is quite the antithesis with Oliver. It is probably from the fact that he doesn't dorm that he has such free time to spend talking to his friend for hours and hours, and it is usually other concerns which force me to cut off the conversation (or vice versa). I found myself missing someone more than the other... I suppose that, in the end, I really wasn't over him yet.

The evidence for this was quick in coming. One night, I found myself missing Oliver extensively, although later I told everyone I was homesick (what does this mean, that I have never been technically 'homesick' but I have been 'Oliver-sick' many many times?). I thought to search out one AIM conversation between him and I from when we were first flirting with each other, just to remark on the ironies which would not have occurred to two innocent teenagers.

One filename caught my eye. "Onelasttime.htm"? Truly curious, I clicked on it and found what struck my eye first as simply a normal conversation that Oliver and I would have together over AIM during our relationship. I looked back at the file details, and one thing struck me--it was saved on 11/12/2005, at about 4:30 PM--it was the last conversation we had had over AIM while we were still boyfriend and girlfriend.

I read it again with new eyes. I couldn't help it. I began to weep, ceaselessly, and when I couldn't do it quietly anymore (my roommate was a mere foot away, studying), I crept out to the stairwell, and bawled out my eyes where no one could see. I had forgotten that we used to talk like that--with all the simple, easy signs of love. I had forgotten.

I was troubled since then--troubled that I could still be so caught up in the past, especially when I had told myself that the last thing I wanted was another man in my life, when I wanted to be celibate until, perhaps, a far-reaching day when God shows me someone.

Imagine the sudden drought I felt when, at 4:30 in the morning, Oliver admits to me that he really, really likes another girl from his English class. I gave him my blessing, as best I could, and I went to sleep.

There's nothing I can do. I won't even allow myself to think about a relationship, much less a long-distance one, and my routine procedure for dealing with a male friend who begins dating--completely cutting off uninitiated contact with them, as to avoid jealousy--is hurting me more than I had guessed. There's nothing I can do.

There's nothing I can do.

In general you don't look at someone while you dance with them. I'm not sure why. It's too intense, I suppose--usually I look away, to some distant point beyond their shoulder; I did this with my ex-boyfriend some times, because even when you're dancing with someone you love, just the touch and the motion is enough.

But there's a time when someone holds your gaze and you can't look away, and it's twice as electric when he's holding your hands and you're dancing away from the crowd. Something... happens...

I still remember. We were dancing--making up the steps to some swing music, I don't particularly remember anymore--both sweating from the exertion such energetic music required, and I was looking at a point beyond his shoulder, concentrating on at least letting my steps appear planned and intentional, when I happened to glance up and... blue eyes watching me, steady, pale and clear in the dim light. I was caught, and all I could think of was, dimly, how he could look at me like that when I was sweating so much, and how I couldn't look away. How just one look could draw me so close. I wondered what he saw when he looked back at me.

My footwork fumbled. I smiled and told him that I was following his lead now. He smiled back and said nothing, never taking his eyes off of me.

A slower song played. We tried the standard slow-dance position, with his arms around my waist and my hands up around his neck, but he complained gently ("Aww, you're not going to make me do this, are you?") and my hands kept slipping because of his vest. He offered to take it off, but I said it wasn't necessary--I didn't want to break this dancefloor magic so soon--and instead we grasped each other's forearms, keeping a respectable distance from each other, but his grip was tight and his eyes never left mine.

He waited for me, the late one, before he got on the party bus, and he insisted on walking me off. We sat next to each other, talked, and when I hugged him goodbye we held on a little longer and I felt that he was sad to see me go...

Almost two weeks later, Friday night, we hung out after the senior play. They say that you shouldn't trust your heart to fall on the dancefloor, and I suppose it's true; I felt from him a cheerful friendliness then, nothing more--perhaps some obligation because I brought him cookies. When we hugged goodbye I held on a fraction longer than was polite and he didn't. He was, of course, courteous and gentlemanly in almost every way I could think of, and we did have a good time. I know that having those eyes watch me as they did before would be too much to ask for now.

What happened? Maybe I waited too long--not entirely my fault--maybe we dance well but don't talk well--maybe he fell for a freshman--maybe he had heard that advice about love and dancing as well and didn't let his heart fall. It's probably for the best, I tell myself. There isn't time enough in this short world to have a relationship anyway before I leave.

Somewhere in my heart, though, among the volumes and chapters of my life, there will be a small, tiny booklet describing that night at senior prom, within it a memory of blue eyes and sweaty hands and a hug that lasted just a little bit too long.

It will have to be enough.

I went back today. I went back to read about him, because for some reason, months later, I still can't keep myself away.

Do I have another crush now? Yes. I do. But will it go anywhere? No. He's popular, always with a prospective girlfriend or two, and even if there wasn't an age difference or he even reciprocated these feelings I wouldn't let it go anywhere.

He does not deserve to be led on by me. Do I like him? Of course! And it hurts every time he comes up to me with a different girl he wants advice on. But if we were to--no. It would never come to that. Because I already promised my heart and my life to someone, even if I haven't talked to that someone in a long, long time.

I want to talk to him again, so badly, but just knowing that I do means that I'm not ready. But sometimes--sometimes I just wonder what he's doing. And I want to speak, as friends, because... because I still want to be with him, if not now, then years in the future--I'm not picky. I will wait. After all, I did promise myself--no kissing--not until I see what he has done with his life, not until I know that there is nothing more worth waiting for.

I am also so tired of people saying that I'm better without him, that he wasn't good enough for me anyway. What lie is this? Since he has left I cannot concentrate, I have been falling so behind in my schoolwork and I know it. Despite everything else that I *know* should be a motivation, since he has left so many things have felt... empty. I wish he was still here, if only so that he would laugh at me and call me silly and tell me to keep working hard.

After all--it's not a question of whether or not he is perfect, nor of if I am perfect, but if we are perfect for each other. Were we?

God, I miss him. I can't bear the thought of him and another girl but I want to speak with him so badly. Not even romantically, but just--as friends. Just to know what happened to my high school sweetheart, the one who looked at me and told me his story one night out in Riverside. Just once.

We had our NHS outing recently. It was at the Ahmanson again, and the last time I had been there was with Oliver my sophomore year, when we were two months into dating and always so cheerfully intoxicated when around each other. Our outing was in May that year, and I remembered walking around with him before the beginning of the production, hiding out by the pillars in the back to sneak a kiss...

This year it was in February, and consequently it was a lot darker a lot earlier. Everyone else was cold and tried to rush inside the theater immediately. I? I kept walking straight, past the door, to the pillars behind the building, because I so desperately wanted a few minutes in the darkness, alone, to remember. To think. To somehow make it all better. So I kept on walking, heedlessly into the dark, and some people called after me. I insisted I would be all right and turned back--kept walking, purposefully--I remembered the exact spot, I could see it--

And I stopped. I could hear footsteps behind me. Someone was running to catch up to me, alone at night. The parallels to a parking lot in Riverside I could not ignore. I stopped, turned around, and smiled at the boy who had followed me. He told me that he had followed me because I looked lonely, because it wasn't safe for a girl like me to be out, alone in the night. He insisted that the others had not put him up to this, that he had come of his own free will. Oh, no, I remember thinking, this is the last thing that I had wanted...

I touched his arm and suggested we turn back, to return to the theater. Afterwards he tried to sit by me. And then? And then. I wouldn't know.

On Friday I watched this boy, the one I liked, sullen and silent, apparently angry at me. I could not help but think to myself--"Why do I always fall for the sensitive ones?"

What does it mean when someone says he loves you? Is he bluffing? Is it a joke? When he hugs you out of seemingly nowhere? Is it just familiarity? What if he does this and the next night asks you his advice on the girls he likes (none of which, incidentally, include you)? How much of your own affections do you give into, how many do you hold back to save you and him from hurt?

I went back to his myspace today. Read the blogs he had posted. Nothing new about me, but that's to be expected--I have not written of him much in my myspace either. But I went back into the past. "I will always love you"? The first word that rose to my lips as "liar." Don't lie, don't lie, if you lie to me in this I will kill you because of this promise.

A promise made is a debt unpaid. How many debts have you left red on my past? Now that we are not together, is it all right to forget what you vowed and erase all honor you held with me?

I don't know what I am. Mostly frustrated. WE WERE IN LOVE BUT WE DID NOT STAY TOGETHER. And I am still not even sure why.

"Death cannot stop true love; it can only delay it for a little while."

It makes me sick to read that, because it cannot be true--it simply does not exist in the same reality as me. Don't lie to me, Oliver, don't ever lie to me.

the below was written on Monday, December 12.

===


I'm at a loss for the gossip mill at Valley and the plain immaturity of some of the kids. Every day for third period I check into Miss Admiraal's room before I head to the library for an independent study Bible class. Every day there's a group of sophomores who start yelling "OLIVER DAVID!!!" at me when I walk through the classroom. Do they know? Would it even change anything if they knew? What about those tactless enough to scroll through my myspace, laden with and still recovering from the depression of the past few weeks, and still have the nerve to ask me where my boyfriend was during the dance? And while we're at it--why are random freshmen spreading the rumor that I cried at Winter Formal? Never mind its validity--I want to know why my hurt and despair has become the entertainment for fourteen year-olds who haven't spoken a word to me in their lives.

And on the other side, bitter and lonely, I watch friends fall in love and hold hands and talk sweet until I want to vomit. It's a sad life.

I am very, very lonely. I miss someone right now. A lot. Every day like this... constant reminders from the juvenile to the nostalgic. The funny thing is that while it hurts, it's kind of okay. Because it doesn't matter anymore. My pain serves no purpose... and for some reason it makes it better.

I wonder if feelings ever matter.

I know. I'm voluntarily walling myself off. I am building barriers around me to protect myself--barriers of not stone and mortar but distance and smiles. My face is disconnecting from my mind. I dare not talk to anyone too much--I fear attaching myself to someone who has more than a full plate already. And the funny thing is, everyone's busy. Even me.

I think I am drowning in matters of consequence. I once was tamed and had tamed someone else, but now it's gone. So I wrap myself up in numbers and catalogues to comfort myself, turning myself into the perfect mother's child, and the days march on like sleepless nights until everything is a long, grey blur...

This is the first Christmas season where I haven't felt genuinely excited at all. Just going through the motions. Materialism is sinking into my flesh. God, where are you? Why are you letting me feel more like a slave than a servant? What's wrong with me?

"Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness." But if I stop striving--if I stop working, hoping, dreaming, trying--then what am I? How much more must I give up? Have I not already sacrificed everything? What more will you strip away from me, God, before you judge me ready to be yours? What else is there for me to give?

I am lonely, swamped with work, on the edge of sadness. I need to believe! I need to have faith! But why is it so easy for others and not for me? How could you forget me so easily while I can't help but break down and cry? Or maybe that's why you really left me... because you knew how weak I am, how much I fail, how much I crumble without someone to hold my hand.

Angst. Whine. In the daylight hours I will look at this and scorn myself. Maybe I should stop writing. Maybe I should just stop everything.