MIA

There is one thing that needs to remain clear throughout this post: in my head, we were never "we" until after Jason died.

And in his head, it happened WAY before that.

Less than a year into our, erm, not-a-relationship, after I met his family, but before we started breaking up, it happened.

The thing that caused me to really push him away.

You see it wasn't so much him loving me that caused me to freak out. Mostly because I had known that and effectively avoided it.

For two days he went MIA. Interestingly, I didn't notice until day two. Because my two jobs were keeping me busy, and there was travel in his agenda and he was busy, I guess I just didn't realize.

Once I did, I got all kinds of bent out of shape.

After exhausting all options on the ground, we called the police. They found his car at the airport, so the chase began. While I worked. On New Year's Eve.

He turned up in a hospital in Nashville. Taken down by the flu in his hotel room, he was dehydrated and barely responsive when the hotel called an ambulance upon finding him in his room when he didn't check out.

That was what freaked me out. Because for the 24 hours I freaked out, I realized I freaked out.

And while yes, I would be highly concerned if any of my friends went missing for any period of time, this was different.

That's when I started to pull away.

Because that's when I finally realized it was real to me too.