Fuel to Fire

I have always lived my life in extremes.

I spent my life moving around, effortlessly cutting ties, losing everything from one life as I start another. And the people I care about have grown old, many of them too old, and some, unlucky enough to never experience the privilege of old age.

What I'm trying to say is that goodbyes are nothing new to me. I've done it. I've gotten good at it. But once in a while, if I'm very lucky, goodbye becomes the hardest thing to do. It stays on my mind, weighs down on me, puts enough pressure on me to where I feel like I can't breathe. Sometimes, as painful as they are, goodbyes show us that what came before was so special.

But what I had with Hayden, I'm not sure I can consider luck.

We met through a dating app. How silly of me, to think I could find any sort of happiness on a dating app, but I think with Hayden, it was more than just a stupid potential hookup. In fact, when we first started talking, I felt an instant connection. I know he felt it, too. We messaged back and forth for hours, every topic of conversation flowing effortlessly into the next.

And that was just the way to describe how falling for him felt: effortless. It was more than two bodies longing for the touch of the other, it was two souls connecting.

He told me he was going shopping in a store that was conveniently across the street from me.

"That's funny," I said. "I was actually meaning to stop by today."

"Come on over," he said with a smiley face emoji.

So, I did. When I arrived, he took one look at me, smiled and said hi, then told me he had to go.

That was the last I heard from him for months. I thought it was over. That should have been the first sign.

But my co-worker, while talking about her other job, told me all about her co-workers. And she let it slip that one guy, Hayden had been head-over-heels for another guy.

"What was his name?" I asked, nervous, but sure of what she'd say in response.

"Lucas," she said. "Just like you."

"Funny you should say that."

I explained to her that it probably was me. I told her about how I thought we had something special, until he took one look at me and changed his mind. I told her how hurt I was by it, and she looked at me with a type of pity that said she knew something I didn't, but didn't want to say. As I pried, she wouldn't relent, only telling me, "you should message him."

So, I did. And he shot me down, again, telling me to leave him alone. That should have been the second sign. I deleted his number, resolving to move on. But he texted me again, not even an hour later, apologizing, explaining that he had been going though a lot, and telling me he had rejected me because he just got out of a long-term relationship and, the moment he saw me, the possibility of being with someone other than who he had pictured himself with for the rest of his life just seemed too real.

I told him that I understood. I did. Despite my friends telling me it was not a legitimate excuse, I believed him and gave him another chance. My friends and family members told me he should have respected me enough to give me a reason for rejection the the first time instead of ignoring me. I always had issues with feeling like I even deserved respect. Maybe I should have listened.

We talked more after that. Off and on. I'd sometimes text him, we'd have a few pleasant conversations, we'd stop for a bit. He'd start sending me "good morning" texts, we'd talk some more, and then it would stop. Slowly, we built a friendship that I secretly wished would develop into something more. But I didn't push.

One day, I got what I wanted. More or less. For weeks, we had been texting. Our conversations got deeper and deeper, going from exchanging pleasantries about our days, to asking each other for our life philosophies, to exchanging stories about trauma.

He told me that he had been in a relationship with a guy in another state. He came from money and wasn't afraid to show it. Oftentimes, he would take Hayden away on romantic getaways and occasionally buy him tickets to go and see him in his expensive house. At one point, Hayden said, he even considered moving in with him. One day, though, he became cold and distant with Hayden. His messages were shorter and shorter, he would stop paying for him to visit, and one day, he stopped talking altogether. Hayden told me it became his biggest fear with others.

Not long after he told me that, he asked me out.

"I didn't expect to like you like this," he said. "But I do, and I want to date you. Will you let me take you out?"

I had never more enthusiastically said yes. After he told me about his rich ex, I told him about how I had just recently come out. He was the first guy I wanted to be in a serious relationship with. And it felt so easy.

We set a date. But it came and went. He told me he had to visit a sick family member in another city. That's fine, I said, we can postpone.

Days later, I was working on my computer when I got a call from him. As the phone rang, I realized I had never actually heard his voice, not since seeing him at the store when we first met. We only talked over text. The phone call came without warning, too. I stared at the screen, butterflies in my stomach. I felt a rising anxiety swell from within me, reaching my fingertips and my toes, turning them cold. Suddenly, it was hard to stand still. My legs, which had been tired from hiking earlier, suddenly wanted to move, carrying me anywhere but my solitary seat behind my desk in my home office. I grabbed the phone, feeling the vibration, staring at his name, savoring the anxiety as it mixed with glee. Finally, I answered.

"Hello, handsome," he said.

Is this what it's like? Is this how it feels to have a boyfriend? Every morning, I woke up to a "good morning" text. Every phone call, I answered with a gleeful anxiety. And every problem, I had someone to face it with. And vice versa. I had someone to care about. Someone to care for. Someone to share everything with.

Everything, except for my body. We still had yet to meet in person, save our first meeting, and whenever we made plans to go on a date, or even just do something simple like get coffee, something came up, usually on his end.

But as we made the plans, every one would be met with a message from him that made my heart drop.

"I can't wait to meet you."

But hadn't we already gotten to know each other? Our hearts, our souls, our desires? The one thing we didn't know was our bodies.

And that was enough for him to end things the first time. I had been on a trip, visiting my mother in another state. He stopped talking to me for a week while I was there. I spent that week worried about him. The more I tried to reach him, the more desperate, it seemed, his efforts to be unreachable. Finally, on the way back, I was listening to what I wanted to be Our Song, appropriately titled Waiting for You, when I saw he was finally texting back.

On his end, I only saw a little bubble indicating that he was typing out a message. Two minutes later, I looked and saw the same thing. I felt that mix of anxiety and glee again, only this time, anxiety was winning, because whatever he had to say, he was taking a while to say it. It wasn't until I was speeding along the interstate that the message was finally sent.

And I tried. I really tried to wait. But I pulled over anyway and read what I thought was the most beautifully written break-up message.

That's how bad I had it. Even his break-ups were beautiful. He detailed how much he wanted to be in a relationship, but how much he felt it was a bad idea. He was moving away, he revealed, and he knew I would one day, too. He wanted things to end before it became too painful.

Happiness, no matter for how long, is always worth it, I told him, trying to salvage what I could. But he wouldn't budge.

"I knew you'd say something like that," he said. "You're so sweet, I really wish it could work, but there are other reasons, too."

"What other reasons?"

"We haven't even met in person, yet," Hayden told me. "We haven't even slept together, or kissed, or even held hands."

"But we could."

"It's best that we don't."

He said he wanted to remain friends, but soon proved that to be a lie to spare my feelings when he stopped returning my messages. I was devastated, but failed to come up with an adequate enough reason to explain why to my friends and family.

"You didn't even know him, you never even met," I was told by practically everyone.

But I did know him. I knew the important parts.

And for years, I dreamed about the parts still left unexplored. My dreams filled with the crevices and the folds of his body. For many nights I woke up covered in the warmth I imagined from him, my breath still smelling of his, my mouth sweet with the taste of his spit. My fingers ached for the feel of his skin, and even in other relationships, I longed for the connection of his soul.

Maybe it was the potential. Maybe it was the very fact that I didn't know what he felt like. Even now, I long to go back to a time when seeing him was still a possibility. When our conversations were deep, and our future filled with potential. I even longed for those "I can't wait to meet you" messages. His "good morning" texts.

We reconnected years later, when I had sent him a message by mistake. I meant to send it to a friend. But he responded, and we picked up like no time had passed. We lived in different states now. The potential to see each other was gone. But our souls still longed for each other. We talked every day for a year from that point on. One day, it occurred to me that we couldn't be together. It was something that had been on the back of my mind the whole time, but for the first time, I truly imagined what it might be like to see him with someone else. I wondered if he felt the same, and hoped that he might, but was suddenly more concerned with just keeping him in my life, no matter how.

I asked him if it would be weird if one of us had been in a relationship.

"No," Hayden said. "I'd still want to be friends with you, even if I was seeing someone!"

Friends. The sound of that word had always brought me joy. I could use more friends. Many of my friends are ex-lovers who ended things on good terms. But I wanted more with him.

It didn't take long for our texts to become video chats, and our messages to turn intimate. We got to know each others' bodies intimately though pictures and videos sent. We were friends. But we understood each other on a deeper level. In fact, I had never shared any sort of explicit picture with anyone until he had suggested it.

"I don't want to pressure you at all," he always said. "You share when you feel safe enough to."

Eventually, I did. He knew why I hadn't, he knew my darkest fears and deepest insecurities. And he was careful to make sure I had nothing to fear from him. The first time I shared a part of myself I had never shared before, my body exploded with a thrill I had never felt. The thrill of transparency. The thought of knowing someone else had a part of me no one else had access to, and they liked it. I was young and inexperienced. But somehow, I felt old and jaded.

He was the first person I ever considered saying "I love you" to. And, looking back, I think I very nearly did love him. I wanted to tell him so bad. I wanted to list all the ways I loved him, letting him know that I don't even fully understand it. I wanted to tell him that I didn't even know if it was a romantic type of love, platonic, or something in-between, but that I did love him, I loved talking with him, I loved how our souls connected. I loved the fire he stirred in me, a desire to be better, not only for myself, but because I thought he deserved someone great. I wanted to tell him how he fueled that fire with simple things, like wishing me luck at work and sharing parts of himself and telling me I had nothing to fear.

The funny thing is, I always seemed to have the words to tell him how I feel until I needed to use them.

He stopped talking to me after that. Maybe it was too much. Maybe we were getting too close to something we both knew we couldn't have. Over and over, we kept coming back to each other, our connection never fading, but he was always, it seemed, willing to end things before they ever really began.

A month later, I had been scrolling through social media when I decided to see what he had been up to. My heart dropped when I saw he had unfriended and unfollowed me on everything. No excuse. No explanation. My heart ached in a way I didn't even think was possible. My chest became tight, and suddenly, my body felt like a trap for an unfamiliar, but powerful grief that longed to escape. My hands shook and my eyes welled up with tears. Sure, I had break-ups before. I had liked people enough to be in relationships, but I didn't trust people easily. I always held back. Except with Hayden. I was ready to give him everything. I had, very nearly.

Days blended together after that. My mind was filled only with him. I thought only of his soft smile and his gentle soul. It might have been three days before those thoughts turned sour. I thought of all the times he had stopped talking to me without warning. How he told me that was his biggest fear. I thought of how his thoughts of me seemed to have turned sour without warning. He never told me why he stopped talking.

I took out my phone and scrolled though our past conversations, looking for any sign of animosity but found nothing but happy memories tainted by a potential never to be realized.

That's the thing. I would have been perfectly happy to leave them at that. Happy memories. I would be completely happy, even now, after the fact, had we just gotten to know each other better. Physically. Had we had one perfect day together. That's all we needed. One day to get coffee, eat lunch, spend the day talking, doing something simple like walking though a city together, maybe holding hands. One day to act like boyfriends. One day to just be together. And a night to give each other everything. Maybe we'd be satisfied. Maybe we'd leave wanting more. But either way, it'd be real. And it'd be perfect. We'd be happy.

As I scrolled though the bits of social media I was allowed to see now that we were no longer friends, I realized that I'd never stop thinking of him. And his photos would only taunt me. The memory of him was real enough, and to see him continue living his life while I was only marginally sure I could live mine would be too painful.

But I knew it would be easier if he wasn't in my life anymore, in any capacity. Perhaps he had the right idea to cut all ties to each other.

Slowly, I started to block his profiles. I deleted him from my contacts, making sure he couldn't reach me and, more importantly, I couldn't reach him. I killed the only real version of him I had. I burned every bridge that led us to each other. I cleared our conversations in every messaging app, I deleted every message we ever exchanged. That fire, once fueled by love and passion, was now fueled by something new entirely, being used to burn down bridges. He had lacked the respect to even tell me why he had stopped talking to me, yet again, and I no longer had the patience to be wrapped around the finger of a man who seemed to barely know I was there.

At least one good thing came out of it. He taught me that I deserve respect.

I cleansed myself of him. I tried to forget the memories we never got to make. My love turned to hate. But hate, as it turns out, is only a different form of love.