Dear Jesse...

***The following is not terribly funny, and I'm breaking a couple of rules. I've used my friend's real names in this posting, because I think they deserve to be known. I wrote about Jesse on this blog a long time ago, although I didn't use his real name. It's hard for me to write about events and people that are really close to me, or who have affected me deeply and personally.

I've wanted to write about Jesse for a long time - not necessarily on this blog but somewhere. I've perhaps needed to write about Jesse for a long time, and could never find the right words. I'm not sure I've managed to yet, but I've had something to tell him and the easiest way to start is by writing him a letter. You may not want to read it, or you may. At least it's written. We will return to regularly scheduled ridiculousness and postings shortly.***

Dear Jesse,

I told everybody about you at first. How could I not? My best Valentine's Day date ever. Granted, I've only ever had two dates on Valentine's Day before you, and one of those ended with me retching on his shoes so...there's that.

(To be fair, I hated his shoes anyway. They were green Doc Marten shoes and I had the flu. Who in the hell wears green Doc Martens? He was basically asking for it, and the bar was set low for V-Day going forward, is all I'm saying.)

Even if I were the type of girl guaranteed to boost retail sales around the second week of February every year through men trying to outdo themselves for my affections - you will always be my best Valentine's Date ever.

I didn't mean to meet you for the first time on Valentine's Day. We had been talking for weeks and since I never have anything going on that day my schedule was clear.

That's the only reason I picked it - I didn't even think of the significance. You remembered though, and we laughed when you told me how much it freaked you out.

You really rose to the occasion though. I still have the card you gave me, and I remember what you said when you did it. You waited until the end of our date. You gave me the chocolates first, which was a nice touch but the card you kept folded in your jacket.

You didn't have to do either - you didn't know me. But you did, and when you said the sweet romantic card that talked about falling for somebody so quickly had actually become true - it was one of the nicest gestures any guy as ever shown me.

It was a long time ago, but I still have the chocolates too. You can laugh at me for being such a sentimental loser, but I don't think you will. The only times you laughed at me was when you showed your prankster side, and that's when I was usually howling with you.

I wasn't the only one who fell for you that night I'm sure. It was your smile. My God Jesse when you smiled at somebody it was like a moment in the sunshine, the spotlight, a warm tropical breeze when the world seems perfect. You turned that smile on our waitress and we didn't wait a moment for our drinks from that crusty old girl all night.

You were so pretty to look at. Dark hair, dark eyes, impossibly long eye-lashes, chiseled features, chiseled muscles. Quite literally, you were the best looking guy I have ever been out with, and you had the charm to match.

You didn't fake it though. You didn't have to. From the moment I met you, you made me feel like I was the most beautiful, most intelligent, most interesting, most desirable, most downright fucking fascinating woman on the planet. I was high for three days afterward. You hung on my every word.

It actually made me nervous.

Everything about you made me nervous, actually. You were pretty downright fucking fascinating yourself. I didn't know what to think when you leaned in close, and asked me, "You know me don't you?"

It was my first time meeting you. How could I know you?

You explained that you knew we had a connection, and that we knew each other some place else, some where else, some how. You knew these things, and people made fun of you when you talked like that, but you wanted me to tell you - I knew you.

As it turned out, on some level I did.

I laughed when you warned me that no woman had kissed you without falling in love with you and I told you I was willing to risk it. It was a risk. I could barely steady my knees to walk to my car, and it took me several tries to get the key in the ignition.

I'm not sure I fell in love, but I'm pretty sure you blew my mind, just a little.

You kept blowing my mind. We'd talk every day for weeks and then I'd hear nothing from you except for the way you'd say goodnight to me every night, online without fail. I wouldn't have the chance to respond, but you made a point of letting me know you were still thinking of me. Then you'd drop by my office, or call me out of the blue like weeks hadn't passed

I loved talking with you. I loved everything you said. I loved hearing about your daughter, which was strange given my frozen womb. She was your entire world, and you were in awe of how much smarter she was than you. When she scored perfect marks in her grade two spelling test you reacted like the kid had just climbed Everest while simultaneously accepting her Nobel Prize. SO cute.

You were so generous. You offered me money for anything I wanted. Money came easily to you. You made money no matter what you did, but that's because you were so good at your job. A perfectionist. You built people beautiful homes, and you promised me my dream home too.

When you offered me whatever money I needed to put a down-payment on a condo I didn't question your sincerity. I knew you meant it. I knew I could ask for any amount of money from you, and you wouldn't hesitate. To you, it was just money. More was always coming.

If I didn't accept your money, I'd damn well better listen to you and let you help me fix up whatever home I buy. I made you promise you would help me, and you made me promise I'd be smart enough to flip it.

I was appalled. Why would I want to flip my dream home? You weren't attached to places like I am. Once I've put work into something I will not give it up. You said I'd only be giving it up to get something better, and that's what you wanted me to have.

You thought my stubborness was funny, but I still wouldn't take your money. Not for anything. I asked you once why you would not hesitate to spend thousands on me, and you said it was because I would never ask.

You were maddening like that.

You never wanted me mad at you. Remember when we had plans to go out for dinner and you didn't call me until 10:00 at night? I was mad, even though you kept telling me not to be. I was mad when I agreed to pick you up at your buddy's place, way out in the boonies. I was really mad when I overheard your buddy yelling through the door after I rang that "Jesse's whore is here," and then you insisted I come upstairs to meet the crew.

It was quite the crew. The guy who answered the door scared me. I mean, he really gave me the creeps and I actually began to feel mildly terrified but unsure why. There was nothing scary in that million-dollar house. There was literally nothing in that house but a really huge TV and the world's friendliest pit-bull - the pit-bull gave me something to be friendly toward, because I didn't even want to acknowledge any of those guys.

Once we were in the car I was especially mad at you when you informed me you had been afraid you were about to get the shit kicked out of you or worse. The guy who had called me a whore and given me the creeps was apparently one of the biggest and most violent drug-dealers on the west coast and wanted a piece of your construction business. You thought it was about to turn ugly, and suggested in a really casual tone that I might want to start driving.

Wow. Was I mad at you then. You found that amusing, and I found that...well...maddening. I forgave you over our late night dinner. It was so hard not to. The way you would look at me Jesse - nobody could stay mad at you.

I couldn't stay mad but I did start to see much more clearly. Everything you said you were was like a mirage. It looked so real, but blink your eyes or take a second look and the image shifted and shimmied.

You were a talented and sought after building contractor who could build gold out of straw, but you couldn't do it in your own truck. You had lost your license and I couldn't get a straight answer as to why. Your daughter was your world but you had lost her too, along with your wife. You said you had been an addict. Past tense. I wondered how far past.

None of this really swayed me. You were the ultimate bad boy with a sensitive soul. Abused in every way possible as a child, estranged from your family you were a tortured sensitive soul in an incredibly hot body.

You didn't play this angle with me though. You didn't look for sympathy, you were matter of fact. You always insisted that you didn't have to tell me much more, because I simply knew you.

You were never entirely wrong. I recognized something in you that lived inside of me too, and I only wished I saw it more clearly now.

Every moment with you was intense, which is why I never saw it coming that night when you tricked me into thinking you hadn't actually paid and we had just done a dine and dash at a restaurant I was scheduled to have a work meeting at the next day.

It was pouring rain and I first chased you around the car, soaking both of us. How could you do that? How could you?? Yes, yes I was mad at you. Of course I'm mad at you, stop telling me not to be!

Then you chased me nearly to the front door of the restaurant, now closed for the night, when I bolted there to pay our bill in order to prevent me from surely being arrested and my life spiralling into ruin over what was at best a mediocre steak sandwich.

All the time you were laughing your ass off, which should have provided a clue but you were just so convincing. The manager and our server calmly walking out of the building and wishing us good night was the only way I was convinced we were in the clear.

You had such a devious sense of humour, and I came down with a very nasty cold after that. But it was worth it for what happened next.

I was never sure what to do with you when we said good-bye. It never felt like we were truly dating, so every time you kissed me it was new and unexpected. That night, I didn't want to say good-bye just yet. I parked the car outside your place and we sat listening to the rain. You asked me the strangest question in the funniest way. "I bet you're really good in bed aren't you"

It didn't come across as flirtatious. You sounded wistful and sad. I answered honestly. Of course I am. I wanted to know why you would ask me that, and if you had blown my mind a little the first night we met, you blew my mind completely sitting there in the rain.

You said you wouldn't sleep with me. Not yet. Maybe not ever. You were a prude like that, and it wasn't important to you. Holding hands meant more to you because sex was so easy. It was so cheap. You didn't feel good about it anymore, and besides...I was too good.

I was too good to fuck. I was too important to you, I was too valuable and I was too special for you to rush into sex with. Jesse...I wasn't mad at you then when I covered my face for a moment with my hands. I wasn't mad at all.

Aside from my Dad, I've had one guy in my life tell me he loved me. The warm fuzzy impact of that statement was usually lessened by every other time that guy told me I was fat, ugly, stupid or destined to be alone and or homeless without his generosity. I have had three different men tell me that I'm the girl guys like to fuck though.

The first time it was in response to me asking my cheating boyfriend at the time why he and I had been dating for nearly a year and I hadn't met his mother, but the last girl he cheated on me with went home with him for the holidays.

He thought carefully about his answer, before telling me that there are two types of girls. The girls men fuck, and the girls who get to meet the parents. I'm the first kind.

After that, two more guys have said very similar in response to me asking why we don't hang out more, or why we were hanging out a lot, but now he's found somebody he wants to date and for some reason I had thought it should have been me. I'm not the girl guys date either.

No guy but you Jesse has ever told me otherwise. Not in actions, and not in words. When you did...it hit me hard. In a good way. You could have been lying but I don't care. I still don't care. You're the only man, apart from my father, who has ever treated me like I really do deserve better.

It made the next time I saw you not so strange. Pizza and a movie at your place. When I showed up I was really amused that there were four large pizzas. You really wanted to make sure you ordered something I wanted.

We ordered a movie on pay-per-view and you went right to sleep lying next to me on the couch. I teased you about if after the movie ended and you woke up by sneezing into my neck. There's being respectful and then there's ridiculous. How flattered was I supposed to feel that I bored a guy into unconsciousness? It's not how things usually go while cuddling on the couch.

You said I didn't get it. The only reason you could sleep was because I was there.

You looked different that night. Very young and vulnerable. Thinner somehow than the last time you had put your arms around me to prevent me from making an ass out of myself and barging into some restaurant to apologize for not paying.

You seemed smaller, much less sure of yourself. Again, I didn't want to say good-bye, but this time for different reasons. I wanted to take care of you, but I had no idea why you might need caring for.

You vanished again. Weeks went by and all I would get from you were messages wishing me a good night. I was getting a lot more attention from somewhere else though. My relationship with Alex had unexpectedly exploded.

It wasn't as though I stopped thinking of you, but he wasn't leaving me alone and I couldn't leave him alone either. It was true love it seemed - or at least the mutual stalking that passes for true love.

However, you always had a way of making my knees weak, and the next time you and I spoke was no exception.

I don't remember whether you had called or I had called you, but I remember exactly what you said. You said you were so scared. The voices had been telling you to keep checking the locks, and you listened but the doors didn't open and you were so scared because the voices wouldn't stop and you were so afraid you would get into trouble. The hitch in your voice that let me know you were stifling tears almost took my legs from under me.

What scared me most is that you were so afraid, but lucid. You made sense once I asked you questions, clarifying what was happening. You had been hearing voices for at least three days. The voices told you that if you found an unlocked door in any house in your neighborhood that would signify the house actually belonged to you.

You were wandering the streets, checking the front doors of all of your neighbors and you were terrified somebody would see you. You had the sense to know it would raise alarm. The voices wouldn't stop, wouldn't let you sleep and they were always wrong.

You seemed to know that the voices couldn't be real, but you weren't sold on that. For all the times you suggested I knew you on some deeper level, recognized you in a more spiritual way I didn't see that until hearing your voice that day.

I've known what it's like to be that afraid. I've known what it's like to cower within your own mind, with no chance of escape. I know what it's like to know I'm not making any rational sense and yet still be helpless to make sense out of anything.

I told you to stay inside. I was going to come for you. Don't do anything more until I call you back.

My next call was to a mental health hot line. Useless fuckers. I was going to go get you, but I didn't know where to take you. If I took you to emergency we could be sitting for hours and you may not stay. It was too late to take you to a clinic, and I didn't know what to do.

The guy on the other end of the phone sounded like I bored him, and had interrupted his coffee and donut break. He seemed to think the problem could wait, but if I was really concerned I could let days pass and submit what I thought to be the problem to a mental health team that would check in on you. It could take days to arrange. Or, I could just send the cops to your house.

The cops. That would be a great idea. I knew you'd lost your license and may be easily recognizable to local police because of the history I was pretty sure you had. I knew you were upset, and scared, and terrified you were going to be caught. A few police cruisers on your front lawn would surely ease your suffering.

The mental health guy suggested if I could calm you down a walk-in clinic would be fine for tomorrow. I knew I could calm you down, and I did.

We would go the next day. You had to work the next morning - another multi-million dollar home. One of your guys was picking you up but you would be done by 2:00. I would phone you at 2:00 and I would come get you, and we would go together. I wouldn't leave you, and we would sort this out. Be ready for 2:00.

I called at 2:02. You didn't pick up. I called several times more after, and you still didn't pick up.

Maybe you were embarrassed. Maybe you were back on drugs. Maybe you just had a bad trip and couldn't even remember why this crazy chick was calling you every 10 minutes. Maybe you were busy. Maybe you were better.

This was in July of last year, and I didn't call you again. Maybe I was mad at you this time. I'd lived with a guy who drank himself into a stupor every night for four years and he was a mean drunk. I bore the brunt of every shortcoming he tried to drown and I hated my life because of it. If you were that type I didn't want you either.

Besides, Alex was proving to be everything I had ever dreamt of. He was who I had waited my whole life for, I was sure of it. I was sickening in love with him. From that summer onward he was all I could talk about. Everybody knew about Alex, whether they wanted to or not, but there was something about you that I wanted to keep to myself.

Twice you sent me messages while I was either crazy in love on the phone with Alex or on MSN. The first message was in August of last year, telling me you had dreamt about me. The next message was early September, wishing me goodnight and telling me you had been thinking of me but hadn't been doing very well lately.

No shit. I knew what that was like, and I was so grateful to be feeling better. I was feeling so much better I started running again that winter. Alex and I were making plans as to how we were going to be together and I started a graduate program, wanting to take advantage of my newly rediscovered energy and zest for life. My Mom being diagnosed with cancer almost threw me into a tailspin but I pulled through because things just had to work out this time.

I was afraid for you and annoyed with you. I'll admit it. I didn't want drama for once. I wanted simplicity. I wanted happiness.

Several times I saw work trucks drive by me with a red and black logo, your company colours, just where you showed me yours would go once you got your truck back. I was so relieved. I wanted you to be well. Whatever shit you were going through I wanted you to be through it, and if it meant not talking to me anymore because I reminded you of a bad time in your life than so be it.

To a point though. Your silence was increasingly making me mad. I cared for you. I wanted to help you and I tried and you just toss me aside? No emails, no phone calls and not even another message wishing me goodnight? Surely things hadn't been so bad that you would even refuse to add me as a friend on Facebook when I sent you my request, wanting to be back in touch. But you did.

Alex broke my heart. My graduate program nearly broke my mind and my Mom's illness broke my spirit along with hers it seems. And I was so mad at you the whole time. I was glad you were better, and glad you were working but I was a friend that wasn't dangerous. Whatever scene you had fallen back into I could help keep you out of it. I deserved better than your silence.

I ran my first 10k in April, and crossing that finish line was one of my very best moments. The race and the excitement left me drained, and I went to sleep on the couch where I dreamt of you.

You were standing in a door way. I couldn't see you because there was a light coming through the door way and you were backlit in silhouette. I knew it was you though. I was mad at you and I told you so. Like always, you told me not to be.

When I woke up I was furious with you. I sat straight up, and leaned over my laptop which was open by my feet. I typed your name into Google, and up came your obituary.

You had died seven months earlier, suddenly and unexpectedly.

I got up and paced around every room in the house really fast. I tried to think of words that rhyme. I counted backwards from 100 but kept making mistakes. I flapped my hands in front of me and was surprised when I looked down to see them flapping. I kept forgetting to breathe.

You died September 10, 2008. Just before that you had told me you weren't doing well. I didn't call you. I didn' t send a message back.

I made myself click on your online registry. A place where people could leave comments, like a guest book. More than one person said they were glad you had finally found the peace you were looking for. I'm pretty sure I know how, because I really did know you, just like you said.

I think you killed yourself. One way or another. I think I saw in you a person that was just as damaged and as broken as I think I am and you were slipping. That's how I think of it as when I feel myself starting to slide. Slipping.

I think there's only so long a person can go on being as afraid as I heard you sounding. There's only so long you can need to escape your body and your mind - whatever has turned on you. I saw in you somebody who would understand what that feels like, and I think you saw it in me too.

It's more than a year later and I haven't signed your guestbook yet. I missed your funeral. Who would have thought to tell me? I was a name in your phone. A name on your MSN favourites, nothing more. How would I have known?

Plenty of other guys have vanished on me, too cowardly to tell me why or not thinking I'm even worth so much as a good-bye and I thought you had done the same and I was mad at you.

You were the one guy who thought I was worth more than that, and I then you were gone. And I never knew that whole time how much I was actually missing you.

Now I miss you in strange ways. I trip over you. You aren't the only friend I've lost this year. My friend Erika died after a long battle with cancer. She was 31, and one of the most truly remarkable people I have every had the great fortune of knowing. You would have liked her. You both had such huge laughs, I could imagine the two of you together and breaking the sound barrier that way.

I miss Erika being in the world and I hate the universe for taking her and leaving so many useless people behind instead. I don't trip over her loss though. I'm sad and I miss her and wish I had more time with her, and wish I had used the time I had better. I don't find myself painting my new condo with tears running down my face all of a sudden, thinking she should be there like I do with you, because you promised.

I've been singing along with the radio only to burst into tears driving by where we met on Valentine's Day. I'll be walking somewhere and just start to cry, thinking of you. If I'm mourning you, it's hitting me late and it's hitting me hard.

I don't cry as much for Erika now and how she went because I know she was surrounded by all of the love and warmth one person could have in this life. She brought joy to people, and if there's such thing as a good death when you're just 31 and have had more rounds of chemo than years on earth - she managed to have one. She packed so much living into every day that I'm ashamed of every moment I waste doing nothing. I cry for her, but I know she was OK...you know?

You were alone though. I'm afraid you could've been OK too if it wasn't for me. I knew you. I knew you were slipping and I did nothing. I had to remind myself to breathe when I found out you had gone and I still do. I haven't breathed right since.

I knew you were in trouble but I only wish I had bothered to find out how much. I heard that fear in your voice and I recognized it, just like I recognized you. I didn't know what you were going to do about it, but of all people I should have known that you knew it was an option, and I should have acted. Now, all I can hope for is that if I ever call somebody sounding as afraid as you did...I hope they're a better person for me than I was for you.

I'm not mad Jesse at you anymore Jesse. But I am so, so sorry.