To Scott, my friend:
I want you to know that I was always on your side.
It was evident how your relationship was going to pan out from before the night we all went to the bar, for no other reason than the girl that you had put so much into was pretty seasoned at making waves in the lives of boys. If I recall, it was a tidal wave that led you two to each other to begin with.
I don't mention it to be condescending or shove it in your face. I mention it because despite how it was obvious to everyone else, I wanted it to work for you. And I wanted it to work for you for that sole reason that YOU wanted it to work for you.
You and she had obviously talked about the guy that was butting into your relationship since it was pretty tense at certain points that night, especially the drunker people got. It didn't help that the butting-in-guy was there. That actually the problem I think, is that he was always there. Like...always.
Anyway, you and she had had a talk or he and she or I don't know. When they came back she wanted to talk to me about it outside.
I remember sitting on the curb as people passed in and out of the doors behind us and she was trying convince me that you were being crazy and paranoid and I mean, he was just a friend, right?
Maybe I should have said that she was being a cold and heartless, crazy bitch. That she shouldn't have someone move to a new country for her and continue with her life as it was. That her decisions to this point had changed that. And that she shouldn't carry on with another guy as though her boyfriend didn't exist. And that she definitely shouldn't do that in front of her boyfriend.
What I did say was that I could see your point, and hers. And that if there was nothing going on then she obviously needed to talk to you about it. And that if it was a concern of yours, it was something you two needed to address. I told her I would be happy to help.
She took every word that I said and molded it into the idea that I was somehow agreeing with her. She had made up her mind that you were jealous and possessive despite the fact that she was being a horrendous bitch. (I wanted to type a different word that starts with C but my family says I'm not supposed to say that word. It really was that bad though. She really was that bad.) I should have just told her so, I think, but it seemed like what you wanted and needed was to be with her at the time. Calling that spade a spade would not have resulted in pleasantness between the two of you and though I'm less than a footnote in your story now I think I'd have been less than that if I had called her out. In that instant I wanted nothing but the best for you, even to the point that I would fight my very natural instinct to tell someone off and try diplomacy instead.
There's no point to this, I guess. It was a stupidly long time ago. Sometimes I think of you (and others) in certain seasons in random years. Outside of the topic of this particular note my memories of our friendship leave a dull sting on my mind. More than a footnote, less than paragraph. Other than a dull sting once every 5 years or so I'm not sure what I have to show for it, so maybe the point of this is bitterness.
You experienced a rarity and I don't think you even knew it.
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5:42 p.m. - 2014-10-20