I dont think thats going to happen. Even if you cant be friends shell do you the courtesy of telling you that to your face. Shes not going to just run, not from one of her friends.

I love her so much. I hate myself for ***** it up.

Oh, honey. She just pulls me to her and holds me while I cry.

“Talk to her?”

“She might tell me to ***** off.”

“She might. She might not.”

But I don’t. I can’t. I sent my letter, and it’s all on her now.

Alice and I return to the building site, where they are now putting on the roof. The sun has shifted in the sky, the light longer, more subdued.

That night as we drive home through the darkness, exhausted, we listen to music. Someone plays Sarah McLachlan and I don’t have the heart to complain, but she sings from my heart. “But I have the sense to recognize that I don’t know how to let you go…”

And my tears still don’t stop. I lean into the window, and no one notices.

.

Days pass since I mailed the letter. As each one passes I become more aware that Im losing her. Beautiful, vibrant, real, conflicted Shane, and Im dead to her. It hurts physically.

.

On my next free weekend I drive up the coast. Open shoreline calls me and I spend an entire day alone, not speaking a word to anyone. I need to get my head straightened out.

I’m wearing ratty shorts and a tank top with a stupid straw hat that I wear when I want to keep the sun out of my eyes and I don’t care how I look. I sit on a big rock looking out at the surf and it’s something like meditation.

Have I ever been in love before? I don’t know. There was Sharon, back in college. That was friend love, coupled with *****. Well, that’s what Shane is, right? No, that was different. That was uncomplicated, unpainful. How was it different? Shane and I are passionate. Shane is dangerous. Sharon was benign, without baggage, a hippie girl out to have a good time.

Then there was Anneke, the Nordic goddess who obsessed me in my mid-twenties. But the obsession ended the minute I got her in my bed. I only wanted her when I couldn’t have her. I want Shane all the time.