I miss Sharon, even could miss Anneke a little, but this void I’ve been housing is nothing like missing someone. This is evisceration. Does that mean that I’m in love with Shane?

It could just be that Shane is truly my best friend. Somehow, despite our ***** and our hangups around the *****, we have managed to truly become best friends, and when I think about it, the power of that friendship is amazing.

It’s like a flower growing up through a layer of asphalt.

Does that mean we could actually have a viable relationship?

Sharon wasn’t my best friend. At the time, my best friend was probably Sue. And Anneke certainly wasn’t my best friend. And for another large chunk of my life, Dylan was my best friend, and I certainly wasn’t attracted to him.

Similarities and differences. Big ones. But what is it that draws me to Shane, that makes me feel so unsettled, so high when she is sweet to me and so low when she withdraws? Is it the very nature of the give and take?

I’d like to think I’m above that kind of neurosis. With Anneke I wanted her when I couldn’t have her. When I could, I was almost indifferent.

I always want Shane. I almost always want to be with her, as much as I can be around another person. I want us to let down our walls. I want to know her, hold her up when she’s going through a crisis, not just have her do the same for me. I want her to let me love her. I want her to make herself vulnerable.

I think of the look in her eyes when she was all tied up under me, that horrible dark second when she opened her eyes and I saw all her anger and fury and disgust. And I know in that instant she will never make herself vulnerable, because I took it before she could give it.

The feeling dawns on me, sharper than any pain I’ve felt to date. It’s been ten days since she should have gotten my letter, and I feel the loss press down on me like a rock, I feel small and flattened under the sky full of seagulls and the white noise of surf. I curl up on myself, and sob and sob, for so long my chest aches and the horrible, wretched sounds get lost in the air, carried away by the birds and sea.