Dear A,

You rang again last night. You always call when you’re drunk; pleading, and it seems impossible for me to turn you away. I don’t even know why it’s so difficult, but when the signal pierces my dark bedroom and rouses me from sleep,  and my heart startles and pounds in my ears, it’s all just so confusing. Your voice is so thick and caramel, and my body is so weak and trembling with the urgency of your summons, that I simply allow myself to believe in you every time.

When we were sixteen, I thought you were going places. I thought that you had the world by the tail and that one day you would be a great man. So I followed you. I watched you break track and field records. I listened as you told funny stories at parties. I shivered when I felt your hands gently stroking me. You made it easy to love you. You kissed me on the school bus in the mornings. You cried in my arms if you felt betrayed. You waved from outside on my first day of work. You had the cutest laugh. You said I was smart and beautiful. You still say that.

Now we are twenty-eight and you have the saddest eyes. You gave up your job that you wanted so much because it wasn’t as sparkly as you had hoped on the inside. You don’t rest your head on anyone’s shoulders now because you cannot tolerate any weakness in your character. You speak fondly about things that command little respect, such as a trip to the emergency room after you lost a bar fight and a drink in the face after you deliberately insulted your date. You rarely smile in my presence anymore. You act serious during our meetings and you are very vague about the contents of your life. You don’t want to share yourself with me like you once did. You want to live in Florida with a Jeep and a rifle, and make an island out of yourself.

So I have come with you to your dead end. And I wait, like a platform, for you to push off from me, to find your way into the world that will separate us, the world that we have been avoiding. I feel sorry that we can’t make our lives fit together in any form. I feel sad that we have grown from happy children into defeated adults. I feel irritated because I just want to be free of you. Sometimes I feel like I’m a drug; a cock-sucking, pussy-wielding drug that makes you feel alive and welcome. Sometimes I feel like I’m a fortress that you just cannot reach and you will keep attacking until you take possession of me. And sometimes I feel like a foolish and frightened teenager who has never said no.

So, I say no. No more phone calls in the middle of the night. No more dull conversations. No more meeting for a drink. No more canceling our plans at the last minute. No more awkward goodbyes. No more drunken nights of secret sex. No more telling me that you still love me. No more keeping my mouth shut.