Dear Simon

I didn't tell you. In the end that may have been the problem. Or one of them. An accumulation of problems was the reason I didn't get a flashing message of VIP SIMON flashing blue on my cell phone for four months. I'm right aren't I? After all I have proof of no phone calls on the 29th, 30th, 31st, 1st and then it goes from there. You left me spinning my own web of corrupted ideals for four months. Left me alone to deal with the ear biting phenomenon that was reality. Left me alone in the bitter heat of December and all the things that summer brings us.

Your summer was drug fuelled. Not that that could possibly have been cool. No you always protested against that. Against the glamour surrounding whatever pill you flicked from those long fingers I idolized into the arsenic laced mouth that I adored watching. You didn't like your drugs, but you knew so much about them. I remember a month ago (because yes you called me a month ago now) high and dry. Your first words were biting and callous, not because of tone, no no that was free happiness that tinged your oft-missed voice. Rather because of the first actual phrase I'd heard you say in four months. "I just popped a couple. Isn't that exciting?"

No Simon, it was never exciting.

Then again, you'll say I'm one to talk. I'll attempt to defend myself but we both know that my drinking was another of those petty problems that accumulated to the point where my not telling you seemed an issue. Drinking was always glamorous to me, that is until I used it to find someone else. We weren't connected like that. You and me weren't "lovers", we weren't' anything as interesting as that. We were just co-existing at random moments late at night in your car. Or via the phone, me drunk or you high. Sometimes it was both. I often try to remember what we could've talked about. Then I wonder if I want to know.

In the end you just kind of forgot. At least that's what I thought for a while. It's still what I think. Do you remember that last time I saw you? I doubt it. You must remember that scratch I left. It was cat-like I swear. Or maybe that's the dreamer in me adding softer edges to harder images. Still though, it was the last time I saw your too curly hair and melted into your hands. See Simon, I do this thing where I deal with beginnings and ends. You do this thing where everything just happens... there's no structure to you.

My summer was wild, that's what everyone described it as. Then again I was the one living it, not my friends, not my family, not my therapist and certainly not you. It was like I was in one of those snow globes, while everyone picked me up and tossed me around. You did that without knowing I think. I thought of you everyday you know. Thought of the first time I met you and the way you looked at me, because back then there was a look wasn't there, one just for me (or at least I liked to think so). I used to wonder if you thought of me. When school started again I found it easier to forget you though. I think I liked it that way, to just hold the memory I had of you. I met someone else you know, studier almost but they made me laugh and they held me in public and they liked me.

Why did you come back? It was perfect to remember you until I had to deal with you in reality again. Why did you have to call me? Why did you have to remind me of the way you can spin a tale straight into my heart? It would have been so much easier if you'd just left me to forget you and hold on to that little box of memories I had of you. Why did you have to add to it in such a painful way? Why did you have to lie to me? Why did I have to believe you?

It's been one month and six days since you called me. It's been one month of sweet messages that have tapered off (like I think I knew somewhere in the back of my mind). One month of promises to see me that always end up in you working or sick or just forgetting (you seem so good at that, I wonder if I exist in your reality at all?). For me, Simon, it's been a month of falsely contrived hope that I wish you'd never given me. I haven't cried about this until now, haven't needed to because I haven't wanted to think this through, to realize what I should have known all along.

It's been awhile since I first met you but I know that in reality all we've ever had together is a few stolen moments, a handful of kisses and a brief moment of clarity together. I want to tell you the truth so I'm telling you now that I want so much more from you and I know that I'm not going to get it. At least though, I'll tell you how much I want you, crave you, need you.

It's funny because it's taken me so much longer to realize that no matter how much I want to love you, how much I wanted to tell you that really it all comes down to you, to gorgeous unreliable you. Really Simon, to be completely honest for the first time since this all started, I can't wait for you anymore. So this is me getting over you and this is me giving up on us. I'd say I was sorry but what is there to apologize for?

What else is there to say but goodbye.

Sarah