musingsofasecretromantic

[musingsofasecretromantic]

February 2020

I met you on Tinder. I knew you were my ex’s little brother (said ex being from my 17th year on earth...hardly anything worth mentioning). We hit it off from the first message and you made me feel alive, instantly alive, which I hadn’t felt for a long time. 2 years to be specific. 

We met 4 weeks after we started talking. By talking, I mean incessantly messaging each other all hours of the day. I’d be woken with ‘Good morning Sweetheart’ messages daily and I liked that. During the first few weeks, I jolted your memory and revealed who I was. You already knew and didn’t seem to mind (this would pose a further issue further down the line).  Our first date wasn’t what I would call ground breaking, but it was nice. It was fun. It was carefree. You had told me beforehand that you suffered badly from anxiety and this often stopped you doing the things you wanted, and although we were both crippled with nerves pre date, this seemed to dissipate quickly. We went to a bar (you were driving so only had one beer, and I classically decided to get hammered). After we had chatted about a million topics, we went to the arcades to play some pool. Something started to feel a little off about you, so I suggested we go outside. You told me it was your anxiety. We smoked and things seemed to ease a little for you. We finished the night in The Bell and you drove me home. We kissed outside your car and I felt so overwhelmingly happy. The next day was a different story and I was in the worst mood. Concluding it was probably a hangover, I tried to shake it off, but I just felt like I could burst into tears at any second. I have since concluded this was fear, self doubt, whatever you want to call it. I had emotions for the first time in ages and this was an intimidating thought. 

You had work on the Saturday, but we arranged to hang out after and watch the sunset at the beach. This date never happened. You messaged me on the Friday night around midnight to tell me you were in the back of an ambulance. Nothing else. I woke up in such a panic and after calling all the hospitals pretending to be your girlfriend, I was informed you were at the NNUH. They couldn’t tell me anything except you were in their care. A few hours later you messaged me and told me you had basically had a mental breakdown. I was furious. Who just sends a message saying ‘I’m in the back of an ambulance’ and not follow that up? In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t been angry. I remember the day so clearly. It was chucking it down and I went into the city and bought myself an Urban Decay Palette to cheer myself up. I ignored my phone all day and when I got home I saw a message from you telling me you had been ‘detained’ at Hellesdon Hospital. You explained exactly what had happened on the Friday night and I jokingly said ‘As long as it’s not schizophrenia, you should be fixable’. Another thing I wish i’d never said, but you didn’t tell me all the symptoms you’d been living with since you were 16 year old, so I wasn’t to know.  I came to visit you in Hellesdon on the Monday after work (you still being the sweetest guy i’ve ever met, offering to pay my taxi fee and telling me you would get the nurses to clear the living area so we could watch a movie the next time I visited). We walked the grounds in the dark and looked at all of the abandoned buildings, which is where you told me your diagnosis and you were likely to be in for at least 6 weeks. 6 weeks. 6 weeks and I knew somehow we would make it work. I told you i’d work at Hellesdon one day, and I did it, it’s my current place of work.  We spoke all the time as if you weren’t banged up in a mental hospital, drugged up, terrified. You sent me pictures of your room, we spoke about the physical effects the meds were having on you, we spoke about the voices you heard, we even spoke about our future and the off grid treehouse we were going to live in with my copper balcony bath and roses round the door. You even drew me the floor plan for our treehouse. I still have it. Was I totally deluded in thinking this was going to work out? At this stage, no.  The communication wasn’t always easy. You had your good days and you had your bad, but I wanted to be there.  On the Sunday, I picked you up and we went to Eaton park, drank coffee and walked for hours until it started to rain. Then we got in the car (and me being a new driver was freaking out, you held my hand and told me you were proud of me), and we drove around, stopping at all the Costa’s we could until your curfew. We sat in my car outside your unit and had a cigarette, you started to shake violently and told me the voices were telling you to hurt me. You gave me a kiss and left. I was never frightened of you, but I also wasn’t prepared that this would be the last time I saw you. I gave you a postcard that day telling you I would always be there for you, and I always will be, but not at the expense of my own health. We arranged to meet a few more times, but your mood was deteriorating rapidly and the meetings never happened. One Saturday morning (we were in lockdown by this point), I went to Mundesley to blow the cobwebs away. The last few months had been a lot for me. I didn’t message you that morning and you freaked out. I made the decision I couldn’t continue talking to you. This decision rested on my mind for months. 

One day in the early June, I went to Happisburgh and I just sat in my car and cried. I messaged you apologising for abandoning you, and you thanked me for standing by you through a really difficult time. You had been discharged from Hellesdon due to the COVID pandemic, but you seemed happy. We caught up and continued to talk very occasionally over the next few days. On the Wednesday, you were more chatty than you had been earlier in the week. However, this was the night things changed. You told me you had been thinking of ending it for a few days. I sent you messages of support, and didn’t really know what to do. I messaged you the next day, just sending my well wishes, I heard nothing. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time, I just thought you were being quiet again. Friday morning- I was sitting at my desk at work (the job I had literally just quit with the hope of the Hellesdon job coming through), and I got a message from your absolute twat head of a brother saying ‘Have you been dating my brother because he’s currently in a coma and your name is on his screen’. There are somethings I’d like to address in this message....1. This wasn’t his emotions speaking. He never came to se his brother when he was in Hellesdon. 2. What a way to tell someone. 3. It felt accusational. I later found out everyone thought this coma was induced by a reaction of meds. I blocked your brother as a jerk reaction and my blood ran cold. I grabbed my manager and went outside silently for a cigarette, barely able to get words out of my mouth. I knew what this was, and it wasn’t a meds reaction. It was a meds overdose. Luckily, I knew your best friend as we went to college together, and his girlfriend rang me to explain the situation. I had to break it to her, I had to hear her voice break and send her the screenshot of the message you had sent me on the Wednesday night. I carried on with my work day as if nothing had happened. That night, I got home and I sobbed, and I didn’t really stop crying for a week. I thought I had killed you, I thought by me doing nothing that I had killed you. I started visualising the police coming to arrest me for involuntary manslaughter.  The week ahead of me was long and worrying. After 6 days of the hospital staff trying to wake you up, with many unsuccessful attempts, you were awake. Your best friends girlfriend kept me updated with every single tiny thing, from the group chat screenshots to pictures of you in hospital, to all of the meds you were on, the potential long term effects on your body. I was like a zombie, I was just surviving day to day. I was in the hairdressers when you finally messaged me saying we couldn’t talk anymore as I was your brothers ex. I knew this wasn’t you talking, but after what you’d just put your family through, I understood. And that was that. We matched on Tinder a few months ago, but we didn’t really speak. I sent you a long message explaining how I felt and blocked you out of my life. I felt sad, irrelevant and pushed away, but how were you to know at this point how invested i’d been for the past 6 days or how worried i’d been, or that I even knew you’d been unconscious with potential death as the outcome. You had a lot of questions to answer and a lot of assessments to go through and I rightfully so, wasn’t important at that point. There was noone there living through this with me, and your brother didn’t even want to be in the group chat RE your progress, so literally fuck him. I was going through it alone, I could tell my friends, but they didn’t know you, they couldn’t understand how I was feeling. I don’t know why I stuck by you. I don’t know why we went on one date, and when you were sectioned I didn’t just run away, but the point is that I didn’t, and I was never going to go anywhere. Forever with you didn’t even seem like a long time frame. 

But, I miss you. I miss you crazy amounts, because I think we both knew we were meant to be together. A really stupid part of my brain still thinks that! I will never allow you back into my life, but I miss you every single day. I miss you everytime I drive into Hellesdon, I miss you everytime I go to the beach, and I go to the same beach over and over. Why? Is it because it’s the closest? Is it because I hope I might see you? I don’t know. It’s not a feeling of ‘missing’ i’ve ever felt before, I literally feel like a piece of me is missing. I never allowed my heart to break over you, instead a part of my heart left me. It left me to be with you, and it will stay with you forever, because I loved you. I wish we could have done everything for the rest of time together, I wish we could build our treehouse and be happy. Regardless of everything, you are still the nicest, most thoughtful and selfless man I have ever met, and that shows a lot about someones character. You’re a good guy. I’m not sure you’ll ever be able to have a normal relationship, but if you do, I hope she makes you really happy. Truth be told, i’ve been looking for you in everyone ever since February 2020. You made me feel seen, wanted, loved, valued, and happy. I won’t ever forget that. I’m not sure this situation will ever resolve itself in my head, i’m not sure i’ll ever be over this fully and I don’t want to be. Being with you was such a rollercoaster, and we had such a tight bond even though we never even got intimate. I’d have walked over hot coals for you and i’d do absolutely anything to relive the time I had with you. 

I’m really glad you didn’t die, just gutted your life isn’t with me.