So we dated briefly the summer I turned 14, and during those 2 or 3 months you were always kind to me, despite the fact that we rarely saw each other and that our relationship consisted mostly of telephone conversations. It's been a very long time since I've thought about you in depth. Years almost. But tonite for one reason or another you're on my mind again, but not like before and probably not like you're thinking.

I have few good memories, few memories at all of that period really. I remember the amusement park on the day I met you like it could be yesterday, but not solely because of you. I remember grape sodas at your house and slow dancing to Nirvana. I remember losing my barrettes in your couch and playing with your little sisters toys. I remember the fourth of July was an anniversary although I can't remember which, and that spot in the woods where you kissed me under the trees as we made our way thru the shortcut to the grade school playground. Everything was new and amazing to me. I took a step out of one stage of my life and you lead me into another. And whether I should thank you for that or not, is something I will always wonder.

You have to understand how much you meant to me before I go about explaining myself. You were, up until then, the only boy who had ever really looked twice at me, and you were attractive and sweet with big kind green eyes. You listened to me, and cared about me in general. When you left, my pride kept me from telling you my true feelings because it always mattered so much to me what you thought of me. I was still a kid with adult feelings that were hard for me to wrestle. I successfully stuffed you in the back of my memory until 6 months after the end of the relationship, where it took an ugly turn.

It all started with a letter much like this one. Just to get my feelings out. I wrote that I was still in love with you and I was sorry... it was brimming over with melodrama but it was genuine. We started talking again and were getting along fine when I sent it to you. You took it like a gentlemen, thanked me, said you were flattered. And after that, to me, things got serious again. I mistakenly thought, through what can't be explained in any way but as miscommunication between everyone involved, that you thought so too. It was through a tragic turn of events that my naive heart was shattered, but I don't blame you. Not anymore. I can even understand now. And I'm truly sorry for the events that followed.

I had built myself up so high for the day we'd get back together, I was positively glowing. All my freshman year in high school I dated strings of guys, trying to find you in each of them. I was confident that it would happen, through signs I imagined I'd picked up from you and confirmation from people I'd once called friends. So when it backfired, I was crushed. Crushed doesn't do the feeling any justice either, I couldn't even describe it to you. Instead of asking me back out again, you asked me to help you get together with a different old girlfriend of yours, a friend of mine, prettier, thinner, better. I had every right to be upset.. but I never imagined it would go on for as long or take on as much magnitude as it did.

Things got dark for me, physically and mentally. I holed myself up in my bedroom and wouldn't eat for weeks. I became bitter and I pointed my finger at everyone. I cried myself dry and dabbled in self mutilation, at no fault of your own. You didn't make me do any of these things to myself, I did. And in hindsight, I see that it had less to do with your rejection of me as a person and more to do with my feeling like I had failed. All my life I had been a tomboy. When I was with you, I felt girlish and attractive and worthy. I took your rejection of another try at a relationship as a rejection of my desperate attempts at womanhood.