::sigh:: you know, i'd hoped to never really bring this up again, but i did tonight. and i feel the need to write it here... because i feel the need to just say it and put it somewhere where i'll remember about it one day upon looking back.

i loved rachel. i loved rachel in a way that i haven't really loved another, but i was too late in the end. let me explain.

she started it. she emailed me, said that i captivated her... that my eyes were beautiful, and within a week didn't want to stop looking into them. she wrote to me often, and i loved that she did... i would reply, but it wouldn't generally be nearly as poetic as what she would say to me. i think i saw a side of her that wasn't often shown, from what i could tell. she was vulnerable with me, and while she hated that, she continued to allow it to be so... and i loved that about her, that she could actually allow herself to be vulnerable to me, of all people. she truly loved me once...

..and before i knew what to do with it, she was gone. she disappeared for the better part of a month, and was never the same when she came back. a piece of the passion was gone. i had started to fall for her, but she meticulously and ever so slowly started falling away from me.

we often talked of meeting one day... when it would happen, how it would happen, what it would be like, where it would be. one of the last conversations we had, she told me that she would have been here 'round about now. now and/or in the spring sometime. and for a while, i was holding on to that hope of seeing her, because it was the one thing that i'd wanted above all else. i had fallen for her, and i loved her so much. i wrote her whenever i could, and talked to her whenever she had the time to talk to me.

i'm not sure what happened in that month, what or who else she found aside from a particular girl that she told me about at times... but that time took her away from me. the last time we had a full, real conversation was the day before my birthday. that's not to say that i didn't try after that... she just wouldn't respond to me anymore after i said that i loved her, that i was in love with her. she vanished, never to be heard from again... seen plenty, but never heard from.

countless emails went her way, along with phone calls and text messages... i texted her on her birthday and received no response. she continually signed on to aim and wouldn't respond to me until one day, i told her that if she truly didn't want to talk to me, she should just take me -all of my names- off of her buddy list, as i knew she had it set up to where you had to be on hers to communicate with her. and you know what? she did. it took about five seconds for her to sign out of each of them, as opposed to signing out all at once... and i haven't heard from her since.

i loved her more than she'll ever know, because i never had the chance to express it until she was gone. hell, i still wake up some mornings and think that i've been dreaming for a while... and scroll around in my phone to see that i'd deleted her phone number after that last phone call i made to her... that last scathing message that i'd left, probably to be immediately deleted if ever even listened to. i realize that i threw away every slip of paper that i had ever written her number on after that. i remember her email address, but i'm not sure that i should ever use it again, as i'm only met with dashed hopes with any message that i send.

the worst of it is, i left myself alone in getting over her... because there really wasn't anyone i felt i could talk to about her in the end.

so if that's what love really is, then yes, i have loved since elsbe... more powerfully than i loved elsbe. and if that's what some think that it might take to be able to stay friends with elsbe for a forever or two, then it will happen. i know that i'll be there for her any time that she needs me to. i know that i'll probably be an aunt to whatever children she may have... and that in that future, i'll be there for her to run to when she needs to get away from them and her husband... or to distract said children to be with her husband for a while, possibly to make another rugrat to take care of, hehe.

like i've said before, us being friends happened by chance... and good god i'm happy to have had that chance. my junior year of high school will always be my favourite year of my life, because it's the year that the most good happened to me. the spring break of that year, we weren't really apart -we were together and constantly talking or hanging out or just... being, even if we were sleeping. because we were just that kind of close. and i know that can't happen now, but i know that it's there in our rear views -we can still see it back there, but we can't go back to it because life has progressed so much since then and because so many things have happened to change everything else, including boys finally finding her attractive, lol.

i know that through the laughter and the tears, i'll be there for her... because we look for the same things in friends, we just butt heads over everything else it seems. and i'm not sure that there's anything that can change that. we're just extremely close friends... i know that one day that will change, moreso for a more adult oriented life involving a career and a husband and all that fun stuff, but right now we're still "kids" for a bit longer. she has a boyfriend, and many times, it's one of the two of us that she calls first when she has an opportunity -she takes more care to alternate in that than she should need to, and i feel bad for it, but i appreciate her for it.

...

there. my bruised heart and my closest friendship in a nutshell. a really fucking big one.

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+ why does distance make us wise +