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who was quite jealous and possessive of me, to the extent that he became verbally abusive with me on several occasions. Yet, I fell even harder.
     
    (Oh, in the pic above, D is on the right, blue shirt. He’s with his best friend, who died tragically in a construction accident years ago.)
     
    Eventually I ended it, only after he cheated on me. For the second time. (I journaled it all as any good writer does—and then tossed those hurtful books into a box that I didn’t find until sometime last year, in a case of eerie coincidence.) I shake my head now to think that I allowed myself to be the girl who would allow herself to be treated that way.
     
    Too bad it isn’t up to the mind to control the heart.
     
    Anyway, D contacted me in July ’09, on Facebook. I had not seen or heard from him in over twenty years. Shocked, I didn’t know what to do or think. I was surprised that I had such a physical reaction to his message—my heart raced, and my legs became jelly.
     
    I shared D’s simple message with my husband, who said to do whatever I thought best—he knew of our history and how much had gone unresolved.
     
    I tentatively reached out, on the condition that he had A LOT to answer for. I forewarned him that I was not the same girl he’d known back in my early twenties. Expect some ball-breaking. Well, he had read my blog...he knew.
     
    We spoke online and through e-mails for a few months, and it was great. He answered all of my questions, and he more than apologized for being an idiot several times over. He even discussed specifics about dates and trips. He still knew my birthday and our dating anniversary (his lucky numbers, he said).
     
    To be honest, that astounded me: I had little or no memory of those things. I know that stung him.
     
    I think I blocked out a lot of those trips because of some of the bad things that happened. His temper. So many fights, over me. The wine glasses smashed against apartment walls because a guy (a college classmate) had called and left a message on my answering machine; I shake my head when I remember how he gently helped me pick glass out of my hair.
     
    Or the time in Reno on New Year’s Eve, after we’d been waiting in line for an hour in the freezing cold, when he broke a man’s leg with the taxi door after the guy stumbled into our cab and wouldn’t get out.
     
    I don’t honestly remember my reaction that night. He said I got “real quiet,” and avoided him the rest of the night—tough to do in a small apartment. He couldn’t understand it, because “I did it for you, darlin’.” That right there , even twenty-some years later, just proved to me how different we really were. He thought he was my knight in shining armor...still.
     
    I spoke with him the day he killed himself. A normal day, October ’09. I found out he was gone by checking his Facebook wall a few days later. It said “D—RIP.” I thought it was a cruel joke—until I saw the raw emotion in the messages. It seemed like something you would read about in a story. The shock so acute the numbness took over.
     
    I, like most of his friends, had no idea there was anything, anything wrong. Of course, after the fact, I can see there were signs. He told me in that last conversation that I would always hold a piece of his heart in the palm of my hand.
     
    He asked if there was any chance he’d still have a shot. He asked if I still loved him.
     
    I had tried to hold him in my heart, but kept falling on my tears.
     
    I still dream about him. The strangest part is that I have always dreamed about him. Of all my past loves, he’s the only one who has stayed in my subconscious. The dreams are peaceful and he’s always loving. I know I loved him—the attraction was stronger than anything I’d ever experienced before when I met him. Within seconds of meeting, we were on a course to be together.
     
    He never physically hurt me. Ever. He was very protective of me. He never hit me, though he did