postscript

i stopped fooling myself into thinking i would hear from him the reasons for this unexpected silence.

i took the number of his ex-roomate into my hands and picked up the phone with all the courage i could muster.

“rafael can be a very unreliable guy..and he can be an asshole to the women who love and care for him”

the words were splinters in my heart. splinters i wasn’t ready for. splinters i didn’t expect to feel.

“if things didn’t turn out the way he *expected* them to, then he might have just decided to say ‘fuck it’.”

but why? that’s NOT HIM. I realize people change – but I have never gotten the impression that he would change THAT WAY. i know he hasn’t. you would understand if you had received THOSE message – if he had spoken to you in THAT way…there’s something else and i cannot ignore that its definitely NOT as easy as those quotations up there…there are feelings in him that were too strong for the explanation to be that simple (and it was only his ex-roomies hypothesis)…he hasn’t heard from him that much either (two weeks ago via a one sentence e-mail message was the last time).

i’m not giving up yet. people can’t expect me to. i love him with every inch of my skin…with every inch of my heart. i cannot give up on this yet.

i sent one last e-mail including my new phone number and a bit of hostility. i refuse to believe that he is unmoved by my pain. i refuse.

“rafael….

i can’t believe that after the messages i’ve sent (one long one in particular) you can just sit there, read it, and not give a shit about the person who wrote it. you may be feeling nothing but its amazing that it doesn’t even occur to you that someone who cares about you is hurting the way i am. its just amazing to me. its amazing to me that you can hurt someone this much and not even respond to it…i can’t believe that you can be this much of a coward, that you can be this selfish, that you can be this cold and cruel.

whatever expectations you had, you shouldn’t have had them. and since you had them, you should have gotten rid of them. and you felt disappointed the first day? did you ever think that maybe that’s why i set aside an entire week just for you? just so that we could get to know each other again? i walked around while you did your chores – not exactly the best way to start getting familiar with things again but i went with it…how much “getting to know you again” did you think we would be able to do that day? it would have been really nice of you to have given that a chance….but you didn’t and instead, you decided you wanted to say *nothing* to me…that somehow that would be easier for YOU..but i can’t believe that you didn’t even take my feelings into consideration…that somehow, you thought NOT talking to me would be ok.

why are you doing this?

what are you thinking as you’re reading this? that you’re going to keep it in your mailbox (perhaps even delete it) and not even give me a reason – an answer. i never expected this from you. i never expected you to be this…i don’t know…selfish is the only word that comes to mind.

i thought this was something the both of us wanted – something the both of us felt *good* to do. i asked you one day “how are we going to do this?”. Do you remember your response? You told me “with a lot of patience”. what happened to that? i still have that patience because i think there’s potential for something really beautiful but perhaps i’m the only one now that feels that way. its hurts to think that you can be so unattached to the words that you’ve said to me and the words that you’ve written. it hurts to think that i don’t seem to be that important to you after all…

i don’t know what else to say and i guess i’m just waiting for a response from you at this point. i invested my heart in you and maybe its something i should not have done. but i can’t take that back now and i don’t regret having done that. i know it was a risk having done that but it was a risk i was willing (and still am) to take. i realize i probably won’t get it back in the same condition – but again, its a risk i’m willing to take. you’ve got my heart…will i ever be able to hold yours?

wherever this is (or isn’t) going – we need to talk about this…and talk about this like two *real* people…”

always,
- e