Nathanael.
There was a conversation I had with Ann at one point about Nathanael. In my mind, Nathanael was precious. Untouchable. I couldn’t hurt him, I couldn’t pin my hopes on him, I wasn’t about to spoil his goodness. But we continued to grow closer as friends, and I was so sure that there was the unspoken but understood hope of more than friendship between us.
“What if I ruin everything?” I asked Ann. “I’m worried that either we’ll never be together, or we’ll get together and break up and never be friends again.” Because I was convinced of my own toxicity more than I thought he’d just stop being a friend.
She assured me that he was steadier than that, and that our friendship was steadier. “If you don’t marry him, you’ll be friends forever,” she told me. And deep down in my heart, I agreed. I believed that. Totally. Though I did kind of hope for the former outcome, but I was convinced that if the former didn’t pan out that the latter would.
But…we’re not really friends anymore. Acquaintances at best. Granted, I wanted to marry him for a while, so friendship now that I’m married to someone else could be considered really, really odd (and potentially a bad idea). I’m not sure how he ever felt about me. Sometimes I’m convinced that he felt the same way. He certainly acted odd at my wedding. And the one conversation I had with him before I got married.
I just…I miss him. A lot. I miss the random texts and emails and even less frequent calls (about twice a year?). I miss the banter on Facebook, the banter we had in real life. Almost every time I hear from him, he’s lonely. And I hate that. And I just want to be his friend. But I don’t know if that can ever happen again.
