It wasn’t hard to fall in love with Caleb. He was everything I wanted. I thought he was absolutely perfect. This is where I was setting myself up for disappointment. Nothing is perfect. Not even people. Everyone has their faults, whether they are seen, or not. They are always there. And eventually, they come out. Especially when you are dealing with inevitable.

We talked on the phone every night. Sometimes the timer would creep past one hour, then two. We would talk about anything and everything. The past and the present, the future. I lived through every day just to hear his breathing through the phone line, his voice saying I Love You. The three words I had waited so long to say, to hear from the right person.

I carefully drew Caleb into the hesitant picture of my life. Things were changing, my friends were switching, moving under the invisible lines of the groups we had created for ourselves. I found a way to fit him into my life, bit by bit. Piece by piece. It was hard not to. Anytime I would be with a friend, and signed onto the computer, a message from Caleb would pop up. And then I would have to explain who the cute messases were from, what they meant. Eventually, my story had leaked. And I was linked to some mysterious boy from out of the province. People usually messed it up, asking me when I was visiting British Columbia or New Brunswick. Pretty soon, I stopped explaining. I was tired of our story. No one understood. I could tell by the hidden glances that they thought it was ridiculous.

And the ironic thing was, I was told oh so many times, He’s Cheating On You. To them, to everyone ele, it was obvious. How couldn’t it be? The situation was just too perfect; there was just too much room for failure. But I just sighed knowingly, over and over, and repeated, over and over, that they had no idea. They didn’t know Caleb.

And now I realize, neither did I.

I knew parts of him. I knew his past, his favourite animal and what he sounded like when he was sad. I knew when his little brother’s birthday was, his favourite bands and what he looked like playing guitar. I knew his address and phone number… Moms and Dads. I knew the little things, the pointless things. I knew enough to count for something. But I didn’t know a part of him, and this part lept up on me so suddenly, it froze everything else I knew.

People have the ability to change right before our eyes, without us knowing. Until suddenly, one day, we see it. And it shocks us that someone we thought we knew disappeared. The worst thing is to lose something that can’t be found again… someone. To realize that the one person you thought would always be there, was really somewhere else the whole time. Especailly when that person was so much a part of you that you know that you must have disappeared along with them, without ever knowing it.


And looking back and seeing how far away you were from where you wanted to be all along.