I think I saw you…
For a few brief seconds, your face, stretched wide with joy, flashed in the background of some teenie-bopper’s five seconds of JumboTron fame. You were watching the game, not the camera, and I still can’t be sure if it was really you. I hadn’t thought about you in a few years. I know that sounds like a shit thing to say, but I don’t really expect you to have given me much thought either. But in that moment, when I saw your face, my heart broke again along the same old lines, crushed by the weight of what happened the last time we talked.
I will never be able to express how sorry I am. You reached out to me, after years of silence, seeking forgiveness and friendship. I had both for you; I still have both for you. My life then, the context of it, the edges of the frame that don’t lend themselves easily to being conveyed over text, would not allow me to give you what you wanted. Ten minutes after our last phone conversation, I was locked in a closet for 29 ½ hours. During those hours, all I had to think about was how irreparable was the damage I had just done to you. Those words, placed heavy-handedly in my mouth by my now ex-husband, sat cold and hard in my stomach for weeks afterward; after the door had been unlocked, after my phone number had been changed, even after the divorce had been finalized. Seeing you on that giant screen on Monday made me realize I had to take those words back. You didn’t deserve them.
You don’t need my forgiveness; there was never anything to forgive except hurt adolescent feelings and a bit of bruised ego. I’m so glad that you’ve reclaimed your life, that you’ve overcome your demons. I’m glad you’re happy now. I will always remember you as you were in school, with kind eyes and quick wit, eager to be a friend to anyone. I’m sorry I was unkind. I’m sorry that I won’t get to know you as an adult.
