I guess this one was overdue.

When I was fifteen I may have had a crush on him. It's hard to tell because I spent very few hours of my fifteenth year sober, and it messes with my memory.

But even stoned out of my mind, I knew better.

We kissed once. It was the last day of school and we decided to cut the last few classes, which we pretty much did daily, and walk to the center of town for lunch.

I'm pretty sure it was like 9am when we left.

Anyway, Jason and I, along with 2 other Jason's and a Jenn, went on our merry way. We stopped at a playground when we were nearing the center of town, and being high and fifteen, we naturally played at the playground.

Jason had stolen a sharpie out of my bag to do some artwork on the inside of this tube thing, and when he came out of it, somehow we ended up kissing.

It was kind of weird, actually. I can't remember who initiated it, and it would be argued years later, but it was the one and only real kiss we ever shared as kids.

***

What seemed like a million years later, but was really only about six, the topic came up during one of those first nights we spent sitting in an empty apartment, just after he got out of rehab. After five years of not speaking, there were a lot of things we could've talked about, but this was one of the first.

He confessed that he had decided that of course we'd be married some day, and that's why he felt the need to have so many girlfriends. (Dude was a whore.) Apparently, in his deluded teenage boy mind, this was supposed to make me want him. We both laughed, but in an awkward way, because here we sat, alone at two in the morning, weeks after I threatened suicide in his apartment.

I guess when you hold a needle full of heroin to your arm and swear you'll intentionally OD if the other person insists on continuing to pursue his addiction, it admits that you have very deep feelings about that person. That would be true. It would also be true that I had suffered from a very serious years long depression coupled with survivor's guilt. And I guess you can't possibly put yourself in my shoes unless you were living it, but I'm willing to wager that if you saw a person you considered family destroying his life with drugs, and felt completely responsible for that, you'd probably be inclined to do some pretty drastic shit to try and save his life.

In my eyes if he died it would've been all my fault.

****

In the end he died from something I couldn't protect him from. In the end he died married to another woman whom I know he loved.

Someone less maintenance.

I've always been grateful that she didn't mind sharing him with me. Especially after he got sick. I loved her because she loved him too.

And maybe the timing isn't so suspect, when you take into consideration that he told me this right before he married her:

Stop being such a crazy bitch and maybe someday you'll be as happy as I am.

Best advice ever.

I miss that asshole every day.